Jennifer Media pens a paean to Jodi Rell


According to Jennifer Medina's sycophantic article in the New York Times this morning, Jodi Rell draws inspiration from Gerald Ford. You know you're in serious trouble when you have a governor in a state facing serious problems that draws inspiration from a time serving hack. There must be other Republicans who replaced criminals to whom Jodi can look for inspiration. Lord knows there's enough Republican criminals.

Ever notice how the media go out of their way to paint Republican mediocrity as a virtue. In a way, it is a virtue. Mediocrities do less harm than psychopathic ideologues, the other Republican variant we see so often.

From the same article, how's this for resounding praise for our clueless governor:

“You hear Democrats claim: ‘She hasn’t done anything, she hasn’t done anything,’ ” said Chris Barnes, a pollster at the University of Connecticut. “Well, the last governor did something and the something was lining his pockets. People are quite happy this governor is not doing that something.”

I'm with you Mr. Barnes. I'm absolutely ecstatic that the governor isn't on the take, at least so far as I know. What more can we ask? Well, we may not be asking for more, but we are in fact getting oh so much more than even Mr. Barnes mentioned. Not only is she not taking bribes, she is likely also not molesting children, not doing hard drugs, not waging war on Christmas and not taking her oath of office on the Koran. My happiness knows no bounds.

Addendum: Lest anyone think my antipathy to Rell is just knee jerk anti-Republicanism, let me elaborate. The problem with Jodi Rell is that she has no appreciation for the real problems Connecticut faces, and to the extent that she is aware of them, she is interested only in appearing to solve them, rather than really doing so. Her approach to health care is a great example, amounting as it does to a statewide referral to the tender mercies of the private insurance industry. The Cassandra like Krugman (always right, but no one seems to listen) has this to say today about the health care crisis:

And there’s real action at the state level. Inspired by the Massachusetts plan to cover all its uninsured residents, politicians in other states are talking about adopting similar plans. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has introduced a Massachusetts-type plan for the nation as a whole.
But now is the time to warn against plans that try to cover the uninsured without taking on the fundamental sources of our health system’s inefficiency. What’s wrong with both the Massachusetts plan and Senator Wyden’s plan is that they don’t operate like Medicare; instead, they funnel the money through private insurance companies.

Everyone knows why: would-be reformers are trying to avoid too strong a backlash from the insurance industry and other players who profit from our current system’s irrationality.

But look at what happened to Bill Clinton. He rejected a single-payer approach, even though he understood its merits, in favor of a complex plan that was supposed to co-opt private insurance companies by giving them a largely gratuitous role. And the reward for this “pragmatism” was that insurance companies went all-out against his plan anyway, with the notorious “Harry and Louise” ads that, yes, mocked the plan’s complexity.

Believe me, Krugman isn't referring to Connecticut when he says there is real action at the state level. No need to worry about the insurance industry opposing Rell's plan. They can see it for the joke it is. Rell's for-show gesture toward Universal Health Care is of a piece with her entire style of governing. Policy wonks like DeStefano and Malloy not only educate themselves about the issues, they actually want to solve problems. Rell's approach is to deny until something is undeniable, and then paper over. The primary thing is to preserve her position. Nothing else matters.
Posted: Monday - January 01, 2007 at 01:33 PM          

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