Donkasaurus Post

Josh Marshall, 8-27-09:
In an interview with the Economist magazine recently, former House Majority Leader and current FreedomWorks Capo Dick Armey said that something like a Public Option would be great. But the issue comes down to choice.
“If you in fact freely choose to enroll in Medicare that’s a wonderful gift,” said Armey, “it’s a charity, [...]

Two very different takes on the same idea:
An admittedly highly partisan site:

E.J. Dionne on town hall-generated legislation:
Health-care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town-hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.
But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? [...]

First there was all this talk that there was no such thing as climate change. Now, many are trying to leap frog over solving it, with all this talk of “geo-engineering” it.  
Here’s a novel idea. Let’s stop using the stuff that predominantly causes it: Mainly coal (which is also otherwise very environmentally destructive). 
“Well, we can’t, we [...]

Should Obama be speaking directly to your children, via a direct feed into their school TVs (should school rooms even have TVs??) for 15 minutes or so about eating healthy, trying to do well in school? Or is this an overstepping of the federal government’s boundaries?
Is that a simple question?
Maybe, for some (rightly or wrongly). But [...]

The First Seriously Donkey way, we saw for many years, as “decryers” denied basic science:
There is no such thing as climate change
They cried.
Of course this was silly.  Greenhouse gas concentrations have been rising dramatically as a result of burning fossil fuels, and other agricultural practices. They trap heat. Heat plays a central role in climate. 
Now, [...]

From a letter written by several prominent conservatives, to President Obama, backing him on Afghanistan (emphasis added):
The situation in Afghanistan is grave and deteriorating. This is in part the legacy of an under resourced war effort that has cost us and the Afghans dearly.
And why might that war effort have been under resourced?

The Wall Street Journal’s James Tarantano seems to be in a separate reality when it comes to the Afghanistan quagmire.  Despite noting that 57% of Americans now oppose our continued involvement, with 42% in support, Taranto acts like Obama has been shirking from the Afghanistan problem or, even worse according to him, simply abandoning the effort [...]