The New Republic

The conservative hysteria over the prospect of using budget reconciliation to approve relatively minor budget-related changes to the health care bill has been a bizarre spectacle. The rhetoric is near-apocalyptic (Wall Street Journal editorial headline: "Abuse Of Power") yet the effects of this legislation are so minor. It's not like conservatives think the Senate bill is just fine, but the reconciliation changes would be Socialism. READ MORE >>

--What happened to Hillary and Flynt Leverett? --Charles Krauthammer actually has a sensible and amusing column today --Jonathan Cohn summarizes the health care summit --Damon Linker on conservatism and American exceptionalism READ MORE >>

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Not long ago, Andrew Sullivan had ultra-hawkish views on Israel and the Middle East. The problem as he saw it, was very simple: The Muslim world was anti-Semitic and wanted to kill all the Jews. Naive Western governments pushed innocent Israelis to make peace, when the only answer was force. Here are some excerpts from an August 2001 column he wrote: READ MORE >>

I. “Trying to explain the doctrine of the Trinity to readers of The New Republic is not easy.” On June 2, 1944, W.H. Auden penned that sentence in a letter to Ursula Niebuhr. On January 26, 2010, Andrew Sullivan posted it as the “quote for the day” on his blog. Displaced and unglossed quotations are always in some way mordant, and bristle smugly with implications. Let us see what this one implies. READ MORE >>

Charles Krauthammer! The winning entry is Krauthammer's column in today's Washington Post, which spends roughly 700 words gloating over the decline in Obama's poll ratings as a function of his wild liberalism, without a single reference to unemployment: READ MORE >>

On the inside cover of the last issue of The New Republic, the conservative American Future Fund (AFF) took out an advertisement helpfully warning moderate Democrats to abandon health care reform. The ad features head shots of numerous Democratic members of Congress who lost their seats in 1994. The headline reads, “THE LOSERS OF 1994 … THANKS TO HEALTH CARE!” READ MORE >>

I understand why the universe of cons and neo-cons has pounced on the Obamae for prosecuting K.S.M. in civilian proceedings in New York. And I find Charles Krauthammer's particular indictment of the venue and legal envelope of the proceedings strong, if not (entirely) persuasive. READ MORE >>

Fox News All-Star panelist Charles Krauthammer says the Senate health care bill starts collecting revenue immediately, but runs an annual deficit, so that it will explode the deficit in the long run: In the House bill, and I'm sure in the bill that we will hear about tomorrow in the Senate, it's ten years of people paying in, and six or seven years of health care [paying out] because [the benefits] kick in later. READ MORE >>