Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up

Your one stop pundit shop.

Gail Collins nails it:

There seems to be a semiconsensus across the land that the myriad decisions voters made around the country this week all added up to a terrible blow to the White House. If that’s the way we’re going to go, I don’t think it’s fair to dump all the blame on gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia.

Although there is no way to deny that New Jersey and Virginia were terrible, horrible, disastrous, cataclysmic blows to Obama’s prestige. No wonder the White House said he was not watching the results come in. How could the man have gotten any sleep after he realized that his lukewarm support of an inept candidate whose most notable claim to fame was experience in hog castration was not enough to ensure a Democratic victory in Virginia?

New Jersey was even worse. The defeat of Gov. Jon Corzine made it clear that the young and minority voters who turned out for Obama will not necessarily show up at the polls in order to re-elect an uncharismatic former Wall Street big shot who failed to deliver on his most important campaign promises while serving as the public face of a state party that specializes in getting indicted.  [...]

We have a dramatic saga story line brewing here, and I do not want to mess it up by pointing out that Obama’s party won the only two elections that actually had anything to do with the president’s agenda. Those were the special Congressional races in California and upstate New York. But obviously they reflect only a very narrow voter sentiment, since one involved a district that was safe for the Democrats and the other a district that had not been represented by the party since 1872.

Nicholas Kristof on the health care reform debate lies:

The moment of truth for health care is at hand, and the distortion that perhaps gets the most traction is this:

We have the greatest health care system in the world. Sure, it has flaws, but it saves lives in ways that other countries can only dream of. Abroad, people sit on waiting lists for months, so why should we squander billions of dollars to mess with a system that is the envy of the world? As Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama puts it, President Obama’s plans amount to “the first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known.”

That self-aggrandizing delusion may be the single greatest myth in the health care debate.

Dana Milbank devotes his column to Michael Steele crowing about New Jersey and Virginia. And New York's 23rd District? That was dismissed as the fault of the New York Republican Party, not the teabaggers and people like Michael Steele who helped a Democrat take the seat for the first time in more than 100 years. That additional vote for health care reform wasn't mentioned either.

Paul Demakis should be getting some good hate mail this week:

Monday will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that heralded the end of the Cold War. American conservatives give credit for the Cold War’s end to Ronald Reagan, but both Reagan and Gorbachev played big roles in ending the Cold War.  [...]

As for Reagan’s challenge to Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, it received relatively minor media coverage at the time. Gorbachev’s role in the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination in 1989 was far more consequential.

Suzanne Fields has a very interesting take on the fall of the Berlin Wall:

It wasn't the end of history, as some liked to call it, but rather like history on a pause button that showed the world in one powerful moment that some of the evil that men do can be undone.

Edward Glaeser argues against extending the home buyers tax credit.

Karl Rove continues to peddle his concern for Democrats:

Looking ahead, the bad news for Democrats is that the legislation that helped lead to the collapse of support for their party on Tuesday could yet inflict more pain on those foolish enough to support it. The health-care bill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to vote on this week could sink an entire fleet of Democratic boats in 2010.

See Gail Collins.