Columnist Jonah Goldberg raised questions about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comment in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Responding to a question about the lack of Medicaid abortions for poor women, Ginsburg said: “Frankly I had thought that at the time (Roe v. Wade) was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” Goldberg wrote: “Left unclear is whether Ginsburg endorses the eugenic motivation she ascribed to the passage of Roe v. Wade, or whether she was merely objectively describing it.”
“If political figures stand for ideas, victimization is what Ms. Palin is all about,” Thomas Frank wrote in a Wall Street Journal column. “It is her brand, her myth. Ronald Reagan stood tall. John McCain was about service. Barack Obama has hope. Sarah Palin is a collector of grievances. She runs for high office by griping.
“This is no small thing, mind you. The piling-up of petty complaints is an important aspect of conservative movement culture. For those who believe that American life consists of the trampling of Middle America by the ‘elites’ — that our culture is one big insult to the pious and the patriotic and the traditional — Sarah Palin’s long list of unfair and disrespectful treatment is one of her most attractive features. Like Oliver North, Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, she is known not for her ideas but as a martyr, a symbol of the culture-war crimes of the left.”
“Harry and Louise” are back, only this time they want health care reform. The iconic couple starred in television advertisements in the 1990s that opposed the Clinton health care plan. But now the same people are in a new ad campaign supporting reform. “The participation of Harry and Louise in this ad campaign clearly symbolizes how different the health reform debate is this year compared to the past,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, one of the groups behind the new ads. “With health coverage increasingly unaffordable, health reform is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity, for America’s families.”
What a difference half a year makes. In December, then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said it was “important to continue my service as governor of the great state of Kansas, a job that I love and have been honored to hold.”
Asked Wednesday by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” about how things are going in her new job as secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius said: “Piece of cake. It’s why I ran for public office. It’s why I joined this administration. This is what it’s all about.”
Stewart went on: “You were the governor of a heartland state. You left in the middle of your term for a higher calling. Why are governors such quitters?” Sebelius jokingly responded: “You know, didn’t want to get bored. Had to find something else to do.”
Maybe the Sedgwick County Commission’s hurried decision Wednesday — to work with Heritage Development Group toward booking equestrian events at the Kansas Coliseum — will turn out well. The touted economic benefits sounded exciting for the community. But this off-agenda action, like an earlier one pushed by Chairman Kelly Parks that excised part of the county from the Arkansas River Corridor Access Plan, should not have been made without prior notice to the public (and other commissioners) and a chance for full consideration and debate. “We usually do things with a lot of advance planning,” noted Commissioner Tim Norton, who also questioned the wisdom of dealing just with an organization that approached the county rather than seeking and considering other potential partners.
