James Baker Advises the Republican Party

I am sure that the following is anathema to those who prefer ideological purity in the Republican party to the actual winning of elections--and to the ability to use election victories in order to claim a mandate to change policy for the better--but I happen to be enough of a heterodox thinker to believe that there is some merit to be found in Baker's advice:

There was, however, one big loser [in the government shutdown debacle]: the American people. This misguided episode cost the federal government $24bn, cost the country a potential drop in gross domestic product, and cost the GOP an opportunity to focus on the extraordinary failure associated with the ACA rollout.

Most Americans blame Republicans for the fiasco. And the fight over reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling revealed fissures within the GOP leadership. Understandably, questions have arisen about the party’s future. Will it split between Tea Partiers and its more mainstream factions? Will a third party rise from the aftermath of this schism? Is the Republican brand so tarnished that it cannot take control of the Senate in 2014 or the White House in 2016?

Having participated in presidential politics since 1976, one thing is clear to me. The party out of power is typically seen as impotent, helpless and hopeless. But just as inevitably, that same party always seems to rebound after serious soul searching.

Moreover, there has always been a wide range of interest groups in the party. For decades, we have had substantial fights between rightwing and more establishment Republicans. This infighting was particularly brutal in 1976, 1980 and 1988, and we went on to win two out of three presidential elections.

The party’s diversity, however, is a strength, not a weakness. Today, Tea Partiers bring a passion that can be an important edge in elections. But mainstream Republicans remain indispensable. It may sound trite, but it is true: united we stand, divided we fall. I think most Republicans understand that.

So what does the GOP need to do now? In the short term, remember that tactics and strategy both matter. It was a fool’s errand to tie the defunding of the ACA to a government shutdown and a debt-ceiling debate. Because Democrats control the White House and the Senate, the strategy was never going to work. To paraphrase Clayton Williams, a Republican who lost the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race after a series of gaffes: we shot ourselves in the foot and reloaded.

That does not mean that Republicans should stop criticising the ACA. It remains an example of big government at its worst: cumbersome, complicated and intrusive. The best – in fact, only – way to repeal the ACA is to control the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats, after all, enacted the law when they controlled all three. So the focus should be on winning elections to control those levers of power.

Continuing Obamacare Follies

This is just horrible:

Insurers say the federal health-care marketplace is generating flawed data that is straining their ability to handle even the trickle of enrollees who have gotten through so far, in a sign that technological problems extend further than the website traffic and software issues already identified.

Emerging errors include duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, missing data fields and suspect eligibility determinations, say executives at more than a dozen health plans. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska said it had to hire temporary workers to contact new customers directly to resolve inaccuracies in submissions. Medical Mutual of Ohio said one customer had successfully signed up for three of its plans.

The flaws could do lasting damage to the law if customers are deterred from signing up or mistakenly believe they have obtained coverage.

This is also just horrible. Read the whole thing, and try not to let your jaw hit the floor while you do so.

Peter Suderman lets loose:

The Obama administration doesn’t want to talk about Obamacare. At a press briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dodged questions about the ongoing failure of the law’s federally-run health insurance portal, Healthcare.gov, which after two weeks is still practically impenetrable to all but the most dedicated users. Carney refused to say when the exchange might be working, and directed reporters' questions to the agencies in charge of the project. “Those are all questions for HHS and CMS,” he said, referring to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

But the head of HHS isn’t saying much. Following a disastrous interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last week, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has avoided most media inquiries. The head of CMS, Marylyn Tavenner, is staying mum too. She refused to answer questions New York Times reporters posed about the performance of the exchanges.

That’s hardly a shock. What could either of them say? The federal exchange system simply does not work. And the administration has run out of excuses. Even President Obama—who initially excused the exchange problems as being typical of a large technology rollout—has begun to talk more frankly about the system’s flaws. "The website that was supposed to do this all in a seamless way has had way more glitches than I think are acceptable," he said on Tuesday.

It is clear now that, despite occasional suggestions of light at the end of the tunnel, the administration does not know how long the exchange problems will take to fix. At this point, then, it is necessary to at least consider the possibility that the federal exchanges, and perhaps a few of the state-run counterparts as well, are simply not going to work, at least not in the relatively short time the administration has to get the system on track.

Given how little information is available to outsiders, it’s hard to judge with great certainty. It is of course possible that the problems could be resolved in a few days or a few weeks. But the administration’s obfuscations, as well the repeated assurances both before and after the opening of the exchanges that they had everything under control, don't inspire confidence that meaningful fixes are on the way. Already there are signals that the exchange problems could be deep and long-lasting.

Initially, the administration pinned problems with an unexpected amount of traffic. “These bugs were functions of volume," White House technology adviser Todd Park told USA Today.  “Take away the volume and it works.”

That excuse no longer holds up. The volume’s gone, and the website still doesn’t work. Web traffic to HealthCare.gov dropped 88 percent from October 1, the day the exchanges opened, to October 13, according to data released this week by Kantar US Insights. Yet despite plummeting traffic, many users remained unable to even create the accounts necessary to begin the application process.

No one has been fired over this catastrophe, and scarily enough, there do not even appear to be hints that someone is going to get fired over this catastrophe. Certainly, the Obama administration has not said anything about giving Kathleen Sebelius a chance to spend more time with her family. How much worse does this disaster have to get before the president finally starts demanding some accountability from his team?

Obamacare: Full of Bugs

Now that the shutdown/debt ceiling debacle is over (for the moment, anyway), it is worth focusing anew on Obamacare, because the program truly is dysfunctional, and the depth and breadth of that dysfunctionality deserves our attention. Consider:

• The Obamacare website didn't even get tested until a week before the launch.
• The website violates licensing agreements for copyrighted software. Indeed, the Department of Health and Human Services is going to get sued for having engaged in copyright violations.
• Teal Media, which was the design consultant for the Obamacare website, is taking down all reference to its work on the website because it "doesn’t seem interested in talking about its work on HealthCare.gov." I can't say that I blame them.
• As Peter Suderman reports, the Obama administration did not know when the health care law's mandate penalty deadline was until they were informed by a tax preparation company. You have until March 31 of next year to enroll, but if you do not enroll by February 15, you are going to pay a penalty. Quoting Suderman: "This says something about the daunting level of complexity in the tax code. And it's more than a little suggestive about the level of (in)competence that is apparently going into what is arguably the largest and most complex bureaucratic endeavor in the nation's history."

But hey, never let it be said that there is no good news whatsoever surrounding the law. Yesterday, the Weekly Standard reported that someone in Delaware was finally able to enroll in Obamacare. So, you know, progress!

Epic Defeat

So, Congress has voted to raise the debt ceiling and reopen government, which is the good news for anyone who cares about decent and responsible policymaking. The bad news is that in a few months, we may end up repeating the entire fight. I can't wait to see what that does to our credit rating. I also can't wait to see the people who thought that the current shutdown and flirtation with debt ceiling disaster was A Compendium of All the Wonderful Things tell us a couple months down the line that we have to tilt at windmills again because . . . well . . . something.

Of course, it would be nice if congressional Republicans avoided making the same mistake again. Perhaps they could listen to one of their own:

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), one of the more conservative voices in the House GOP caucus, told CNN on Wednesday afternoon: “We lost. That’s it. You’re absolutely right. The folks who said we were going to lose turned out to be correct. I can’t argue that.”

I pray that Rep. Mulvaney isn't going to get primaried for these comments at some point before the night is over.

The only thing that Republicans got in the deal legislative deal that brought this entire horror show to an end is a commitment to verify the incomes of those seeking subsidies in order to enroll in Obamacare. Of course, income verification was already part of the bill authorizing the Affordable Care Act, so this means that Republicans got absolutely nothing whatsoever of any substance or value from the shutdown. This is what happens when an incredibly weak hand gets ridiculously overplayed.

It is time for some serious self-examination on the right, and to that end, I am glad to give the microphone to Peter Wehner. Read the whole thing that he wrote. Also, read John Podhoretz:

Apologists for [Senator Ted] Cruz and [Senator Mike] Lee say they drew attention to ObamaCare. This is nothing short of demented. ObamaCare has been pretty much the sole subject of Republican domestic- policy politics over the past three years. It didn’t need them to call attention to it.

If anything, as it turns out, they drew attention away from it.

Had they not created the shutdown, the political discussion in the United States these past two weeks would have been entirely dedicated to the disastrous launch of ObamaCare — something so disastrous, in fact, that liberal journalists have been unable to avoid the subject and have instead taken to whining about it.

But no. Instead, we spent the two weeks before the launch watching Ted Cruz rally the Republican faithful with a fantasy scenario in which the public would stage an uprising against ObamaCare and force a bunch of Democratic senators to vote to defund it.

Well, that didn’t happen.

But once the conservative base became convinced the defunding of ObamaCare was a possibility, the Republican House found it impossible not to join in the really futile and stupid gesture. Shutdown ensued.

Well, that’s over with. And maybe the damage will not be very great. But doing really futile and stupid things is never a good idea, and for a political party, it is disastrous.

Such behavior convinces people who are not firmly fixed in your party’s corner that you don’t care about the good working ­order of the United States, that you’re only out to satisfy your own ideological fantasies, and that you’re actually unserious.

Listen: Not enough people are voting for Republicans. That’s why the GOP has lost the popular vote in five out of the last six national elections. What happened over the past two weeks will only harm the effort to convince those who can be convinced to vote Republican that doing so is wise and prudent.

You would think that all of this was obvious to begin with. You would think that an entire column in the New York Post would not have to be devoted to explaining the obvious to very smart politicians.

You would think wrong.

Bill Keller Doesn't Get Along Very Well with Reality

The following paragraph is one of the biggest howlers in the history of Ever:

Unless you’ve been bamboozled by the frantic fictions of the right wing, you know that the Affordable Care Act, familiarly known as Obamacare, has begun to accomplish its first goal: enrolling millions of uninsured Americans, many of whom have been living one medical emergency away from the poorhouse. You realize those computer failures that have hampered sign-ups in the early days — to the smug delight of the critics — confirm that there is enormous popular demand. You have probably figured out that the real mission of the Republican extortionists and their big-money backers was to scuttle the law before most Americans recognized it as a godsend and rendered it politically untouchable.

So presumably, this is one of the "frantic fictions of the right wing":

The federal health-care exchange that opened a dozen days ago is marred by snags beyond the widely publicized computer gridlock that has thwarted Americans trying to buy a health plan. Even when consumers have been able to sign up, insurers sometimes can’t tell who their new customers are because of a separate set of computer defects.

The problems stem from a feature of the online marketplace’s computer system that is designed to send each insurer a daily report listing people who have just enrolled. According to several insurance industry officials, the reports are sometimes confusing and duplicative. In some cases, they show — correctly or not — that the same person enrolled and canceled several times on a single day.

As, presumably, is this:

It's a batting average that won't land the federal marketplace for Obamacare into the Healthcare Hall of Fame.

As few as 1 in 100 applications on the federal exchange contains enough information to enroll the applicant in a plan, several insurance industry sources told CNBC on Friday. Some of the problems involve how the exchange's software collects and verifies an applicant's data.

"It is extraordinary that these systems weren't ready," said Sumit Nijhawan, CEO of Infogix, which handles data integrity issues for major insurers including WellPoint and Cigna, as well as multiple Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates.

Experts said that if Healthcare.gov's success rate doesn't improve within the next month or so, federal officials could face a situation in January in which relatively large numbers of people believe they have coverage starting that month, but whose enrollment applications are have not been processed.

"It could be public relations nightmare," said Nijhawan. Insurers have told his company that just "1 in 100" enrollment applicants being sent from the federal marketplace have provided sufficient, verified information.

[. . .]

"It doesn't surprise me—I've heard similar numbers," said Dan Mendelson, CEO of consulting firm Avalere Health, when asked about the 1-in-100 rate that Infogix cited.

"This is not a traffic issue," Mendelson said. "Right now, the systems aren't working."

And this:

No one knows how many people have managed to enroll because the administration refuses to release those numbers, but the website's launch has been rocky.

Media outlets have struggled to find anyone who's actually been successful. The Washington Post even illustrated that sought-after person as a unicorn, and USA Today called the launch an "inexcusable mess" and a "nightmare."

White House officials initially blamed the problem on an unexpectedly high volume as they had more than 8 million hits in the first week, but after it went offline over the weekend for repairs, officials now acknowledge other problems.

"We've identified the glitches, we've added hardware, we're recoding software, and I can tell you today is better than yesterday, and we are hoping in the very near future to have a seamless process that's what we are aiming for," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.

However, computer experts say the website has major flaws.

"It wasn't designed well, it wasn't implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it," said Luke Chung, an online database programmer.

Chung supports the new health care law but said it was not the demand that is crashing the site. He thinks the entire website needs a complete overhaul.

"It's not even close. It's not even ready for beta testing for my book. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that," he said.

Oh, and as for those "millions of uninsured Americans" that Keller tells us have been enrolled . . .

The glitch-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature health care law has been dogged by one big question: How many people have enrolled in an insurance plan?

The White House refuses to release the numbers, leading many to assume they are embarrassingly low. But insurance industry insiders point to another reason: Nobody knows if the numbers they do have are even accurate.

Turns out, some insurance companies say they are receiving data from the administration that is incomplete, duplicative or contradictory, making it difficult to get an accurate count of new enrollment.

[. . .]

So far, the buzz in the insurance industry is that enrollment numbers are falling short of projections. One insurance company executive put it this way, "The numbers aren't as bad as the doomsday people would say. But so far, they're low and they have people worried."

Avik Roy has a theory for why the Obamacare website is crashing: He believes that it is because Team Obama doesn't want you to suffer sticker shock. I am sure that people like Bill Keller will try desperately to dismiss this as yet another "frantic fiction of the right wing," but given just how divorced Keller is from the facts, why should we take anything he has to say regarding this issue seriously? Either Bill Keller is one of the laziest and most inept intellects ever to try to find out and explain facts on Obamacare, or he is congenitally dishonest. He--and other Obamacare defenders--can feel free to take their pick as to which is the case.

Our Ongoing Governmental Disaster

This Ross Douthat piece is very good indeed on describing why the Republican shutdown plan was so crazy to begin with, and why indeed no method to Republican plans can be found. I would excerpt favorite parts, but really, one ought to read the whole thing.

While I am citing Douthat, here is another piece of his from which I will excerpt:

. . . I suppose one possible alternative would be for Republicans to step outside the murder-suicide context of shutdowns and debt ceiling brinksmanship, set aside the fantasy of winning major policy victories in divided government, cut a few small deals if possible and otherwise just oppose the president’s agenda on issues like immigration and climate change, and try to win the next two elections on the merits. This is how American political parties normally seek to enact their preferred policies, and the fact that the Republicans and Democrats are currently further apart ideologically than our political parties have traditionally been only strengthens the case for this old-fashioned way of doing things. Want to repeal/replace Obamacare, reform entitlements, do tax reform without tax increases? Go win a presidential election.

Well said. But of course, these days, to suggest that Republicans ought to moderate political positions in order to be able to win an election or two is to be a RiNO, utterly devoid of principles.

I do not want to make too much of the claim that the GOP's political position has become untenable. There are limits to that theory, which Nate Silver discusses in a very informative piece (isn't it interesting that Silver suddenly has fans on the right? A year ago, Silver was under attack from the right for having had the temerity to suggest that Barack Obama would win the presidential election). But as I have (plaintively) mentioned before, wouldn't it have been great if the GOP had avoided shooting itself in both feet, and instead, we had the opportunity to focus on just how incredibly embarrassed the Obama administration and just about every supporter of Obamacare must feel regarding the utterly disastrous rollout of the new health care program? Wouldn't it be better for Republican politicians if they could make fun of the Obama administration's admission that we should expect "months" of glitches with the Obamacare registration program?  Wouldn't it be better for Republican politicians to be able to focus on the fact that Obamacare is already giving consumers bad economic choices, or the fact that a former member of the Obama administration is criticizing the president's handling of the shutdown, or the fact that people like Megan McArdle are now pushing for Obamacare to have a drop-dead date for implementation?

Well yes, all of this would be better. But instead, what we have is a war between the establishment and the Tea Party (and yes, because of the way in which the Tea Party botched strategy and tactics for Republicans, I most certainly do have sympathy for the establishment in this fight, and note that the establishment is not made up of Gerald Ford Republicans, but people like former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, who is no one's idea of a moderate or RiNO). Instead, what we have are concerns that the default has already begun, and while I don't think that any evaporated faith in the United States government "will never return," I certainly think that in the short term, this entire dumb fight has caused a lot of damage to the United States government. At the end of the day, Republicans are going to have to give a lot of ground in negotiations in order to allows the government to re-open and in order to prevent any kind of default, and the tragedy is that the upcoming Republican capitulation would never have been necessary if Republicans did not try to demand things from this fight that they were never going to get in the first place.

I have said before that the Republican stance in forcing the government shutdown, in flirting with a debt ceiling default, and in demanding concessions that they never had any realistic chance of getting was political malpractice of the first order, given the way in which Republican bumbles and stumbles took attention off of the failed Obamacare rollout. I see no reason to back away from that statement.

Republicans and the Right Continue to Bumble and Stumble

Don't look now, but there finally appears to be some work getting done in order to reopen the government and get some kind of deal achieved on increasing the debt ceiling through meetings between the White House and congressional Republicans. But Republicans are hardly negotiating from a position of strength. Note that the story points out that "the White House and its Democratic allies in Congress were all but declaring victory at the evidence that Republicans — suffering the most in polls, and pressured by business allies and donors not to provoke a government default — were seeking a way out of the impasse." That part about "suffering in the polls" is no joke, by the way:

The Republican Party has been badly damaged in the ongoing government shutdown and debt limit standoff, with a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finding that a majority of Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown, and with the party’s popularity declining to its lowest level.

By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96.

Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of poll.

I would like to use this blog post in order to thank the shutdown caucus for bringing about this unmitigated political/public relations disaster for the Republican party, and for the right in general. No Democrat or liberal, actively working to undermine the starboard side of American politics, could possibly have done a better job than the suicide squards of the right did with the GOP's reputation.

The good news for Republicans is that they have over a year until the 2014 elections. The bad news is that the Republicans have over a year to think to themselves "gee, how else can we make ourselves less popular than the bubonic plague," come up with answers, and then merrily set about implementing them--to the shock and delight of Democrats everywhere. I for one have no doubt that Republicans will rise to the occasion.

To the extent that congressional Republicans are able to get themselves out of the political jam they have created for themselves, it may be because of the efforts of Paul Ryan, who doubtless will be considered a RiNO and an apostate in short order for actually trying to be responsible instead of doing something crazy like urging default on the debt, or working to get the GOP's approval ratings in the single digits.

Of course, if congressional Republicans wanted a blueprint on how to act halfway intelligent, they might have listened to Megan McArdle. The following excerpt revolves around a point I have tried to make myself:

The shutdown is eclipsing the horrifyingly inept rollout of the federal exchanges. Republicans should be basking in schadenfreude while a grief-stricken administration watches its poll numbers plunge. Instead, Obama and his deputies are getting front-page stories every day where they get to claim to be the grown-ups in the room. Again, I don’t care whether this is because the mainstream media is biased, unless you have a negotiation scenario where the MSM disappears at the stroke of midnight and is replaced by the staff of the National Review and the Daily Caller.

To amplify McArdle's point, the GOP could have spent time chortling over the fact that only five people in Iowa have signed up for Obamacare. No, that's not a typo; only five people in the entire state of Iowa have signed up for Obamacare. But, you know, God forbid that congressional Republicans should listen to reason, get themselves out of the line of fire, and let the storyline focus on all of the problems with the Obamacare rollout.

This is political malpractice at its worst. And it has been brought about by "thought leaders" on the right who wouldn't know a good thought if it confronted them and slapped them in the face. Whether activists on the right--both in and out of Congress--actually genuinely believed that it would be a good idea to shut the government down and play chicken with the debt ceiling over unrealistic negotiating demands, or whether those activists knew that this would be a disaster, but felt that it would profit them to curry favor with the Tea Party, there needs to be a serious examination on the right regarding the kind of leadership it has been saddled with. Specifically, anyone who argued that the shutdown strategy and threats of not raising the debt ceiling were good ideas needs to be ousted from any position of leadership on the right. It is high time for the grownups to take charge. As things stand right now, the GOP's/right's brain trust is short on brains, and shouldn't be afforded any trust whatsoever.

Congressional Republicans Are NOT Retreating. They Are Simply Advancing in Reverse. And Don't Anyone Dare Claim Otherwise.

Those who carefully peruse this op-ed by Paul Ryan will find upon careful reading--or via the Ctrl-F option--that the word "Obamacare" is not used once by Ryan. In writing on how Republicans and the Obama administration can come to some sort of agreement that will get the government open again, Ryan proposes the following:

Here are just a few ideas to get the conversation started. We could ask the better off to pay higher premiums for Medicare. We could reform Medigap plans to encourage efficiency and reduce costs. And we could ask federal employees to contribute more to their own retirement.

The president has embraced these ideas in budget proposals he has submitted to Congress. And in earlier talks with congressional Republicans, he has discussed combining Medicare's Part A and Part B, so the program will be less confusing for seniors. These ideas have the support of nonpartisan groups like the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and they would strengthen these critical programs. And all of them would help pay down the debt.

We should also enact pro-growth reforms that put people back to work—like opening up America's vast energy reserves to development. There is even some agreement on taxes across the aisle.

Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) have been working for more than a year now on a bipartisan plan to reform the tax code. They agree on the fundamental principles: Broaden the base, lower the rates and simplify the code. The president himself has argued for just such an approach to corporate taxes. So we should discuss how Congress can take up the Camp–Baucus plan when it's ready.

Reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code will spur economic growth—another goal that both parties share. The CBO says stable or declining levels of federal debt would help the economy. In addition, "federal interest payments would be smaller, policy makers would have greater leeway . . . to respond to any economic downturns . . . and the risk of a sudden fiscal crisis would be much smaller."

To be sure, Ryan does make reference to health care policy, but this is how he does it:

This isn't a grand bargain. For that, we need a complete rethinking of government's approach to helping the most vulnerable, and a complete rethinking of government's approach to health care. But right now, we need to find common ground. We need to open the federal government. We need to pay our bills today—and make sure we can pay our bills tomorrow. So let's negotiate an agreement to make modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code.

One senses a shift in negotiating posture by congressional Republicans via this op-ed, which surely must have had the blessings of the congressional Republican leadership, and which may well have had the blessings of certain elements of the Tea Party for all I know. Ryan believes that we need to reform health care policy post-implementation of Obamacare, but he clearly does not want to make a fight over health care part of any negotiations that will lead to re-opening the government. His demands--and dare I say those of a host of other congressional Republicans who look to Ryan for intellectual leadership?--revolve around pledging to make "modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code" as a price for re-opening government. And this shift in negotiating posture appears to be confirmed by this story:

A fight over Obamacare? That’s so last week.

With the government shutdown firmly in its second week, and the debt limit projected to be reached next Thursday, top House and Senate Republicans are publicly moving away from gutting the health care law — a practical move that could help resolve the stalemate and appear more reasonable in the eyes of frustrated voters.

In a private meeting among Senate Republicans, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressed openness to a plan by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that includes a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax but nothing else related to the health care law.

With polls showing their party is suffering the brunt of the blame for the shutdown, many top Republicans are quietly moving past the Obamacare debate. Many Senate Republicans’ demands do not include changes to Obamacare, but rather cuts to Medicare, Social Security and changes to the Tax Code. House Republicans are also considering a short-term debt hike, but no one expects that it will be accompanied by changes to Obamacare.

“I’d like to get rid of Obamacare, no question about that, but I think that effort has failed,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the veteran member of the Senate Finance Committee. “And we’re going to have to take it on in other ways.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said bluntly: “We took an unpopular law and chose a more unpopular tactic to deal with the law.”

“Why don’t we focus on entitlement reform, Tax Code reform, regarding the debt ceiling and continue to fight on Obamacare [separately], because there’s not a consensus there,” Graham said.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wrote an opinion piece that appeared on The Washington Post’s website Wednesday that simply urged President Barack Obama to negotiate with Republicans.

So, congressional Republicans no longer appear to be fighting to defund Obamacare. And when one considers the state of the polls, one can hardly be surprised by the fact that Republicans have chosen to change their negotiating objectives:

With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September. This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992.

The Democratic Party also has a public image problem -- although not on the same elephantine scale as that of the Republican Party -- with 43% viewing the Democratic Party favorably, down four percentage points from last month.

These findings come from a Gallup poll conducted Oct. 3-6 that followed the Oct. 1 partial government shutdown after lawmakers in Washington were unable to pass a spending plan for the federal government.

More than six in 10 Americans (62%) now view the GOP unfavorably, a record high. By comparison, nearly half of Americans (49%) view the Democratic Party unfavorably. Roughly one in four Americans see both parties unfavorably.

To be sure, these polling numbers don't make any particular party look especially good, but Democrats will sleep more easily than Republicans will.

"That's okay, Pejman," I hear you retort. "The Republican party is made up of squishes and moderates who are also squishes, who act very moderately. It's fine and good if the party goes the way of the dinosaur." To which I retort by giving the microphone to John Podhoretz (who likely will be denounced as a RiNO for writing what he has written):

Every piece of evidence we have so far on the government shutdown shows the public is blaming Republicans most of all for the standoff. On Monday, an ABC poll showed 71 percent fault the GOP; 61 percent fault Congressional Democrats; 51 percent fault President Obama.

Yes, Democrats look bad. Yes, Obama is probably doing himself no favors by saying he won’t negotiate when the public wants politicians in Washington to work together.

But Republicans look considerably worse. And for the Right, the Republican Party is the only game in town.

This is what my fellow conservatives who are acting as the enablers for irresponsible GOP politicians seem not to understand. They like this fight, because they think they’re helping to hold the line on ObamaCare and government spending. They think that they’re supported by a vast silent majority of Americans who dislike what they dislike and want what they want.

I dislike what they dislike. I want what they want. But I fear they are very, very wrong about the existence of this silent majority, and that their misperception is leading them to do significant damage to the already damaged Republican “brand.” (Forgive me for making use of that horribly overused term, but it’s the only one that fits.)

The belief that the public is with them is based on two data points: First, twice as many people say they’re conservative as say they are liberal. And second, ObamaCare is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the American people.

Both are true.

But it has been true for more than 20 years that Americans are twice as likely to call themselves conservative — and in that time Republicans have lost the popular vote in five out of six national elections. The statistic tells us little about how Americans vote or what they vote for.

And it is true that, according to Real Clear Politics, Americans disapprove of ObamaCare, 51 percent to 40 percent. It is unpopular. But it is not wildly, devastatingly unpopular — though given the fact that it is now rolling out and appears to be as incompetently executed as it was badly conceived, it may yet become so.

If ObamaCare had been as unpopular as conservatives believed, their plan for the shutdown — that there would be a public uprising to force Democratic senators in close races in 2014 to defund it — would’ve worked. It didn’t. Not a single senator budged.

Their tactic failed, and now what they are left with is House Speaker John Boehner basically begging the president of the United States to negotiate with him.

I further retort by giving the microphone to Ross Douthat as well:

. . . There was, as I’ve noted before, some kind of plausible populist case for threatening a shutdown around the health care law, as a kind of exercise in noisemaking and base mobilization. But the shutdown itself is just a classic march of folly. From RedState to Heritage to all the various pro-shutdown voices in the House, nobody-but-nobody has sketched out a remotely plausible scenario in which a continued government shutdown leads to any meaningful, worth-the-fighting-for concessions on Obamacare — or to anything, really, save gradually-building pain for the few House Republicans who actually have to fight to win re-election in 2014, and the ratification of the public’s pre-existing sense that the G.O.P. can’t really be trusted with the reins of government.

Sure, the polling could be worse. Sure, assuming cooler heads ultimately prevail, it’s not likely to be an irrecoverable disaster. But something can be less than a disaster and still not make a lick of sense. And that’s what we have here: A case study, for the right’s populists, in how all the good ideas and sound impulses in the world don’t matter if you decide to fight on ground where you simply cannot win.

I presume that despite the shift from demanding the defunding of Obamacare, despite the horrible poll numbers for the Republican party, despite the fact that the weakening of the Republican party means--as Podhoretz points out--the weakening of the conservative movement, and despite the fact that as Douthat writes, the shutdown strategy simply has not been thought through with any degree of care, there will be those who protest that I am in the wrong by declaring, as I have consistently declared, that the shutdown will not advance the goals of the right. Let me anticipate your objections to my post--and to me--with the following bullet points:

• I am a RiNO.
• I am a squish.
• I am a quitter.
• I am violating Reagan's Eleventh Commandment by taking issue with the Republican strategy in the shutdown confrontation.
• Polls don't matter.
• Have we mentioned that I am a RiNO and a squish?
• Winning elections is not important.
• I am a moderate.
• "Oh yeah? Well, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and George H.W. Bush lost!"
• I am an "establishment Republican."
• Blog posts like mine are the reason why the shutdown strategy is failing. Democrats get together in their cloakrooms and excitedly whisper amongst themselves "Yousefzadeh is down on the Republicans. You see? That proves that the GOP is divided! We've got 'em right where we want 'em!"
• I am completely mistaken about the current state of play because, shut up.
• I am secretly a Democrat whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly a communist whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly Mephistopheles, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly Tokyo Rose, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right.
• I am secretly Brett Favre, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right
• I am secretly Aaron Rodgers, whose job it is to destroy morale on the right
• I am a pessimist who simply shouldn't be listened to, because, shut up.
• I am from Chicago. Barack Obama is also from Chicago. Coincidence?

I have done my best to anticipate as many objections as I could. If I have forgotten any, I beg your indulgence and forgiveness. Must be my RiNO/squish/moderate nature to be careless.

Elections Have Consequences

Consider some of the ways in which the rollout of Obamacare has played in the news over this past week:

• We are informed by Todd Park, the chief technology officer of the United States (yes, we have one), that the reason there have been bugs in the health care exchange websites that have made it all but impossible to sign up for health insurance is that there have been oh-so-many people who have tried to sign up. Apparently, the fault for the bugs lays not with those who designed and rolled out the sign-up system, but with those who actually tried to sign up. Or, in Park's words "These bugs were functions of volume. Take away the volume and it works." There you have it; if only people didn't try to sign up for the health insurance exchanges, the websites for the health insurance exchanges would be functioning just fine. This is one of the more Scooby-Dooish statements I have ever had the misfortune of stumbling upon. If the Obamacare rollout were an animated television show, Park would be the one at the end of the episode who shakes his fist, declaring that "the health insurance exchange websites would have worked too, if it weren't for you crazy kids trying to sign up!"
• Meanwhile, the secretary of the treasury desperately tries to avoid telling us whether anyone actually has signed up for Obamacare. He even tries to tell you that the issue isn't his "primary area of responsibility." This isn't quite true, given the fact that the IRS is responsible for taxing people who don't get health insurance and that the IRS is part of the Treasury Department, but never mind, I guess; Jack Lew clearly wants to wash his hands of this entire mess.
• And just out of curiosity, do you think that there are other stories out there like this one? Me too.

Now gee, if only there were a way to get the media to focus on all of these problems instead of allowing the media's attention to be divided by, oh . . . say . . . a government shutdown that has no strategy or tactics behind it. Yes, I know, much of the media is biased against Republicans and in the best of times, it is like pulling teeth to get reporters to cover stories that my feature the Obama administration making a boo-boo or several. But that doesn't mean that Republicans have to give the media an excuse not to cover the failures of Obamacare's implementation by giving the media targets to shoot at on the Republican side.

A number of people in this cross-posted thread protested my rant, because they believe that I am not providing constructive suggestions on how Obamacare can be repealed. Fair enough. I am glad to provide constructive pieces of advice. Here is one: Win elections.

"Well, duh, Pejman," I hear you cry. But the point is worth making, given the fact that Republicans have increasingly opted for ideological purity over being able to get moderates and independents to join Republicans in a coalition on general election days in order to get Republicans into political offices. I know that there are people out there who are sick and tired of hearing about Christine O'Donnell, Todd Akin, Sharron Angle and Richard Mourdock, but let me tell you about Christine O'Donnell, Todd Akin, Sharron Angle and Richard Mourdock. They all won Republican primary elections they had no business winning if the Buckley Rule were still being observed with any degree of faithfulness.

To be sure, the people spoke in all of those Republican primary contests, and I respect the people's wishes, but if the people wanted to choose candidates who could win Senate seats in Delaware, Missouri, Nevada and Indiana, they chose . . . poorly. O'Donnell spent much of the election trying to convince people that she wasn't and isn't a witch (not exactly the kind of thing that a candidate dreams of discussing in his/her stump speech). Akin poured gasoline on his campaign and set it on fire (thus helping Claire McCaskill, who was, by far, the weakest Senate incumbent in the 2012 elections win by over 15 points on election day). Angle allowed a very vulnerable Harry Reid return to the Senate so that he could continue to be a noxious presence on the national stage. And Mourdock looked at Akin's campaign and said to himself, "self, that fellow seems to have some good ideas about how to lose an election," and followed through in implementing those ideas. In Mourdock's case, it is worth noting that he denied former Senator Richard Lugar a renomination to run in 2012. Lugar--does anyone really need to point this out?--would have won the general election in a walk and would have allowed Republicans to focus their energies on helping other candidates in other races. Instead, Mourdock ended up losing the general election, and as everyone and their pet canaries know, once incumbents get into office, it is very, very, very hard to get them out. The Indiana senate seat once occupied by Lugar may be in Democratic hands for a long time.

Lest anyone think that this shift away from electability is an accident, bear in mind that it is actually being encouraged by higher-up muckety-mucks in the conservative movement, with former Senator Jim DeMint being the most visible among the higher-up muckety-mucks in question. DeMint has said in the past that he would rather have candidates who adhere to conservative principles than have a Senate majority. I am all for smart candidates with conservative principles, just as I am all for smart candidates with libertarian principles as well. But not every state is as open to conservative or libertarian principles as DeMint or I would want those states to be. So--gasp!--sometimes, the Republican candidate is going to have to be less conservative than Jim DeMint would like in order to win an election.

I know, I know, grab the smelling salts; sometimes, we may have to make common cause with people who are less conservative than Jim DeMint would like. Well, it's either that, or Republicans will have to be a permanent minority in the Senate, and the House of Representatives as well, if DeMint's principles extend there. And hey, if DeMint would rather have a conservative presidential candidate than win the White House, then say goodbye to 1600 Penn. Ave. if anyone has the temerity to offer a more pragmatic course of action that may help Republicans win a presidential election. All of this, of course, would give Democrats a free hand to implement policies of their choosing with little to no organized Republican opposition. And once those policies are in place, they will be very difficult to dislodge.

So, while "win elections!" would seem to be really obvious advice, there are, alas, Republicans and conservatives out there who do not have a grasp on the obvious. And that is costing Republicans--and the right-of-center movement in general--very dearly.

In Which I Write the Blog Post that Gets Me Called a RINO/CINO/LINO/Whatever-the-HeckINO*

With the shutdown of the federal government, we the citizenry were treated to ironclad promises and Namathian guarantees from congressional Republicans that at last, at long last, we had finally found a way to undo Obamacare. All that was required was for us to "hang tough," and mysteriously, magically, miraculously, the president of the United States would be persuaded to agree to defund his signature legislative achievement. You know, the achievement that Democratic presidents since Harry Truman yearned to get Congress to pass. The achievement that he believed and still believes will vault him into the Pantheon of Great American Presidents. The achievement that has won him rapturous support among members of his own base. All of this Barack Obama was supposedly going to forsake in order to end a government shutdown.

Now, congressional Republicans--who cannot see more than one move ahead in any battle of wits if their lives depend on it--are shocked, shocked to find out that the president of the United States is not quite prepared at all to give up his signature legislative achievement. What's more, he's not even prepared to negotiate with congressional Republicans over any changes to Obamacare until and unless the government is re-opened for business, and perhaps not even then. I am sure that many the congressional Republican is howling in anger and protest at the White House's stubbornness on this issue, but whatever his faults and shortcomings, Barack Obama cannot be blamed if congressional Republicans ignore poll after poll after poll after poll after poll indicating that whatever the American people think about Obamacare, they don't want the government to be shut down over an effort to defund it. Furthermore, Barack Obama cannot be blamed for basing his response strategy on a position that sells in the polls, and Republicans can hardly be surprised that the president will take public opinion into account when thinking about how best to counteract Republican demands (though congressional Republicans continue to amaze me by finding ways to be surprised by the bleeding obvious).

For a group of tough talkers, preening swaggerers and would-be political gladiators, congressional Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they don't have the first clue how to fight and win political battles anymore. Much of the problem has to do with the fact that much of the congressional Republican caucus is made up of members who simply aren't the swiftest Porsches in the garage. Ineptitude and stupidity appear to be the Chekhov's gun of congressional Republicans; they are plainly in view on the political stage and at some point during the drama, as sure as the rising of the sun in the east, congressional Republicans will reach for, grasp and employ ineptitude and stupidity in their battles with Democrats. If congressional Republicans were a police force, they would be the Keystone Kops. If, as Dante Alighieri said, names are the consequence of things, then many members of the congressional Republican caucus would be named Moe, Larry, Curly and/or Shemp, irrespective of the gender of the congressional Republican in question. If American politics were analogized to the Godfather movies, congressional Republicans would be a collective Fredo Corleone. If American politics were analogized to World War II, congressional Republicans would be the Maginot line.

Consider the fact that one GOP representative, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, has decided that it would be oodles and oodles of fun to plague his fellow Republicans with migraine headaches by declaring that Republicans are "not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." (Emphasis mine, though perhaps emphasizing was entirely unnecessary.) When I was but a mere boy, I was taught that one never enters a negotiation without know what one wants, what one is prepared to give up in order to get what one wants, what one will never give up, and what one's best alternative to a negotiated agreement happens to be. Marlin Stutzman--who, remember, was elected to represent actual Americans in Congress and to negotiate on their behalf from time to time--has made it abundantly clear that he has not learned these lessons. And that means that Marlin Stutzman is a rube. An easy mark. A bamboozlee waiting to be bamboozed by the nearest bamboozler. And thus, the perfect mascot for the congressional Republican caucus, who in deed have demonstrated that they too don't have any idea whatsoever what they want out of any negotiations with the White House.

Oh sure, at the beginning, it was all about defunding Obamacare. But that was never going to happen, and no, it doesn't take hindsight to see that. Now, congressional Republicans say that they might be prepared to settle for an amendment to or repeal of the medical device tax, or a one year delay in the mandate for health insurance. Raise your hand if you believe, after the display we have been treated to this past week, that the White House will suddenly decide to fold like a cheap tent and give congressional Republicans even this victory. And even if the device tax is repealed (you can forget about the mandate going away), will any congressional Republican be able to sell the public on the idea that it was worth shutting down the government just for this?

The Hindenburgian/Titanicesque calamity that has been brought about by the performance of congressional Republicans has understandably left Republican leaders with few options. So now, we are told that Republicans are considering a "Hail Mary," which for non-football fans, is what happens when a team is behind, with almost no time on the clock, and in desperate need of nothing short of a miracle in order to win. The Hail Mary in question is the ever-elusive "grand bargain" on fiscal issues, "a budget deal that would include entitlement reforms, tax reform, and a new budget agreement, while also restoring government spending and raising the debt ceiling." Like Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, and Iranian political moderates, the "grand bargain" has been much discussed around campfires by people snacking on smores, but thus far, no evidence has been introduced that a grand bargain exists anywhere but in the imaginations of congressional Republicans. And yet, we are supposed to believe that one is achievable, despite the fact that congressional Republicans have not succeeding in repealing or defunding Obamacare. If they cannot do that--and remember, they promised us that they could if only we indulged the shutting down of the government!--how can we possibly expect them to deliver on some kind of "grand bargain" that brings us fiscal sanity, allows us to raise the debt ceiling so that the nation can pay its bills (more on this later), and gives all Americans a unicorn?

The grand bargain's reappearance on the political scene is due to the fact that "[m]ost House Republicans privately concede they’re fighting a battle they’re unlikely to win, and to avoid a prolonged shutdown and a disastrous debt default, Washington has to create a package so big that lifting the borrowing limit and funding the government is merely a sideshow." So, essentially, the grand bargain is a trick play designed to distract us from the fact that congressional Republicans utterly and completely botched their battle with the White House, which surely does little to restore one's faith in the intelligence of congressional Republicans--though it does much to reinforce my disdain for their critical thinking skills.

To be fair to congressional Republicans, part of the problem doesn't stem from the fact that they are bereft of field generals who are worth a damn. Part of the problem stems from the fact that if congressional Republicans do not hew to rigid ideological principles--irrespective of the facts on the ground and irrespective of how much rigid ideological principles might interfere with the crafting and implementation of pragmatic negotiating positions--then congressional Republicans will be challenged in primaries by people to their right. I am fine with the occasional primary challenge to congressional Republicans--people need to be kept honest, after all--but threatening primary challenges simply because some Republican somewhere decides to be practical about things every once in a while does not constitute the upholding of principles. Rather, it constitutes a sort of political cannibalism that makes Republicans look utterly and completely unreasonable to the American people, backs them into exceedingly uncomfortable corners, and lays waste to the Republican negotiating position in any talks with Democrats. From time to time, Republicans need to have sufficient ideological elbow room to strike deals. They cannot run the government on their own. But try telling that to activists who see pragmatism as heresy.

And what has all of that activism wrought? Has it wrought unity amongst congressional Republicans? Has it wrought any kind of desirable espirt de corps? Have congressional Republicans settled on a coherent battle plan and are they prepared to implement it? Hardly. Congressional Republicans are at each other's throats, don't know how to get themselves out of trouble, and are providing endless amounts of entertainment and mirth for congressional Democrats. The GOP has become one big, giant clown show.

And as though all of this is not enough, congressional Republicans are now planning to fight an increase on the debt ceiling (I told you that we would get to this issue). For those wondering about my sentiments on this scheme, let me spare you the suspense: Refusing to increase the debt ceiling is a fantastically stupid idea. In the annals of stupid ideas, it may rank as one of the stupidest. The United States would become a deadbeat nation. Financial markets would be thrown for a loop by the news that America cannot pay its bills. Interest rates on borrowing--and every nation borrows money; if the United States simply stopped borrowing money and lived only on tax revenue, you would see a dramatic and alarming drop in the standard of living for the American people--would rise alarmingly, something we absolutely, positively do not need with the economy still weak and with labor markets still very, very hobbled. The financial crisis of 2008 may look like a walk in the park by comparison, and the effects would be worldwide. The human misery would be staggering to behold. And I choose my words very carefully when I write all of this.

"But Pejman," I hear you cry, "we simply cannot afford more debt!" Well, here's some good news, for a change: Raising the debt ceiling will not put us further in debt. And refusing to raise the debt ceiling does not mean that we have decided to control government spending. Raising the debt ceiling is needed to pay bills that the United States has already incurred, just as having a job and bringing home a paycheck is needed to pay bills for your household. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is not--repeat, not--like going to a big spender and cutting up his/her credit card and telling him/her that s/he has to live within means. Rather, it is like going up to someone who relies on a job in order to pay bills and telling him/her that s/he would no longer get paid for work that s/he did, which means that s/he will not be able to pay bills, get food, get gas, keep a roof over his/her head (and those of his/her loved ones). Refusing to raise the debt ceiling will not bring about financial responsibility. It will bring about the very opposite of financial responsibility, in fact; it will cause the United States to be unable to pay its bills. I thought that paying one's bills on time and in full was a sign of maturity, responsibility, a willingness to do the right and adult thing. I thought that these were conservative/right-of-center libertarian/Republican virtues. When did Republicans suddenly decide that these were vices?

One of the biggest tragedies associated with this SNAFU Brought to You by Congressional Republicans is the fact that it overshadows the utter, total, complete, absolute, stark-raving-hysterical failure that has been the rollout of the health insurance exchanges that are supposed to help make Obamacare The Next Awesome Thing in the History of Ever. Quite laughably, the Obama administration compares the health insurance exchange websites with Apple products and tells us that but for a glitch here and there--and thanks to the overwhelming and rapturous popularity that has greeted the implementation of health care "reform," popularity that has simply overloaded the poor widdle websites with which one is supposed to sign up to be part of the health insurance exchanges--the exchanges would be up and running and we would find unicorns, Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, Iranian political moderates and fiscal grand bargains along with our Glorious and Unstoppably Fantastic Health Care Reform. Don't believe a word of this fatuous nonsense; the job of the people who prepared the health insurance exchange websites was to prepare for heavy traffic starting on October 1. If they botched that job, who knows what other shenanigans we will have to put up with when, you know, we actually go to doctors' offices for necessary--and perhaps life-saving--procedures. Much political hay could have been made about the Obama administration's lack of readiness when it came to rolling out the health insurance exchanges, not to mention the ridiculous attempts to compare their Internet-work with Apple products. But unfortunately, the political clumsiness of congressional Republicans--who on their best days have trouble catching a break from a partisan media--helped ensure that far less attention would be paid to the Obama administration's bungling of the exchange rollouts this week.

So, here's three hearty Bronx cheers for congressional Republicans, who remind us why Bobby Jindal was forced to tell the GOP that it should stop trying to be the Stupid Party. Too bad that congressional Republicans refused to listen to Jindal's instruction. This week, they have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, catastrophe from the jaws of temporary defeat, and a spate of night terrors from the jaws of brief and minor frights. No mean trick, that. Maybe someday, congressional Republicans will collectively grow a brain. Too bad that I will likely have died of old age well before anyone has the chance to witness that particular phenomenon.

*Republican in Name Only, Conservative in Name Only, Libertarian in Name Only, [INSERT VIRTUOUS APPELLATION HERE] in Name Only.

Introducing the IRS's New Slogan

"Better Late than Never!"

One of the groups at the center of the IRS scandal has finally received its tax-exempt status after a three-year delay prompted by a politically driven move to block Tea Party and other conservative groups, many that slammed the president during his re-election, from winning the special status.

TheTeaParty.net, one of the nation's largest Tea Party groups, told Secrets that the long-sought declaration arrived Monday, well over three years after they applied for 501c(4) tax-exempt status in March of 2010, the start of the Tea Party movement. The notice came in a letter from the IRS.

The group said it endured harassment by agents targeting mostly conservative non-profit groups for their political donors, agenda and even reading lists, all against the rules. Those agents were headed by the recently retired Lois Lerner.

"After four years battling Lois Lerner's shock troops, we are relieved that the IRS has relented and finally recognized our right to operate as a non-profit,” said Todd Cefaratti, founder of TheTeaParty.net. “First they tried to ignore us. Then they tried to discredit us. And then they tried to deny our legal rights. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end to a sad chapter in our government’s targeting of its own citizens," he added.

I am sure that the IRS expects praise and congratulations for the mercy and kindness it believes it has shown in this case.

Obamacare Glitches

This story is . . . not very reassuring:

Buying health insurance will be as easy as purchasing a plane ticket or shopping on Amazon, the president has promised.

Maybe, but perhaps not on Tuesday — the day that millions of Americans are supposed to be able to start buying coverage under the sweeping law referred to as Obamacare.

Widespread reports of computer problems and logistical glitches are casting a pall over what many supporters envisioned would be a triumphant day for the embattled program. State and federal health officials have said in recent days that some key functions of the online insurance sites called “marketplaces” will not be ready right away. Some of the consumer guides meant to help people sign up for coverage are not yet certified to do so.

Some people who had planned events in conjunction with the opening of the marketplaces have called them off.

“We just kind of laughed and said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll have to reschedule,’ ” said Jason T. Andrew, an insurance broker in California. He had planned on Tuesday to get on the state’s online marketplace and enroll a couple of people who were excited about the health-care law and wanted to be among the first to sign up for coverage.

But he hasn’t been certified by the state to do the work. He hasn’t been able to see the exact rates his clients would have to pay on the marketplace. And he’s not confident that California’s site will be up and running, and fully functioning, come Tuesday. California officials insist the marketplace will be ready, and that the brokers will be certified in early October.

Obama administration officials have warned there might be rough spots in the early days. They also have said those problems aren’t likely to prevent people from signing up for coverage that starts Jan. 1, when many of the law’s benefits and consumer protections kick in.

However, widespread problems on Tuesday, if they occur, will further fuel Republican attacks on the law’s viability. The program is at the center of a standoff between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill that could lead to a government shutdown on the very day the marketplaces are to open and an eventual default on the nation’s debt.

Under the law, more low-income citizens will become eligible for Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, while others will receive federal subsidies to help pay their premiums for private coverage bought on the marketplaces. Some of the marketplaces, also called exchanges, are being operated by the states, but most are being run at least partly by the federal government.

Some problems could be worse than mere glitches:

In the District, people who use the online marketplace will not immediately learn if they are eligible for Medicaid or for subsidies.

In Oregon, people will not initially be able to enroll in an insurance plan on the Web site.

In Vermont, the marketplace will not be ready to accept online premium payments until November.

In California, it could take a month for an insurer to receive the application of someone who applies for coverage on the exchange on Oct. 1.

“Nobody is going to say we’re not starting on October 1,” said Joel Ario, a health-care consultant who formerly oversaw exchanges at the Department of Health and Human Services. “But in some situations, you may see a redefinition of what ‘start’ means.”

Presumably, all of these glitches should resolve themselves at some point in time. Of course, we don't know when that will be. Funny; I could swear that I was told that we would find out what is in the health care "reform" bill once we passed it.

I am sure that there are still a great many members of Congress--who did pass the bill, after all--who continue to be prepared to swear up and down that Obamacare is a wonderful thing. Fine; I am sure then that those members of Congress are equally prepared to have Obamacare apply to them and to their staffs. Right?

Russia Is Indeed Back . . .

. . . thanks in large part to diplomatic bungling by the Obama administration over Syria. Ariel Cohen points out that the ramifications of the administration's errors go far beyond what will happen in Syria:

In what appears as yet another strategic blunder, Obama even elected to forego a binding UN Security Council resolution on Syrian disarmament under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows for enforcement, while Putin may hit the geopolitical jackpot.

If the disarmament initiative succeeds, Obama will “owe” Putin. America will be enticed to forget quickly the damage caused by the NSA and CIA defector Edward Snowden, who received asylum in Russia. America will remain mum as a Russian court has sentenced anticorruption crusader and whistleblower Alexei Navalny. Moscow is rife with rumors about preparations for the third trial of jailed oil tycoon and political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It is equally unlikely that Russia’s ambitious plans to expand the Eurasian Union to include Armenia and Ukraine into the Customs Union will meet a vigorous U.S. response.

Obama may not realize that Putin, a former KGB recruiting officer, seems to have played him like a violin. Putin has demonstrated that he is capable of stopping the world’s only superpower from using force—making him “the go to” man, to whom many on the U.S. blacklist will run to seek protection.

Putin will also have demonstrated that Russia, despite being seven times smaller than the U.S. economically, and weaker militarily, is capable of gaining impressive geopolitical results even when dealt a poor hand. As the military operation against Assad is postponed, Putin has increased the chances of the pro-Iranian regime’s survival, and possibly ensured the continued presence of a modest Russian naval facility in Tartus.

Moscow also has a growing interest in a Shia strategic belt extending from Lebanon via Syria and Iraq to Iran, as it prevents Sunni radicals from flooding into the North Caucasus and Central Asia—Russia’s soft underbelly.

Moscow also sent a signal that a U.S. military operation against the Iranian nuclear program may not happen—without the UN Security Council—i.e., the Kremlin’s—sanction. And that sanction will not be forthcoming.

Not bad for a week’s work.

Recall (again) that one of the reasons given for re-electing the president in 2012 was that he is supposedly a much better geopolitical chess player than that bumbler, Mitt Romney, who had the effrontery to tell us that Russia's interests don't exactly line up with our own. How is that argument looking now?

Health Care Policy Chaos

We were assured by Nancy Pelosi that we would have to pass health care reform in order to find out what was in it. We did, and most of the revelations about the details of the bill have been disquieting, to say the least. But at the very least, we're no longer information-starved, right?

Alas, wrong:

Alabamians hoping to find health insurance through a new federally developed insurance marketplace won’t get any details before October, when the insurance options are scheduled to go online.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports it is working on completing the list of health insurance plans that will be made public Oct. 1, when people can begin signing up for coverage that will start Jan. 1. That gives the uninsured a three-month window to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for individuals to have health insurance by Jan. 1 or face penalties at tax time in April.

“It’s frustrating that we are not going to be able to get a preview,” said Jim Carnes, spokesman for Alabama Arise, a Montgomery-based organization that addresses issues affecting Alabama’s poor. Because of that, Carnes predicts a slow start to people signing up.

I am betting that Alabamians are not alone in wondering what is in store for them. Meanwhile, yet another news item telling us that the health insurance exchanges are not ready for prime time. And another unwelcome wrinkle in the law reminds us just how poorly constructed it is:

A "family glitch" in the 2010 health care law threatens to cost some families thousands of dollars in health insurance costs and leave up to 500,000 children without coverage, insurance and health care analysts say.

That's unless Congress fixes the problem, which seems unlikely given the House's latest move Friday to strip funding from the Affordable Care Act.

Congress defined "affordable" as 9.5% or less of an employee's household income, mostly to make sure people did not leave their workplace plans for subsidized coverage through the exchanges. But the "error" was that it only applies to the employee — and not his or her family. So, if an employer offers a woman affordable insurance, but doesn't provide it for her family, they cannot get subsidized help through the state health exchanges.

That can make a huge difference; the Kaiser Family Foundation said an average plan for an individual is about $5,600, but it goes up to $15,700 for families. Most employers help out with those costs, but not all.

"We saw this two-and-a-half years ago and thought, 'Has anyone else noticed this?'" said Kosali Simon, a professor of public affairs at Indiana University who specializes in health economics. "Everyone said, 'No, no. You must be wrong.' But we weren't, and that's going to leave a lot of people out."

The issue has recently received attention, especially after former president Bill Clinton highlighted it in a recent speech.

"The family glitch is definitely a drafting error that Congress made that needs to be fixed," said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. "But that seems unlikely."

New rules state that those families will not be penalized for not purchasing coverage, but the point of the law was to make coverage affordable for families.

Jonathan Adler offers apt commentary: "It’s almost as if no one carefully read the bill that was passed. After all, this is hardly the only instance in which the text of the statute does something different than what the supporters had hoped."

This Must Be the Economy We Are Told Is Getting Better All the Time

Imagine how much we would be hearing about this story if a Republican were currently president:

It’s almost 6 p.m. on a Friday and the tables near the bar at The Hamilton in downtown Washington are getting crowded. That means waitress Victoria Honard is busy.

Honard, 22, who graduated from Syracuse University in May, works about 25 hours a week at the restaurant while looking for a job related to public policy. She moved to Washington four days after graduation with the hope of finding a position at a think tank or policy-related organization, she said, and has applied to about 20 prospective employers.

“The response has been minimal,” said Honard, whose degree focused on education, health and human services. “There are two ways of looking at it. I could be extremely frustrated and be bitter, or I can make the most of it, and I’m trying to take the latter approach.”

Unemployment data appear to reflect big advances for women. The jobless rate in August for females 20 years and older was 6.3 percent, the lowest since December 2008, compared with 7.1 percent for men. As recently as January, the rate was 7.3 percent for both genders, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The downside is that the gains have been largely in lower-paying industries such as waitresses, in-home health care, food preparation and housekeeping. About 60 percent of the increase in employment for women from 2009 to 2012 was in jobs that pay less than $10.10 an hour, compared with 20 percent for men, according to a study by the National Women’s Law Center using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And to think that once upon a time, people got into a tizzy because Mitt Romney refered to "binders full of women."

More Astonishingly Good Obamacare-Related News

Or, you know, not.

I know what the Obama administration's response to these kinds of stories is. "Nothing to see here, move along." I guess I am just wondering how many more delays, false starts, and implementation problems are supposed to plague the Affordable (ha!) Health Care Act before the media finally starts asking tough questions about the workability of the legislation.

Hassan Rohani Is No Moderate

To wit. Of course, one does not have to be a "historian" to know that the Holocaust occurred anymore than one has to be a physician to know that the appendix is not responsible for higher cognitive functions. And of course, it should surprise precisely no one to see that the standard language used to denounce Israel remains in use.

Perhaps President Obama could write a letter to Rohani, reminding him that if one wants to be taken seriously as a moderate, one actually has to act like a moderate. And perhaps, we ought to put aside for the moment all of this talk about a thaw in relations between Iran and the rest of the world.

Oh, and don't say that you weren't warned that Rohani is no moderate.

Devastating Criticism for the Obama Administration on Syria

From two of the administration's former defense secretaries, and from its former acting director of Central Intelligence:

President Obama’s first two defense secretaries publicly questioned the administration’s handling of the Syrian crisis on Tuesday night and expressed skepticism about whether Russia can broker a deal to remove Syria’s chemical weapons.

In a joint appearance in Dallas, both former Pentagon chiefs, Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta, were critical of Mr. Obama for asking Congress to authorize the use of force against Syria in retaliation over its use of chemical weapons. But they disagreed on whether military action would be an effective response. Mr. Gates said Mr. Obama’s proposed military strike was a mistake, while Mr. Panetta said it was a mistake not to carry out an attack.

“My bottom line is that I believe that to blow a bunch of stuff up over a couple days, to underscore or validate a point or a principle, is not a strategy,” Mr. Gates said during a forum at Southern Methodist University. “If we launch a military attack, in the eyes of a lot of people we become the villain instead of Assad,” he added, referring to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Mr. Gates, the only cabinet member from the administration of George W. Bush whom Mr. Obama asked to stay, said missile strikes on Syria “would be throwing gasoline on a very complex fire in the Middle East.”

[. . .]

Mr. Panetta, also speaking at the forum, said the president should have kept his word after he had pledged action if Syria used chemical weapons.

“When the president of the United States draws a red line, the credibility of this country is dependent on him backing up his word,” Mr. Panetta said.

“Once the president came to that conclusion, then he should have directed limited action, going after Assad, to make very clear to the world that when we draw a line and we give our word,” then “we back it up,” Mr. Panetta said.

[. . .]

Another former high-ranking Obama administration official, Michael J. Morell, who recently retired as the deputy director of the C.I.A., also expressed skepticism about the negotiations brokered by Russia.

“I think this is the Syrians playing for time,” Mr. Morell told Foreign Policy magazine in an interview published Tuesday on its Web site. “I do not believe that they would seriously consider giving up their chemical weapons.”

Mr. Gates said he doubted whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was sincere in his efforts to broker a deal, and said he was skeptical that the Syrian government would disarm. He said it was absurd that Syria needed days or weeks to identify the location and size of its chemical weapons arsenal, and he suggested that the timetable should be an ultimatum of 48 hours.

When asked whether the West should trust Mr. Putin, Mr. Gates said, “Are you kidding me?”

Obviously, I am with Gates on whether military action should have been threatened or taken over Syria, but Panetta's point is not without merit; the Obama administration looks non-credible for having backed down--especially given the entirely appropriate skepticism expressed for the Putin plan. It would have been nice if the administration had reached out to Gates, Panetta and Morell prior to signing on to the Russian plan--and it would have been nice if John Kerry had not given the Russians an opening to begin with by being clumsy enough to answer a hypothetical question. Too bad that no one from the administration saw fit to engage Gates, Panetta or Morell in the discussion.

Speaking of the difference between former and current Obama administration officials, are those who championed the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary still glad that he is in the cabinet, given his endorsement of the awful Russian plan and his disagreement with Gates, Panetta and Morell (a disagreement the New York Times story linked above references)?

Larry Summers Will Not Be Chairman of the Federal Reserve

I am late to this, but as those who have been covering the horserace for the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve already know, Larry Summers has taken himself out of the running. Sarah Binder makes some good points regarding the rise and fall of Summers' prospects as a candidate for the chairmanship. You should read her entire post, but the following especially caught my eye:

• The White House allowed the Summers nomination to twist in the wind publicly for too long, and by not actually nominating Summers, the White House "left his opponents in control of the confirmation contest." Assuming that the conventional wisdom is true and that the president wanted Summers all along, this is an especially cruel way to treat someone who was a member of the Obama administration, and who was the president's first choice for the position of chairman of the Federal Reserve.
• Quite obviously, this is a big win for the liberal wing of the Democratic party, which took the lead in sinking the Summers nomination.
• I agree with Binder that Federal Reserve nominations will become a whole lot less acrimonious when the economy finally starts humming along.

Paradoxically, of course, those who worked to sink the Summers nomination in order to get the president to nominate Janet Yellen instead might have done her candidacy some harm as well. The president may not like being seen as capitulating to the demands of the liberal wing of his party; it would make him look weak, after all. I think that Yellen is the frontrunner now, but it would not surprise me if Barack Obama chose a different candidate in order to signal to liberals that he cannot be pushed around.

Edward Luce argues that Summers and Yellen were not as far apart on the issues as Summers' opponents liked to claim that they were. Of course, policy similarities and differences are in the eye of the beholder to a very large extent, but this is worth noting nonetheless.

Our Remarkably Unfabulous Middle East Policy

One of the best--and most depressing--analyses that I have seen regarding the recent Russian-American deal on Syria:

The United States and Russia have now averted U.S. military action against the Syrian regime for Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians. Is the agreement reached by Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov on September 9 a diplomatic triumph for the Obama administration, or was it, as retired British ambassador Charles Crawford called it, “the worst day for U.S. and wider Western diplomacy since records began?”

While perhaps not as bad as Ambassador Crawford suggests, we agree that the outcome is one of the worst defeats for U.S. foreign policy in decades. We write as two scholars and former national-security practitioners who agree on almost nothing else regarding Syria: one is a traditional realist who opposed military action against Assad, and the other is a recent arrival in the camp of the post-Cold War liberal internationalists who supported striking the Syrian regime. We come not only from diverging views but also from different academic disciplines (history and political science), and while both of us have served in positions relevant to American foreign and security policy, we speak on our own behalf, especially since we ourselves are otherwise so deeply divided about U.S. intervention overseas.

We share, however, a background in the study of Russia, and it is here that we find the outcome of the Syrian crisis to be so disastrous. For nearly seven decades, American efforts in the Middle East have been based on a bipartisan consensus—one of the few to be found in U.S. foreign policy—aimed at limiting Moscow’s influence in that region. This is a core interest of American foreign policy: it reflects the strategic importance of the region to us and to our allies, as well as the historical reality Russia has continually sought clients there who would oppose both Western interests and ideals. In less than a week, an unguarded utterance by a U.S. Secretary of State has undone those efforts. Not only is Moscow now Washington’s peer in the Middle East, but the United States has effectively outsourced any further management of security problems in the region to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

A halfway competent United States Congress, interested in doing its job, would call hearings and call out Secretary Kerry and others in the administration--including the president himself--for undermining a key American foreign policy interest. Oh, and perhaps newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post should come out with editorials demanding the resignations of people like Secretary Kerry, and anyone else who sold President Obama on the idea that accepting increased Russian influence in the Middle East is a good thing.