Abortion and the health care bill

Interesting that the health care bill may founder on the issue of funding for abortions. Frankly, I don't care much one way or the other on this issue, but if it gets to the point where Ben Nelson won't vote for it because it allows Federal funds to be used in a way that indirectly pays for abortions, and it stops the bill from going through, while other Democrats won't vote for it if the Stupak proviso is added, great! It stops the bill, which is what needs to be done!

The bad things in the bill have nothing to do with abortions, of all — the requirement that you must buy insurance or pay a fine, and the "public option" (which the Senate has weakened so it looks satisfactory, but what a Senate/House conference might do I can't predict): these are the gross evils of this bill. But if it's abortion that kills the bill in its tracks, so be it. I don't really care why it fails, only that it fails.

A broadcasting slip?

Last night I heard two commercials for Meg Whitman, former head of eBay, who is planning to run for Governor of California in 2010. The problem is, I live nowhere near California. What was going on?

I just hope the Whitman campaign wasn't billed for those ads. What kind of slip-up permits an ad for a California electoral candidate to be broadcast on a Washington, D. C. radio station, not once but twice?

Perceived (lack of) intelligence?

One thing I have noticed in my lifetime is that liberals seem to be perceived as more intelligent than conservatives. Way back in the 1952 election, Adlai Stevenson was considered the "intellectual" candidate, though Dwight Eisenhower, after retiring from the Army, had been a university president. And John Kerry, in 2004, was quoted as having said "I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot!" Yet looking at Kerry's college grades and George W. Bush's (from the same institution, Yale University!) it seems that the two were about the same, with Bush's perhaps a bit higher, even!

The examples are quite numerous, extending to Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan as well. And the most recent has been Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice-presidential candidate of the Republican Party.

Well, Gov. Palin recently put out a book. And it may be possible that it was to some extent written by others, but I'm sure it represents her thoughts accurately. And I have to say that despite all the negatives I've heard about Gov. Palin, the book (at least the parts I've read; I have not gone through it all) seems to be a well-thought-out work. As I've said before, she is not my preferred choice for the 2012 presidential nomination, but I have no doubt that if she is the nominee, she would be a better President than the person now holding the job. Yes, in 2012 if the candidates are Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, there is no question that my vote goes to her.