Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Friday, again, and not a day too soon! And the Yanks even up the Series with the Phillies.

Paul Krugman:

O.K., folks, this is it. It’s the defining moment for health care reform...

For conservatives, of course, it’s an easy decision: They don’t want Americans to have universal coverage, and they don’t want President Obama to succeed.

For progressives, it’s a slightly more difficult decision: They want universal care, and they want the president to succeed — but the proposed legislation falls far short of their ideal.

David Brooks:  

For the past few days I have tried to do what journalists are supposed to do.

I’ve called around to several of the smartest military experts I know to get their views on these controversies.

I will then ask you to to trust that I'm not selectively reporting the ones that agree with my opinion, and distilling it to sound ominously anti-progressive. I wonder why no one reads newspapers any more?

WaPo:

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

I wonder why no one trusts Congress any more?

Peggy Noonan: Obama doesn't care about you. I've told him not to pass health reform and he's doing it anyway. How dare he?

Michael Gerson: More blathering about how Deed's losing VA is all about Obama.

This is a better analysis:

For all of the talk about how VA Gov race featuring a moderate conservative is a shining example of the GOP’s path back from the wilderness, how does this reconcile with the open warfare between GOP factions [in NY-23]?

William Schneider:

Obama's troubles are real. The latest CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research shows a big jump in the number of Americans who say they disagree with him "on the issues that matter" to them, from 41 percent in April to 51 percent in October.

But Obama's troubles do not seem to be doing the GOP much good.

Science Insider:

South African President Jacob Zuma unequivocally declared today that his country had to step up its efforts against HIV/AIDS. "We need to do more, and we need to do better, together," said Zuma in a speech to a meeting of the National Council of Provinces in Cape Town. "Let us resolve now that this should be the day on which we start to turn the tide in the battle against AIDS."

Zuma's declarations might seem like boilerplate in other countries, but they marked a sharp departure from his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, who brought much criticism to South Africa by questioning the evidence that HIV truly caused AIDS. South Africa, which has 5.7 million HIV-infected people, more than any country in the world, was notoriously slow to begin using anti-HIV drugs both as treatments and as a way to slow spread from infected, pregnant women to their babies.

And you thought Bush was anti-science?