Wednesday, April 15, 2009  

Defending Robert Samuelson's attack on Dem health care plan and Obama's "post-material" economy, blogger D.A. argues that  it's only "an aspirational preference" for "everyone to be insured." In other words, it's not a preference people would make spending "their own money in the absence of compulsion by the government." ... I think I like aspirational preferences. "All men are created equal" seems like an aspirational preference. Can't buy it at the mall. It seems like it would be hard to achieve any desirable form of equality--equality before the law, equality of opportunity, or social equality--simply by aggregating the choices of individuals spending their own money.  ... 1:08 A.M.

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Did John McTiernan Make the Wrong Self-Serving Paranoid Conspiracy Film? Die Hard director John McTiernan, who pled guilty, withdrew his plea, and is now awaiting potential indictment in the Anthony Pellicano scandal, has apparently made a film blaming Karl Rove for pursuing Pellicano. The theory? According to the NYT , McTiernan sees

the Pellicano prosecution as having stemmed from a pre-emptive strike against a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential candidacy.

Mrs. Clinton, the film says, was widely reported to have had help from Mr. Pellicano when her husband was accused in 1992 of having had an affair with Gennifer Flowers .

According to an elaborate turn of events asserted in the documentary, the Pellicano prosecution was intended to churn up dirt that was then folded into an anti-Clinton campaign video that was planned for use if she were nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate.

I'd say McTiernan's thinking too small! If I were making a paranoid conspiracy documentary about Rove and Pellicano, I wouldn't focus on Hillary. I'd focus generally on the "thousands of hours of encoded tapes from wiretaps" the FBI supposedly found when they raided Pellicano's office. Who knows who is on those tapes? Lots of Hollywood bigshots, presumably. Whoever has those tapes might, in this conspiracy theory, be able to blackmail half the big showbiz donors to the Democratic party--donors to Hillary and Obama . Of course, the tapes were in the possession of government law enforcement officals--not Bush operatives. But, hey, would that have stopped Richard Nixon or John Mitchell? We're making a crazy film here!  ... I know when I heard about the stash of tapes, I began to drool (figuratively). And I'm not Karl Rove. ... 12:20 A.M

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Headline in WSJ : "Emanuel Now a Backer of Immigration Action" The evidence?

For his part, Mr. [Rahm] Emanuel said his views haven't changed, though people may be viewing him in a new light now. In any case, he said, his job now was to represent the president's views.

"It doesn't matter what Rahm thinks," he said in an interview. "It matters what President Obama thinks." [E.A.]

Yes, sounds like he's had a total change of heart! ... 12:18 A.M.

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