NY Times:
The Senate on Wednesday moved toward approving legislation to keep the government open without gutting the health care law after Senator Ted Cruz’s 21-hour-and-19-minute verbal assault on it ended with a 100-to-0 vote that is likely to lead to an outcome that Mr. Cruz had tried to stop.
George Will:
It is two minutes until midnight. On Jan. 1, the ACA’s insurance subsidies begin, like a heroin drip, making Americans instant addicts. The Obama administration knows that no major entitlement, once tasted, has been repealed. The administration is uninterested in enforcing the subsidies’ eligibility requirements. Hence Republicans must be prepared to shutter the government. Obama will be blamed for resulting inconveniences because he will have vetoed funding for everything rather than accepting denial of funding for one thing — the ACA.
So let's get this straight. Obama will be blamed for doing what the public (but not the hard right) wants. I guess Will is suggesting health insurance and the social safety net are evil, because I'm not sure why. Must be that addiction to oxygen and nutrients, says Will, the king of elitists who pretends to be speaking for the grass roots. But don't worry. Will has health insurance. [Noted is that Will distances himself - but not by much - from the Cruz position in the full column]
Jennifer Rubin on the ongoing GOP civil war:
Is unilaterally surrendering historic conservative gains on spending the new measure of conservative purity?
Why do Cruz and his minions do this? Well, saying you’ll attack Dems is both old hat and useless. Every Republican says that. To grab the spotlight, one sets out to convince Republicans that they are being sold out by fellow Republicans. This is a grand lie, and it explains, in part, the raging hostility toward Cruz from a large majority of Republicans.
Want more GOP civil war?
More politics and policy below the fold.
Jonathan Chait:
Someone Tell Ted Cruz the Obamacare War Is Over
In 2010, conservatives were highly confident that the inherent awfulness of Obamacare was such that premiums would rise. James Capretta, writing at National Review, criticized the Congressional Budget Office for issuing "rosy premium scenarios." Capretta argued "this CBO analysis is terribly optimistic ... the premium estimates are based as much on judgment as analytics, and CBO’s judgment is clearly on the optimistic side." Too optimistic! Clearly! Conn Carroll, then at Heritage, enthusiastically endorsed Capretta's critique.
But now we know the CBO's forecasts of the premiums were not too optimistic but too pessimistic. Surely this might budge their evaluation of Obamacare, even a teeny bit, right? Their response? Total silence.
EJ Dionne:
The public’s reluctance to support Obama’s effort to punish the Assad regime does not mean the American people want the United States to give up on its global role. But it was a cry for more time — and a demand that the case for American global responsibility be made afresh.
i'm opposed to the bombing, but Joshua Tucker's game theory post above (at the monkey cage) was an interesting read.
Not so interesting was Dylan Byers, the writer at Politico that got spanked by Nate Silver last election for his incredibly shallow coverage. He comes back with another piece of brilliance, as noted by Greg Sargent:
It gets worse. Politico media critic Dylan Byers focused more on the tone of the coverage, and took the side of conservatives, concluding that “part of the disparity in coverage is due to the fact that the mainstream media, generally speaking, don’t admire Cruz the way they admired Davis.”
Two problems with this. One is that most of the items Byers cites are from editorials or other places where we would expect opinions, including partisan opinions; it’s hardly interesting that liberal bloggers like Davis more than they like Cruz, or some sort of sign or improper “bias.” Most of us, when we’re concerned about media bias, care about whether the “neutral” press favors one party in their reporting, not what opinion-meisters say.
But what’s worse is that Byers brings up the criticisms of Cruz’s speech — including accusations that his tactics are aimless, counter-productive, and will hurt fellow Republicans – and then concludes:
These portrayals may be accurate or inaccurate — Cruz certainly has an elitist strain and he certainly has political ambitions. But that’s not the point: The point is that the coverage of Cruz has been critical, and in some cases unforgiving, from the outset.
Huh? If the portrayals were accurate, and resulted in a negative picture of Cruz, what’s wrong with reporting them?
Jonathan Bernstein:
There are polls out that have people opposing a shutdown over the ACA; there's also at least one poll out that has blame split if there is a shutdown.
Ignore those polls!
But if you can't listen to Bernstein—
or me, for that matter—then at least
read this:
The survey also suggests that Republicans could pay a political price going into next year’s midterm elections if there is a government shutdown. Eight in 10 Americans find it unacceptable for either the president or members of Congress to shut down the government to achieve their goals during budget negotiations. And while half the country sees Mr. Obama as working with Republicans, only one in four Americans see Congressional Republicans as working with the president to get things done.