The Gaggle : Featured

Another Reason 2010 Isn't Exactly Like 1994

Katie Connolly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:19:23 GMT

Earlier this week Holly wrote a really interesting piece about the electoral parallels between now and 1993—and the fact that the GOP is hoping for a dramatic Democratic defeat in next year's midterms, similar to what happened in 1994. Holly points out several flaws in the analogy: Republicans have more baggage going into next year's elections than they did in '94, congressional Republicans have exceptionally low approval ratings, the GOP lacks strong national leadership, and there's damaging infighting between conservatives and moderates. But I'd like to add another difference to the list: health-care reform.

The dismal failure of the Clinton health-care plan in the summer of 1994 helped crystallize support for the GOP. Its final whimper came just months before the '94 congressionals, ending a long, fierce battle on an abysmal note for Democrats. This time around, health-care reform will pass. It won't be an ambitious overhaul along the lines that Clinton had envisioned. And, in the end, it may not even include a public option (although the White House assures me it will.) But health-care reform, in some fashion, will be passed, and it will be done well in advance of the election. By the time the voting booths open, the health-care debate will be done. (Until, of course, it is revived, probably in the middle of the next decade, when the reforms have been implemented and either ambitious liberals attempt to strengthen it or conservatives try to stymie it.)

To be sure, the health-care debate has been damaging to the Obama administration, just as it was to the Clintons. But by the time midterms roll around, it won't be sucking up all the oxygen in the room, as it is now, and as it did in 1994. Sure, Republicans will try to attack vulnerable Democrats over the plan. We'll probably see more protests like the one on Capitol Hill today. Anti-abortion activists will no doubt remain energized. But my prediction is that health care won't be top of mind for most Americans in November next year. It won't be the vote winner it was in '94. It won't be the divisive force it was then (or it was this past August, for that matter). In all likelihood, Americans will be far more concerned about their economic security than a health-care plan they haven't started feeling the effects of yet.

Also diminishing health care's electoral potency will be the shellacking the Republican alternative plan received from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last night. Ezra Klein has the lowdown on the CBO analysis:

[In 2019] the Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent. The GOP's alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit. The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan.

This is a major embarrassment for the Republicans. It's one thing to keep your cards close to your chest. Republicans are in the minority, after all, and their plan stands no chance of passage. It's another to lay them out on the table and show everyone that you have no hand, and aren't even totally sure how to play the game. The Democratic plan isn't perfect, but in comparison, it's looking astonishingly good.

Sure, Republicans are already eyeing health-care reform as a battering ram for next year's elections, but a heck of a lot can happen in a year.

Reid vs Obama Drama Not So Dramatic

Katie Connolly — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:11:18 GMT

D.C. loves nothing more than insider intrigue about closed-door meetings. Exhibit A: TPM's Brian Beutler is stirring the pot with his reporting that last week's White House health-care meeting between the president and Senators Reid and Schumer was more acrimonious than we've been led to believe. Days after the meeting Reid announced the inclusion of a public option in his health-care bill, amid speculation that the White House still favored a trigger option. Beutler writes that in the days leading up to the meeting, relations between Reid and the administration inched toward the breaking point. His sources describe "the back and forth between Senate health-care principals and the White House as a "sort of stare-down where the two sides were saying, 'you be the face of pulling it out.' Reid wants Obama to do it to give cover to his caucus. Obama wants Reid to do it so he's not the bad guy on the public option and can still walk away with a win with reform, with bipartisanship, and with a card for everybody running for reelection." He also reports that Schumer was the one tasked with pitching Reid's opt-out-option strategy to the president. When he did, Beutler's source says, "Obama was less than responsive and asked questions that suggested he preferred an option that could get the trigger and bipartisan support."

In true D.C. fashion, however, my sources paint a different picture. Senior Democratic sources close to the discussions tell me that the White House meeting was all about Olympia Snowe and how to secure her vote. It's no secret that the president is eager to call reform a bipartisan effort, and Snowe holds the one last candle of hope. But by the time Reid and Schumer entered the White House, Snowe was no longer the topic du jour for them. They were operating on a different calculus.

Earlier in the week, Reid realized that he stood to lose more votes by not including a public option than he'd gain by including the trigger. In other words, a trigger brought Snowe into the mix (and probably Lincoln, Landreiu, and Nelson) but lost the votes of a handful of liberal senators. Unlike the Ben Nelsons of the world, who've repeatedly aired their concerns to reporters, public-option proponents like Jay Rockefeller were making their case privately to leadership, largely through Schumer, who quickly learned that while liberals disdained an "opt-in" proposal, they could live with an opt-out, which is the model Reid ultimately decided on.

In conversations with Rockefeller and others, Schumer realized that he and Reid had been asking the wrong question of moderates. They shouldn't have beeen asking for moderate support for the opt-out option, they just needed to know if it was a dealbreaker. As it turns out, for several moderates it wasn't. For them, problem No. 1 was affordability. They worried that an individual mandate saddled low-income constituents with having to buy expensive insurance without providing them with appropriate subsidies. That would cause enormous voter backlash, especially for those senators up for reelection in 2014 when the provisions really kick in. If that issue could be resolved, then they could live with an opt-out public option, which some even conceded might ameliorate affordability concerns.

This was the new mindset Reid and Schumer brought to their meeting with the president, who was initially skeptical. Could they really get the 60 votes necessary to even get this bill to the Senate floor? And how do you then get Snowe's vote back? Sources say that the president didn't openly advocate for a different strategy but pushed back hard to test Reid's calculations. But he didn't commit to a particular option, trigger or otherwise—which shouldn't be surprising. After all, the president has been hedging on the public option for months. Several Senate sources expressed frustration to me about the White House's lack of clarity on the public plan. Public-option proponents have been waiting for a clear signal of the president's preference, believing that his stamp of approval would have made their vote counting significantly easier. They were privately disappointed that the president hadn't taken a more detailed stance in his September speech to Congress.

So what's the truth behind the meeting? Was the White House aggressively pushing Reid to go with a trigger? Is the administration annoyed that Reid went with the opt-out plan? My reporting indicates no. But really, the only truth in the gossipy, he said-she said world of D.C. politics is that it's a lot more high school than anyone wants to admit.

Sarah Palin Charging $100K for Iowa Speech? Not Exactly.

Holly Bailey — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:27:12 GMT

Palin in Iowa, November 2008. Photo by Mark Hirsch / Getty Images

Politico's Jonathan Martin has a good story today about an Iowa conservative group's efforts to lure Sarah Palin to a fundraising dinner in Des Moines next month. The Iowa Family Policy Center, according to J-Mart, is trying to come up with Palin's reported $100,000 speaker's fee in hopes of getting the former governor to headline its Nov. 21 banquet—which just so happens to be the same night Vice President Joe Biden will be in town to headline the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. But wait a minute: Paying a White House hopeful to come to Iowa? Seriously? Has anyone ever had to do that? Needless to say, the very prospect has other Iowa Republicans up in arms. "If somebody tells me they want me to pay an appearance fee, it tells me they're not very serious about running for president," Ed Failor Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief and an influential GOP insider, tells Politico. "I found it really, really odd."

But hang on: did Palin actually ask the group to pay $100K for her appearance? An IFPC spokesman tells Martin he's "not personally aware" of a speaker's fee. "There may or may not be, I don't know," he tells Politico. For their part, the Palin camp tells NEWSWEEK there's no fee. Meg Stapleton, Palin's spokeswoman, tells your Gaggler that Palin "has not requested anything" and that she "does not charge people to campaign for them." According to Stapleton, Palin would instead cover such travel costs through her political-action committee, SarahPAC. Of course, that doesn't mean she's going to Iowa. Palin's book, Going Rogue, is due out Nov. 17, and she's got a major publicity tour planned around that, including a Nov. 16 appearance on Oprah. "We don't believe she will be able to attend with her tightly scheduled book tour, and the group has been told that through formal and informal channels," Stapleton says in an e-mail this morning. "However, it appears that some enthusiastic members are willing to try anything to entice the governor as we look at her schedule."

Virginia Governor's Race Is Not a Crystal Ball

Katie Connolly — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:52:24 GMT

Over at the Plum Line, Greg Sargent notes something I've been thinking, and meaning to blog about for weeks, namely that the Virginia governor's race is not a referendum on the president. As much as pundits want to draw national conclusions for an off-cycle race like this one—political reporters, myself included, can't resist the allure of "what does it all mean?" analysis—the Virginia race doesn't tell us all that much about the presidency. Sargent looks closely at the numbers from a recent Washington Post poll, and finds the following:

Seventy percent of likely voters say Obama is “not a factor” in their choice. Only 15% say opposition to Obama is a factor, while 14% say support for him is a factor.
Seventy-one percent say it makes “no difference” if the governor is from the same political party as the president. More people say it’s good to have a governor from the same party, 16%-13%.
Obama’s approval rating in Virginia is 54%, in line with many national polls.

Those numbers pretty clearly illustrate that Virginians have a pretty healthy separation between their state and federal preferences. But they don't even get to the obvious: Obama and Creigh Deeds couldn't be more different. Obama's strongest appeal is to liberals, while Deeds is decidedly closer to the center—he's either a moderate or a conservative Democrat depending on whom you talk to. Obama excited an entirely different group of Virginians than Deeds does—including black and Hispanic voters—and his impressive ground team got those people to the polls. Deeds, as has been well reported, hasn't been embracing the advice offered to him by Obama's folks, nor does his field operation come close to approximating the breadth and enthusiasm of Obama's. And let's not even get into the stylistic differences between earthy Deeds and the powerfully eloquent president.

Certainly the Virginia race gives us some generalized notion of the mood of the country, and whether Obama's appeal can continue to carry fellow Democrats in tricky districts. But Obama isn't on the ballot, and Deeds is no cookie-cutter Democrat. He's a hunting, fishing, pro-gun guy from the country, with a Southern accent to match. His performance can't simply be transferred onto other races. Not to mention that, as in most off-cycle races, local issues—which are usually highly idiosyncratic—play a decisive role. In this case, it's Virginia's messy transportation issues.

That's not to say the race isn't interesting, or that there aren't some lessons here about the length of Obama's coattails. But no doubt if Deeds loses next week (an outcome his polling certainly points to) we'll be hearing triumphant talk about a GOP comeback and the ascendancy of conservative ideas. Then will come the Democrats' gnashing of teeth about presidential overreach and the damage Obama is inflicting on Democrats in conservative districts. And when that happens we should all take a deep breath and remember that Deeds is not Obama, and Virginia is Virginia. Let's keep the lessons in perspective.

America More Conservative Than Ever. Maybe.

Katie Connolly — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:09:39 GMT

America's conservatives are probably feeling pretty chuffed today after reading Gallup's recent polling on political ideology. The data confirm Gallup's June finding that conservatism is the dominant ideology in the country right now. About 40 percent of respondents identified themselves as conservative, while 36 percent called themselves moderate and 20 percent liberal. The last time the conservative number was so high was in 2003 and 2004. The reason today's numbers are important is that they've jumped up 3 points after holding steady at 37 percent from 2006 to 2008. Considering the size of the sample and the lack of movement in the past few years, that jump is significant.

Although the numbers don't look great for Democrats, they're not exactly a reason for popping champagne at the RNC. According to Jeff Jones, managing editor of the Gallup poll, the number of people identifying as conservative rose similarly when Bill Clinton assumed the presidency in 1993. In 1992, conservatives made up 36 percent of the electorate. That number popped up to 39 percent in 1993. It dropped back to 38 percent in 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress, and reached its contemporary nadir—36 percent—the following year.

Although it's enormously difficult to prove a direct correlation between the change of administration and the increase in conservatism, Jones told your Gaggler that it's hard not to think that the changeover prompted voters to shift their positions a little. He says such ideological changes often come from people who don't pay all that much attention to politics, or don't have strongly held political convictions. Often these people like the idea of a middle path, a country that doesn't skew one way or another. So, when they sense—largely through media coverage—that the country is moving liberal, they'll adjust their position to try to promote more moderate policies.

Now, consider where the growth in conservatism is coming from in Gallup's latest numbers: independent voters. In 2008, 29 percent of independents called themselves conservative. Now 35 percent do, while the number identifying themselves as liberal dropped from 20 percent to 18 percent, and moderate from 46 percent to 43 percent. Meanwhile, the ideological makeup (liberal/moderate/conservative) of the Democratic and Republican camps was relatively steady. While it is certainly true that not all independents fall into the "not paying much attention to politics" category, those people are more likely to be independent than party-affiliated. They're probably also less likely to vote.

Perhaps what should worry Democrats more is not an overall tendency to claim oneself as a conservative, but the shifts of particular issues. Gallup reported upticks in the number of people who believe there is too much government regulation; that gun laws should be less restrictive; that immigration should be decreased; and that global warming is exaggerated. Attitudes about gay marriage, Iraq, and Afghanistan haven't really changed. For Democrats, this is probably the most worrying sentence in Gallup's background brief: "There are no major examples of U.S. public opinion becoming more liberal in the past year." It's that, not a general ideological preference, that will make the Democratic legislative agenda even more difficult going forward.

Should Olympia Snowe Represent Her Voters or Her Party?

Katie Connolly — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:07:03 GMT

Olympia Snowe's Tuesday vote in favor of Max Baucus's health-care plan inspired much chatter about her "bucking the party" and whether the GOP will retaliate and strip her of her coveted seniority. But the polling data Ben Smith uncovered yesterday got me thinking about a different tension in politics: an old three-way conflict between representing your party, representing your constituents, and plain old intellectual leadership. Although Snowe's moves are easily characterized as a shift away from her party's power brokers, they could also be seen as a genuine attempt to represent the folks who elected her to office.

According to a recent survey, 57.4 percent of Maine voters are in favor of a government administered option while 37.2 percent are opposed. A whopping 73.6 percent of Maine residents support stricter regulation of insurance companies, and 58 percent approve of the job Obama is doing. An earlier Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll had similar results. That poll found that more Maine residents identify as Democrat than Republican, but a plurality identify as independent. It also found the state is divided on marriage equality, with the results (47 pro, 49 anti) within the margin of error.

So that's the political landscape that Olympia Snowe is representing. Doesn't sound characteristically Republican, right? It's pretty safe to say that it's quite unlike the states most GOPers represent. It's a stark contrast even with, say, Democrat Mary Landrieu's Louisiana, where, according to Rasmussen, only 41 percent of residents approve of the president (they mostly didn't vote for him last year) and 61 percent disapprove of his health-care reforms. Yet while Democrats probably consider Snowe's vote a principled break from her party, a no vote from Landrieu would be considered heresy, a failure to exhibit leadership in the face of unpopularity.

Snowe's health-care stance makes a lot of sense when you consider who put her in office. If Snowe's politics hewed closely with Mitch McConnell or indeed most of her peers, she probably wouldn't have been elected there. Having an R after her name certainly helped with some proportion of voters, but the polling data seems to indicate a population that mirrors Snowe's own politics to a large degree. Those folks still appear to hold her in high esteem, so if she wants to keep her seat then she should probably keep doing what she's been doing. Representing is, after all, a central tenet of representative democracy. It's also a convenient rationale for refraining from making unpopular but important decisions. To represent or to lead is a question politicians have struggled with over the ages. In the health-care debate, we're watching it again play out, tortuously, before our eyes.

On Tort Reform, the Kiwis Have Some Good Ideas

Katie Connolly — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:01:21 GMT

After the Senate Finance Committee vote on health-care reform today, I’m left wondering, again, why Senate Democrats continue to make life so hard for themselves by refusing to discuss one key compromise. I’m talking of course about medical-malpractice reform. It may not be the cure, but it certainly offers potential relief. Admittedly, medical malpractice doesn’t fall directly within the Senate Finance Committee’s jurisdiction, but surely there are other mechanisms for incorporating it into the discussion? And let’s not forget that senators are adept at making tricky arguments to invoke processes that move them toward their preferred legislative end. Would anyone really put up a serious fight if Senate Finance tried to consider it?

The political case is pretty compelling. The president has already said he believes that defensive medicine prompted by fear of malpractice suits adds to the cost of health care. He very publicly supported forays into tort reform and committed funding to it. Moreover, tort reform is broadly popular with the public. One recent poll put support for it at 83 percent. Translation: people in both parties support it. Doctors are in a popular profession. Trial lawyers are not.

The predominant argument against tort reform is that it doesn’t really work to reduce costly defensive medical practices. But the CBO released new analysis last week estimating that medical malpractice reform could save $54 billion over the next decade. Regardless, if it doesn’t add to the cost of health care, does its effectiveness even matter that much politically speaking?

Let’s say malpractice reform has no cost impact, but passing it makes doctors feel like Democrats are taking their concerns seriously. Furthermore, Republicans are robbed of a reason to dig their heels in on health-care reform. If you’re a Senate Democrat doesn’t that sound like something worth debating? If, after being granted a serious concession on a signature issue for conservatives, Republicans still refuse to vote for reform, then Democrats have a significantly easier task in painting their opponents as obstinate obstructionists. Democrats get to look legitimately bipartisan and willing to negotiate. And they get to deliver something politically popular as part of the bargain.

So who’s angered in this scenario? Trial lawyers—incidentally, a profession that used to count Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in its numbers. The usual argument trotted out is that Democrats are scared of angering the trial lawyers because they donate big bucks to Democrat campaigns. But medical malpractice isn’t the only issue on the agenda of trial lawyers, and they’re still going to want to give money to politicians to help advance their other priorities. And it’s not like Democratic support for tort reform is going to cause lawyers to start throwing cash at Republicans, who have long pushed for it.

There’s also a chance that, depending on the type of reform, outcomes could be enhanced for patients and doctors alike. Consider the situation in New Zealand, where cases of medical injuries are considered through a government-operated Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). The ACC awards compensation for accidents from a government funding pool, and in return, patients give up the right to sue. It’s a “no fault” system, where the decision makers are expert administrators rather than lay juries. Under the N.Z. regime, patients make claims related to injuries or harm caused—either accidentally or through negligence—by practitioners. They don’t sue for negligence per se. For example, they don’t file claims because a physician didn’t give them an MRI that would have picked up a rare cancer, but they can claim if they were given a drug they were allergic to and suffered problematic side effects.

In the U.S. many patients’ claims fail because they can’t prove negligence. Many Americans harmed during their treatments are simply ineligible for compensation because they weren’t victims of negligence. In N.Z. anyone who has suffers a medical injury, irrespective of whether it was the because of negligence, can receive compensation. They just need to prove an link between their treatment and the harm.

A study published in Health Affairs in 2006, found that the New Zealand system granted compensation more efficiently, and that patients found it simpler to navigate. Of course, the amounts awarded are much lower than those in lengthy, costly court battles (usually less than $30,000), but a greater number of people are able to benefit. That’s important—many Americans are turned off from seeking compensation in legitimate cases of harm because the prospect of litigation is intrusive, time consuming, and uncertain. New Zealand’s commission is also significantly cheaper to operate than American’s malpractice system. Instituting a commission-type system in the U.S. would increase the number of people receiving compensation for poorly administered care, while decreasing the financial burden on the health-care system.

There’s bound to be flaws in the New Zealand system. It doesn’t seem to have lowered the proportion of medical mistakes there, for example. But it’s an interesting start, which wouldn’t prevent an exploration of other measures that would curb medical negligence on the whole. At the very least, surely it is something worth considering within a comprehensive health-care reform package, particularly when the political upside is so evident.

Six People Ticked Off by Obama's Nobel Win

Katie Connolly — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:06:02 GMT

Obama has won the presidency, a Grammy and now the Nobel Peace Prize. The only award he can’t get it seems, is an honorary degree from Arizona State University. His award today is clearly ruffling a few feathers. Here’s six people who must be seriously ticked off.

1. Nicolas Sarkozy. Obama’s French frenemy is already tired of living in the American’s shadow, both literally and figuratively. The diminutive president’s days of being the world’s most dashing leader—complete with notably fashionable wife—came to an abrupt end when Obama was elected. A few months later, he was busted trashing Obama as naive and inexperienced. This morning he expressed his “very great joy” for Obama. Holly informs me that is French for “drop dead.”

2. Michelle Obama. Not only is her stinky, snore-y husband president, but he’s now an internationally-honored Nobel Laureate. Keeping his ego in check must already be a daily struggle for the first lady. Imagine trying to get him to lift a finger around the house now.

3. Bill Clinton. Somewhere in Brooklyn or upstate New York this morning, Bill Clinton quietly imploded. First Obama beat Hillary, then he stripped Clinton of his "first black president" title and managed to make him look a little bit racist in the process. And now this. How many times can Clinton look bad in front of his wife? Seriously though, Clinton was devastated by his own inaction in the Rwandan genocide and devoted the latter half of his presidency to pursuing peace. He promoted peace in Northern Ireland, sending his good buddy George Mitchell to help broker a deal. He sent troops to keep the peace in the Balkans and at Camp David, he got about as close as any president has gotten to a peace deal in the Middle East. And yet, no prize. Even his vice president won it. What’s worse—having granted the award to an American president this year, the Committee won’t likely give it to another one any time soon.

4. George W. Bush. By the end of his presidency, Bush was under no delusion that he was liked around the world, but this award is essentially an “in your face” from the international community. That’s gotta sting. (It's also a bit of a “shut up already” to Republican leaders in Congress who’ve been blocking Obama’s legislative agenda. But it won’t help him pass health- care reform. If anything it will strengthen the resolve of his already-skeptical opposition.)

5. Brangelina. Just how many disadvantaged children must one adopt in order to be considered peacemakers? But seriously, these two have done their fair share in promoting peace. Since 2001, Jolie has visited Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Thailand, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Chad, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq—to name a few—all in the name of drawing attention to humanitarian crises and the plight of refugees. She’s met with presidents and prime ministers. She and Pitt have a foundation that gives grants to humanitarian organizations. We bet they’re really hoping Obama doesn’t decide to take up acting—Pitt doesn’t want to go up against him for that Oscar he’s been hoping for.

6. The Taliban. So that guy who’s ordering attacks on them just got given a peace prize? The Taliban is no doubt collectively thinking “what the ???” this morning. And they tend not to be the kind of folks one wants to mess with. A Taliban spokesperson in an undisclosed location has already been harshly critical, telling the AFP that Obama had done nothing to advance peace. (Surely it's only a matter of time before the Taliban starts twittering: @talibanundisclosedlocation anyone?)

Rush Limbaugh isn't too happy either—read about it here.

Nobel Prize No Cause for Celebration in the White House

Katie Connolly — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:54:01 GMT

America awoke this morning to the stunning news that President Obama had won one of the world’s most coveted distinctions, the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Nobel committee’s citation, it was awarded for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” with particular emphasis on Obama’s “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” It’s a remarkable justification for the award, given he’s made so little progress in achieving either goal. After all, he’s not been president for even 10 months yet.

While presumably honorees grandly celebrate these kinds of awards (that is, when they are not being persecuted by oppressive regimes or being detained in their houses), it’s likely that the White House is eyeing the award with caution. It comes at a time when the president is weighing a possible escalation of the eight-year war in Afghanistan. Is this the international community’s way of telling Obama to proceed with caution? How problematic is it for a Nobel laureate to send more troops to war, particularly one with untold civilian casualties?

Politically, this is a gold mine for Obama’s opponents. On the heels of his Olympics loss, critics will gleefully call the president undeserving, adding to a line of attack that began in earnest with the McCain campaign’s “celebrity” ad in August last year. Then, Obama was juxtaposed with images of flashy starlets like Paris Hilton, as a breathy announcer intoned “Barack Obama is the biggest celebrity in the world?” The none-too-subtle theme: Obama is all fluff and no substance.

To detractors, the Nobel Prize is proof in the pudding that the president seduces with words while achieving nothing concrete. Privately, McCain and his aides always scoffed that in Obama’s short political career, he never had to make tough decisions or sacrifices. Now, on the eve of one of the most important decisions of his young presidency—whether to risk another 40,000 American lives—he’s been prematurely awarded with a peace prize. Last year, the unexpectedly effective celebrity ad reportedly threw Obama’s crew. With that history still lingering in the minds of Axelrod and Co., they’re no doubt cautioning Obama to be as humble as humanly possible. Mickey Kaus is already calling for Obama to decline the award. To appear too celebratory or self-satisifed would be irksome to a public still worried about paying their bills and keeping their jobs.

We’ll get to see for ourselves when the president speaks in the Rose Garden at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Obama isn't the first strange winner of the peace prize (read more here). Read why the prize might also be too little, too late, for Obama's sinking prestige stateside. Plus, here are some folks who might be even more upset than the White House this morning. For a refresher on the early accomplishments that put Barack Obama on the Nobel committee's radar, check out our coverage of his life, his ideas, his big day, his disciples, and his fans around the world.

The Secret of Levi Johnston's Success

Katie Connolly — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:26:37 GMT

Levi Johnston, the lad most famous for knocking up his high-school sweetheart—who also happened to be Sarah Palin's daughter—is making the most of his fame. He's been made news twice this week already. On Tuesday, we were chattering about his amusing role in a new commercial for nuts. Today, the blogosphere lit up with news of his nude shoot for Playgirl, titillating girls and gay men alike. Apparently Levi has become a work-out machine, toning the love handles he exposed in GQ in preparation for moment in the female erotica spotlight. If he wasn't a liberal pin-up boy before, he certainly is now. Surely Levi's 15 minutes are almost up. And yet there he is again, trending high on Google, and cluttering up gossip blogs. So why the fixation with this unemployed, hockey-playing, high-school dropout?

Of course, his appeal is partly explained by his looks. The dude is hot. But he also comes across as remarkably normal given his circumstances. His starring turns in GQ and Vanity Fair showed a kid managing to remain relatively down-to-earth amid his swirling fame and personal tumult. Sure he has an agent and talks about landing acting gigs, but one imagines him doing so with the same unaffected nonchalance with which he pops a pistachio, or talks about shooting moose. He seems playful, as though he's not taking this whole caper too seriously. He'll chat about his life as long as people want to listen. And therein lies the secret to his success: Johnston can pan the one of the most criticized women in the world without sounding salacious, nasty, or misogynist. He's not a screeching critic. He's just a guy bitching about the inlaws. It's an entirely unique position in the Palin-sphere. And people love it.

When Johnston drops bombshells about troubles in Palin's marriage or about Sarah's plan to adopt Bristol's baby to cover up her pregnancy, he does so with a straightforward naiveté that can't help but provoke sympathy. It's a tone that's absent from most of the revelations about Palin's personal life. That's why his critiques are so devastating. When Johnston speaks, liberals quiver, because in a universe of hungry anti-Palinites, Johnston offers a rare spot of credibility. He's been in her house. He's part of her world. So when he speaks, there's a kernel of truth, even if he was just a teenage observer.

Palin detractors love Johnston for another reason too—he actually seems to get under the former governor's skin. Since he first appeared in the public eye, almost everything Johnston has done is an affront to Palin's image as a family-values conservative. He got her unwed daughter pregnant, he didn't marry her, he aired the family's dirty laundry, sought fame in licentious Hollywood, and now he's getting his gear off in public. Palin has hit out at Johnston. Clearly irked by his interview on The Tyra Banks Show in April, a Palin family representative issued a statement saying "It is unfortunate that Levi finds it more appealing to exploit his previous relationship with Bristol than to contribute to the well-being of the child."

When Palin trashes the media, it feels like part of her schtick. But when Palin-the-mom knocks Johnston-the-ex, there's palpable,seeping tension. It's compelling. And it's why as long as there is Palin, there'll be Levi Johnston.

On Afghanistan, Time May Not Be on Obama's Side

Holly Bailey — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:30:57 GMT

Photo by Pete Souza/WH

When President Obama received his copy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Afghanistan assessment last month, one of the first questions posed to the White House was how long it would take Obama to decide whether he’d send additional troops into the region. “Weeks,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. The decision, he said, was “not immediate and not imminent.” It’s a talking point that the White House has repeated over and over since then: Obama wanted time to digest McChrystal’s report and to weigh his options. A month later, Obama is still deliberating. Tomorrow he’ll convene the third of five planned Afghan strategy sessions in the White House’s Situation Room with top advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. McChrystal, as he did last week, will participate via videoconference. A fourth meeting is planned for Friday. According to the White House, Obama’s decision is still “weeks” away, but how much time does the president really have?

Over the weekend, Jim Jones, Obama’s national-security adviser, pointedly told CNN’s John King that time is on the president's side. “Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of failing,” Jones said. That may be true, but it’s the growing pressure from Congress and the public that the White House really has to worry about. The political scenario Obama faces these days is strikingly similar to the environment George W. Bush faced as he contemplated his own game-changing strategy in Iraq almost three years ago. Public anxiety over the war is increasing by the day as the casualty count rises. And, as with Iraq, the White House’s deliberation is playing out against a backdrop of scary pictures of life on the ground there. August was the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the conflict began eight years ago, and during September the growing turmoil on the ground there dominated cable-TV and network newscasts. But it’s not just that the national media are paying more attention. Every life lost gets front-page coverage in local newspapers. Over the weekend, as Jones hit the Sunday shows, eight American soldiers from Colorado’s Fort Carson were killed in an ambush in eastern Afghanistan. It was, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette, the base’s deadliest day since Vietnam.

As a presidential candidate, Obama often referred to Afghanistan as “the forgotten war.” He wasn’t talking just about strategy, though he made it clear in no uncertain terms that he believed the Bush administration had badly neglected the region. Obama openly worried that the American people didn’t fully grasp the danger of what was happening in Afghanistan. It would be hard to make that argument today, and, in some ways, the awareness could potentially limit the political capital Obama will no doubt need to maintain the public’s faith in his handling of the war. A recent Gallup poll found that 61 percent of those surveyed think the war is going badly, while 37 percent believe the war was a “mistake.” An ABC/Washington Post poll found that 51 percent of those surveyed believe the war isn’t worth fighting—an almost direct flip from this past spring when Obama unveiled his initial Afghanistan strategy. Back then, 56 percent said the Afghanistan conflict was worth it. The administration’s very public hand-wringing, namely the back and forth between the White House and McChrystal, likely isn’t helping those numbers. Add to that the pressure from Congress. On one hand, Republicans like John McCain argue that the White House doesn’t have much time to lose on Afghanistan, while Democrats like Russ Feingold are openly wondering if Obama shouldn’t set a timetable for withdrawal.

One lesson from Bush’s handling of Iraq is that he waited almost too long to approve a change of strategy in the region. While the troop surge was ultimately regarded as a success, Bush’s approval ratings with the public never recovered, and it largely overshadowed the rest of his presidency. It’s something Obama does think about. Over the summer he told a group of historians visiting him at the White House that he was worried Afghanistan could suck the oxygen out of his own presidency. There’s no indication that Obama plans to run down the clock in the way Bush did on Iraq, but with every passing day the White House loses a little bit of control on the public narrative. And, in a conflict as unpredictable as Afghanistan, that’s not something that's easy to reclaim.

How the Government Lost My Identity—And Maybe Monica's, Too

Newsweek — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:49:20 GMT

by Suzanne Smalley

About a month ago it was Ben Bernanke, the chair of the Federal Reserve Board, who was making headlines as a victim of identity theft. This month it’s the White House and the National Archives on the hot seat for losing track of former staffers’ names and Social Security numbers, among other things. Imagine my surprise this weekend when I opened a nondescript white envelope from the National Archives and Records Administration only to find out that my Social Security number and other private information had been lost by the U.S. government sometime in the past year. Not only was my identity information floating around in government computers nearly 15 years after I interned at the White House, but it took the National Archives a full six months from the date it discovered the loss to even inform me about it. Who can we trust to keep our information safe these days?

The archives’ letter didn’t say if another person who happened to be a White House intern at the same time, Monica Lewinsky, has also had her security breached, but based on what it did say, I’m betting it was. According to the letter, dated Sept. 29, the archives discovered “in late March 2009 that an external hard drive containing copies of backup tapes from the Clinton Administration is missing from our College Park, Maryland facility. Although no original information has been lost, we are writing to you because we have determined that personal information identifiable to you, including your Social Security number, may have been exposed to others as a result of this incident.”

The really juicy stuff was saved for an accompanying “fact sheet,” which informed me that the missing hard drive contained a “copy of Clinton Administration Executive Office of the President data [including] files that contain personally identifying information. The drive was being used for routine recopying to ensure preservation of the information.” Names and Social Security numbers for “former Clinton Administration staff and persons who contacted or visited the White House complex” have been compromised. The best part? The government isn’t even sure when the hard drive was last seen; the most specific it can get is that it was last spotted “sometime between October 2008 and the first week of February and was discovered missing on or about March 24, 2009.” How reassuring. Needless to say, the Secret Service has launched a “full-scale criminal investigation into this incident,” according to the letter sent to me. The National Archives is also offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the lost hard drive.

Let’s wish the Secret Service luck in its investigation. No word yet on whether any classified information has been stolen, but based on what the National Archives is saying, the security breach seems alarming. “The 4 mm tapes that were copied onto the hard drive generally comprised ‘snapshots’ of the contents of hard drives of departing EOP employees, and therefore contain a mix of system and working files. The drive contains copies of both federal and Presidential records, depending on which EOP office the files came from.”

Losing the Olympics Bid Is Good for Obama

Katie Connolly — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:02:34 GMT

The president and first lady leave the stage after making their pitch. Photo: Charles Dharapak—AP.

Chicago has been eliminated in the first round of IOC voting. Wow—I did not see that coming. The way I figured it, this White House is far too protective of the president’s strategically crafted image to allow him to travel thousands of miles only to fail on the world stage. I thought it was a done deal—who's better at vote-counting than the Obama people? I would have bet money that Rahm and Axelrod knew they had the numbers in the bag before they let him step on Air Force One. I was so very wrong. Not only did they fail, they failed in the first round! It's a bad look for the president, especially coming on the heels of this morning’s depressing unemployment figures.

This is pretty embarrassing for the White House. (Especially letting Obama having to fail in front of his wife—ouch!) But ultimately, it’s a good thing for him. As I wrote on Monday, the Olympics are notorious for running massively over budget. The organizing committees are always rife with infighting and power games as all manner of colorful cronies badger members to get their paws on some of those coveted Olympics dollars. Public support for the Olympics in Chicago itself was already lukewarm. Residents would have been facing seven years of disruptive construction and roadwork as their city raced to prepare itself. It’s a recipe for serious disgruntlement.

Obama would have been inextricably tied to all of this—the budget overruns, the construction hiccups, the predictable corruption. By going to Copenhagen, he became the public face of the effort. Already, some of his closest supporters and friends were on the bid committee: his campaign’s national finance chair Penny Pritzker and a co-chair of his inaugural committee, Patrick Ryan, both had key roles. Senior adviser David Axelrod’s communications firm, AKPD Media, was one of the contractors for the committee, and Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett had been involved in supporting the bid. When problems would start to arise in the planning of this mammoth event—and they invariably would have—Obama would be implicated, regardless of his actual involvement.

Olympics-related screw-ups may have no concrete bearing on Obama’s capacity to govern, but they do make easy campaign ads. It’s not hard to imagine attack ads tying whatever planning ineptitude that was making news back to the White House. And while most voters outside of Chicago wouldn’t care all that much, such issues provide an unwanted distraction for the White House. They can dominate news cycles and pull advisers, and possibly even the president, into debates that divert attention from more critical politics. Think about how ACORN sidetracked political debates on health-care reform.

This is a tad humiliating for the president, but his embarrassment will be short-lived, especially if he demonstrates some good humor about it. Republicans will probably criticize him for skipping the country for a day instead of focusing on Iran or Afghanistan, but those attacks won’t stick. He wasn’t even gone 24 hours, and General McChrystal joined him on Air Force One. This will be fodder for late-night comedians and talk-back radio for a day or two. But winning the Olympics could have bogged down his entire presidency. And this way, next time he goes to Tokyo, he'll have something in common with Prime Minister Hatoyama.

Abstinence-Only Education Is Back

Katie Connolly — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:49:23 GMT

After weeks of railing against the price tag of health-care reform, Senate Republicans managed to bond over pumping up the budget for one aspect of health-care reform yesterday: abstinence-only education. Proposed by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the amendment reinstates $50 million in funding for abstinence-only education that President Obama had previously removed in his budget proposal earlier this year. Committee Republicans were joined by Democrats Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad in voting up the measure, which passed 12-11.

I've been trying to think of a measured way to riff on this, but instead I'll be frank. It's an absolute waste of money. This is the sort of thing Republicans usually wail about—the federal government propping up a program where there is no evidence that said program works. Indeed, there's a mounting body of evidence that abstinence-only education is a categorical failure. Just this past Sunday, the Austin American Statesman reported that school districts in Texas are abandoning abstinence-only education. "More government money has been spent on the cause of sexual abstinence in Texas than any other state, but it still has the third-highest teen birthrate in the country and the highest percentage of teen mothers giving birth more than once," the Statesman reports. Many of the schools are shifting to so-called "abstinence-plus" programs, which teach abstinence within a comprehensive sex-education program.

In 2007 a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that girls who receive comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who receive abstinence-only education. Also, that year a comprehensive national study, authorized by Congress, that monitored 2,000 children over several years found that abstinence-only education doesn't decrease the chances that teenagers will have sex. "This is the first study with a solid, experimental design, the first with adequate numbers and long-term follow-up, the first to measure behavior and not just intent. On every measure, the effectiveness of the [abstinence-only] programs was flat," Sarah Brown, the executive director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, told The Washington Post at the time.

Let's face it. Teenagers are going to have sex. They always have; they always will. Sure, there will be a decent number of teens who choose to abstain and they should feel supported in that decision, but there will still be a large chunk of teenagers doing the dirty. Making them stop is a fool's errand. It's about as likely a seeing the pope in a Speedo. It's like asking the queen to declare her hatred for corgis. It's not going to happen. Sex-education policies should take into account this basic reality and tailor programs that broadly educate teens about their choices, abstinence included. Policies should be set up to work. Anything else is just pointless moralizing.

Blue Dogs vs. Pelosi: How Vulnerable Are Conservative Dems, Really?

Holly Bailey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:15:09 GMT

Forget all the drama with Republicans and President Obama. The most tumultuous relationship in Washington right now is playing out in the House, between the Blue Dog Democrats and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On pretty much everything this year, the Blue Dogs have pushed back against Pelosi—the stimulus, energy, health care. This week there’s been a whole new round of anti-Nancy grumbling among conservative Dems, as Pelosi tries to finalize details of the House’s version of the health-care bill. Among other things, she’s still angling for the much-debated public option—even though, by the White House’s own admission, it will never pass the Senate—and this has the Blue Dogs up in arms.

The main complaint: that Pelosi is leading the House so far to the left that she’s not giving moderate and conservative Democrats cover for what looks to be a tough 2010 election. It’s not just health care. A lot of Blue Dogs, as well as Democrats in pivotal Rust Belt districts, are upset that Pelosi pushed the House to take up a contentious vote on climate change—even though, as Katie wrote yesterday, the Senate bill looks stalled. A few weeks ago your Gaggler was chatting with one Blue Dog Dem who owned up (without attribution, of course) to some serious misty water-colored memories of Rahm Emanuel’s time in the House, when he was viewed as a key emissary between the centrists and Pelosi. Emanuel, who oversaw the House Democrats' political committee, is credited with pushing Pelosi to protect potentially vulnerable members—especially conservative Dems whom he personally recruited. “He knows what we’re facing out there,” this lawmaker told NEWSWEEK. “I’m not sure the speaker does.” Yesterday, The Hill printed some very similar sentiments. “They are seriously endangering the majority,” an unnamed Blue Dog told the paper.

But is Pelosi getting a fair shake here? There is no doubt that 2010 could potentially be a rough year for Democrats. History suggests losses will happen—just ask Democrats who were around when the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the first midterm election of Bill Clinton’s presidency. And recent polls haven’t given much sign of hope either. Yet here’s one interesting stat: of the 28 Democratic seats that veteran election-predictor Charlie Cook rates as a “lean” or “tossup,” only seven are those of members of the Blue Dog coalition—and most of those lawmakers already have a serious fundraising advantage on their GOP opponents. That list includes Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat whose Alabama district went for John McCain in 2008. Griffith has already raised more than $500,000 for his reelection bid—almost 10 times what his Republican challenger, Lee Phillip, a GOP official, reports in the bank. Some don’t have a declared opponent at all, including Rep. Michael Arcuri, who represents a swing district in upstate New York.

Granted, not every vulnerable moderate or centrist Democrat in 2010 is a member of the Blue Dogs. But Blue Dogs are the most vocal when it comes to being worried about how Pelosi could harm their reelection chances next year. And they are the most high-profile when it comes to challenging the Democratic leadership—particularly on health-care reform. One thing is clear: as much trouble as Democrats might face in 2010, they are being helped by the huge fundraising advantage that comes with being an incumbent member of Congress, and, in some districts, the GOP’s struggle to recruit strong candidates. Still, we’ve got more than a year before Election Day. Back in 1994, the political tide against Democrats turned so quickly that nobody saw it coming. No current Dems—liberal or centrist or conservative—want to repeat that mistake.