Tea Parties: "Old Wine In New Skins."

From Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times:

As it turns out, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans "supports" the tea party movement in any respect, and just 4% of all adult Americans have contributed to it or attended one of its events or both. (On any given day, you probably could drum up twice as many people who think the Pentagon is hiding dead aliens in Area 51.)
Of the 18% of all adults who expressed support for the tea party, the overwhelming majority were white (89%), male (59%) Republicans over age 45 (75%) and significantly more affluent and better educated than the majority of Americans. One in five has an annual income greater than $100,000, and 37% have advanced degrees. More than 9 out of 10 think President Obama is pushing the country into "socialism."
The (New York Times/CBS News) survey also found that more than half of the tea party supporters say "the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25% think that the administration favors blacks over whites -- compared with 11% of the general public."
If all this is beginning to have a familiar ring, it's because you've met these guys before: They're the "angry white males" we've been reading about since political strategist-turned-analyst Kevin Phillips first identified them as an electoral presence during Richard Nixon's successful presidential campaign in 1968...

They aren't, however, implacable foes of "big government" or even of taxes. More than half (52%) told the pollsters they think their own "income taxes this year are fair," just 10% less than all American adults. Moreover, a majority told follow-up interviewers that, though they wanted "smaller government," they didn't want cuts in our largest social programs, Social Security and Medicare.

So much for the surge of a new anti-government populism.

What the movement really amounts to is old wine in new skins, a re-branding of the old-fashioned angry white male in a camera-ready package tailored to the demands of the 24-hour cable news cycle.

HELP Committee Gets Its Health Care Bill.

I posted about the HELP committee's proposed health care bill a couple of weeks ago, and it passed committee today.

Here's more from the New York Times:

A party-line Senate committee vote on legislation to remake the nation’s health care system underscored the absence of political consensus on what would be the biggest changes in social policy in more than 40 years.

The bill, which aims to make health insurance available to all Americans, was approved, 13 to 10, by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The panel was the first Congressional committee to approve the health legislation.

“If you don’t have health insurance, this bill is for you,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who presided over more than three weeks of grueling committee sessions. “It stops insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. It guarantees that you’ll be able to find an insurance plan that works for you, including a public health insurance option if you want it.”

The bill would also help people who have insurance, Mr. Dodd said, because “it eliminates annual and lifetime caps on coverage and ensures that your out-of-pocket costs will never exceed your ability to pay.”

But the partisan split signified potential trouble ahead. Republicans on the panel, who voted unanimously against the measure, described the idea of a new public insurance option as a deal-breaker. They said they still hoped that a consensus bill would emerge from the Senate Finance Committee.

The health and finance committees share jurisdiction over health issues. The finance panel, the next step on the way to passage of any measure, is now the focus of intense scrutiny. It must say how it intends to pay for its proposals and, unlike the health panel, has the power to do so because it can write tax legislation and has authority over Medicare and Medicaid.

President Obama hailed the health committee’s action, but reiterated his insistence that each chamber of Congress approve a health care bill before the August recess. His comments increased pressure on the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, who has been struggling for months to get a bipartisan bill.

Republicans don't like it, but--hey--elections really do have consequences, don't they?

The rest is here.

The Krugman Blues.

That's Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and he's giving Loudon Wainwright III the blues...

(H/T: Calculated Risk.)

We Want A Public Option.

The R-Word.

From David Leonhardt in the New York Times:

More to the point: Rationing!

As in: Wait, are you talking about rationing medical care? Access to medical care is a fundamental right. And rationing sounds like something out of the Soviet Union. Or at least Canada.

The r-word has become a rejoinder to anyone who says that this country must reduce its runaway health spending, especially anyone who favors cutting back on treatments that don’t have scientific evidence behind them. You can expect to hear a lot more about rationing as health care becomes the dominant issue in Washington this summer.

Today, I want to try to explain why the case against rationing isn’t really a substantive argument. It’s a clever set of buzzwords that tries to hide the fact that societies must make choices.

The rest of Leonhardt's column is here.

As mentioned in several previous posts here, GOP strategist and FOX News word-twister Frank Luntz designed the talking points that Republicans are currently parroting ad nauseum. And Luntz loves him some r-word...

Hey, I'm Not The Only Guy Who Thinks The GOP Is A Cult.

Bob Herbert of the New York Times does, too.

Get Me Rewrite!

    
     Look, I realize that newspapers are in bad shape; I post about that sad truth here regularly. But when the New York Times runs a half-assed puff piece on FOX News lightening rod Glenn Beck, print media's budget and staff cuts seem to show up right there on the page.

     The storied Grey Lady--long considered the nation's newspaper of record whose 113 year-old masthead logo reads, "All The News That's Fit to Print"--has fallen on economic hard times and recently announced layoffs and salary cuts.  I am still a dedicated Times reader who appreciates their depth of coverage, but cuts may be starting to hit muscle. 

     Brian Stelter and Bill Carter wrote the Beck article, although the Times could have saved themselves manpower hours by letting FOX's PR department do the work. Did Stelter and Carter do any research or has that been cut, too?

     Click here for some of the stuff the Times apparently didn't find fit to print.