Tuesday Roundup: An Underwhelming Proposal

Senator Hillary Clinton stole the headlines yesterday by unveiling her universal health insurance program — though to say that response was positive would be perhaps a bit of an overstatement.

Republican presidential candidates uniformly stayed on message as far as their opinions of universal health care altogether, branding Clinton's plan as "HillaryCare 2.0." Romney wins the award for Most Likely To Play to Republican Base Fears: as Newsweek's The Gaggle notes, he threw the "we don't want to be like Europe, do we?" card out repeatedly. He also stated that her new plan would have "no more success than HillaryCare 1.0." I'm not sure whether or not he noted that the Republican party was the reason it didn't meet with success. Somehow I doubt it.

Clinton's Democratic opponents were just as bearish on the proposal; interestingly enough, instead of criticizing it because it was a more centrist plan than the others, as has been done often before, most comments tried to subtly point out her history with health care, and how she wasn't able to get consensus on her plan the first time around and is too polarizing to do it now. If that sounds like "no more success than HillaryCare 1.0" to you too, I don't think you're alone. Seems like the message of Hillary's early high negatives is going to become much more of a front-line issue now.

Michael Mukasey was officially nominated to succeed Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General yesterday, and though word is that confirmation is likely, our boys in the Senate are already drawing lines as to what is an essential requirement of anyone confirmed to that position — namely, the release of long-awaited documents from the Bush administration to aid in the many Congressional oversight hearings. Mukasey is apparently considered generally apolitical, but he has also been a long-standing supporter of the Patriot Act, so I'm not sure he has a lot of cred on open government. We'll see how all that turns out.

In a related note, The Washington Post notes that Mukasey, who prior to his federal judgeship worked in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office with Rudy Giuliani, has strong, long-standing ties with the New York mayor. Does this mean anything to a candidate for the Republican nomination for president? Possibly not, but if it does, it can't be anything but a plus for the arguable front-runner. Just something else to keep an eye out for.

Alan Greenspan's new book, "The Age of Turbulence," was released yesterday. CNN's review: "Bush-smashingly good!" OK, that's not exactly what they said. But they did note that he criticized the Republican Congress for throwing out the concept of checks and balances, and that the party "swapped principle for power." If that doesn't smart, GOP, maybe calling Bill Clinton one of "the smartest presidents" he's worked with does. GW didn't happen to make it on that list, one may note.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig has found himself an unexpected ally. A friend-of-the-court brief was filed arguing for the court to allow Sen. Craig to withdraw his guilty plea from — wait for it — the ACLU. From the CNN article:

"Sen. Craig has not always been a great friend of civil liberties, but you shouldn't have to endorse the civil liberties of others to keep your own," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, alluding to Craig's history of voting against gay rights.

High-road zing!

As many of you already know, Texas falls under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires that the U.S. Department of Justice "preclear" any attempt to change any prerequisites or changes to voting procedure within the state. After the attempt to disenfranchise minority voters in the past Texas legislative session, that we are still covered under that regulation really doesn't come as much surprise. Except, of course, to officials in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1, who filed suit against the Justice Department saying it should be released from that requirement after being slapped down with a fine under the same provision four years ago. The Statesman reports that it didn't seem like the federal judges were very sympathetic to their arguments.

And finally today, USA Today runs the classic "our kids don't learn anything in school" story, but with a twist: they had college students take a civics and history quiz, and reported average scores for college freshmen versus college seniors at different colleges. The overall freshman average on the test was 50.4%, and the senior average was 54.2%. USA Today is quick to point out that both would be failing grades, of course; to me that seems a pretty meaningless distinction when referring to a test that cuts across multiple history, political science, and economics, and whose questions vary pretty wildly in difficulty, but hey — I'm sure that'll sell more papers. The increase of only 4% on average is perhaps more telling. Harvard's seniors performed best, with a 69.56% average, and Yale's freshmen beat out the other freshman classes at 68.94%. "Still a D+," boasts USA Today. Must be a pretty tough test, says I. (I got a 93 on it. You'll find the test at the link above; go take it and then come back and brag when you beat my score. First time only, of course, and no looking stuff up while you take it, cheater.) There are other interesting crosstabs at the link. Check it out, and then take the test and make yourself feel smart.