Rafique's blog

"...But Hannah Smith, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said, 'The mandate vests too much unbridled discretion in the hands of government bureaucrats.' "

Yeah. As always, I give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt with regards to intent, but I've increasingly come to feel that the Administration stepped wrong with this provision, and has created quite the mess, on moral, policy and political grounds. I'll say again--it's not just bad politics, it's morally troubling.

I am no way a Romney fan, and can be pretty much counted on to support President Obama's reelection this fall, but I feel the need to agree with others that the attack on Romney for this is unfair, and a losing strategy. Even in the clip, the context is clear that Romney was making a point about appreciating the ability to fire bad employees, in the interest of efficiency. Do I agree with Romney's overall economic policy argument? No, but this sort of gotcha just seems unfair, and misses the real targets, I think. Not to mention, for the likes of Newt Gingrich to attack Romney in this vein reeks of pure hypocrisy and desperation--you can attack Romney for firing people at Bain Capital, and you can promote Lean Six Sigma principles for the federal government, but you can't do both.

Teeee-bow!

I say this as a die-hard, full-throated Ravens fan, who expects the Ravens go all the way. Now, full disclosure: A Steelers loss is always a good thing to watch, and if the Tebow magic continues into New England next week, the Ravens get a AFC Championship home game. The thing is, I'm a Tebow fan. I really am. Full of potential, and a genuinely decent human being.

"Is it possible that we could ostracize communists–and their fanboys and girls–the way that we would ostracize Nazis and the people who make excuses for them? Could I possibly see that happen before I die of old age? Because that would be nice."

Yeah.

and when the "Lie of the Year," isn't a lie at all, it's only PolitiFact's reputation that dies.

In case you weren't following this, PolitiFact has heaped upon itself disgrace, after picking the claim that the Ryan Plan would "end Medicare as we know it," as the Lie of the Year. The choice was met with criticism from both ends of the political spectrum--criticism which editor Bill Adair chose to effectively ignore, and meet with insipid, smug, pretentious nonsense:

This is life in our echo chamber nation. We protect ourselves from opinions we don't like and seek reinforcement from like-minded allies.

The paradox of the Internet age is that never before have we had access to more ideas and different thoughts. And yet, many of us retreat into comfy parlors where everyone agrees and the other side is always wrong. Each side can manufacture its truths and get the chorus to sing along.

No, Mr. Adair, the problem is not the partisan echo-chamber (the partisan echo-chamber is a problem, but not here), or the fact that Ryan tried to have his supporters rig the poll, or the fact that the poll was meaningless, or that people were offended. The problem is that the lie that was chosen, wasn't a lie. The so-called Path to Prosperity would in fact change Medicare as we know it. Maybe you think that's a good thing, but that is what Ryan's plan would do.

The fact that three other fact checkers got it wrong, doesn't make it right. Truth is truth. In PolitiFact's attempt to be nonpartisan, they have not only committed an act of rank partisanship, but wounded their credibility as a serious outfit--maybe mortally so.

One of our finest public intellectuals, men of letters, and all-around freedom fighters has died, losing his battle to cancer, at age 62. Right on so many issues (Iraq, the war on terror, Orwell), and wrong on many issues (faith, the Clintons), he was one of those who you enjoyed to read, even when you disagreed with the whole thing. A legend and an icon. We won't know whether Hitchens made his peace with God in his final moments, but nevertheless, I say RIP, and my prayers go out to his family.

I find myself continually confused by conservative critics of Obama, who accuse Obama of being both a power-mad radical bent on wrecking the country, and a bystander, who simply sits back and does nothing. Which one is it? Besides the fact that President Obama has made good faith efforts to get the Supercommittee to come to a deal, and that the ultimate legal power to create the deal rests with Congress, I'm not really sure what else Christie thinks Obama should've done. I'll bet a hefty sum that if Obama had tried to do it Christie's way, the same people would accuse him of abusing his power, and strong-arming Congress, or silencing conservative dissent, or something like that. It's not just the ignorance that's troubling--it's the unseriousness of it all.

HT: Althouse (forgot to add the link)

You'd think so, but apparently not.

"which makes even your mendacious theory look like at 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'?"

Ron Rosenbaum takes apart the stupid "Shakespeare didn't really write the plays" nonsense club, and the stupid movie that goes along with it.

"The Tea Party is a pre-party formation. Occupy Wall Street is not."

Paul Berman, on what's right about Occupy Wall Street, and despite how it may end up, why he supports it.

Lawrence O'Donnell heaps upon himself disgrace, in this interview with Herman Cain which can only be described as a hit job. If he was trying to give conservatives more ammo against MSNBC, he did his job. If he was trying to make Herman Cain appear sympathetic, he did his job. If he was trying to embarass himself, he did his job. Was this a parody?

Look, I'm not exactly a Cain supporter--I find his policy prescriptions unworkable, but I respect him as a man, and when I read his record of working for the Navy as a ballistics specialist, and being told by the draft board that he was too valuable to be drafted--I find that admirable, not shameful. For O'Donnell of all people to go that route--he praises Kerry's service(rightly), and then swiftboats Cain on the air. It's shocking and digusting.

HT: Sully

ADDED: Don't misunderstand me--I have real problems with Cain, and he think he has to be held accountable for his views(his flawed 9-9-9 plan, his statements on Occupy Wall Street, etc), but as I said with Sarah Palin, of whom my opinion rests pretty much on the ground, sleazy attacks are wrong on principle, miss the target, and only strengthen the hand of the one you're trying to criticize.

Steve Jobs has died. We have lost an icon today. RIP.

"...and approved by the Justice Department, torture is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and by a Senate resolution that passed 90-6."

Exactly.

The Obama Administration has some really smart people working in it. They're having a great deal of trouble figuring out how to fix the economy (for various reasons), but I can safely say that most of the people in Obama's team are reasonably intelligent. Smart people make stupid mistakes, and this crew has made some dumb PR moves before. Honestly though, if I didn't already know better, I'd swear this was a parody, or something Scrappleface had come up with. Surely no one actually invested in maintaining the Obama Administration's public image could've greenlighted this blunder. No one sober, anyway.

But alas, they did.

Now, Obama's harshest critics need no impetus to dream fever dreams of totalitarianism, and any clear-headed person ought to see that this is really a badly executed campaign operation, in the vein of FightTheSmears.com, and that health care debate initiative they did last year. The thing is, there is a substantive problem with this--it reflects an image of weakness and almost Nixonian paranoia. It's bad in the way the mini-war with Fox was bad--it elevates the critics you're trying to challenge, it makes the President look small, and the perception of the head of the government either waging war with the media, or encouraging citizens to report other citizens for criticism of the government's policies is not a good look.

A big deal in the grand scheme? No, but it's a potential distraction the White House doesn't need, and more importantly, a very ineffective way of performing the real and necessary function of setting the record straight policy-wise.

Farhad Manjoo laments Netflix's decision to change their billing structure, and to split in two. I think he's overreacting a bit, but he has a point: I dig the idea to separate the streaming service from the DVD service, but to split into two companies seems hasty. I may be one of the few people who appreciated Netflix's original idea to have a streaming only service under the Netflix banner. 99.9 percent of my Netflix use over the past three years has been the streaming service, via my PS3 and iPad. I have nothing but love for the streaming service. I haven't rented a DVD in five months, the primary reason being that new releases have a month delay before they hit Netflix. I also have Blu-ray, and the idea of paying extra for Blu-ray bugs me. So, going from ten bucks to eight bucks for unlimited streaming is good for me...but that's just me.

A lot of customers, who do in fact rent DVDs, were hit pretty hard with the price change. If your aim to is have both DVDs and streaming, the cost has gone up, and now you're going to have to exert more effort to get what you want. It's a problem, although as Manjoo points out, there may be a bright side. I think more competition in the game rental front is good.

Any thoughts?

"...of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It's late, but it's still Constitution Day today. Read and reflect.

Pretty much what she said.

Ten years later, we never forget.

Hilarious.

Yeah. Makes sense to me. Seems we ought to nip this practice (to the extent that it is a practice) in the bud, before things start to get real messy. I'm not an expert on the specific details, and it does seem clear that the intent was to approve the signature, but there is the "shall be presented" clause. Could you argue that presenting over the phone is sufficient? Any thoughts?

On a side note, this does seem to be one of those issues tailor-made for Obama's critics to freak out over, and yet could've been so easily avoided, by simply waiting a few more days.

ADDED: Or maybe not.