[ Posted Friday, June 26th, 2009 – 17:07 UTC ]
Dan Froomkin's "White House Watch" column today will be the last one that appears on WashingtonPost.com. Froomkin has expressed interest in possibly moving the column elsewhere and continuing it, and I consider this a test of whether newspapers are (a.) smart enough to realize this is the way to modernize and move into the future of journalism, or (b.) dumb as a bag of hammers. WashingtonPost.com has obviously chosen the (b.) route. Because Froomkin's column is a shining example of how newspapers could migrate from their print business model to the more interactive web-based model they need to be in to survive.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 – 17:58 UTC ]
So there are going to be some ground rules that are going to apply to all insurance companies, because I think the American people understand that, too often, insurance companies have been spending more time thinking about how to take premiums and then avoid providing people coverage than they have been thinking about how can we make sure that insurance is there, health care is there when families need it.
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[ Posted Friday, June 19th, 2009 – 17:17 UTC ]
Welcome back to your weekly Friday Talking Points roundup. This week will be a bit unusual, as instead of the normal list of talking points Democrats everywhere should be using this weekend in conversations (especially with the media), I'm devoting the entire talking points segment to one single issue -- why what President Obama is doing on the situation in Iran is exactly the right thing to do, and why his hands are tied (by the ropes of American history) so that saying anything more enthusiastic than he's already said would actually be counterproductive if you support the Iranians currently marching in the streets. Because there is a giant elephant in the room of the discussion of American/Iranian relations that nobody wants to discuss, and nobody (other than Obama himself) is even admitting exists -- an elephant with the year "1953" painted on its side. But more about that later, let's take care of the weekly chores first.
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[ Posted Thursday, June 18th, 2009 – 16:21 UTC ]
The debate in Washington over healthcare reform seems to be missing an important voice: the public. Where are the crowds of people demanding better healthcare? Where are the voices of those who have healthcare horror stories to tell? Where is the grassroots effort to define the problem adequately?
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 – 16:35 UTC ]
My first choice of a headline for today's column was "Obama's Gay Honeymoon Over," but then I thought better of it. President Obama is currently trying to placate a group of supporters who are not in a mood to be impressed right now with mere incrementalism. Gay rights supporters, quite rightly, are now asking Obama point-blank: "When are you going to make good on all those promises you made to us on the campaign trail? How long are we supposed to wait?"
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[ Posted Monday, June 15th, 2009 – 17:06 UTC ]
KENNEDY: "Hello. I'm Senator Edward Kennedy, and I'd like to talk to you about an issue I've been championing for 40 years in Washington: healthcare reform."
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[ Posted Friday, June 12th, 2009 – 17:20 UTC ]
To put it another way (that is less dependent upon how readers personally interpret italics), the first point is: "Where the heck are the Democrats in the public debate about healthcare reform? I haven't been hearing much from them on the news, or the talk shows. Who is leading the effort? Who is supporting the effort? WHERE are all the Democrats out there talking about it in public?"
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[ Posted Thursday, June 11th, 2009 – 15:16 UTC ]
Tomorrow marks the end of analog television in the United States. All analog broadcasting signals will go permanently dark some time tomorrow (times vary by station). But while others are hailing the dawn of the digital television age, I have to say that this is the end of a long road which ultimately led nowhere. The opportunity lost was a big one, too -- nothing more than a complete and far-reaching reform of the way we conduct political campaigns in this country. This was a bipartisan failure, I should add -- Democrats and Republicans both bear the blame for caving to the media conglomerates' interests over the public interest.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 – 18:47 UTC ]
This column apparently shares a birthday with none other than Donald Duck, who turned 75 years old yesterday. Who knew? Yes, my column turned three years old yesterday, since my first foray into blogging happened on Huffington Post on June 9, 2006. Since I don't follow horoscopes, I have no idea what the metaphysical significance is of this column sharing the date with a duck who doesn't wear pants, so I will leave that for wiser minds to decide.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 – 15:52 UTC ]
The debate over what, exactly, "healthcare reform" means is about to hit fever pitch (so to speak), and instead of diving into the legislative details of what seems to be emerging from congressional Democrats, I would like to make a broad suggestion in how they should be framing the issue correctly. Some may call this approach naive, but I truly believe that rather than fighting for one species of reform over the other, Democrats need to first adequately define the core principle they are fighting for. Their "values" on healthcare reform, to put it another way. And while it may not be achievable this time around, I think the goal Democrats should loudly proclaim they are attempting is a very simple one: nobody should ever go bankrupt because they get sick.
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