Over the weekend, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, APP founder Robert George wrote:

"If Obama did not pick up the phone and call British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to try to stop the release of Megrahi, then I want to know why he didn't."

Ken Blackwell echoes Dr. George's concern:

"Did Gordon Brown get a green light from the Obama administration to let this convicted murderer go "scot free?" Did the British government even consult with Washington before taking this despicable action?"

At this point, no one in the administration has denied being consulted by the British government.

For all of Mr. Obama's strong words about capturing or killing known terrorists like Osama bin Laden, why was his administration asleep at the switch when a captured terrorist convicted of killing American citizens was about to be released by one of America's allies?

APP Founder Robert George in this weekend's Philadelphia Inquirer:

Part of a Pan Am jet in Lockerbie, Scotland, where it crashed after the 1988 bombing.

Killer's release demands answers

... It is true that sometimes justice must be tempered by compassion; but the release of an unrepentant mass murderer after only eight years in prison is a false and misguided compassion. As FBI Director Robert S. Mueller has said, "It makes a mockery of the grief of the families."

Megrahi is now a free man in his native land; we cannot hold him accountable for his crimes. But the people of Britain, as citizens of a democratic nation, can hold their government accountable for releasing him. And we in the United States should demand accountability of our leaders, too.

What did American officials know about the decision to free Megrahi and when did they know it? What, if anything, did our government do to try to prevent it? Remember, 180 of Megrahi's victims were our fellow citizens. President Obama had a right to be informed in advance of what Scotland was planning to do and a duty to do everything in his power diplomatically to prevent this outrage.

Not long ago, the president saw fit to insinuate himself into a dispute between a Harvard professor and a Cambridge, Mass., police officer over a disorderly conduct arrest. It was hardly an issue of national importance. The release by an ally of the murderer of 180 Americans is. If Obama did not pick up the phone and call British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to try to stop the release of Megrahi, then I want to know why he didn't. I hope you want to know, too.

Read the full piece here, where Dr. George explains his personal connection to this tragedy.

Incredibly, Mr. Obama and the democrat leadership continue to make false claims about whether or not abortion is in their health care proposals.

Last Saturday Mr. Obama said:

"Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform." 

The evidence, however, contradicts Mr. Obama's recurring claims...

Non-partisan FactCheck.org says:

"Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.... we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions "fabrications."

Time magazine quotes Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak:

"Stupak says that Obama's statements during recent public events signal one of two things: either he does not fully understand the current House bill, which Stupak maintains has the effect of publicly funding abortion, or "if he is aware of it, and he is making these statements, then he is misleading people."

A Washington Times editorial says:

"President Obama isn't being straight when he says current health care proposals don't provide government funding for abortion. They do. If Democratic plans are passed, your taxes will pay for abortions."

These three sources join the Associated Press, which has already said that government insurance "would allow coverage for abortion." Following the links above will supply the proof for these mainstream media claims that the current health care proposals do in fact fund abortion.

Mr. Obama has frequently called for an honest, open and informed debate about the democrat proposals for health care reform.

Well, let's have it.

William McGurn makes the straightforward point in today's Wall Street Journal that Mr. Obama won the presidency on centrist themes, and that a return to them could save his term, while continuing to govern from the far-left will be ruinous to him and the American people. Otherwise, Mr. Obama will have to satisfy himself with this middle point.

Elliot Abrams claims that the "Soviet Standard" is making a re-appearance ... in the US State Department:

At the height of the Cold War, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Soviets and their allies and satellites did not shirk human-rights debates with the West. They had their arguments ready. When American officials denounced the lack of freedom of speech or press or religion, or the absence of free elections, they did not whimper. Their replies went something like this: “It’s important to look at human rights more broadly than it has been defined. Human rights are also the right to a good job and shelter over your head and a chance to send your kids to school and get health care when your wife is pregnant. It’s a much broader agenda. Too often it has gotten narrowed to our detriment.”

No one would be surprised to hear that such words were spoken by Mikhail Suslov, the long-time ideological chief of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, or by Khrushchev or Brezhnev, or by Castro or Ceaucescu, or by any other chieftain from the “socialist countries.” But that quote actually comes from Secretary of State Clinton, in an interview this month with the Wall Street Journal. It is an astonishing revival of the old Soviet line, now taken up by an American official.

.... The use of similar language by our top diplomat must be a shocking message to freedom fighters around the globe. It is another signal of the abandonment of the cause of human rights by the Obama administration. And it’s a new stage: Not only are human rights being ignored by the State Department and the National Security Council, but now the very basis — ideological and intellectual — of America’s support for human rights is being undermined. (NR)

Charles Krauthammer is not prone to hype. So when he says there is cause for concern, we should take special notice (underlining mine):

We ... have to tell the defenders of the notorious Section 1233 of H.R. 3200 that it is not quite as benign as they pretend. To offer government reimbursement to any doctor who gives end-of-life counseling -- whether or not the patient asked for it -- is to create an incentive for such a chat.

... So why get Medicare to pay the doctor to do the counseling? Because we know that if this white-coated authority whose chosen vocation is curing and healing is the one opening your mind to hospice and palliative care, we've nudged you ever so slightly toward letting go.

... [this] is subtle pressure applied by society through your doctor. And when you include it in a health-care reform whose major objective is to bend the cost curve downward, you have to be a fool or a knave to deny that it's intended to gently point the patient in a certain direction, toward the corner of the sickroom where stands a ghostly figure, scythe in hand, offering release."

And let's remember, "gentle pressure" has a much more powerful effect when it is placed on someone who is already sick and in distress.

Any sort of "pressure" to end one's life for the benefit of society (and to ration the scarce resources of the government-run plan) is the very opposite of what medicine should do for us and for our loved ones.

I've also written about this "medical paternalism" which Krauthammer describes above, and how it infringes on human dignity and goes against the purposes of the medical profession.

I've had similar thoughts about the "tone" of press secretary Robert Gibbs:

"Gibbs has grown more sardonic and patronizing as the summer wears on and Obama’s poll numbers wilt.

The press secretary has lectured reporters on the nature of their jobs — apparently to defend the administration against “misinformation” rather than asking impertinent questions like “How will you pay for it?”

... Gibbs is so crabby because, incredibly, the administration blames the media for the president’s problems." (Chris Stirewalt)

The White House's problem is not, however, the messaging, but the message itself.

After all, can anyone doubt that this administration is very profitient at selling its ideas? The fact that their messaging is failing in this instance is only greater proof for how much Americans oppose the details of the "reform."

update: Ross Douthat provides more reflection on this turn around:

"As the health care debate enters its decisive weeks, the left doubts President Obama’s commitment, and the press doubts his competence."

[Click here for the beginning portion of this article.]

I am not alone in this assessment. Lee Siegel in the Daily Beast points out (what he calls) "Obama's Euthanasia Mistake":

The shading in of human particulars is what makes [ACPC] so unsettling. A doctor guided by a panel of experts who have decided that some treatments are futile will, in subtle ways, advance that point of view. Cass Sunstein calls this “nudging,” which he characterizes as using various types of reinforcement techniques to “nudge” people’s behavior in one direction or another. An elderly or sick person would be especially vulnerable to the sophisticated nudging of an authority figure like a doctor.

A second important point is that ACPC creates situations where financial, budgetary concerns are directly placed side-by-side with end-of-life decisions. Mr. Obama has frequently chided the insurance companies for denying expensive services to the newly-sick, but how much more will the government be tempted to deny expensive services to the sick-and-dying? What makes government different, especially when it has been self-tasked as being cost-effective?

Charles Lane writing in the Washington Post states a similar concern:

Section 1233 ... addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones. Supporters protest that they're just trying to facilitate choice -- even if patients opt for expensive life-prolonging care. I think they protest too much: If it's all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what's it doing in a measure to "bend the curve" on health-care costs?

... Ideally, the delicate decisions about how to manage life's end would be made in a setting that is neutral in both appearance and fact. Yes, it's good to have a doctor's perspective. But Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party -- the government -- recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations. You don't have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach.

Because ACPC does represent a significant expansion of government into end-of-life issues, it's also useful to gauge the ideological background and practical framework of those who are pushing the legislation. On this count, it's not off-topic to include some rather alarming comments Obama has made about his view on these end-of-life cost issues:

President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.

... Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill.

... “That’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues,” he said in the April 14 interview. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”

Finding ethically-responsible solutions to these "difficult moral issues" is not assisted by focusing on the financial bottom line. And yet it becomes quite clear why the democratic framers of this legislation, in an effort to be cost-efficient, have included such a mechanism as that proposed by ACPC. After all, shouldn't this "potential 80 percent of total health care [costs]" portion of the population be reminded about their ... options?

Recent clarifications from the administration and Mr. Obama have not provided any great reassurance. The basic problem still exists - the administration wants to cut costs, but seniors represent the majority of these costs. And in the ACPC the government appears to be trying to find a way to remind seniors how they can choose to be more cost-efficient. Attempts to mollify those who are concerned about ACPC remain unsatisfying. For instance, Mr. Obama's claim (at a recent town hall meeting in New Hamphsire) that a republican originally proposed ACPC has been shown to be misleading at best.

And so, when Mr. Obama claims there will be no "death panels" in the health care legislation, that does not answer all the questions about ACPC that ought to be addressed before the bill moves forward.

One answer we should ask ourselves in the meantime, is how comfortable we would be with the idea of our aged loved ones being asked to undertake such counseling sessions as outlined by ACPC at the minimum of every five years, as well as whenever they experience a dramatic change in their health.

update: the Senate Finance Committee has opted to drop this problematic end-of-life counseling, but it remains in other permutations of the bill, including the House version.

Victor Medina poses a serious question:

A measure in President Barack Obama's health care plan could allow for special interest groups like Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion services provider, to operate health care clinics, at taxpayer expense, inside America's public schools.

Under Title V ("Other Provisions") of Obama's "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" (the official name for the bill, H.R. 3200), Subtitle B (School-Based Health Clinics, or SBHC) outlines a program in which the federal government would fund clinics in or near the nation's schools. The administration of these clinics will not rest with the school nurse or anyone who answers to the school administration or parents. Under Section 399Z, "the SBHC sponsoring facility assumes all responsibility for the SBHC administration, operations, and oversight."

According to the bill, a "sponsoring facility" is "a hospital, a public health department, a community health center, a nonprofit health care agency, (or) a local educational agency." Such broad wording outlining the qualifications for government funds and access to schoolchildren could open the door for groups like Planned Parenthood to operate the clinics in schools with no oversight and full federal government support. The organization currently operates over 850 clinics nationwide.

The clinics would be funded by federal grants awarded by the Obama administration, which has made it clear that they expect Planned Parenthood to play an active role in their proposed health care system. In the midst of the recent national debate this summer and during the Congressional recess over the health care plan, members of the Obama administration were meeting with Planned Parenthood staff and making strong overtures over their potential role in health care reform.

Some time ago, Human Life International did a study on what goes on at these school health clinics, and why they are on Planned Parenthood's agenda.

One of the details that adds credence to this concern is the fact that Planned Parenthood has been actively training hundreds of "teen educators" to spread Planned Parenthood's philosophy of pushing condoms, sexual experimentation, and abortion as a "solution" to crisis pregnancies.

Medina surmises that these school-based health clinics would be an "ideal outlet" for these teen educators to have authorized, subsidized access to schoolchildren. 

Considering the horrible track record Planned Parenthood has when it comes to the rights of underage persons (Live Action has been doing good undercover work on this), we should be concerned that their services might soon be offered not only near, but also inside our nation's schools.

Offering real health care is one thing, but offering advice on sexuality to young children (not to mention contraceptives and even information about abortion) - thereby undermining the authority of parents to make these decisions - is something else entirely.

So we ought to have an intense discussion about these School-based health clinics, and soon.

A good lesson from history:

When presidents make clear, with modesty and even some chagrin, that they have made a mistake but that they've learned a lesson and won't be making it again, the American people tend to respond with sympathy. It is our tradition and our impulse.

Such admissions are not a sign of weakness. John F. Kennedy knew this after the Bay of Pigs. He didn't blame his Republican predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, or the agencies that had begun the invasion's tentative planning under Ike. JFK made it clear he'd learned a great deal, which increased confidence in his leadership. His personal popularity rose so high that he later wryly noted that the more mistakes he made, the more popular he became.

I suspect the American people would appreciate seeing Barack Obama learn from this, and keep going. (WSJ)

Unfortunately, there are few signs that such an admission of having erred will be forthcoming.

No President likes to see their mandate, having been squandered, become lost:

US President Barack Obama launched a mocking counter-attack Thursday at pundits who believe the euphoric early promise of his presidency is evaporating amid bitter political warfare. 

Obama, who has watched his poll ratings dip sharply over recent months, drew comparisons to his 2008 presidential campaign, which was several times all but written off by media experts who set prevailing political wisdom.

"We have been through this before, in Iowa," Obama said, referring to the first state to hold a 2008 Democratic nominating contest, which saw him capture a come-from-behind win.

... "There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee weed up!" (Breitbart)

It's unfortunate that Mr. Obama only has the experience of his own campaign and current political predicimate to fall back on. One would hope, that in this "great debate" about our nation's health care system, Mr. Obama did not appear to be so worried about his poll numbers, but rather, would use the poll numbers as some sort of measure of how effectively he is serving the American people.

The chart to show the trend, from the Wall Street Journal:

[From the same WSJ article:]

One thing both sides agree on: - Six months in to Mr. Obama's presidency, a growing core of Americans is turning against the president, including some voters he won over during the campaign.

"I thought he was going to unite us as a country. When I heard, 'There's not a white America, there's not a black America, there are the United States of America,' that resonated with me," said Leah Wolczko, a 42-year-old teacher from Manchester, N.H., who described herself as a political independent who had supported Mr. Obama but failed to vote in November. "But when they start talking specifics, well, now we've got some problems." She objects to what she calls Mr. Obama's big-government, big-spending policies.

Rhetoric need not always contradict reality. But one thing is certain - rhetoric will never get us as far as sound American principles, especially in government. Especially when reality sets in.

Here at APP, we are passionate about raising the level of political discourse. We believe that average Americans are capable of making the right political choices when shown the facts and provided the logical arguments to understand the principles which are at stake.

Sometimes it's useful to realize how far we have to go before this belief becomes a reality in our political process. Take for instance Rich Lowry's withering series of rhetorical questions:

The Obama team is saddled with a foundering health-care strategy. But it has a fallback plan — relying on the sheer dimwitted gullibility of the American public. How stupid do they think we are?

Stupid enough to think that a new $1 trillion health-care entitlement is just the thing to restore the country to fiscal health.

He continues with 21 more "stupid enough" examples. I'll excerpt a few of the most glaring:

Stupid enough to think increased preventive care will save the government money, just because Pres. Barack Obama constantly repeats it, despite all the independent studies to the contrary. [I've written about this on APP here.]

Stupid enough not to notice that the “public option” was explicitly designed by the Left as a stealthy path to single-payer, even as liberals continue to talk and write about its ultimate purpose openly. [I've written about this on APP several times.]

Stupid enough to think that the very real problem of people with pre-existing conditions locked out of the insurance market can’t be alleviated short of a 1,000-page bill reordering the entire health-care system.

Stupid enough to get gulled by rhetoric attacking special interests when almost all the special interests are backing Obama’s plan for cowardly and self-interested reasons.

Stupid enough to blame nefarious Republicans for the faltering public support for an expensive, ungainly and contradictory health-care program passed out of four congressional committees on strict party-line votes.

Okay, my dear Americans, let's not be stupid, and let's help others not to be stupid. We all deserve better from our government.

Not to the private sector it seems. Rather, it's keeping federal jobs active. One example:

"...through the end of June that stimulus money created or saved 796 jobs, with 700 of those state workers who did not have to get laid off thanks to the federal grants, Fitch said.

Federal highway money accounted for 75 jobs and weatherization programs kept or added 16 to the payroll, he added.

Road or building project locale, rather than median income or economic woes, played a big part in communities that received an Obama administration windfall."

 Layers and layes of beuacracy:

The Legislature has already approved a 15-month, $2 million budget for the stimulus office that will ultimately have five, full-time staff including a $120,000-a-year director.

So much for tax cuts.

Victor Davis Hanson writes:

There is something creepy about the sudden invocation of Christian morality by the president to galvanize support for his state-run health care plan, as if his opponents are suddenly to be seen as somehow selfish or even un-Christian. This is an unfortunate, counter-productive tactic for at least four reasons: 

[read them.]

I think we are seeing a sort of presidential meltdown. As Obama's polls free-fall, and threaten wider political damage, it causes him a certain novel exasperation that for the first time in his life soaring hope-and-change rhetoric for some strange reason no longer substitutes for a detailed, logical, and honest agenda. The problem right now is not with un-Christian opponents, but dozens of congressional Democrats who simply do not wish to run on state-run medical care (as well as higher taxes, larger deficits, cap-and-trade, etc.), and no longer sense the president's popularity trumps the unpopularity of his agenda and gives them cover with the voters. 

Especially when, well, the details get in the way:

President Barack Obama, trying to regain control of the health-care debate, will likely shift his pitch in September, White House and Democratic officials said, as he faces pressure from supporters to talk more about the moral imperative to provide health insurance to all Americans.

The rethinking comes amid a struggle by the White House to clarify its view on a public insurance plan, which liberals see as a critical part of a health overhaul.

...

"This is such a technical issue, it's easy to get bogged down in the weeds," said Dan Nejfelt, a spokesman for Faith in Public Life, one of the groups scheduled for the Wednesday call. "It's important to have a voice saying, 'This is about right and wrong. This is about honoring faith.'"

The president's revised health-care emphasis is likely to roll out as summer ends, when White House officials believe a broader group of voters will tune into the debate. The new strategy envisions speeches rather than informal town-hall meetings, said a senior official.

... Mr. Obama has come under criticism from supporters who say the president has been mired in the details of insurance regulation, rather than promoting the lofty themes that got him elected. (Wall Street Journal)

It's fascinating to watch the various episodes of this saga play out. And once again, I am reminded why it is important to develop a good memory when watching political exercises.

At the beginning of the health care debate, the complaint was that the health care proposal was too nebulous. Mr. Obama's tour of town hall meetings was supposed to answer these complaints by putting technical flesh on the theoretical bones of the proposition.

Well, we can see how well that went. This is now at least version 3.0 of Mr. Obama's attempt to sell his health care reform to Americans who are generally satisfied with the system currenty in place. I wonder how many more versions we can expect before we see the end?

Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day. For all the president’s touted intelligence, his un-teleprompted comments reveal a basic misunderstanding of capitalist principles.

For example, asked at the Portsmouth town hall how private insurance companies can compete with the government, the president said the following:

“If the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining -- meaning taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do -- then I think private insurers should be able to compete.”

Self-sustaining? The public option? What has Obama been doing during those daily 40-minute economic briefings coordinated by uber-economic-adviser, Larry Summers?

Government programs aren’t self-sustaining by definition. They’re subsidized by the taxpayer. If they were self-financed, we’d be off the hook.

[Read on.]

The health care debate would be well served if all parties involved knew what was actually under debate.

Even the Associated Press fact-check column admits that the administration has tried to have it both ways when it comes to introducing a public option into the plan:

President Barack Obama has indicated a willingness to drop a government-run health care plan from any overhaul. The White House says that's not a shift. Actually, it is.

Fierce proponents of a government-run health plan for months, Obama and senior administration officials, bowing to pressure from Republicans and skeptical voters, suggested that such a public option is not do-or-die.

"All I'm saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform," the president told a town hall-style audience in Grand Junction, Colo., on Saturday. "This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it."

CLAIM: "I challenge you guys all to go back and see what we've said about this over the course of many, many, many, many months, and you'll find a boring consistency to our rhetoric," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

THE FACTS: During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama said a new public plan should offer comprehensive insurance similar to that available to federal employees.

In the first half of the year, Obama said repeatedly in speeches, weekly radio and Internet addresses and town halls that he wants a health care overhaul that has a taxpayer-funded public health insurance option. He has said the plan would compete with private insurance to keep costs down.

As American citizens, one of the most important things we can do is remember the promises and lessons of the past. In this case, the recent past.

Politics would make great progress if politicians voted in accordance with the principles they claim to support:

Jay Cost thinks so, and thinks it explains why the administration is experiencing difficulties now:

Bismarck once commented that politics is the art of the possible. So far, the White House has not exhibited a good understanding of exactly what is possible in this political climate. It has been acting as though the President's election was a major change in the ideological orientation of the country.

A lot of liberals certainly saw it as such. All the strained comparisons of Obama to Franklin Roosevelt were a tipoff that many were talking themselves into the idea that the 2008 election created an opportunity for a substantial, leftward shift in policy. Yet the election of 2008 was not like the 1932 contest. It wasn't like 1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1980, 1984, or even 1988, either. Obama's election was narrower than all of these. FDR won 42 of 48 states. Eisenhower won 39, then 41. Johnson won 44 of 50. Nixon won 49. Reagan won 44, then 49. George H.W. Bush won 40. Obama won 28, three fewer than George W. Bush in his narrow 2004 reelection.

This makes a crucial difference when it comes to implementing policy.

The White House proposal for health care seem to change by the day. After a weekend when several representatives of the Obama administration expressed doubts about the inclusion of a public option in the final plan, now they are changing their tune once again:

So did Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius get taken to the wood shed on the White House grounds for remarks she made Sunday that seemed to imply the Obama administration is ready to ditch the public option in the proposed health care overhaul?

Administration officials on Tuesday stuck to their contention there's been no change in White House policy, and that Sebelius was simply articulating a longstanding desire for any overhaul to bring choice and competition in private insurance markets.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs instead attributed any misunderstanding to media reports that overinterpreted the ex-Kansas governor's remarks, asserting "we've been boringly consistent" on the public option. (CQ Politics)

Glenn Thrush at Politico adds more:

n a speech Tuesday on Medicare to the U.S. Administration on Aging, the Health and Human Services secretary blamed the media for igniting the fire, saying that "nothing has changed" and that the administration continues to support the public option. She said that the administration will look at other ideas, too.