Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Visual source: Newseum

Dana Milbank:

The week?s dueling tours of Gates and Palin show the best and worst in American public life. Both call themselves Republicans, but he comes from the best tradition of service while she is a study in selfishness. He?s self-effacing; she?s self-aggrandizing. He harmonized American foreign policy; she put bullseyes on Democratic congressional districts and then howled about ?blood libel.?

It says something about the infirmity of our politics that Gates can?t wait to go home while Palin is again being taken seriously as a prospective presidential candidate.

Paul Begala via chron.com:

?... Perry may be the perfect candidate for those Republicans who viewed George W. Bush as just a little too cerebral.?

Tom Jensen/PPP:

Obama's approval numbers in Iowa aren't that strong and it would certainly be premature to declare 17 months out from the election that he'll win the state again. But the numbers here are another reminder that the weak Republican field is his greatest ally as he moves toward reelection, and that the GOP will have to come up with a stronger candidate to have a serious chance of defeating Obama next year.

Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll:

[Karl ] Smith makes another excellent point about health care being an information and communication technology industry. However, right now, it is in the business interests of many involved in medicine to thwart information sharing and communication. If a company creates an electronic medical record, it usually doesn?t want it to talk to anyone else?s. An interoperable EMR system can mean lost customers; it opens the door to the possibility that providers might buy a competitor?s program. It?s much better for an EMR company if providers are forced to buy their laboratory system, their scheduling system, and their radiology system.

Yes, that means that all the doctor?s offices can?t interface with the system at the hospital, or the emergency department, or with each other, but too bad. That?s how the unregulated marketplace works. We all suffer for it.

Could we not use more regulation to provide incentives for physicians to practice according to guidelines informed by science? Could we not use more regulation to develop, fund and follow the results of comparative-effectiveness research? Could we not use more regulation to set standards for EMR systems so that information could flow more freely?

Karl Smith:

Restaurants and fast food continued to add workers though at a slower pace. Retail establishments lost workers. This gives us some clues to the nature of the slowdown. Consumer spending slowdowns show up here first. These are also key employment areas for those on the edge of the labor market. If Jane Doe is ?looking for a job? she is probably looking at food service or retail.

Manufacturing lost 5,000 jobs after a few months of steady gains. These losses were concentrated in food processing and automobile and plane manufacturing.

Taken together, this confirms our suspicion that high gas prices are the culprit. Almost all of the slowdown in job creation came in sectors either directly impacted by month-to-month changes in consumer discretionary spending or in sectors related to transportation.

Falling gas prices should help, and at this point I am still expecting better months ahead.

Charles Blow:

This is the latest in a cavalcade of worrisome economic indicators ? from double-dipping home prices to flagging consumer confidence ? that illustrate just how fragile the recovery has been, just how inadequate and anemic the stimulus was and just how tenuous the government?s grip is on the reins.

It is against this backdrop that Republicans have decided to play chicken with the nation?s credit ? insisting on spending cuts while steadfastly resisting tax increases.

This is part of the modern doctrine of a compassion-free conservatism that?s using the fog of the fiscal crisis to push a program of perverse wealth inequality as sound economic policy: The only way to jump-start the economy is to slash taxes on the wealthy and on companies; the only way to compensate for the deficits that those tax cuts exacerbate is to slash benefits to the poor and vulnerable. It would be comical if it weren?t so callous.

Greg Sargent:

Interesting: Dems are now demanding that Republicans take Medicare off the table and stop tying it to the debt ceiling talks, a possible sign that Dems have decided a firm line is a political winner.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/cqCXbYwwgWk/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up

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