United Liberty

Conservative columnist Robert Novak, the “Prince of Darkness,” has passed away. It was discovered in August of last year that he was suffering from cancer, causing him to basically stop writing. At that point the Evans-Novak Political Report was almost exclusively written by Timothy Carney (who has a tribute to his colleague here).

Robert Novak was damn good at what he did and he is one of the reasons I try to help keep people informed.

A Florida member of the Blue Dog coalition says that Congress should scrap the health care reform plans it’s been working on for months and start from scratch:

PERRY, Florida (CNN) – Acknowledging his amazement at the crowds gathered to debate health care at his town halls, Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Florida, faced three large gatherings on Monday with many questioners voicing skepticism about the proposals being debated in Washington.

“Never have I had this attendance … that is a good thing,” Boyd said as he started his third event of the day.

Remember the promise that Barack Obama made last year, that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax cut? A new survey from Rasmussen shows that only 6 percent of Americans believe him:

From John Cole:

Now that the Republicans have spent the last two months whipping the blue hairs into a froth about Obamacare ending their Medicare, how are Republicans going to pivot and become “fiscal conservatives” again concerned about out of control entitlements, now that they are completely wedded to Medicare as it is?

Oh I don’t think it’ll be too hard for them to execute a completely unprincipled flip-flip.

After all, these are politicians we’re talking about.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll has more bad news for the Obama Administration:

WASHINGTON — Six months after President Obama launched a $787 billion plan to right the nation’s economy, a majority of Americans think the avalanche of new federal aid has cost too much and done too little to end the recession.

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 57% of adults say the stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse. Even more —60% — doubt that the stimulus plan will help the economy in the years ahead, and only 18% say it has done anything to help improve their personal situation.

The White House has dropped the e-mail address where they encouraged Americans to send all those “fishy” rumors or e-mails about ObamaCare:

The White House appears to be walking back some of yesterday’s comments that appeared to suggest that the “public option” was dead:

So much for the “read the bills” movement:

There’s a growing movement at town hall meetings and online to make sure members of Congress read the entire health care reform bill before they vote on it, and to make it available to the public at least 72 hours before a vote.

“Read the bill” is typically another way of saying “not so fast,” but there’s no denying the idea’s appeal. Too many bills have been rushed to a vote in Congress with too little time for scrutiny.

There’s just one hitch: You could read the entire health bill and still not have a very good idea of how the plan would work. Legislative language is notoriously, necessarily murky. Take the opening lines of one of the bill’s most controversial sections, the one about voluntary “end of life” counseling:

I’ve always known that government-worshiping liberals were naive, but I never thought they’d reached the level of naivety that Ezra Klein displayed in The Washington Post last week: