Political News & Info

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) have never tried to hide their leftist leanings.  In fact at times each of the groups have put its progressive politics ahead of its duty to the Jewish Community.  Now these groups have a message to the Jewish Community, “If you don’t support Barack Obama, Shut The Heck Up ! On Monday, the two organizations released a joint statement asking Jews not to make Israel a political Issue The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee have joined together in an effort to encourage other national organizations, elected officials, religious leaders, community groups and individuals to rally around bipartisan support for Israel while preventing the Jewish State from becoming a wedge issue in the upcoming campaign season. Join the ADL and AJC in taking the “National Pledge for Unity on Israel” — and sign our pledge. This is the most anti-Israel administration in the 63 year history of the Jewish State.  Israel is at a crucial point in her history, she is surrounded by terrorists who are appeased by most of the world, and her historic friendship with the United States is being abused by a President who, because of incompetence or intention,  is throwing the Jewish state to the wolves. Although the prose in their pledge is pretty, its real purpose is to shut up Jews who wish to point out the failings of Barack Obama’s Israel policy. These organizations have a vested interest in ensuring that the Jews continue to vote Democratic and re-elect this president— Political Power. These same two groups never opened their mouths when Sarah Palin was dis-invited from an Anti-Ahmadinejad rally by Jewish groups trying to get Obama elected in 2008.When President Obama invited George Soros’ anti-Israel group J-street to Presidential meetings, the Zionist Organization of America was disinvited because unlike the rest of the organizations the ZOA is conservative, no one in either group stood up for bi-partisanship. Perhaps the AJC doesn’t really believe in the progressive politics it eschews and simply wants to “go with the flow,” their history is marked with a desire to stay under the radar. When Jews were dying at the hands of the Nazi’ the AJC discouraged open talk of the Holocaust, afraid that if Jews spoke out it would create a backlash lead to heightened anti-Semitism in the U.S. (Cohen, Naomi Wiener. Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1906-1966 (1972), a standard history). From 1949 to the Six-Day-War in 1967, the AJC described theme selves as “non-Zionist” afraid that support of the Jewish State would create charges of dual loyalty in the United States. As for Abe Foxman and the ADL, they have never shied away from politics before, as long as it is progressive politics. In recent years it has: Promoted politically divisive Start Treaty Supported Partial Birth and other forms of Abortion. In fact in 2008 the ADL urged both parties to adopt a pro-choice stance in their presidential platforms.  I wonder if Abe Foxman realizes not all Jews support the ADL’s pro-choice position.  I also wonder if pro-life Jews who donate to the ADL understand how their donations are being used. Ran With the Progressive PC Meme and Bashed Terrorist Fighter Geert Wilders Issued a “White Paper” promoting the progressive PR Spin about the Tea Party Movement. Calling it part of the “ New Rage in America” Refused to Recognize the Antisemitism emanating from Democratic Party’s new favorite, Occupy Wall Street, until it was embarrassed into it by BigGovernment.com. The ADL and the AJC have interesting ideas about bi-partisanship.  If it supports their leadership’s goals of maintaining their prominent position in the American progressive movement, it’s O.K. with them. To the ADL’s Abe Foxman and leaders of other Jewish organizations, this progressive goal  is a much higher priority than the safety of Israel. Matt Brooks of the RJC put it well : “An open and vigorous debate on the questions confronting our country is the cornerstone of the American electoral process. Allowing the American people to see where candidates stand, pro and con on critical issues, is the hallmark of our free and democratic political system. For this reason, the RJC will not be a signer to this pledge. “This effort to stifle debate on U.S. policy toward Israel runs counter to this American tradition. Accordingly, the RJC will not be silenced on this or any issue.” Jewish Americans, indeed all Americans are not as stupid as these groups think, they will see through the ADL and AJC attempts at stifling debate and putting their partisan progressive politics in front of the safety of Israel.

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SHAME On The ADL And AJC For Putting Progressive Politics Before Israel

Last week as Standard and Poor’s (S&P) announced the downgrade of United States credit rating from AAA to AA+ they criticized the discord in today’s political landscape. The press release that accompanied Standard and Poor’s announcement explained their frustration. We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. Rasmussen is reporting that voter confidence in America’s leaders is at an all-time low. The survey finds that only 17% of likely voters think the federal government today has the consent of the governed. The government has the consent of the governed – a foundational principle, contained in the Declaration has fallen to its lowest level measured yet. Only 8% of voters believe the average member of Congress listens to his or her constituents more than to their party leaders also a new low. Part of the reason for the low approval of the federal government is negative advertising. Studies have shown that voters hate negative ads but they are still used because, well, they work. But research has also shown that there is a boomerang effect, meaning negative political ads end up tarnishing the image of the candidate the ad is supporting and the candidate’s desired office. Sadly the news coming out of the beltway that Democratic Party operatives are already planning commercials designed to make personal attacks on candidates of the other party. Politico is reporting: Barack Obama’s aides and advisers are preparing to center the president’s reelection campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early-stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee… so the candidate who ran on “hope” in 2008 has little choice four years later but to run a slashing, personal campaign aimed at disqualifying his likeliest opponent. …The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.” “First, they’ve got to like you, and there’s not a lot to like about Mitt Romney,” said Chicago Democratic consultant Pete Giangreco, who worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign. “There’s no way to hide this guy and hide his innate phoniness.” A senior Obama adviser was even more cutting, suggesting that the Republican’s personal awkwardness will turn off voters. Romney should not feel “picked on” because U.S. News and World Report is reporting the Democrats are beginning a campaign trying to brand the Republican Party as tools of the Tea Party who they call extremists. Attempting to steal some thunder from their adversaries, Democratic leaders are trying to link the Republican presidential candidates with extremism in advance of the GOP debate and straw poll in Ames, Iowa this week. To that end, the Democratic National Committee has announced a new campaign to define the 2012 Republican candidates as too closely tied to the conservative Tea Party. The DNC is sponsoring a web video making that case, and DNC Press Secretary Melanie Roussell told reporters in an e-mail yesterday, “When it comes to the GOP presidential candidates and what America will hear from them in Ames this week, they have extreme aims to please the far-right, Tea Party wing of their party and they are following the extreme agenda of congressional Republicans instead of leading. All this while our country’s future hangs in the balance.” As examples, she mentioned cutting Medicare and giving tax breaks to the rich. Negative political advertising is as old as Presidential politics itself and every political party has relied upon it somewhat. The first competitive Presidential campaign was John Adams campaigns against Thomas Jefferson in 1796. Adams slammed Jefferson as an atheist and a “mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” Adams was condemned as a monarchist who sought to become a king; he was also branded as a fool and a hypocrite. Now that is nasty. Just because negative advertising has been around for 215 years doesn’t make it right or desirable. America is arguably facing its biggest economic crisis in her short history. Even during the Great Depression the full faith of the United States credit was never questioned, but it is questioned today. Voters are demanding a full and rational discussion of the important issues facing the country. Yet 15 months before the election and possibly a year before the GOP will pick a candidate, the Democratic Party is already ignoring the issues and waging the politics of personal destruction, guaranteeing the loser in the 2012 election will be the American people.

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Democrats Ramp Up the Politics of Personal Destruction

Hold on to your hats — here’s where I compare Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. Perhaps I should explain. When it comes to politics and presidents, everyone’s always looking for precedents. For parallels. Which is why you’ve been hearing so many references lately to 1994. “This is just like 1994!” the pundits cry. “A first-term Democratic president’s first midterm election, and the voters are really angry, and they take it out on the president’s party, and the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in generations!” Not a bad comparison. Decision 2010 may turn out to look a lot like Decision 1994. Then there’s the 1980 comparison; I’ve been leaning toward the 1980 comparison lately. Another first-term Democrat in the White House, running for re-election this time, with a terrible economy at home and endless frustration abroad (the Iranian hostage crisis, for instance). But the parallel for me isn’t the Democratic president going down to defeat in November, but all the Senate Democrats who went down with him. See, anytime you have a slew of competitive seats, there’s a tendency to say, “Well, OK, it’s a bad year for our side, so maybe we won’t do as well as the other guys. A dozen seats up for grabs? Maybe we’ll only hang on to five.” But it doesn’t always work that way — and it certainly didn’t work that way in 1980. The results weren’t “a few more here, a few less here.” The results were a virtual sweep. Practically every competitive Senate race in 1980 fell the same way — to the Republicans. They took control. Many of the contests were close, but in almost all of them, the result was the same. A Democratic loss, a Republican pickup. Which to say: When it goes bad, it can go really bad. So 1980 isn’t a terrible comparison either. It’s hardly beyond imagining, even with the likes of a Sharron Angle or a Rand Paul or a Christine O’Donnell on the ballot, that the GOP runs the table — that it picks up the 10 seats it needs to grab the Senate. Unless, that is, the best comparison of all is to 1972 — but not the way you think. This is the part where Barack Obama gets to play Richard Nixon. In 1972, it was a Republican president — Nixon — running for re-election against George McGovern. George McGovern was that year’s darling of the left flank of the Democratic party — against the war in Vietnam, against a bigger military budget, in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That sort of thing. Equally important, the McGovern campaign was… untidy. Undisciplined. Liberated women. Hairy kids. Multiple skin tones. A nominating convention so blissfully self-indulgent that by the time the candidate got his moment in the sun, it was the middle of the night. And — here’s the point, here’s the possible parallel: It took the Nixon campaign roughly three milliseconds to make its move on the rest of the Democrats. “Your party has been captured by the McGovernite wing,” the Republicans declared. “You’re every bit as appalled as we are.” “It’s not your party anymore,” Nixon and his pals told those disaffected Dems. “Come find a new home with us .” And millions did just that — they crossed party lines for the first time in their lives. They voted for Nixon and the Republicans. Many of them never came back. “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party,” they told themselves. “The Democratic Party left me. ” You think there aren’t millions of sensible, middle-of-the-road Republicans today who are looking at the sudden rise of the Tea Party — hearing the ravings of the Angles and Pauls and O’Donnells, the Palins and the Becks — and thinking exactly the same thing? “This isn’t my party anymore.” So the question is: How many milliseconds should it take for Obama and friends to put out the welcome mat? Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.

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Rick Horowitz: No, Really — Dems Should Party Like It’s 1972

Davis Guggenheim’s 2010 film Waiting for Superman is a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions. The film suggests the problems in education are the fault of teachers and teacher unions alone, and it asserts that the solution to those problems is a greater focus on top-down instruction driven by test scores. It rejects the inconvenient truth that our schools are being starved of funds and other necessary resources, and instead opts for an era of privatization and market-driven school change. Its focus effectively suppresses a more complex and nuanced discussion of what it might actually take to leave no child behind, such as a living wage, a full-employment economy, the de-militarization of our schools, and an education based on the democratic ideal that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. The film is positioned to become a leading voice in framing the debate on school reform, much like Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth did for the discussion of global warming, and that’s heartbreaking. I’m not categorically opposed to charter schools; they can and often do allow a group of creative and innovative teachers, parents, and communities to build schools that work for their kids and are free of the deadening bureaucracy of most districts. These schools can be catalysts for even larger changes. But there are really two main opposing positions in the “charter movement” — it’s not really a movement, by the way, but rather a diverse range of different projects. On one side are those who hope to use the charter option to operate effective small schools that are autonomous from districts. On the other side are the corporate powerhouses and the ideological opponents of all things public who see this as a chance to break the teacher’s unions and to privatize education. Superman is a shill for the latter. Caring, thoughtful teachers are working hard in both types of schools. But their efforts are being framed and defined, even undermined, by powerful forces that have seized the mantle of “reform.” The film dismisses with a side comment the inconvenient truth that our schools are criminally underfunded. Money’s not the answer, it glibly declares. Nor does it suggest that students would have better outcomes if their communities had jobs, health care, decent housing, and a living wage. Particularly dishonest is the fact that Guggenheim never mentions the tens of millions of dollars of private money that has poured into the Harlem Children’s Zone, the model and superman we are relentlessly instructed to aspire to. Those funds create full family services and a state of the art school. In a sleight of hand, the film magically shifts focus, turning to “bad teaching” as the problem in the poor schools while ignoring these millions of dollars that make people clamor to get into the Promise Academy. As a friend of mine said, “Well, at least now we know what it costs.” It is so sad to see hundreds of families lined up at these essentially private schools with a public charter cover, praying to get in. Who wouldn’t want to get in? Families are paraded in front of the cameras as they wait for an admission lottery in an auditorium where the winners’ names are pulled from a hat and read aloud, while the losing families trudge out in tears with cameras looming in their faces. After dismissing funding as a factor, Superman rolls out the drum-beat of attacks on teachers as the first and really the only problem. Except for a few patronizing pats on the head for educators, the film describes school failure as boiling down to bad teachers. Relying on old clichés that single out the handful of loser teachers anyone could dig up, Waiting for Superman asserts that the unions are the boogey man. In his perfect world, there would be no unions — we could drive teacher wages even lower, run schools like little corporations, and race to the bottom just as we have in the manufacturing sector. Imagining that the profit motive works best, the privatizers propose merit pay for teachers whose students test well. Such a scheme would only lead to adult cheating (which has already started), to well-connected teachers packing their classes with privileged kids, and to an undermining of the very essence of effective schools — collaboration between teachers, generous community building with students. It is interesting to note that Arne Duncan’s kids, as well as the Obama kids, attended the University of Chicago Lab Schools — where teachers had small classes, good pay, and, yes, a union. Students did not concentrate on rote learning and mindless drill and skill or test prep. They were offered in part an exploratory, questioning curriculum. The school for the Obama kids in D.C., Sidwell Friends, also has a unionized faculty. But apparently the masses need to have sweatshop schools. Waiting for Superman sets up AFT president Randi Weingarten as its Darth Vader — accompanying her appearance on the screen with dire background music. They tell us that the teachers unions have put $50 million into election campaigns over the last ten years, essentially buying politicians. Actually, this number is a pittance compared to what corporations and the rich throw in. It is less than Meg Whitman spent of her own money in one run for governor of California. But the film carefully avoids interviewing Diane Ravitch, the lead organizer of the Education Trust and No Child Left Behind efforts who has been lately writing and speaking about her realization that these reforms have had a disastrous effect on schools and teaching and learning. When African American and Chicano Latino families in the 1960′s were demanding quality education and access to the resources of the best schools, they were also rejecting the myths about blackness meaning culturally deprived. Today that social revolution has been effectively set back. Schools are more segregated today than before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954; nothing is said about that. Black and Brown students are being suspended and expelled, searched and criminalized; not a word. In place of a movement for transforming power relationships in our society, privatizers and corporate managers step up to define the problem — proposing a revolution that is anything but revolutionary. A strong project of education transformation would recognize the funds of knowledge urban students come to school with; it would honor the literacy and language practices of the community. It would support a curriculum of questioning, as students examine their world and imagine ways to make it better. It would put front and center the need to build learning communities, to motivate students to want to learn and believe there was something worth learning. It would create an engaged learning experience for all students, not just the handful who learn to endure boredom and insult in hopes of high income later. In the hands of these so-called reformers, though, the only goal is to train urban students to be obedient followers; they never propose a project that transforms and empowers communities, only holding out the promise for a few exceptional students to escape the ghetto. You can see white middle class audience members sighing, comforted to know that everyone really wants to be like us; that everyone who is not like us is tragic. The film bubbles over with terms like escape and rescue, promoting a liberal charity mentality that is never in solidarity the local community, only regards it as something dysfunctional that needs to be controlled. In addition, Waiting for Superman promotes the idea that we are in a dire war for US dominance in the world. The poster advertising the film shows a nightmarish battlefield in stark grey, then a little white girl sitting at a desk is dropped in the midst of it. The text: “The fate of our country won’t be decided on a battlefield. It will be determined in a classroom.” This is a common theme of the so-called reformers: we are at war with India and China and we have to out-math them and crush them so that we can remain rich and they can stay in the sweatshops. But really, who declared this war? When did I as a teacher sign up as an officer in this war? And when did that 4th grade girl become a soldier in it? I have nothing against the Chinese, the Indians, or anyone else in the world — I wish them well. Instead of this Global Social Darwinist fantasy, perhaps we should be helping kids imagine a world of global cooperation, sustainable economies, and equity Waiting for Superman accepts a theory of learning that is embarrassing in its stupidity. In one of its many little cartoon segments, it purports to show how kids learn. The top of a child’s head is cut open and a jumble of factoids is poured in. Ouch! Oh, and then the evil teacher union and regulations stop this productive pouring project. The film-makers betray no understanding of how people actually learn, the active and agentive participation of students in the learning process. They ignore the social construction of knowledge, the difference between deep learning and rote memorization. The film unquestioningly bows down to standardized tests as the measure of student knowledge, school success. Such a testing regime bullies aside deeper learning, authentic assessment, portfolio and project based learning. Yes, deeper learning like this is difficult to measure with simple numbers — but we can’t let the desire for simple numbers simplify the educational project. Extensive research has demonstrated definitively that standardized testing reproduces inequities, marginalizes English Language Learners and those who do not grow up speaking a middle class vernacular, dumbs down the curriculum, and misinform policy. It is the wisdom of the misinformed, accepted against educational evidence and research. Never mind, they declare: we will define the future of education anyway. Sadly, the narrow and blinkered reasoning in Waiting for Superman is behind the No Child Left Behind disaster rebranded as Race to the Top. Don’t believe the hype. We can and we must do education, and educational change, much differently. We could develop an economy that supported communities which were well-resourced and democratic. We can right now create pathways in which all kids have a reasonable prospect of an honorable, interesting job in their future. And if democracy and the future society concern us at all, we can and we must create schools which unleash students’ creativity, imagination, and initiative.

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Rick Ayers: An Inconvenient Superman: Davis Guggenheim’s New Film Hijacks School Reform

Mike Castle was the kind of governor who would answer his own door in the Delaware Statehouse if you knocked on it. He was the kind of guy who would show up randomly at a fund-raiser at a local bar in Dover on a short-notice invitation, and pose for pictures with the soused patrons. He was the guy who was going to be running the state forever, either as a governor, U.S. representative or senator, because that’s what they do in Delaware. Whether your name is Biden, Carper or Castle, and regardless of your political affiliation, it’s now how you govern that’s important. It’s your name, and when your term is up, you simply trade places. This was the briefing I got when I worked as a reporter in Delaware back in the early 1990s. In a shaky world controlled by a volatile electorate, Delawareans were always consistent, I was told, and preferred comfort over creativity. At least that was the case until Tuesday, when the state that once declared itself the “small wonder” of the United States left people wondering, and gave Christine O’Donnell — the one with the creationism ideas who didn’t pay her taxes once — the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate over Castle. Now Delaware has exposed itself as something of a trend-setter, even a cage-rattler that could either radically change the electoral map or do enough damage to the Republican party that could help the Democrats remain in power in the U.S. Senate. What I’m seeing, however, is an attitude that’s consistent with what I saw 20 years ago, when I worked in the state’s southern counties and met people who felt a real disconnect with the powers-that-be. I’ve long sensed that the people who enjoy NASCAR at Dover Downs or boating and fishing in the Delaware Bay, or even those who run the Bed and Breakfasts in Rehoboth Beach and complain about rainy summers that kill business, have long desired to have some kind of say in the state’s entrenched political world. On Tuesday, they got it — even if the result leads to the same kind results the state has seen for years, and ultimately gives the Senate seat to another Democrat whose voting record will be just like that of the liberal Joe Biden and Tom Carper and, yes, the moderate Castle. But at least they had their say, and the nation’s second-smallest state and its population can at least say this: They made a statement. For many years, those same three politicians simply traded places, whether they were Democrat or Republican, because the people who did vote voted for people they know and trust. For the past two decades, they were Biden, the Democratic vice president and former senator; Carper, the Democratic former governor and representative and now a senator; and Castle, the Republican former governor and now a representative. I worked for The Delaware State News from 1990 to 1993, back when Castle was the governor, Biden was senator and Carper was the at-large U.S. House representative. I used to hear snickers when any one of them appeared at an event “downstate,” showing up in their khakis for a log-rolling contest or a grape-stomping shindig when everybody else was wearing jeans and overalls. I used to hear a lot of snide remarks about them from the people who camped out in the Dover Downs, waiting for the next race to start, even if it was two days away. I’d hear the jokes made by people at a tavern called “Sambos” in Leipsic, or at the old Heartbreak Hotel in Bowers Beach, right along the bay, where the town hall was once housed in a mobile home. Some of them had some colorful opinions about everything, particularly on race and religion, that made O’Donnell look like Teddy Kennedy. I always sensed an undercurrent of frustration from a state that many believe shouldn’t be a state. I sensed a sense of resentment from people who were considered a step-child to Maryland and really everywhere else. The fact that the same three people were going through a political revolving door only seem to add to the frustration, because it made people wonder: Can this state ever make a bold statement? There were many people who trusted the big three; but they also didn’t know them, they didn’t feel any connection with them and, frankly, didn’t seem to care about them. The state is like many states, divided in two. All of Delaware’s power brokers are based in the north, and Castle himself, when he was governor, often took his business to Wilmington instead of the state capital of Dover, because that’s where most of the people live, work and do business. Of the corporations that make up the Fortune 500, more than one-half are incorporated in Delaware, largely because the state has some of the most flexible corporation statutes in the nation. Wilmington, at least, has a sense of urban vibrancy that never really seemed to spread to past the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. During my three years there, both Carper and Castle made occasional visits. I only met Biden once, at the Delaware State Fair, just after I saw Milli Vanilli “perform” onstage during the summer of 1990. Carper was there, too, watching his kids run around. I remember thinking how nice it was to see that, but then how ugly it was to hear people making under-their-breath remarks about him, just as they did whenever they saw any politician come their way. Now I think, geez, maybe that’s what explains Christine O’Donnell. Instead of making under-their-breath remarks about the mid-term elections, Delaware voters spoke loudly. They made a big statement.

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Tom Davis: Small Wonder

CNN “fact-check” finds Ohio Democratic blogger’s attack on Republican Kasich was wrong.

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CNN’s John King Gives John Kasich Some Fact-Checking Help

Time.com – Democrats know they can’t be too confident about the Delaware Senate race, but they insist they aren’t underestimating the Tea Party threat this time

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Delaware: Can Coons Hold Off the Tea Party’s O’Donnell?
(Time.com)

Oh my:Ohio Senate:Republican Rob Portman holds a 55 – 35 percent lead over Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher among likely voters in the race for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat, while President Barack Obama has a 60 – 38 percent…

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Guy Benson: Game, Set, Match in Ohio?

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty lost the Democratic primary, but the city’s Republicans want him as their candidate.

JONATHAN COHN has been writing about the latest polling on this spring’s health care reforms, and what it means for Democrats. Kevin Drum has some more thoughts here . Here’s how I think about this, drawing mostly on the same polling data they’re working with. 1. Most voters don’t like the Democrats’ health-care reforms . (I was wrong about this. I thought approval would rise over time.) 2. Most voters think the Democrats’ health-care reforms will reduce the average person’s costs for health care and insurance, expand coverage for the uninsured, improve quality of care, and regulate insurance companies so consumers will have better protection. 3. A large minority of voters think the Democrats’ health-care reforms should be repealed . 4. When voters who want to repeal the Democrats’ health-care reforms find out that this would mean insurance companies could refuse coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, half of them don’t want to repeal the reforms anymore. (See above.) The Democrats are going to have to draw some lessons from the electoral drubbing they’re going to receive in November. In these situations, telling yourself that you’ve simply been misunderstood, that you didn’t get your message out clearly enough, can be a tempting way out. Or, in some cases, it’s not a tempting way out. It’s actually one of the most trenchant self-criticisms you can make. In the case of health-care reform, the Democrats have pretty clearly failed to communicate what their reforms are. It’s frankly amazing that after a year-long health-care debate that dominated the mainstream media and blogosphere, many Americans don’t seem to know that the Affordable Care Act bars insurers from discriminating on the basis of pre-existing conditions. But this isn’t just a superficial public-relations issue for the Democrats. It’s the product of a deeper malady affecting the party. Democrats seem to be unable to craft policies that deliver clear results in a fashion which voters can understand and vote on. That’s because the policy-making process that takes place among Democratic legislators is so open to compromise, amendment, interest-group giveaways, and bank-shottery that the party’s big programmes end up lacking coherence, not just in their details, but in their basic goals and values. Of course, major legislation is necessarily complex. But for all its flaws and complexity, the Bush Medicare Part D reform of 2003 can be summed up in four words: Medicare pays for drugs. The Democrats should have been able to sum up their health-care reform in five words: Every American gets health insurance. But they made concessions from the outset that put that goal out of reach, then launched into a prolonged series of increasingly byzantine compromises on a myriad of issues, and in the end their reform’s accomplishments can only be described with bland qualifiers: “makes insurance more affordable for millions,” “makes a good start towards bending down the cost curve on Medicare,” and so on. Understandably, many voters don’t know what the reforms have accomplished, apart from engendering a vicious year-long debate full of deals that mainly seemed based on political considerations rather than substantive ones. Health-care reform was supposed to be a defining moment for Democrats, but Democrats contorted themselves into a bill that’s extremely difficult to explain. And when you fail to define yourself in clear terms, you let your opponents define you instead.

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Lessons for Democrats from health reform