Quick Hitters

As you probably know I am doing a little extra blogging over at BwD as Dean makes a Road Trip to Colorado. The confluence of three bloggers on one conservative blog who are also all employees of the feds got me thinking.

What is up with Democrats unwillingness to debate? Humana, an insurance company, sent its customers a TRUE MAILING, that Max Baucus' Senate Health Care bill will cut payments to seniors on the Medicare Advantage program. Then:

ABC's World News Tonight covers the controversy over Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) asking Medicare to investigate Humana for sending letters to its customers about potential Medicare Advantage cuts...

Mitch McConnell is a personal hero of mine. Anyone whose name is attached to a Supreme Court case challenging the Federal Elections Commission has got to be doing something right, see McConnell vs FEC.

Over at the WSJ, liberal columnist Thomas Frank asks essentially the same question, this time about the Health Care debate. Here is what that liberal has to say after opining that much of our recent economic troubles accrue to Bush era laissez-faire dogma. (I disagree, but who cares.)

I have concerns about the rhetoric being used as well, and about the louts and the bullies who use it. But it seems clear that Mrs. Pelosi's aim is to avoid debate when she ought to be wading into the thick of it. Her team has the arguments; it has the facts; it has gale-force historical winds at its back: Why not give back as good as you get? Why not simply beat the other side instead of complaining tearfully that they play too rough?

Frank never answers his own rhetorical questions, maybe because he can't, so he ends with this:

Conservatives, on the other hand, have been crusading nonstop since the days of Barry Goldwater. Every economic issue is a grand moral issue for them—this particular one, even in its lukewarm Senate Finance Committee version, is "a stunning assault on liberty," according to Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.)—and until liberals are prepared to contest those terms, they will have to live with a little incivility.

Darn tootin' every economic issue is a grand moral issue. Somebody needs to read the Road to Serfdom. I say this to Thomas Frank and all the other lefties, I am part of the Freedom Coalition and I'm not giving up on the idea of freedom.

Speaking of freedom, that's a word Sarah Palin is using frequently. I like her apt description of the Tea Party movement in her recent Hong Kong speech.

The “Tea Party Movement” is aptly named to remind people of the American Revolution – of colonial patriots who shook off the yoke of a distant government and declared their freedom from indifferent – elitist – rulers who limited their progress and showed them no respect. Today, Main Street Americans see Washington in similar terms.

Well said. Sarah Palin may turn out to be more effective out of office than in. Kind of a counterweight to the Goracle. I would love to see that debate.