links for 2009-10-27

Outspoken Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is under fire from both Republicans and Democrats after a month-old radio interview was posted online in which Grayson is heard calling an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a "K Street whore."

You can hear Grayson making the comment about the Bernanke adviser, who is named Linda Robertson, here. "This lobbyist, this K street whore, is trying to teach me about economics," he said.

Grayson has been widely criticized for his comment, as Politico and the Associated Press report. Republican Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Grayson is "out of control," while Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner asked, "Is this news to you that this guy’s one fry short of a Happy Meal?"

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe says she would vote with fellow Republicans to block the Democratic health care overhaul if changes are not made to the version Majority Leader Harry Reid outlined this week.

The Democrats will need 60 votes to get the bill past a threatened Republican filibuster, so Snowe's vote would be crucial if Reid loses any of the chamber's 58 Democrats and two independents.

Snowe is the only Republican in Congress who has voted for any of the early Democratic versions in either the Senate or House.

Reid says he has blended two versions in a measure that includes a government-run "public option" to compete with private health insurance plans. States could opt out of the government insurance, but Snowe said Tuesday that's not good enough.

It was hardly a bill of cosmic import, but Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s AB 1176 would have helped the Port of San Francisco with some financing issues. It’s the kind of bill that legislators offer on behalf of their cities all the time — and generally, they are non-controversial. This one was the same — no substantive opposition, it passed both houses easily — and normally, the governor would sign it with little fanfare.

But no: Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill — and sent Ammiano and the legislators a remarkable veto letter. The letter says nothing about the substance of the bill; in fact, the language is really convoluted and it’s hard to figure out what the gov is really saying.
Well, maybe Arnold is still mad at being told to "kiss my gay ass", but this is a rather puerile way for the governor of California to be spending his time.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.

Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid has said the Senate bill will.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now."

When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
This week, Hoh is scheduled to meet with Vice President Biden's foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, at Blinken's invitation.

If the United States is to remain in Afghanistan, Hoh said, he would advise a reduction in combat forces.

He also would suggest providing more support for Pakistan, better U.S. communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda, and more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption — all options being discussed in White House deliberations.

"We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath," Hoh said. "But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve."

Bien-pensant conservative elites and establishment-friendly Republican big shots yearn for a more moderate, temperate and sophisticated Republican Party. It's not likely to happen. And probably just as well.
The Gallup poll released Monday shows the public's conservatism at a high-water mark. Some 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 36 percent who self-describe as moderates and 20 percent as liberals.

The conservative number is as high as it's been in the two decades that Gallup has been asking the question.

What's more, fully 72 percent of Republicans say they're conservative. Thirty-five percent of independents do so as well — and presumably the percentage of conservatives among independents who might be inclined, where the rules permit it, to vote in GOP primaries would be much higher.