Lucid Links (063009, Morning)

Noteworthy Net-Worthies:

Doocy’s Doozy — Energy Czar Carol Browner, busted –

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TEXT –

STEVE DOOCY: “[I] know the bill is over 1,000 pages long. Have you have read it?”

CAROL BROWNER: “Oh, I’m very familiar with this bill.”

DOOCY: “Have you have read it?”

BROWNER: “We have obviously been watching this for a very long time. I am very …”

DOOCY: “I’m sure you’ve got an idea of it, but you have read it?”

BROWNER: “I’ve read major portions of it, absolutely.”

DOOCY: “So the answer no you haven’t read it. But you’ve read a big chunk of it.”

BROWNER: “No, no, no that’s not fair. That’s absolutely not fair.”

DOOCY: “No, I’m just asking you if you read the thousand pages.”

BROWNER: “I’ve read vast portions of it.”

DOOCY: “Ok.”

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No wonder the Obama admin despises Fox News. Their people ask questions normal people would ask. Obama and his peeps can’t handle it.

Doocy could have gone further and pressured Browner about what the Examiner’s David Freddoso reported last week (HT Powerline via The Corner’s Andy McCarthy), namely that “the 300-plus page managers’ amendment, added to the bill …. (the night before the vote) in the House Rules Committee” was “not even …. integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk’s desk.”

I am soooooo sure that in the 56 or so intervening hours between the vote and the Fox interview, Carol Browner sat down with the two docs and self-integrated them as she read the entirety of both.

Hardly. Doocy dis-integrated her disingenuousness, and then Browner whined about how “not fair” he was.

Cry me a river, babe. What’s “not fair” is that 219 Congresspersons, NOT ONE of whom deserves re-election, voted for a bill they could not possibly have read, let alone understood.

This leads me to Steve Driehaus. DirectorBlue at the Green Room writes that “We cannot afford politicians like Steve Driehaus, who vote for economy-crippling legislation, then hope their colleagues in the other house of Congress will kill it before it hardens into a tumor.” I mostly agree, but judging by what the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Sunday about Driehaus’s defense of his vote, it seems that the congressman really wants the bill to go all the way. Regardless of its ultimate success, the bill is a lengthy IQ test of fitness for office, and Driehaus has flunked.

Exit point: Michelle Malkin reminded us in December that just before Bush 43’s inauguration, Browner, then the outgoing head of the Environmental Protection Agency, “oversaw the destruction of agency computer files in brazen violation of a federal judge’s order requiring the agency to preserve its records.” Browner has no business serving in any government position of any kind, and is a walking, talking, one-person mockery of the President’s alleged high ethical standards.

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Questions for those advocating the “public plan” option in Obamacare:

1. Will the “public plan” pay income and other taxes like the companies who run private plans must? (Example: Aetna alone incurred $790 million in income tax expenses in calendar 2008, and over $3.5 billion in the past four years. The company’s most recent 10-K [PDF] indicates that this expense is almost entirely related to its Health Care and Group Insurance.)
2. What will anyone do to keep the “public plan” from taking advantage of other unfair advantages, which could at least include general government absorption of administrative costs, sales-tax exemptions, property-tax exemptions, ”public service” advertising, and much more?
3. Will the “public plan” be just as vulnerable to class-action and no-limit malpractice lawsuits as private plans currently are?
4. If the answers to Question 1, 2, or 3 are “no” or “I don’t know,” how can you possibly claim to know that the “public plan’s” competition against private plans will be conducted on a level playing field?

Related Update: On Sunday, Alo at Brain Shavings went after and properly characterized Obama’s snotty question (”Why would [the "public option"] drive private insurers out of business?”), and tore it to pieces. You can add the items ID’d in Questions 1-3 above to Alo’s cited reasons.

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The wrap at a Wall Street Journal editorial today — “Bernie Madoff is headed for a deserved personal end-game in the slammer, but until the cops catch his accomplices or explain why they can’t, the Madoff case remains open.” Surely there are others who knew that Madoff’s house was made of cards.

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At Hot Air — “Press corps now openly laughing at Obama’s backtracking on taxes.” Trouble is, the “joke,” if new taxes come to pass, will be on us.