Yearly Archives: 2009

Clowning around with health care

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Maybe you can help me out with something. I was driving down Sunset Blvd. in West Columbia this morning, and sorta kinda saw something for a fraction of a second, and I’m not sure I know what I saw. If you saw it, maybe you can clear this up.

I was driving past Joe Wilson’s office, and as I whiffed by, happened to glance at a clump of three people (at least I think there were three) loitering on the sidewalk at the corner.  One was sitting on a bicycle. I don’t remember what the second person was doing. The third was holding up a sign that said “Stop Clowning around with our Health Care.” I think. We’re talking split-second here, and I turned away before any of it registered on my mind.

The person holding the sign was wearing a blue outfit with white designs on it from neck to toe. It may have been a clown outfit, but I’m infering that from the sign. He or she may also have been wearing clown makeup, but I have no idea at all about that, because his/her face was blocked by the sign during that tenth of a second or whatever it was.

As I drove on, a number of questions occurred to me:

  • Did I read the sign right?
  • Was the person dressed as a clown? Possibly not. The power of suggestion from what I think the sign said overwhelmed what other information was available to me.
  • Were the other people involved in the demonstration, or just curious passersby?
  • Was this person working for Joe Wilson, and saying President Obama was “clowning” with our health care? (If so, hasn’t Joe called enough attention to himself?)
  • Was this person protesting that Joe Wilson was the one “clowning around with our health care?” (I’ve noticed that one of the favorite epithets hurled at Joe from leftist bloggers is “ass clown,” for some reason) If so, he or she was going to a lot of trouble to send a confused message. You’d have to stop and talk to find out, which not many are in a position to do at that stretch of road at that time.

I was in a hurry to get downtown just then, but I went back that way later to check. No one there. No clown. No guy on a bike. No third person who barely registered. All gone. Must have been a drive-time thing. Or my imagination. I wonder what I saw, and what it was supposed to mean?

Anyway, right after I saw them, as those questions were going through my mind, I reached a stretch where orange roadwork cones were jamming the traffic into one lane. I found myself behind a big white pickup truck. It had a bumper sticker on it with a message that there was no mistaking:

OBAMA

SUCKS

Such is the state of political discourse these days in the 2nd District…

Eight years ago today

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SEPT. 11 ANNIVERSARY

What is there to say on the 8th anniversary of the attacks on America? I suppose I could say the same things I said on the 7th, and add what I said a couple of days before that.

Or I can quote what President Obama said today:

“Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and who plot against us still,” Mr. Obama said. “In defense of our nation, we will never waver.”

And add what he said back in August, to a VFW gathering in Phoenix:

The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight and we won’t defeat it overnight, but we must never forget: This is not a war of choice; it is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda could plot to kill more Americans.

With more than a few out there faltering, I thought it would be good to bring those words to the fore.

SEPT. 11 ANNIVERSARY

Sorry, but calling the president a ‘liar’ is out of bounds for BOTH parties

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Sigh. I really don’t want to have this argument with friends, especially not on the anniversary of 9/11, but I can’t let what Kathryn said over on Facebook stand without responding.

It was in reply to this post back here, in which I asserted that Democrats drag themselves down to Joe Wilson’s level when they respond to him by saying, “Bush lied.” I had thought it would be a teachable moment, in which I could say, See how bad y’all sounded over the past four years? See what it’s like when someone refuses to respect the president for partisan causes, declaring him and all he says illegitimate?

My good friend Kathryn responded:

Wait–Bush did lie, and got us into a war, and Obama didn’t lie last night at all–quite the contrary, and Wilson knew it according to the papers. Wilson was out of line and Democrats’ saying things today doesn’t put us on the level of a tantrum during the President’s speech either. Sorry.

To that, another friend, Randy Ewart, added:

I concur with Fenner – well said!

You know, I’d hoped we’d put this behind us when Bush went home to Texas. I certainly heaved a sigh of relief. I never liked the guy. I always resented the fact that he was president, when it should have been John McCain. (Remember how South Carolina ill-served the nation back in 2000?)

But the eight years of hatred that Democrats spewed at the guy, starting from the very beginning, with the Long Count in Florida, was an ugly thing to behold. And yes, it started that early. I remember a couple of conversations I had with Mike Fitts back in the summer of 2001, asking if he could explain the vitriol to me. It was obvious that Dems didn’t just disagree with the guy; they hated him. Which wasn’t good for the country. Yes, I had seen and decried the venom that Republicans had directed at Bill Clinton well before he’d had a chance to do anything to deserve it, too — I particularly recall the bumper stickers saying “Don’t Blame Me — I Voted for Bush” that cropped up on cars before his 1993 inauguration. But the reaction to Bush seemed to go even a step farther — and this was well before the “sins” that Democrats usually list when explaining their distaste for the man.

Oh, and I don’t recall Bush lying. Yes, I realize it’s an article of faith among y’all that he DID (what was it again — the WMD that he and everyone else firmly believed were there in Iraq, seeing as how he had actually USED some of them — or something else?), just as it is an article of faith among Republicans such as Joe Wilson that this president is lying when he tries to set the record straight. It is so important to them to conflate their twin bugaboos — “socialized medicine” and illegal immigration — that it is heresy for anyone (particularly the Chief Heretic) to suggest otherwise, heresy so foul that it wrings furious cries from their lips at inopportune moments.

(Just an aside: Isn’t it ironic that two men who have grabbed national attention by calling these two presidents liars are both named Joe Wilson? Oh, and that other Joe Wilson was wrong, too — the intel he brought back from Niger did NOT conclusively refute the yellowcake reports, according to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report.)

And I’m not even going to get into that “got us into a war” stuff, except to say that we were already IN a war. Argue whether we should have reopened the front in Iraq when we did, fine. But we were already in a war.

I know y’all mean what you say, but I’m sorry — I see an obvious symmetry between Joe calling this president a liar and y’all calling the last one the same.Y’all have your perspective as Democrats, and Joe has his as a Republican. And I have mine as founder of the UnParty, so consider the source.

Joe’s sorry, but he’s not sorry… In fact, he wants you to reward him by sending him money

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You might say that Joe Wilson’s behavior last night was a case of politics-as-usual — the never-ending partisanship for its own sake — taken to a new low.

And today, Joe is continuing as though he had done nothing wrong, and in fact asks you to send him money to reinforce his behavior:

Today I need your help more than ever before. I’ve been under attack by the liberal left for months because of my opposition to their policies, especially government-run healthcare. They’ve run commercials in my home district and flooded my office with phone calls and protestors. They’ve done everything they can to quiet my very vocal opposition to more government interference in our lives. Now, it’s gotten even worse.

But I will not stop fighting against their policies that will only lead to more government interference, more spending, and higher deficits.

Will you stand with me today by making a donation to my campaign? If you do, I’ll be able to fight back against the attacks by the liberal left.

But what about his apology, you ask? Well, he addresses that:

I am also frustrated by this, but watching my Democratic colleagues in Congress scoff at the protests of their constituents has made me even more infuriated. Unfortunately I let that emotion get the best of me and I reacted by speaking out during the President’s speech. I should not have disrespected the President by responding in that manner.

But I am not sorry for fighting back against the dangerous policies of liberal Democrats. America’s working families deserve to have their views represented in Washington, and I will do so with civility. But I will not back down.

Now, I need your help. Last night, the liberals used my outburst as a rallying cry behind my Democratic opponent. Some of the nation’s most liberal online activists have helped him raise over $400,000 in just a few short hours.

Look, Joe, I don’t like it that Rob Miller has pulled in all that money as a result of your foolishness, either. Rob Miller was a weak candidate for Congress, and having a treasure chest dumped in his lap this way could set him up to be your only viable opposition again next year, with similar results. There are (surely) better-qualified people in the 2nd District (not me, but somebody), and they are liable to be scared off by Miller sitting atop a mountain of money. But who made that happen? YOU did.

And the remedy for that is not to send money to you… That would be a logical response only if one believes that this never-ending left-right warfare, the very dynamic that caused you to act as you did last night, is a good thing, something we want to keep supporting with our cash.

And no sane American should want that.

Pants on Fire: Who’s lying and who’s not on health care and illegal immigrants

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Early this morning, I got an e-mail from Jim Clyburn’s office pointing me to this St. Petersburg Times fact-check site, which rated claims that Obamacare would institute free health care for illegal immigrants in its “Pants on Fire” category:

Finally, we consulted with Jennifer Tolbert, an independent health care analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan foundation that studies health care reform. Tolbert has read and analyzed all the major health proposals, including those of the Republicans, and the foundation provides point-by-point analyses of the plans on its Web site.

We’re hardened, battle-scarred fact-checkers, so false claims in e-mails don’t really surprise us anymore. But we sent Tolbert a copy of the latest from our in-box, and she was none too pleased.

“It’s awful,” she said. “It’s flat-out, blatant lies. It’s unbelievable to me how they can claim to reference the legislation and then make claims that are blatantly false.”

The claim that the bill provides free health care for illegal immigrants is particularly egregious, Tolbert said. “No one’s provided with free health care. That’s ridiculous,” she said.

We looked for promises of free health care for immigrants and found nothing. So we’ve rated this claim Pants on Fire!

Then, this afternoon, I ran across this CNN Truth Squad item, which found the following after Sen. Ben Cardin was jeered for saying his bill would not cover illegals:

The bill, HR 3200, would set up a health insurance “exchange,” in which consumers could compare policies and choose a plan. It would create a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers in that exchange, and extend subsidies for coverage to people who aren’t already covered by employers or federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

It specifically bars illegal immigrants from receiving those subsidies. Section 246, which is included in the part of the bill that sets up the exchange, forbids payments “on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”

But when Cardin said undocumented workers “will not be in this bill,” he appears to have missed one point: It may require them to buy their own coverage.

That’s the conclusion of the Congressional Research Service, which issued a report on the topic this week. According to the CRS, noncitizens who can be considered “resident aliens” under U.S. tax law would have to buy insurance — and unlike immigration laws, the tax code doesn’t distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

That last part makes sense to me. After all, we’re already spending millions unnecessarily because of uninsured people — legal and illegal, foreign and native-born — are getting free care at emergency rooms, and the cost is passed on to the rest of us.

In fact, the idea of making health insurance mandatory — like auto insurance in SC — is one of the things I like best about what the president had to say last night (and probably what my libertarian friends like least). The bigger the pool the smaller the risk for each individual, and pretty much everybody will need health care sometime, so it makes no sense to let anyone opt out.

One question I don’t have the answer to — how the Cardin bill relates to what the president was pitching. I’m not sure about the correlation, although I can tell you that I got to the CNN fact-check from a page about the Wilson outburst. Can anyone help me on that?

And does anyone have any other reliable fact-checking sites to pass on?

I’m sorry to see this, Adam…

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I’ve long enjoyed reading Adam Fogle‘s Palmetto Scoop (and not just because I love the “Office Space” allusion of his “TPS reports“).

So I’m sorry to see that Adam is offering (for free, at least — he’s not trying to make money off of this) “I’m With Joe Wilson” T-shirts, to conservatives who “wish their Congressman would be as bold as Wilson.”

The blogosphere is a place where we can have fun, a place for irony, for satire, for all sorts of things that might have been out of place in your granddaddy’s news source. But here’s a situation in which I feel compelled to channel what Tom Wolfe called The Victorian Gent:

It was as if the press in America, for all its vaunted independence, were a great colonial animal, an animal made up of countless clustered organisms responding to a central nervous system. In the late 1950’s (as in the late 1970’s) the animal seemed determined that in all matters of national importance the proper emotion, the seemly sentiment, the fitting moral tone, should be established and should prevail…

Wolfe meant to deride the Gent as a hypocritical creature. But here’s a case where we need him, because there is such a thing as a correct reaction to Joe Wilson’s behavior last night. It is to be deplored, not celebrated. Joe Wilson knows that; it’s why he apologized.

And until I saw this, I would have thought that Adam Fogle knew that, too.

Graham hits the wrong note

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I was surprised, and disappointed, by this release this morning:

Statement from Senator Lindsey Graham on President Obama’s Health Care Address to the Nation

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made this statement tonight after the presidential address.

“I was incredibly disappointed in the tone of his speech. At times I found his tone to be overly combative and believe he behaved in a manner beneath the dignity of the office. I fear his speech tonight has made it more difficult — not less — to find common ground.

“He appeared to be angry at his critics and disappointed the American people were not buying the proposals he has been selling. The president’s confrontational demeanor increased the emotional and political divide. I hope the President will learn that true bipartisanship begins with mutual respect. Criticism of a public official is to be expected and not all criticism is demagoguery.

“When it comes to the public option, the President is either being disingenuous or misinformed. The public option, contrary to the president’s claims, will eventually lead to a government takeover of our health care system.

“One could easily be led to believe tonight’s speech is the beginning of a ‘go it alone’ strategy. If the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats go down this path and push a bill on the American people they do not want, it could be the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency.”

On a Member of Congress Accusing the President of Telling a ‘Lie’:

“The president’s combative tone did not justify a Member of Congress shouting out ’you lie.’ Our nation’s president deserves to be treated with respect It was inappropriate remark and I am glad an apology has been made.”

#####

I’m proud of Sen. Graham, and of John McCain, for so clearly and unequivocally calling Joe Wilson down for his insupportable behavior. But given that Joe DID what he did, and any commentary on the president’s speech is unfortunately bound to be considered within that context, Lindsey’s release this morning just seems way off-base.

You’re “incredibly disappointed” by the president’s tone? The president was “overly combative?” He behaved in “a manner beneath the dignity of the office?” The president’s demeanor “increased the emotional and political divide?” He’s the one who needs to learn a lesson about “mutual respect?”

Say what?

This was definitely not the morning to release a statement like that.

Such is my respect for Sen. Graham that whenever I find myself disagreeing with him (or Joe Lieberman, or John McCain, or Joe Riley), I stop and think again: Could I be wrong on this? So I analyze my own reaction. I think, Maybe the president was too combative. Maybe I didn’t notice it because I’m so completely fed up with the lies and obstructionism that are threatening to kill our hopes for a decent health care system in this country yet again. Maybe that’s what makes me think the president was, if anything, overly deferential to those who don’t give a damn about our health care, but want to see this issue be Obama’s “Waterloo,” because partisan advantage is more important to them than the good of the nation…

So I run those thoughts through my head, and then I think, Nah, this time Lindsey’s just wrong. That can happen, you know…

So should I run for Congress now?

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The answer to the above question is an emphatic “No!” I mean, I need a job, but let’s not get carried away — I don’t need one badly enough to dive into all that partisan foolishness in Washington.

But I offer the question, upon which I elaborate in the above video, as an illustration of the kinds of crazy thoughts that can occur to one when faced with such displays as the one Joe Wilson put on last night.

I hear that in response to Joe’s acting out, his opponent in the last election, Rob Miller, pulled in buckets of campaign contributions since last night. Rob Miller is a nice young man, and I’m truly grateful for his service to his country in combat as a United States Marine, but he was a decidedly unimpressive congressional candidate in ’08.

Surely there’s somebody out there, someone better than Rob Miller and far better than me, who can offer us a real choice in 2010. Surely…

See how bad it sounds, Democrats?

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A number of Democrats — well-meaning folk, mostly — have been showing their own fannies over on Twitter and Facebook by responding to Joe Wilson by saying, “Bush lied.” Yes, they really are. You push this partisan button on them, and they come out with that automatically. Examples:

  • Where was Joe when W was standing there lying through his teeth about WMD, etc?
  • Isn’t yelling You Lie! at Obama after 8 years of Bush like requesting Freebird after Lynard Skynard has left the stadium?

Do they not see that, rather than  highlighting Joe’s sin, they are demonstrating that they’re on his level? Can’t they stop and realize, “Oh, that’s what WE sounded like for the past 8 years… gosh, that’s embarrassing.”

But they don’t. They actually believe that when THEY do it, they’re standing up for truth and right.

When I see stuff like this — Joe’s outburst; the response of many Democrats — I lose hope for my country. This is what will cause our noble experiment in self-government to fail.

But then I’m encouraged when I read this Tweet from Anton Gunn, an Obama acolyte who truly believes in bipartisanship:

The level of partisanship is off the meter today. People don’t get it. If you row backwards and I row forward, we just spin in circles.

Thanks, Anton. We needed that.

Whatever it is, they’re against it

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Last night, before I had heard what Joe Wilson had done (I had heard the hubbub, but neither made out “You lie!” not identified the shouter), I was already complaining about the far more civil, formal, GOP response.

The thing is, I always hate listening to those things. I hated them when Bush was president, and Clinton before him. Always just a pointless, nonconstructive exercise in perpetual partisan polarization. Does your party want to be heard during presidential addresses? Well then win the next presidential election.

Rather than having the opposition statement, the networks should just run the Groucho Marx clip, which says the same thing more honestly and more entertainingly: “I don’t know what they have to say; it makes no difference anyway: Whatever it is, I’m against it!” In fact, let’s go ahead and reproduce the lyrics in full:

[Groucho]
I don’t know what they have to say,
It makes no difference anyway,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I’m against it.

Your proposition may be good,
But let’s have one thing understood,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it.

I’m opposed to it,
On general principle, I’m opposed to it.

[chorus] He’s opposed to it.
In fact, indeed, that he’s opposed to it!

[Groucho]
For months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night to morn,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
And I’ve kept yelling since I first commenced it,
I’m against it!

It’s even, of all things, more gentlemanly than what we see from Washington these days. Who would have dreamed, ere now, that Groucho Marx, the master insult artist, could give civility lessons to South Carolina congressmen?

Seriously, if the opposition party — whichever one it happens to be at the moment — would simply surrender its response time and let the TV folk run this clip instead, I would think much more of that party than I do now.

What got into Joe Wilson tonight?

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In the hour or so after the president’s speech, my Blackberry wouldn’t stop buzzing. The Tweets came fast and furious as everyone discussed Joe Wilson’s outrageous behavior tonight. He was the guy who shouted, “You lie!” to the president of the United States during a joint address to Congress.

Which was, let’s face it, a new low in the annals of partisanship in America.

My wife was startled to hear it, saying, “I thought he was more mild-mannered than that.”

He is. But he was under the influence of a particularly insidious drug. It’s the same one that Jim DeMint was on when he spoke hopefully of the health care debate being Obama’s “Waterloo.”

Politicians in Washington, and increasingly right here at home, are so high on the frisson of perpetual partisan warfare that they find themselves thinking things, saying things and doing things that they wouldn’t think, say, and do otherwise. The positive reinforcement they get for it is considerable. Even as Democrats were beside themselves with indignation over Joe’s outburst, some of the more extreme Red Staters were ready to canonize Joe for his moment of irrationality.

So Joe had to choose. As it happens, he chose to apologize (ironically, he did so BEFORE I got the press release from the S.C. Democratic Party demanding that he do so):

“This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.”

Good. That’s something. But I’m afraid the standards for political disagreement just got ratcheted down another notch tonight, and I’m sorry that my congressman did the ratcheting. He’s sorry. Well, so am I.

Hoping the president does well tonight

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Getting ready to watch the president’s address, and hoping he does well — because the country needs for him to do well. I know my family does, but so does the whole country. Not just the uninsured, but the insured who increasingly find their insurance unaffordable and a constant battle to get the private insurance companies to pay up. And especially for American business, which really doesn’t need this financial millstone around its neck any more.

One thing that gets me is that the advance hype is that the president will advocate a “public option.” Well, duh. A “public option” is health care reform. Without a public element there is no health care reform. The “private option” is what we have now, and it ain’t working.

Anyway, it’s going to start in a few moments. Your impressions will be welcome here as comments….

I’m going to try watching it on the NYT site. One nice thing about watching it on a newspaper’s Web site is that you don’t have to listen to all that superfluous commentary you get on TV…

Most of House GOP agrees with Harrell: Sanford should quit

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Where the leaders go, the others follow. And now a large majority of House Republicans have joined Bobby Harrell in calling on the governor to quit, according to The State‘s John O’Connor:

At least 60 of 73 S.C. House Republicans have signed a letter asking Gov. Mark Sanford to resign.

The letter follows Tuesday’s call by House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, for the Republican governor to resign. In June, a majority of Senate Republicans signed a similar letter. Sanford has said he will not resign.

At a meeting last month in Myrtle Beach, no House GOP member spoke in Sanford’s defense. Republicans control the House.

“The direction of the caucus leaving that meeting was unmistakable,” Deputy Majority Leader Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, said in a written statement. “Governor you have lost the support of legislators who have supported you through thick and thin.”

The letter says Sanford’s woes are a distraction that prevent other work from getting done.

This is not terribly surprising, given that not one Republican spoke up for the governor at the recent caucus meeting. Of course, the governor won’t listen to these folks, either. He doesn’t listen to anybody, but does what he wants.

Interesting that the Republicans who call on the gov to quit keep talking about his melodrama being “a distraction.” To a narcissist, being the cynosure of all eyes is a good thing. So it is that the governor’s interests fail to connect with those of other Republicans in the state.

Trying to think like a businessman

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I already posted this once this morning and it disappeared; let’s see if I can recreate it…

This morning I ran into Dwight Drake, who was breaking his fast with some newspaper folk, including my former publisher and Bill Rogers of the state press association.

I asked Dwight whether he was wooing the press, but he said it was the other way around: They were trying to sell him some ads.

Well, good luck to them, said I as I moved back toward my table — newspapers certainly need the revenue, and maybe if Dwight broke with the conventional wisdom and invested significantly in print, some of his competitors would, too.

Only later did I realize I should have told Dwight that I’m planning on taking ads on my blog, once I work out the technical issues, and so if he wants to spend money, he could do so with me. But I always forget stuff like that. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a Mad Man after all (please don’t tell Joan Holloway) …

I chatted with Dwight a bit more after his meeting broke up, and he told me that before he would approve the “500 Days of Sanford” video spoof, he had to go see the movie. Wanting to seem hip, I didn’t ask “What movie?,” although that’s what I was thinking. Oh, now I see. Dwight says it was OK, but no “Gone With The Wind.” I can believe that. At any rate, I found the video amusing without getting the allusion.

Then, after I left, I realized I’d missed yet another selling opportunity, because I could have told Dwight I can run video on my blog. Of course, I already did run his video, for free.

I’ve really got to get a handle on this thinking like a businessman thing…

Video commentary: ‘Fin de Semana’

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Did you know there was a BobbyHarrell.com? Well, there is. And if you go there, you can read the Speaker’s letter calling on the governor to resign. There’s audio, too.

The Speaker of the House calling on the governor to resign is a significant step — or would be, if we thought there was the slightest chance the governor would listen to the Speaker or anyone else in South Carolina.

But I tend to focus on funny things. Such as this one little thing that the governor said on Keven Cohen’s show yesterday:

Bottom line, I was gone over that weekend.

Let’s see — he left on Thursday, came back on Wednesday, and that’s a weekend? Maybe in Argentina, but not here…

Am I cut out to be a Mad Man?

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madmen_widescreen

When Kathryn corrected me on the title of the TV show “Mad Men” (and she was right; it was two words), I went to the official site to check — and ran into a thing where you can build your own Mad Men avatar.

So, being unemployed, I did. Well, there’s more to it than that. Being unemployed, and having recently taken a couple of mild forays into consulting in the advertising field (in fact, I’m sitting in the offices of an ad agency as I type this), I thought I’d see how I looked in that milieu.

Not so great, as it turned out. But I did manage to get myself into a scene with Joan Holloway, if only in caricature…

Today’s video commentary: “Love Story II,” starring Mark Sanford

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Still experimenting with my new Webcam. Today, I got to thinking about our governor’s “Apology Tour,” which prompted the above commentary. And if you can’t stand looking at me on video, here’s the script I worked from:

To Mark Sanford, being governor means always having to say you’re sorry. Hey, I didn’t like the original version of “Love Story,” much less this one…

The governor is going here, there and everywhere in South Carolina to “apologize” for his sins.

But he doesn’t mean it.

I remember how, during the 2002 campaign, Dick Harpootlian kept saying Mark Sanford was a poor little rich boy who could not possibly identify with ordinary South Carolinians. At the time, I recoiled at such class-based prejudice.

And yet, maybe Dick had a point, in a way. Because what we’re seeing now is a guy who thinks the rules of the world are that if Mark Sanford does something wrong, there are to be no consequences.

He just apologizes, and we’re supposed to forgive him. If we don’t do so right away, then in his world there’s something wrong with us. We have some sort of wicked ulterior motive or something if we don’t give him the forgiveness that is his due.

It doesn’t occur to him that he should have to pay a price. But he should. And the minimum, the down payment, should be that he doesn’t get to be governor any more.

Why doesn’t he get that?

Is Columbia’s impasse over the homeless at (or at least near) an end?

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Does this mean what I think it means — that after Columbia city council has resisted and undermined every effort by other community leaders to meaningfully address the city’s homelessness problem, we may finally be on our way to a comprehensive solution?

Columbia is getting out of the homeless services business, laying off two employees and outsourcing its winter shelter operations to the University of South Carolina for $500,000 a year.

The three-year agreement means the shelter, which city officials promised in 2007 would only be used for two years, will remain open until at least 2012.

USC will not operate the shelter past 2012, opting instead to partner with the Midlands Housing Alliance, a group of business leaders and service providers that plans to build an $11.6 million homeless shelter on Main Street….

Perhaps by surrendering control, the city has accomplished what Congress did with BRAC — given up on something it was politically incapable of handling, and letting someone else make the right decision. This BRACish approach was tried before, and then the council grabbed the issue back with dire results. Maybe it will work this time…

Or am I reading this wrong?

Blaming ze Germans

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Looks like we’ve found an old favorite bad guy upon whom to blame the recent incident that led to a large number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan:

BERLIN — A U.S.-German rift over a deadly airstrike in Afghanistan on Friday escalated, as U.S. commanders accused the German military of undermining guidelines that seek to avoid civilian casualties.

U.S. military officials questioned why the German army had called in an airstrike when German troops weren’t under fire from insurgents, as well as German forces’ intelligence that led them to think civilians wouldn’t be hurt.

German defense officials said Monday that the airstrike on two hijacked fuel trucks in Kunduz Province was necessary to avert a threat to a German army base, and stood by their assessment that the strike killed 56 Taliban insurgents. Afghan and Western officials have said between 70 and 130 people died, including many civilians….

An investigation needs to go where it goes, and place the blame accurately. But it occurs to me that it’s hard enough to get the Germans to come out an fight at all these days, so the more heat we put on them, the more likely the Germans are to just go home — particularly with the trouble Chancellor Merkel is having these days…