It’s hard to see why you would go to Copenhagen for the Olympics and again for an environmental conference, and to France for D-Day, but not to Germany to celebrate the liberation of half a continent from totalitarianism.

Well, something like 2,500 Americans died on D-Day. And the president may not actually attend the climate summit in Copenhagen. The Olympic trip might be the most open to critique, although it was, obviously, a mission to bring something back to the United States, and not a commemoration of anything. Apart from that, though, these are exactly the same sort of events, and they should be energetically discussed on cable news today.

Jihadist is seen as a derogatory term for mujahid, which is Arabic for freedom fighter. A search through transcripts going back to January shows the word or any version of it had not previously been uttered from the Obama White House podium.

Close! And by “close,” I mean “the exact opposite of the actual explanation”! Far from being a derogation, “jihadist” is an honorific to many Muslims, and that’s precisely why the Obama administration doesn’t use the word.

How do I know that? Because John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, explained it that way in a big August speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From the text of Brennan’s August 6 remarks:

Nor does President Obama see this challenge as a fight against “jihadists.”  Describing terrorists in this way—using a legitimate term, “jihad,” meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal—risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve.  Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself.  And this is why President Obama has confronted this perception directly and forcefully in his speeches to Muslim audiences, declaring that America is not and never will be at war with Islam.

Poke fun at the press secretary, I guess (”It’s an interesting word choice…”), but at least, for the joke’s sake, try to get the premise right!

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I respectfully urge you to disclose as much information as you can about these policy advisors and “czars.”  Specifically, I ask that you identify these individuals’ roles and responsibilities, and provide the judgment(s) of your legal advisors as to whether and how these positions are consistent with the Appointments Clause.

Politico’s take here is — shockingly! — a bit misleading and over-wrought. In addition to Feingold’s letter, there’s Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) saying that “you need to have confirmation” for powerful advisers. There’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who wants more oversight but avers that the way “czars” are defined in the press is wildly misleading: “I don’t think it’s quite fair to call, for example, David Hayes at the Department of Interior a czar.” Somewhat surprisingly, conservative-leaning Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) dismisses the “czar” panic as “something that some talk show hosts have made a great deal out of.” And there’s an eight-month old letter about “czars” from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). Politico packages this as evidence of Democrats “joining the czar wars.”

It’s hard to overstate what a fantastic issue this is for Republicans if it’s covered hysterically. The 40 Republican members of the Senate have filibustered or put holds on many of the president’s nominees, including Dawn Johnsen for the Office of Legal Counsel and Tom Perez at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. They subjected Cass Sunstein to an eight-month series of holds and filibusters which ended only last week — and they continue to include Sunstein in the roll calls of “unaccountable czars.”

Thanks to lazy and sensationalized journalism, Republicans are able to put the breaks on the president’s nominees while complaining, as Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) did yesterday, that President Obama’s appointees are “unaccountable to the American people through their elected representatives.” The fact that Republicans, instead of asking questions, are quietly placing “holds” on qualified nominees who have been submitted to the Senate, goes utterly unmentioned.

Feingold’s letter:

Dear Mr. President:

From the beginning of your administration, you have made an admirable commitment to transparency and open government.  You showed the strength of your commitment by sending a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies within a week of your inauguration, stating: “My administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.”

As you know, there has been much discussion about your decisions to create and assign apparently significant policy-making responsibilities to White House and other executive positions; many of the persons filling these positions have come to be referred to in the media and even within your administration as policy “czars.”  I heard firsthand about this issue on several occasions from my constituents in recent town hall meetings in Wisconsin.

The Constitution gives the Senate the duty to oversee the appointment of Executive officers through the Appointments Clause in Article II, section 2.  The Appointments Clause states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise proved for, and which shall be established by law.”  (Emphasis added.)   This clause is an important part of the constitutional scheme of separation of powers, empowering the Senate to weigh in on the appropriateness of significant appointments and assisting in its oversight of the Executive Branch.

As a member of the Senate with the duty to oversee executive appointments and as the Chairman of the Senate Constitution Subcommittee, I respectfully urge you to disclose as much information as you can about these policy advisors and “czars.”  Specifically, I ask that you identify these individuals’ roles and responsibilities, and provide the judgment(s) of your legal advisors as to whether and how these positions are consistent with the Appointments Clause.  I hope that this information will help address some of the concerns that have been raised about new positions in the White House and elsewhere in the Executive Branch, and will inform any hearing that the Subcommittee holds on this topic.

Thank you for considering my views on this important matter.  I very much appreciate your commitment to transparency and open government and look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Feingold

United States Senator

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The few GOP moderates left confess their deep frustration.

“It seems like moderation in Washington is a vice,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray, a centrist Republican from California.

I’ve never before heard Bilbray referred to as a “centrist.” Bilbray was a member of the class of 1994 who lost his old House seat in 2000, then stayed in Washington as a lobbyist for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates “a temporary moratorium on all immigration except spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and a limited number of refugees.” Bilbray returned to Congress in a 2006 special election, which he won in part by accusing his Democratic opponent of soliciting votes from illegal aliens. Since then, Bilbray has maintained a 92% rating from the American Conservative Union, which makes him an “ACU Conservative” in their ranking system. He voted against increasing the minimum wage, voted to repeal the Washington, D.C. gun ban, voted against a ban on anti-gay job discrimination, and voted against expanding SCHIP. When Tom Tancredo quit his leadership of the Immigration Reform Caucus in 2007, Bilbray replaced him.

So, in Politico-speak, he’s a centrist. Strange.

In the wake of these recent revelations, the president should suspend any further appointments of so-called czars until Congress has an opportunity to examine the background and responsibilities of these individuals and to determine the constitutionality of such appointments.

Here’s the problem: Some of the people whom conservatives and mainstream media voices alike have labeled “czars” have been confirmed by the Senate. Some of them, and others, hold jobs that were created by previous presidents.

Take a look at Politico’s list of 31 “czars,” which shrinks to 30 without Van Jones. Republican strategists like Ed Rollins have used that “31″ number to allege that there’s a problem here. But perhaps the most controversial people labeled “czars” by Beck and by reporters have gone through Senate confirmations. Cass Sunstein, whom Politico labels the “regulatory czar,” is waiting for the end of a Republican filibuster so he can lead the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an office created in 1980. John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was confirmed by the Senate, unanimously, six months ago. But none of that seems to matter to their critics. Michelle Malkin, whom, again, Politico credited for making this an issue, relentlessly refers to Holdren as the “Science Czar” as if it was his actual title.

Let’s just go down the Politico list.

Pre-exisiting jobs:

“AIDS Czar” – Actually the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, created in 2001 by George W. Bush.

“Border Czar” – Actually the Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs, created in 2003 by George W. Bush.

“California Water Czar” – Actually the Deputy Secretary of the Interior, who was given this extra portfolio by Secretary Ken Salazar in June.

“Central Region Czar” – The Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the “Central Region,” on the Nation Security Council.

“Drug Czar” – Actually the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, created in 1989 by George H.W. Bush.

“Faith-Based Czar” – Head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, created in 2001 by George W. Bush.

“Intelligence Czar” – This is actually the Director of National Intelligence, a position created in 2005.

“TARP Czar” – Actually the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability of the United States Herb Allison, who was confirmed by the Senate in June.

“Weapons Czar” – Not actually an executive branch position, but the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

New jobs held by eminent people or people previously confirmed by the Senate:

“Afghanistan Czar” – Actually the United States Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the man holding that job, Richard Holbrooke went through a Senate confirmation hearing in 1999 when he became Bill Clinton’s U.N. ambassador.

“Economic Czar” – Actually the President’s Economic Recovery Board, chaired by Paul Volcker, the deeply uncontroversial former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

“Energy and Environment Czar” – This is Carol Browner, the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1993 to run the Environmental Protection Agency under Bill Clinton.

“Guantanamo Closure Czar” – Actually the Special Envoy to Guantanamo, Daniel Fried, who was the final Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the Bush administration.

There are other problems with the list. The so-called “International Climate Czar,” Todd Stern, is actually a special envoy who works in the State Department; several other “czars” were appointed to previously-existing institutions, like John Brennan, given a new portfolio in the 56-year-old National Security Council. But let’s read the list this way, and stop calling “czars” the people who were confirmed by the Senate at one point or given previously-existing jobs. That scary Politico list of 30 names is down to 15 names. It’s down to people like Lynn Rosenthal, the White House Adviser on Violence Against Women.

Now, President Obama has created several new offices and institutions: the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, the President’s Economic Recovery Board, White House Office of Health Reform, and the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, to name some. But when Pence says Congress must “examine the background and responsibilities of these individuals” and “determine the constitutionality,” what is he suggesting? Should Herb Allison and John Holdren, who were confirmed by the Senate, resign and go through hearings again, just to be safe? Does he wonder whether the job of Director of National Intelligence is constitutional? That would be a shame, because Pence voted for the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created the DNI.

A debate about the power of the executive branch and the collapsing trust between the president and the Senate — it’s the constant filibusters of presidential nominees that really started this process of end-runs around confirmation hearings — would be healthy. But so far this “czars” debate seems like a witch hunt egged on by sloppy reporting.

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This story is something of a mobius strip. The references to the memorial to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), who died in a plane crash shortly before the November 2002 election, seem to come out of nowhere.

Kennedy’s funeral hasn’t happened yet. Democratic appeals to honor his memory by passing a health care bill have existed, but there haven’t been too many of them; one from MoveOn.org, one from the DCCC, one from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Reporters ask Democrats what effect, if any, Kennedy’s death will have on the health care debate, and unless they’re lying they say it’ll galvanize Democrats. It simply seems gauche for this to be so easily transformed into a scandal of Democrats “exploiting” Kennedy’s death, which the party knew was imminent. And it’s being transformed so easily. Drudge is linking Tim Reid of the UK Times for a story headlined “Democrats accused of using Edward Kennedy’s death to promote reforms.” The accusers? Rush Limbaugh and the president of the Heritage Foundation.

The comparison between the Wellstone funeral and, well, anything else, is strange. The 2002 memorial was an unexpected reaction to an unexpected event, and it turned Minnesota politics upside down. Gov. Jesse Ventura (I-Minn.), who had promised to leave Wellstone’s seat open, reversed course and angrily appointed a friend, Dean Barkley, to serve until January 2003. Norm Coleman, who had suspended his campaign to honor Wellstone, re-launched it.

The odds of Kennedy’s funeral turning out similarly seem vanishingly small. And if politics are completely absent from the funeral, it would be highly unusual. President George W. Bush, remember, paid tribute to Ronald Reagan at his funeral by tying Reagan’s foreign policy to his own.

He was optimistic that a strong America could advance the peace, and he acted to build the strength that mission required. He was optimistic that liberty would thrive wherever it was planted, and he acted to defend liberty wherever it was threatened.

And Ronald Reagan believed in the power of truth in the conduct of world affairs. When he saw evil camped across the horizon, he called that evil by its name.

Should Bush have clipped those lines out of his speech for fear of seeming political? No, and it’s ridiculous to suggest as much. In the same way it’s ridiculous to pretend that a few conservative shouters have a veto over how Kennedy’s family should conduct his funeral or how Democrats should honor Kennedy. If anything, as Smith’s piece points out, the pre-emptive cry of “no more Wellstone funerals” tips their hand and defeats their purpose.

[T]hroughout both documents, many passages — though several are incomplete and circumstantial, actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.

Allen follows up today by … quoting Cheney again.

Cheney maintains that records released this week show that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques “provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda” after the Sept. 11 attacks. A Democratic official disputed that assertion …

This is pretty amazing. Cheney claimed that confidential documents would back up his case. The documents were released, but didn’t back up his case. The result? “He-said, she-said” stories that don’t point out the crucial fact of Cheney’s deception.

iStockphoto

Amid the obstructionists’ claims that health care reform is “socialist” or a means of speeding Grandma towards her deathbed, a large focus of the conservative position on health care reform has been that frivolous lawsuits drive up health care costs and require doctors to practice “defensive medicine” that’s costly and wasteful.

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Charles Krauthammer put “tort reform” on the top of his wish-list for reducing the costs of the health care system. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas in the Washington Examiner boasts that Texas tort reform that capped injured patient’s damages was the answer to his state’s problems. And the American Medical Association has said it won’t support any health reform bill that doesn’t reduce liability for doctors. “If the bill doesn’t have medical liability reform in it, then we don’t see how it is going to be successful in controlling costs,” James Rohack, president-elect of the organization, told Politico in March. “Why spend the political capital and energy in passing a bill if it is not successful?”

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

So far Republicans have mostly focused on tearing apart any reform with a role for the federal government, portraying it as the government dictating how long old people get to live. But an undercurrent of those complaints is the insistence of doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and ideological conservatives that medical malpractice claims are out of control and a leading cause of rising health care costs.

The health economists and independent legal experts who study the issue, however, don’t believe that’s true. They say that malpractice liability costs are a small fraction of the spiraling costs of the U.S. health care system, and that the medical errors that malpractice liability tries to prevent are themselves a huge cost– both to the injured patients and to the health care system as a whole.

“It’s really just a distraction,” said Tom Baker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and author of “The Medical Malpractice Myth.” “If you were to eliminate medical malpractice liability, even forgetting the negative consequences that would have for safety, accountability, and responsiveness, maybe we’d be talking about 1.5 percent of health care costs. So we’re not talking about real money. It’s small relative to the out-of-control cost of health care.”

Insurance costs about $50-$60 billion a year, Baker estimates. As for what’s often called “defensive medicine,” “there’s really no good study that’s been able to put a number on that,” said Baker.

Krauthammer cited a study by the Massachusetts Medical Society that found that five out of six doctors said they ordered additional tests, procedures and referrals to protect themselves from lawsuits. He also relies on a much-criticized study from the libertarian Pacific Research Institute on the civil justice system to conclude that “defensive medicine” wastes more than $200 billion a year.

Baker is skeptical, and makes the point that “defensive medicine” is not the same thing as wasteful medicine. “Like defensive driving, some defensive medicine is good,” he said. “To change behavior. When you drill down those studies, you see that what it means is, doctors are more careful with patient records. They spend more time with the patient. They’re more careful to say hello and goodbye to the patient. That’s good.”

Other health economists agree that “defensive medicine” is not the main driver of costs, and malpractice liability reform is not a panacea.

“If you were to list the top five or ten things that you could do to bring down health care costs that would not be on the list,” said Michelle Mello, a professor of Law and Public Health at Harvard.

Still, that doesn’t mean the medical liability system we now have is a good one. Mello estimates the costs of so-called “defensive medicine” to be far less than Krauthammer does — around $20 billion a year. “So there’s some savings to be had and frankly the health reform package has not come up with a lot of ideas for major savings.”

President Obama at a recent town hall meeting said he wants to reduce doctors’ insurance premiums, but that, based on his conversations with health care experts, “the evidence at least is that that is a very small, maybe not even a measurable factor in the reason that health care costs are going up.”

“He gets it,” said Baker.

Although damage award caps could slightly limit the future growth of liability insurance premiums – about 6 to 13 percent over time, says Mello, “it tends to be oversold as a solution and it’s pretty unfair to patients.”

Annual jury awards and legal settlements involving doctors amounts to “a drop in the bucket” in a country that spends $2.3 trillion annually on health care, Amitabh Chandra, another Harvard University economist, recently told Bloomberg News. Chandra estimated the cost of jury awards at about $12 per person in the U.S., or about $3.6 billion. Insurer WellPoint Inc. has also said that liability awards are not what’s driving premiums.

And a 2004 report by the Congressional Budget Office said medical malpractice makes up only 2 percent of U.S. health spending. Even “significant reductions” would do little to curb health-care expenses, it concluded.

A study by Bloomberg also found that the proportion of medical malpractice verdicts among the top jury awards in the U.S. declined over the last 20 years. “Of the top 25 awards so far this year, only one was a malpractice case.” Moreover, at least 30 states now cap damages in medical lawsuits.

The experience of Texas in capping damage awards is a good example. Contrary to Perry’s claims, a recent analysis by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker found that while Texas tort reforms led to a cap on pain-and-suffering awards at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which led to a dramatic decline in lawsuits, McAllen, Texas is one of the most expensive health care markets in the country. In 2006, “Medicare spent fifteen thousand dollars per person enrolled in McAllen, he finds, which is almost twice the national average — although the average town resident earns only $12,000 a year. “Medicare spends three thousand dollars more per person here than the average person earns.”

Still, many health policy experts don’t believe the current malpractice liability system is either efficient or fair. Mello and others favor an alternative compensation system that takes the issue away from courts and juries and gives it instead to a panel of independent experts to judge whether malpractice occurred and what compensation should be provided. That’s unlikely to bring about significant cost savings, though, because it would encourage many more claims to be filed. Currently, only about two of every 100 patients injured by malpractice ever receive compensations. “The new system would make it a lot easier to file claims,” said Mello, and would reduce the uncertainty doctors complain about from jury awards.

Such a system implemented at a hospital could mean the hospital pays for malpractice insurance, with premium costs tied to the number of claims. The hospital then has an economic incentive to ensure its doctors are providing good care. Currently, Mello says, most insurance is not “experience-rated”, meaning premiums aren’t tied to the number of claims filed against the doctor.

But Mello, who has advised the Obama administration on malpractice reform, doesn’t expect to see such proposals coming out of Congress or the White House anytime soon. “Trial lawyers don’t embrace proposals that would remove their role in the malpractice system,” she said. And they have a lot of influence with Democrats in Washington.

Who was it that challenged those emails? Nobody. They go unchallenged to this day. Why? Because they are authentic. Are you challenging them? On what basis? Because they were poorly written?

The answers are: Politico, because they’re obvious fakes, because they’re obvious fakes, because they’re obvious fakes, and “yes.” The fact that neither the Kenyan government nor the Obama campaign never commented on WND’s story should give pause to conspiracy theorist, not hope.

On his own site, Farah writes that he “strongly suspects” that the Kenyan “birth certificate” fronted at WND yesterday and Sunday is not real.

Whalen did not describe “two black males” breaking into a house. She volunteered no racial description at all when she called. (When she was then asked by a police dispatcher to describe the two men, Whalen said “one looked kind of Hispanic, but I’m not really sure.”) Whalen didn’t even say the two men were trying to break into the house.

True, she didn’t say this on the 911 call. The idea that Whalen pre-judged the citizen came from … the police report filed by Sgt. James Crowley:

Whalen, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the residence, held a wireless telephone in her hand and told me it was she who called. She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch of [...] Ware Street.

Simon and Whalen have a gripe with Crowley, not with mysterious “bloggers” and “people” who attacked her. And Simon has an additional gripe with his fact-checker.