The best Wolverine

Dang, the big C takes Patrick Swayze at only 57. Here's to you, high kicker:

Americans respond to Obama's big speech

With a giant "meh."

The WashPost has a tepid "Reform opposition is high but easing."
George Stephanapoulous states: "Bottom line: right now, voters are almost exactly where they were before the speech."
The Boston Globe declares: "Public insurer support fading - Moderates move away from option"
USA Today: "Speech doesn't boost Obama"

What's the White House response to this lack of response? More cowbell!

NY Times blog: "Obama May Do Back-to-Back TV Interviews Sunday"

That's leadership, baby.

Hero - Let us now pause to praise Norman Borlaug, the man who saved millions through agricultural productivity.

Entitlement nation - Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe: "What 'right' to health care?"

On this day

New York Times: "September 11th steel forms heart of far-flung memorials."

More Pablo Neruda, less "Casey at the Bat"

Well, I missed all the health care debate, so let's go with this story I heard this on NPR this afternoon:

Fernando Perez, the 26-year-old outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays, has written an essay in the September issue of Poetry Magazine about the firm place poetry holds in his life. Perez says poetry and baseball occupy different realms of his life.

Perez says that around the time Mark McGwire was spotted with andro in his locker, he was caught with a volume of poetry. Interesting story.

Not fun - My DSL was out all this evening because the only moving part - the power switch - became disabled. I popped it open and jury-rigged a jumper but I think I'll need a new box. Does anybody know if I can just replace the equipment (a Westell Model 327W) and go? Or do I have to re-install software or something? Thanks.

An insult to the national intelligence

I can't give Obama's speech a proper review because I had class tonight so I only heard part of it on the car radio. But of what I did hear it was 1) nothing new and 2) ridiculous.

I have to ask: is Obama illiterate? Has he read any newspapers besides the New York Times? Glanced at a blog? Has he even heard of the Congressional Budget Office?

A couple days ago, I predicted the speech would be a harangue with no details. He harangued and provided no details...by his own admission! His characterization of those evil insurance companies was cartoonish, full of moustache-twisting profiteers. The public option was misrepresented and his explanation of how this trillion-dollar plan would be paid for was risible. It would take me all night to go through the transcript and correct all the contradictions, truth-shading, and outright lies.

Extra - Cato liveblogged the speech with many links.

More - Reason: "Obama has a plan but not much of one."

Even more - GOP rep Joe Wilson apologizes for yelling "You lie!" to Obama. Which is appropriate because it's disrespectful to the President. Plus, Obama didn't lie because he corrected the number of uninsured in the country to leave out the illegal immigrants he counted before, just in time for this speech.

And this - A review from Power Line: "This was not, to put it kindly, a speech that was directed at thinking people."

Bottom-of-the-ninth speech preview - Jay Cost on Obama's latest game-changing oration: "Obama to give historic speech...again."

Simply red - From the American: "Debt be not proud: The sorry tale of America's out-of-control spending."

Senate health care plan to tax insurance companies you – The latest health care plan out of the Senate Finance Committee will cost "only" $900 billion to be partially paid for by the insurance companies that wouldn't dream of passing the cost on to consumers. Heavens, no.

Extra - Opinion Journal: "Obamacare's crippling deficits"

Obama takes to the campaign trail

Someday this bright, energetic man with flawless judgment might make it to the White House:

President Obama delivered a rousing campaign-style pitch on Monday for his proposed health care overhaul, telling thousands of cheering union workers at a Labor Day picnic here that Congress should stop debating because "it’s time to act and get this done."

As he tries to resurrect his health proposal, Mr. Obama has been under intense pressure from Congressional leaders to lay out specifically what he wants. Aides said he will do so in the speech on Wednesday.
Mr. Obama did not offer details on Monday – "I want you all to tune in," he told the crowd - but he did give a few hints of what is to come.

Those few hints were telling a handpicked crowd of union workers that he'd like to see the public option, but he won't push for it, since he's merely a candidate for the Presidency.

I strongly suspect that Wednesday's address to Congress will be an hour-long harangue. There will be no new details as Obama casts himself as the avenging advocate for the little guy, fighting the bureaucracy of Congress. He doesn't want to get his hands dirty by taking a position on anything and Congress isn't about to stick its collective neck out, especially when the polls show dwindling support for federal health-care reform. This whole thing's going down in a heap and Obama's going to disappointed with all of us.

Takin' a break - Have a great weekend, everybody.

The Massachusetts model - Cato: "Massachusetts' Obama-like reforms increase health costs, wait times."

Stimulus, hurrah!

Just like Joe Biden said, that $787 billion was money well spent:

Smart guy declares himself smart - Mises Economics blog on Krugman's latest - "The whole thing reads like a big fairy tale and the author is the hero in the end."

Joe Cool fires up the teleprompter again

Here's the WashPost's resident Obamacare cheerleader Ezra Klein on Obama's big speech next week:

This is health-care reform's endgame, or close to it. Next Wednesday, Barack Obama will give a prime-time address before both houses of Congress. But that's not all he's giving Congress. The administration is going to put a plan down on paper. The question is what it will say.
Conversations with a number of White House officials make it clear that, at this point, even they don't know.

What the hey? If there's one thing I've learned from years of giving presentations it's this: 1) tell 'em what you're going to say, 2) say it, 3) tell 'em what you just said. After months of debate, nobody has any idea what the White House wants from health care reform other than the ambiguous and contradictory goals of "universal coverage" and "deficit neutral." Charles Krauthammer describes the options for Obama:

But he has to say x, y, and z. He has to make a pronouncement on the public option, and he also has to make a critical strategic decision. Is this about cutting costs, which will destroy him in popular opinion, or does he ignore that now and make it all about expansion of coverage and guaranteeing of coverage?

The Atlantic gives the same advice:

He also needs to clarify what he wants, what he would not tolerate and what his plan really stands for.

Details? Yeah, he's not going to do that:

But the officials said Mr. Obama was unlikely to unveil a detailed legislative plan of his own.

So what's the point of this speech other than more of the same? Well, as I like to say: when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This is what happens, America, when you elect a guy with no executive experience, limited legislative experience, and whose sole claim to fame is that he can give a good speech. You get more speeches.

What you don't get is leadership.

Extra - Jennifer Rubin: "Looking for a way out."

More - Mickey Kaus on the possibilities: "It's possible that White House aides are deluded about Obama's persuasive powers. It's possible that they're deluded about the impact of invoking Senator Kennedy's legacy two weeks after his death."

Gouge them job makers

Jeff Jacoby makes a lot of sense and provides a heap of background in "Obama's soak-the-rich mentality"

Governments delude themselves when they imagine they can easily raise all the money they want by soaking the rich. The rich always have other options. When taxes grow too onerous, high earners can adjust their economic behavior. Some move to Spain to play soccer for La Liga. Others, less glamorously, cut back on their investments, forgo new business opportunities, seek out tax havens, or work fewer hours. The impact is felt not only in lower-than-expected tax revenues, but in lower rates of growth and productivity and job creation. Jobs are disproportionately created by those who have money to invest. "You can’t have employment and despise employers," Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas used to say. "No goose, no golden eggs."

Sound reasoning, I'd say. How about you guys?

Senate Democrats are revisiting proposals to raise taxes on high-income people to help pay for an overhaul of the health-care system.

Feh.

Car crash - Business Week: "After the clunker party, an auto sales hangover." Car sales soared in August by borrowing from sales for the rest of 2009. Also, can you guess which motor company most benefitted from the C4C program? It was good ol' Mom and apple pie Hyundai.

Do as I say

And I'll do it too:

Leaders should practice what they preach. It sounds obvious, says Alan Deutschman, but too few ­leaders-in business or politics-actually do it. In "Walk the Walk," Mr. Deutschman, a consultant and ­former ­Fortune magazine writer, argues that ­leaders are most effective when they rely on the power of their ­example.

As the ­expansion of McDonald's was getting ­under way in the 1950s, for instance, Ray Kroc, the company's empire builder, listed ­cleanliness among the chain's three key values (along with service and quality). But he didn't just talk cleanliness; an earlyemployee of a ­Chicago-area ­McDonald's ­remembered him personally picking up trash around the ­restaurant and scraping up gum with a putty knife. ­Message: Cleanliness counts. And: If cleaning isn't beneath me, it isn't ­beneath you.

Not as I do:

A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car - adorned with his State House license plate - in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned.

Michael J. Rodrigues’ blue Ford Crown Victoria, emblazoned with his “House 29” Massachusetts license plate, was parked outside a Granite State liquor store on Interstate-95 South over the weekend, according to a witness who provided pictures to the Herald.

Extra fun – Say Anything blog: "If government-run health care is such a great idea, why won’t members of Congress enroll their own families?"