Nightly Ramble: Friday

Welcome, one and all to the most INTENSE nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere…. The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• SO PEOPLE TALKING UP OBAMACARE TOOK MONEY FROM ADMINISTRATION? So reports Megan McArdle, though frankly it should shock nobody:
  

  MIT economist Jonathan Gruber has become the go-to economist for fans of the health care reform wending its way through congress.  He regularly produces analyses showing how great reform is going to be for people buying insurance in the individual market, and has been a vocal advocate for the excise tax.  His prominence made him a natural lead-in for Ron Brownstein’s recent piece on the health care bill for Atlantic Politics:

  When I reached Jonathan Gruber on Thursday, he was working his way, page by laborious page, through the mammoth health care bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had unveiled just a few hours earlier. Gruber is a leading health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is consulted by politicians in both parties. He was one of almost two dozen top economists who sent President Obama a letter earlier this month insisting that reform won’t succeed unless it “bends the curve” in the long-term growth of health care costs. And, on that front, Gruber likes what he sees in the Reid proposal. Actually he likes it a lot.
  “I’m sort of a known skeptic on this stuff,” Gruber told me. “My summary is it’s really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can’t think of a thing to try that they didn’t try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing.”

  He shows up in the work of the left-half of the health care commentariat so often that if I tried to round up representative cites, this piece would be published sometime next month, and you’d die of old age before you made your way through it.

  That kind of consistency when so many other people are pointing exactly the opposite direction, and further, have the facts to back up their points, obviates the question of whether not money was involved.  The question remaining was from where did it come.  As Megan points out, the administration had the responsibility to identify that relationship between itself and Gruber.  How much of the money’s being spent to “revitalize” America, are actually being spent to promote Neo-socialist policy, I wonder?

• WHERE’S THE JOBS?
  

  WHERE'S THE JOBS?

  Clara Peller wondered “where’s the beef?”. If she were alive today and looking at the jobs report, she’d be directing her ire at the Administration, I suspect demanding to know “WHERE”S THE JOBS?”

• WITHER LENO: There appears to be some movement, or at least some negotiation, going on with Jay Leno and NBC these days. Ultimately it comes down to how seriously they take  Conan O’Brien.  And what kind of an offer Fox can make a point Leno himself alluded to.  Here’s a clue, however, for NBC;   David Letterman, and CBS.  Do I really need to spell that one out?
• It”S ABOUT TIME:  The Washington Post is making a lot of smoke these days about Michael Steele, the RNC chairman.   It’s time that the republican congressional leaders discovered the truth of the matter; it’s they have damaged the republican brand and not Michael Steele.  That being the case, and barring any miracles in terms of the republican congressional leadership actually following Steele’s direction, he’s quite correct, in that they Republicans won’t do nearly as well.  my message to the congressional leadership, however, is just because Michael Steele doesn’t agree with you, doesn’t mean that he’s not playing to win for Republicans.  Which of course a raises the question about whether are not you are.  And frankly, I figure that’s probably what makes you more nervous than anything.
• SO YOU LOOKING FOR H1N1 VACCINE? Apparently, due to the fabulous management ability of the Federal government, we have located a few truckloads of the stuff floating around unused. Let’s see… we’re going to let these morons manage our healthcare why, again?