The Contrarian

This afternoon a press release popped into my inbox from John Cornyn entitled, “Health Care Reform Alert.”

The email from the junior U.S. senator reads like a lucid, well-informed critique of the current Democratic health care reform bill being considered in Washington. Cornyn doesn’t resort to claiming that your doctor will soon be a government bureaucrat transferred from the DMV.

He’s being much subtler in his rhetoric. Still, it contains some serous distortions.

Cornyn writes that “The health care reform proposals currently being offered by Congressional Democrats will not substantially lower costs or fix the problems in our health care system. Instead, their plan would shift costs to the taxpayers.”

That sentence contains two big myths.

1. Cornyn is referring to the so-called “public option” currently in the health care reform bill. It would create a government-run health care plan to compete with the private sector. The public option would likely  lower costs. That’s the whole point. The insurance industry is desperate to defeat the public option– or severely water it down — because the plan is so low cost that insurers know they can’t compete with it.

2. Cornyn also dredges up the myth that a public option would shift health care costs to taxpayers.

Well, who does Cornyn think is paying for health care now?

It’s true that, under the current reform bill, the government would pay for a lot more of the health care in this country. And taxpayers fund the government. So, in the simplest analysis, taxpayers would pay more.

But taxpayers don’t exist in a vacuum. Taxpayers are Americans, and Americans are paying, on average, the highest per capita costs for health care in the Western world.

We pay  for current government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Many taxpayers also have to pay for their own health care plans. Underinsured taxpayers end up shelling out for high co-pays or paying for procedures out of their own pocket. And when one of the 40 million Americans without health insurance becomes ill and ends up in an emergency room at a public hospital, you know who pays for that in the end? The taxpayers. 

It’s possible that some taxpayers (read: rich folks) whose insurance is paid for by their employers would have to pay a little more under a public option — at least at the outset.

But those costs could eventually come down. If the number of uninsured Americans drops, the costs to the system will drop as well.  The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that in 2004, uninsured Americans cost the U.S. health care system $41 billion. Local governments paid 85 percent of that cost.

That’s $35 billion paid for by — wait for it — the taxpayers.

There are certainly valid reasons to oppose the public option, particularly if you believe — as Cornyn does — in limited government. But the argument that a public plan won’t lower costs and would fleece taxpayers is misleading.

Quorum Report has posted the first interview with Gail Lowe, the new chair of the State Board of Education.

QR asked Lowe about her appointment of Christian Right activist David Barton to a panel of experts reviewing social studies curriculum.

Barton questions the inclusion of Cesar Chavez in the “Heroes of History” section of the social studies curriculum.

That caused a stir this week.

For her part, Lowe told QR the whole thing was taken out of context. “I have not read the (expert panel) recommendations exhaustively yet, but I’m sure he had made some excellent suggestions that we can use to formulate good social studies standards,” she said.

Maybe she should read Barton’s submission a little closer.

We’ll even help her out, so there’s no confusion about what Barton wrote.

Here’s the entire section from Barton’s social studies critique in which he discusses the “Heroes of History” and who should be included. You know, so everyone can see the context:

Heroes of HistoryIt often appears that the names included in individual TEKS do not necessarily represent what is described in a particular TEKS; instead it seems that a list of names to be covered in a history text was compiled and then those names were scattered throughout the document without specific regard to the specific content of that TEK. In other cases, the selection made was not a particularly strong representative.For example:In Grade 5 (b)(1)(B), Anne Hutchinson, although an historic figure was not “a significant colonial leader.”In Grade 5 (b)(5)(B), Colin Powell is a weak choice for a group representing those “who have made contributions to society in the areas of civil rights, women’s rights, military actions, and politics,” but Harry Truman desegregate the military and called for civil rights planks in the Democrat Platform, end WW II, and serve as an effective president, thus including him in three of the categories off that TEKS rather than just the one category for Powell.In Grade 5 (b)(19)(C), Cesar Chavez may be a choice representing diversity but he certainly lacks the stature, impact, and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is a praiseworthy to be heralded to students as someone “who modeled active participation in the democratic process.”In Grade 5 (b)(24)(A), there are certainly many more notable scientists than Carl Sagan – such as Wernher von Braun, Matthew Maury, Joseph Henry, Maria Mitchell, David Rittenhouse, etc.

For most of this decade, Kay Bailey Hutchison has been the most popular politician in Texas. The conventional wisdom in Austin posited that if and when she ever challenged Rick Perry in a GOP primary, she would wipe the floor with him.

Now? Not so much.

Another poll is out today showing Perry with a double-digit lead on the senior U.S. Senator from Texas — the second such finding this month. This time it’s a 12-point edge.

Harvey has some details. Burka, who until recently was promoting Hutchison as the favorite, seems despondent. He writes that Kay is running the “worst campaign imaginable.”

I’ve always doubted that Hutchison would trounce Perry. And for one simple reason: When was the last time she won a competitive election?

Campaigning is different than governing. The ability to create, manage and maintain a well-organized and lean campaign operation in the middle of a tough election is a rare, practiced skill. Many politicians, even the most popular and experienced, will falter in their first hotly contested race. The examples are numerous, from the national level (Bob Dole and Hillary Clinton) to the state level (Rick Noriega).

Hutchison’s recent reelection efforts have been relaxing affairs. In 2006, she barely had to campaign to double-up her Democratic opponent, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who was so lacking in funds that she took to creating Web-only ads that featured the candidate conversing with a sock puppet. (BTW, I’ve been trying to track down those sock-puppet ads. If anyone has a link where I can find them, please, please send it to me.)

We know Perry will run a lean, mean race. He knows who his voters are and how to excite them. It’s his best skill.

Can Hutchison do that? The early returns don’t look promising for her.

For his part, Burka clings to Kay’s still-stratospheric favorability ratings (65 percent favorable; 17 percent unfavorable). But that seems like fool’s gold to me. Hutchison’s favorability numbers will come crashing down once Perry’s campaign gets rolling and the race gets nastier.

Hutchison will have to improve as a campaigner as she goes. There’s still time to turn herself from a comfortably sitting senator into a disciplined candidate with a well-run organization that can turn out her type of voters. It’s a tough transition to make — and one that Hillary Clinton couldn’t pull off, at least not in time to save her campaign. If Hutchison can do it, she has a chance.

But right now she appears cautious and disorganized, and Perry is taking her to school.

“I’m certainly not a quitter. I’m a fighter and that’s why I’m doing this, to go out there and fight for what’s right.”

That’s Sarah Palin talking to CNN yesterday about her decision to, ahem, quit as governor of Alaska. (The video of the entire nine-minute interview is here.)

If Sarah Palin vanishes from public life, my days will be far less entertaining.

Word has leaked out that Gov. Rick Perry may name Cynthia Dunbar as the new chair of the perpetually embarrassing State Board of Education. The news that Dunbar — one of the most outspoken of the State Board’s seven Christian conservatives — might claim the gavel elicited a collective groan from centrist and left-leaning observers and the critics who helped oust Don McLeroy from the Big Chair.

Dunbar’s critics seem to view her possible appointment as a setback. It’s nothing of the sort.You’ll remember Dunbar as the board member who last fall shared with the world her unique insights about Barack Obama. My personal favorite was her column in the Church Report Online, which isn’t edited by the Church Lady, it only reads that way. Dunbar’s piece was titled, “Barack Hussein Obama would make a great Leader…. of an Unconstitutional, Infanticidal, Communistic, Dictatorial Regime.”Subtle she ain’t. And that’s the point. Dunbar is no nuttier than McLeroy and she’s just as overt about her agenda. (By the way, you can find more Dunbar material on her site, www.cynthiadunbar.com.)It’s certainly no surprise that Perry would nominate another Christian conservative to chair the State Board.

Of course, those of you in the non-wing-nut section of the audience would prefer Perry choose a moderate, but that was never going to happen. The man’s trying to win a Republican primary against Kay Bailey, and he desperately needs the Christian Right.

So the question is, which brand of social conservative do you want? Will that person be as clear about their agenda, as ineffective and as easy a target as McLeroy?

Other members of the State Board might be far more dangerous than Dunbar, if given the opportunity.

Take, for instance, Barbara Cargill—a social conservative from The Woodlands. She’s a science teacher who runs science camps for kids. She’s soft-spoken, unfailingly polite and much savvier than McLeroy.

At a board meeting in late January, Cargill managed to pass several anti-evolutionary amendments into the new science standards by presenting them in harmless-sounding language. Cargill holds similar beliefs as Dunbar and McLeroy, but she has that Dick Cheney ability to make truly nutty ideas sound entirely reasonable.

I suspect that Cargill would be a lower-profile chair, generate less controversy and offer a more elusive target for critics. She could prove far more effective at passing a socially conservative agenda.

So the critics shouldn’t fret about Dunbar. They fared pretty well with McLeroy as a foil, and I bet the same would be true under Dunbar. They’ll always know where she’s coming from, and she’s already shown a penchant for making herself a lightning rod for criticism.

And, besides, it could be a lot worse.

There’s an old journalism cliché that crusty city editors used to tell their cub reporters to stoke their skepticism: “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.” Don’t just swallow what people tell you. Don’t mindlessly accept the conventional wisdom. Look for the story behind the story. If there’s a theme for this blog, that will be it. I’m a contrarian. Always have been. Contrarians are independent thinkers. We try to remain skeptical of what people say, particularly statements by public officials or anything in press-release form. We’re suspicious of official histories. And that, I hope, will be the essence of this blog: countering the conventional wisdom, looking for the hidden story in the day’s big news, fact-checking politicians and special interests, teasing out hypocrisy, exposing tiny lies and larger truths. One note of clarification: I like to think there’s a difference between contrarians and devil’s advocates—people who annoyingly argue an opposing view point, regardless of the merits, simply for argument’s sake. Those are the people who will argue with you for 45 minutes at a barbeque or a dinner party, then suddenly say they agreed with you all along and were just playing devil’s advocate, and who, if it were socially and legally permissible, you would stab with a fork. Contrarians, by contrast, challenge the conventional wisdom only when they think they’re right and when there’s a good case to make. I’ll be mostly making this up as I go along. So I want to hear from you, even if you’re a devil’s advocate. You can leave comments, questions, rants, corrections, profanity-laced invectives, and spam ads for mail-order Russian brides in the comments section below. Or email me at mann[at]texasobserver.org.

If anyone thought the State Board of Education was chastened by the recent controversy over evolution, by the dethroning of its chairman and by the many, many bills that lawmakers filed this legislative session to strip the board of its power, well think again. The State Board is at it once more. The latest lunacy concerns revisions of the social studies curriculum. The board appointed six experts to review the current social studies standards. As they did with science, the seven social conservatives on the State Board made sure that three of the six experts were members of the Christian Right. And that’s how we ended up with David Barton—founder of WallBuilders, former vice chair of the Texas GOP and avowed opponent of the separation of church and state—as one of the experts reviewing what Texas schools teach kids in social studies class. A hat-tip on this to the Texas Freedom Network, which also identifies two other Christian conservative activists on the six-member panel, in a blog post this afternoon. In his social studies review, Barton contends that teachers should instruct students that the U.S. was founded as Christian nation, established with Biblical principles. He also contends that Cesar Chavez and Colin Powell shouldn’t be featured as influential historical figures. Barton writes: “Cesar Chavez may be a choice representing diversity but he certainly lacks the stature, impact, and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is a praiseworthy to be heralded to students as someone ‘who modeled active participation in the democratic process.'”    Another member of the expert panel—Peter Marshall, the president of Marshall ministries—writes that, “To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin is ludicrous. Chavez is hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation.”You can read all six experts’ critiques here. It appears that social studies curriculum will be the next battleground for the State Board for the coming year.  Lord help us.

If anyone thought the State Board of Education was chastened by the recent controversy over evolution, by the dethroning of its chairman and by the many, many bills filed by lawmakers this legislative session to strip the board of its power, well, think again. None of those bills passed, and the State Board is at it once more.

The latest lunacy concerns revisions of the social studies curriculum. The board appointed six experts to review the current social studies standards. As they did with science, the seven social conservatives on the State Board made sure that three of those “experts” were Christian Right activists. And that’s how we ended up with David Barton—founder of WallBuilders, former vice chair of the Texas GOP, and avowed opponent of the separation of church and state—as one of the experts reviewing what Texas kids learn in social studies class. Hat-tip on this to the Texas Freedom Network. TFN, in a blog post this afternoon, identifies the two other Christian conservative activists on the six-member panel.In his social studies review, Barton contends that teachers should instruct students that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, established with Biblical principles. He also contends that Cesar Chavez and Colin Powell shouldn’t be featured as influential historical figures. Barton writes: “Cesar Chavez may be a choice representing diversity but he certainly lacks the stature, impact, and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is a praiseworthy to be heralded to students as someone ‘who modeled active participation in the democratic process.'”Another member of the expert panel—Peter Marshall, the president of Peter Marshall ministries—writes that, “To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin is ludicrous. Chavez is hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation.”You can read all six experts’ critiques here. It appears that social studies curriculum will be the new target for social conservatives on the State Board in the next year. 

Lord help us.