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James Taranto examines the cases of liberals who say they’re tired of defending obamacare, and asks an important question.”Why is it they think they are responsible for the defense?”
Ron Fournier is as mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.
Correction: That was the late Howard Beale. Fournier, National Journal’s senior political columnist and editorial director, is going to take it for at least a while longer, and he isn’t so much mad as tapped out, or nearly so. In a recent column he explains, as the headline puts it, “Why I’m Sick of Defending ObamaCare.”
Fox News Channel’s Kirsten Powers feels the same way. On “Special Report With Bret Baier,” she paraphrased Fournier and enthusiastically assented: “The headline was ‘Why I’m Getting Tired of Defending ObamaCare,’ and I’m going to say, ‘Amen, brother.’ . . . People who have supported this law, who support universal health care, are constantly put in a position where they have to defend the president, who has really incompetently put this together, rolled it out.”
Which raises a question: What made Fournier and Powers think they had to defend ObamaCare in the first place? In Powers’s case, an answer suggests itself: Cast in the role of “Fox News liberal,” perhaps she feels obliged to stay on that side most of the time (though one suspects her Fox bosses would be tolerant of that particular heterodoxy).
But Fournier? He’s not supposed to be a partisan. “Like so many political columnists inside the Beltway, Fournier regularly exhibits a devotion to even handedness,” notes Mediaite.com’s Noah Rothman. “With a near pious commitment, no criticism of the Democratic Party can be issued without a commensurate nod to the faults and foibles of the Republican Party, and vice versa.” …
Kathleen Parker writes on white house spin.
It is easy these days to imagine that one is living in a fairy tale, albeit a dreary one.
In fairy tales, as in Washington, things are true that can’t possibly be — and what is not true can be defended by tilting the facts a certain way and catching the light just so.
Objective truth, it seems, has gone the way of trolls, goblins and gremlins, by which one should not infer that Truth has taken up residence in the U.S. Congress.
Cognitive dissonance is a rational response to recent news that Obamacare will reduce the workforce, which is hardly helpful to the economy, and insure less than half of the uninsured — from 55 million down to 31 million.
Let’s see if we can iron this thing out a bit. First, a few indisputable facts:
We are recovering from a recession, slowly. We continue to hope for improved employment numbers, even though we’re now told the jobless rate doesn’t matter anymore. Only about 3 million people have signed up for health insurance through the new marketplaces, well below expectations.
But, says the White House, things are looking good. …
Hot Air’s Allahpundit posts on Jonathan Turley’s complaint that the left’s indifference to presidential power grabs is beginning to border on a cult of personality.
“Beginning”?
There’s nothing here that you haven’t heard before if you watched him testify before Congress in December but it’s still worth watching for two reasons. One is his tone, which has grown darker and more apocalyptic since then. More than once here he warns that Obama’s “enablers” are destined to rue the fact that they remained silent “during this period.” Precedents are being set that will be built on by future presidents of both parties; for all the complaining about executive overreach by Democrats circa 2006 and Republicans today, the cold realities of power are what they are. I’m tempted to say that it was O’s latest unlawful delay to ObamaCare’s employer mandate that soured Turley’s mood, but I don’t think that’s it. I think it was the State of the Union, where Obama embraced bypassing Congress as formal policy. Look out for the phrase “borders on authoritarianism.” …
NPR Blog posts on the weight reducing power of whole milk. That’s right, it helps you keep pounds off. How’s that for counter-intuitive?
I have to admit, I melt at the creaminess of full-fat yogurt.
It’s an indulgence that we’re told to resist. And I try to abide. (Stealing a bite of my daughter’s YoBaby doesn’t count, does it?)
The reason we’re told to limit dairy fat seems pretty straight forward. The extra calories packed into the fat is bad for our waistlines. That’s the assumption.
But what if dairy fat isn’t the dietary demon we’ve been led to believe? New research suggests we may want to look anew.
Consider the findings of two recent studies that conclude the consumption of whole fat dairy is linked to reduced body fat.
In one paper, published by Swedish researchers in the Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, middle-aged men who consumed high-fat milk, butter and cream were significantly less likely to become obese over a period of 12 years compared to men who never or rarely ate high-fat dairy.
Yep, that’s right. The butter and whole-milk eaters did better at keeping the pounds off. …
Late night humor from Andrew Malcolm.
Fallon: Did you see the Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony? There was a massive fireworks display. And that was just when someone plugged a hairdryer in at the hotel.
Conan: We just had Groundhog Day. The groundhog came out, saw five minutes of the Super Bowl and then went right back into his hole.
Leno: Was that the worst Super Bowl ever? Colorado fans went straight from recreational marijuana to medicinal marijuana.
Leno: The Broncos just could not move the ball. The last time I saw a Bronco move that slow was in LA and OJ was in it.