Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Having failed to privatize Social Security, the Bush Administration is trying to wreck Medicare on its way out the door, but MDs are mad as hell, and they're taking it out on Congressional Republicans.

The focus this week is on trying to undo a 10.6 percent cut in payment to care providers for millions of older Americans. Before the Fourth of July recess, the House passed a bill to prevent the Medicare pay cut by a vote of 355 to 59. In the Senate, Republicans blocked efforts to take up the bill, so the cut took effect on July 1st.

Now the AMA and its incensed members are targeting such former friends as Sens. John Sununu, Roger Wicker and Arlen Specter, who all voted against cloture.

As with the SCHIP legislation to expand children's health care coverage, Bush and his allies are favoring the insurance industry over a government program that is working well for those who need it most.

-- ROBERT STEIN

It's possible John McCain decided he doesn’t really want to be president after all. It’s a tough, demanding job, and maybe McCain came to the conclusion he’s just not up to the task. It seemed like a good idea to him last year, but maybe he bit off more than he could chew. It’s too late for McCain to bow out, but he can ensure his defeat by saying the most breathtakingly dumb things imaginable.

Take Social Security, for example, one of the most popular and successful government programs in American history. McCain recently said he support privatizing the system. Then he said, he doesn't want to privatize the system. Then he said he would privatize the system, he just doesn't want it to be called privatization.

Listening to him talk, it sounded as if John McCain, after more than a quarter-century in Congress, simply didn't know how the Social Security system works. And this week, McCain proved that he simply doesn’t know how the Social Security system works. Here’s what he told a town-hall audience in Denver on Monday:

"Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace, and it’s got to be fixed."

-- STEVE BENEN

Public approval of the job Congress is doing is now down in single digits. You can thank FISA for killing off any progressive support. People are tired of sternly-worded letters and capitulation. Everyone hates Bush and the Republican Party and yet absolutely nothing is changing. With every metric showing blowout wins for the Democrats, they just are not willing to rock the boat.

-- BOOMAN

A few days ago, the McCain campaign released a letter signed by 300 economists expressing support for the McCain economic agenda. Only . . . turns out a lot of those economists don't support the McCain agenda. Or McCain. And weren't aware the statement -- which they were asked to sign months ago, before the campaign had released McCain's economic plans -- was still going to be issued. . . .

This fits into a broader problem for the McCain campaign which is that their economic policy shop is terribly inept. Their numbers don't add up. Their statements contradict each other. They can't even release a letter without falling face first into the mud.

-- EZRA KLEIN