On yet another predictable rant, she suggested that if policy-makers don’t believe a child in the womb is valuable, then perhaps the same mind-set might apply to other persons.

As reported by Politico, Palin asked, “What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn’t have a whole lot of product years left?” She didn’t specially raise the prospect of government-mandated “death panels” – the outrageous charge she made over the summer in attacking Democratic health care plans – but according to the post repeatedly suggested that liberal social policies could lead to de facto euthanasia.

Palin’s concern about the sanctity of all human life is indisputable. But her escalating paranoia about the lack of protection for every citizen reveals a startling ignorance about modern American history. Someone needs to tutor her on what the government she hates has done older citizens, thanks to FDR, in introducing Social Security, and LBJ’s enactment of Medicare. As for death panels they are pure figments of her disordered imagination.

Add: After Saturday night’s House passage of the health care bill Palin doubled down on her Facebook page in warning anew about both the bill and scary death panels.

While Obama’s rhetoric has been compelling on both subjects he’s developed an unfortunate reputation, at least in terms of the economy, as being too cautious, or what his Republican critics call trying to do too much.

Democratic gubernatorial defeats in New Jersey and Virginia pale in terms of Obama’s major problem now, with pressure to fix the economy as grim new figures indicate the official unemployment rate has risen to 10.2%. That’s up more than 50%, as New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow noted, from the time when the candidate gave his Toledo speech. In paraphrasing the jobs issue, he said it had to be resolved not five years from now, not next year, but right now.

Earlier this year, Nobel Prize winner and Times columnist Paul Krugman compared the situation that FDR faced in the Great Depression in 1934 with that now confronting Obama. Millions of government jobs were created from 1934 to 1937 by putting people back to work. But FDR became so cautious about the mounting deficit that he retreated from the stimulus and continued high unemployment was not checked until the end of World War II.

In terms of predictions that the economy’s growth will slow over the next year Krugman wrote Friday that conventional Washington wisdom is that budget deficits preclude any further stimulus – “a view that’s all wrong on economics.”

He opined the president had a mandate for bold economic action, did not learn from FDR’s mistakes and failed to exploit his early opportunities in part because of a soft-touch approach to Wall Street. “In truth Obama put his agenda at risk by doing too little. The fateful decision, early this year, to go for economic half-measures may haunt Democrats for years to come.” Is a dramatic correction “right now” still possible? 

Whipped up by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), their wing-nut heroine, it didn’t take Republican House leaders John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence long to arrive and vent their anger even though the Party of No after 135 days finally presented their alternative health-care package that would insure 3 million more citizens, not 46 million.

“Kill the bill! Kill the bill!” the crowd shouted. An angry, red-faced Boehner waved a copy of the Constitution while he instead quoted from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

One sign read: Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds, an anti-Semitic slur and reference to theories of Jewish world domination. Another said: “Don’t take away our Medicare,” again showing ignorance about a government program that no 65-plus Tea Party protester dares lose.

I thought it interesting that as the mob’s anger grew louder every network was reporting that the Democratic insurance reform bill was endorsed by the AARP and the American Medical Association. Game over?

Observations

It’s interesting that Charlie Beck, the new Los Angeles police chief, is taking steps in his “introduction tour” across the city to distance himself a bit from departed Chief Bill Bratton who, ironically, promoted him rapidly through the ranks, and had everything to do with his selection by Mayor Villaraigosa even though Beck was not the first choice of the Police Commission. . . . After dropping out of the governor’s race San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, The Chronicle reported he turned up in Hawaii to join his wife and baby daughter after threes days of silence. . .. Sarah Palin’s book tour starts Nov. 18 but will skip major cities like L.A., Philly, San Francisco and Seattle where voters are more Democratic. She will concentrate on smaller venues including rapid growth and conservative Phoenix. Will John McCain show up? . . . The Wall Street Journal has launched a very readable San Francisco Bay area edition. Rumors suggest that a Los Angeles area edition could be next.

Quotable

“A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City.” John Liu, the Democratic comptroller-elect, reacting to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s slim re-election victory and olive branch offering by saying he had no time on his schedule.

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First, there’s billionaire Michael Bloomberg who just won a third term as New York mayor this week. A Republican until 2007 when he switched to “unaffiliated” and succeeded in changing the term-limits law so he could stay in office came close to losing in a tight race. When all the bills are paid, Bloomberg will probably have spent more than $100 million on his campaign.

Then there is former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman who is sparing no expense to win the Republican nomination for California governor next year. The first-time candidate has an army of advisers, expensive charter jets and a big technology tab all adding up to $6 million in the first half of this year.

The billionaire is already floating the notion of a record-shattering $150-million campaign budget to propel her into a race where her likely opponent will be two-term former Democratic governor Jerry Brown who has yet to formally declare his candidacy. Her message is cutting spending, growing jobs and fixing education.

Not to be outdone, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina announced this week that she’s running for the U.S. Senate in California in 2010 against veteran Barbara Boxer.

Like Whitman she’s considered a moderate and is the first woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. Her focus will be on “economic recovery and fiscal accountability. She’s not a billionaire like eMeg but her severance package from H-P was a mere $21 million.

Given high employment in California, and with the economic stimulus package yet to fully kick in, the audacity of Whitman and Fiorina is nothing short of breathtaking. Both start as huge underdogs against Brown and Boxer in a very Democratic state.

Quotable

“The race for New York’s 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010…The cause goes on.” Sarah Palin, forever dreaming on Facebook.

“I’m totally concerned with me.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, recalling a four-hour dinner she once had with Rush Limbaugh at the “21 Club in Manhattan when he credited his success with being “one-dimensional” – and “that was before he got a contract for $400 million.”

Exit polls in both states showed a huge majority of voters said they were worried about the direction of the nation’s economy, with percentages similar to Election Day in 2008. While President Obama campaigned by losers Creigh Deeds in Virginia, and Jon Corzine in New Jersey exit polls indicated that he was a non-factor in the outcomes. But independents in both states backed away from him.

But network exit polls indicate the results are a major wakeup call not only for the White House and Democrats, but nervous incumbents in both parties going into the 2010 election cycle. It’s still “the economy, stupid!”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele declared that “these significant victories speak to the fantastic campaigns run by Republicans across the Commonwealth and the voters’ clear rejection of liberal tax and spend policies that Washington Democrats are trying to force on Americans.”

But not so fast. In New York’s 23rd Congressional District which has been held by the Republicans dating back to the Civil War era, Democrat Bill Owens defeated walk-on Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in a huge defeat for the radical GOP right and its emergent Palin wing.

New York independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s very close call shows the peril of running for a third term, and the fact that City Controller William Thompson Jr., a Democrat, might have won if Obama, a pal of the mayor, had backed him. Is money still the decider in politics? Bloomberg and Corzine spent about $300 million dollars, and the outcomes speak for themselves.

California Politics

With Lt. Gov. John Garamendi winning a special congressional election in the Democrat-leaning 10th Congressional District, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has the power to appoint Garamendi’s replacement. The Sacramento Bee reported that state Sen. Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican from Santa Maria who provided the crucial budget vote in February, may have an edge...Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown told a breakfast gathering of hundreds of Democrats in San Francisco that he was in “no rush” to announce his candidacy for governor, adding this cryptic message: “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

Beck said the so-called 9/12ers were reading 2,000-page healthcare bills over the weekend. “[They] are willing to stand in line and take our shoes off before the plane actually hits the tower.”

But Beck was topped in the flame throwing rhetoric earlier when Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) raised the specter of 9/11 herself, warning on the floor of the House of Representatives that America has more to fear from health care than from terrorism. Forget reality as the paranoia gets worse.

Doug Hoffman, the conservative party’s candidate in the special House election in New York today, called the Fox News host a “personal mentor.” Can we now assume that Beck has replaced Sarah Palin in shouting fear about Big Government? 

California politics

With Gavin Newsom a drop out is the field now cleared to give Atty. General Jerry Brown, still coyly exploring a run for governor, a free ride for the 2010 Democratic nomination? Former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, in his San Francisco Chronicle column, joked that “can’t we find someone with a newer paint job,” referring to the 71-year old former governor with 40 years in the world of politics. …There’s some interesting chatter that two-time former Democratic Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who just missed making the runoff for L.A. mayor in 2005, and now a principal in the solar power world, is the only potential candidate who could give Brown a serious run. … Scott Gerber, Brown’s communications director, has resigned following a media taping scandal. 

Quotable

“This energy on the right seems to exist outside the control of the conventional political structure, and GOP politicians and operatives are as likely to be victims of this anger as beneficiaries.” Politico.

“I think he’s got an out-of-this world ego. He’s very narcissistic. And he’s able to focus all attention on himself all the time.” – Rush Limbaugh in a fresh attack on Barack Obama on Fox News Sunday.

The answer came Sunday from Rep. John Boehner on CNN’s “State of the Union” when he was pressed to explain why Republicans have not yet introduced a counter-proposal to the Democratic efforts in overhauling a failed system.

The House Minority Leader directed viewers to the GOP’s House website, where they could “see our eight or nine ideas about how to make our health care system better.”

Pressed in the contentious interview Boehner finally insisted that the Republicans would produce an actual piece of legislation that would be scored by the Congressional Budget Office – more than 135 days since the House GOP leadership promised to produce an alternative health care bill.

Here’s the House minority leader’s stunning explainer: “We do not attempt to cover 46 million more Americans. We will cover more Americans but we would attempt to do this. This is not affordable. what this is going to do is bankrupt America.”

It reminded me of a town call meeting in August on health issues when an elderly constituent angrily warned that he would not let anyone touch his Medicare, unaware that the government program he opposes has been a vital public benefit for those 65 and older for almost 45 years. 

“IN THE ANNALS of presidential coupledom, the Obamas more than slightly resemble the Clintons: a pair of Ivy League-trained lawyers, the self-made son of an absent father and a wife who sometimes put her husband’s ambitions ahead of her own. But unlike Bill Clinton, who turned his wife into an unlikely Arkansan, Obama planted himself on his wife’s turf. And while the Clinton marriage seems forged in shared beliefs about the promise of politics, the Obama union has been a decades-long debate about whether politics could be an effective avenue for social change. Even as a community organizer, Barack aimed to prod officials into action. His wife, who was more skeptical about politicians, tried to bypass them: when she took a job promoting community-organizing techniques, she focused on what neighborhoods could accomplish without their help.”

First, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom pulled out of the race citing a young family and responsibilities at City Hall which he said made it difficult to commit the time required to compete. The more compelling reason was that he trailed Attorney General Jerry Brown, oddly still an unannounced candidate, by 20 points, and even with an endorsement by former President Bill Clinton was unable to generate significant financial support.

Brown, twice elected governor, suddenly has two serious problems to contend with. Scott Gerber, his spokesman, has admitted that he secretly taped a telephone conversation with San Francisco Chronicle senior political reporter Carla Marinucci without disclosing the fact or asking permission, adding that he taped conversations with other reporters.

California Penal Code Section 632 prohibits the recording of private telephone conversations without consent, and the state requires notification of all parties prior to taping. First Amendment advocates said Gerber’s actions, legal or not, reflect very poorly on the judgment of the state’s top legal official.

Gerber’s admission stemmed from publication in the Chronicle this week that detailed consumer activist Harvey Rosenfield’s criticisms of revisions the attorney general made in the summary to a ballot measure that deals with car insurance rates. Brown is now facing accusations that he cleared the way for a summary that was more favorable to Mercury General, the state’s third largest auto insurer, and the sole contributor to the measure. In June, before he announced an exploratory campaign, Mercury gave Brown $13,000.

Late yesterday Gerber was put on administrative leave and faces disciplinary action. But the attorney general’s press secretary said Brown did not know about his taped telephone conversations. This action did not satisfy Calbuzz, the lively state political blog, which demanded that Brown “fire the flack immediately.”

With Newsom toast and Brown’s decades long invincibility now in doubt will another big-name Democrat seriously consider entering the June primary to make it a contest?

Asked why other counties can’t be involved in fighting terrorism – not just in Pakistan – the Secretary of State minced no words: “Al-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to. Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know.”

Suggesting that al Qaeda has launched attacks on Indonesia, Philippines and many other countries, she said the world has an interest in seeing the capture and killing of people who are he masterminds of this terrorist syndicate.  Osama bin Laden was not mentioned, but she added, “As far as we know, they are in Pakistan.” The Bush administration never had the nerve to address the festering issue so publicly. Clinton’s toughness should be welcomed by the White House.

Obama’s Dover trip

As ABC News put it yesterday “the nation woke up to powerful and emotional images – images the public never saw under President Bush. The president greeted returning American caskets that once would have been shielded from view, and may tell us more about his mindset on Afghanistan than any of the endless series of meetings he’s convened in the White House.”

“Standing in the pre-dawn darkness, President Obama saw the real cost of war in Afghanistan: the Americans who return in flag-covered cases while much of the nation sleeps in peace,” the AP reported.

Now a war president, Obama must please many constituencies, notably a public far from convinced over and over again that Afghanistan is not in the long run another Vietnam. This trip conveyed the gravity of a decision he is now expected to make before he departs for Asia on November 11.

The AP has handicapped the decision as “McChrystal Light,” a narrowed military mission scaling back the troop numbers the general wants to achieve his ambitious objectives.

Quotable

“You know what’s worse than being sick and not having health insurance? Having to sit through the (Joe) Lieberman filibuster that kept you from it.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, criticizing Lieberman for joining the Republicans if they filibuster the public option.