Saturday Political Matinee

First up, Mike Stopa, who’s running for Congress in MA-3, on Obama’s unacceptable recess appointment of NHS fan-boy, Donald Berwick to head Medicaid and Medicare services:

Daniel Henninger, after providing numerous examples of Berwick’s “revolutionary” ideas in the WSJ, says:

There is no need to rehearse the analogies in literature and social thought that Dr. Berwick’s ideas summon. That the Obama White House would try to push this past public scrutiny with a recess appointment says more about Barack Obama than it does Dr. Berwick.

Vilifying Dr. Berwick alone for his views is in a way beside the point. Within Mr. Obama’s circle they all think like this. Defeat Dr. Berwick, and they will send up 50 more who would pursue the same goals.

If the American people want the world Dr. Berwick wishes to give them, that’s their choice. But they must be given that choice with full, televised confirmation hearings.

Barack Obama, Donald Berwick and the rest may fancy themselves philosopher kings who know what we need without the need to inform or persuade us first. That’s not how it works here. That is Sen. Baucus’s point.

It should be clear why Berwick is bigger than Kagan. We need a large public debate over these views, over what Mr. Obama has said his health plan would and would not do. We need to find out if every Democrat in Congress and every Democrat writing newspaper columns and blogs agrees with Dr. Berwick about clinical and individual autonomy and about leaders with plans.

Then we need to build an election around whether we want to go down the road Dr. Berwick has planned for us, or start dismantling the one that President Obama paved through Congress on a partisan vote.

I vote for dismantling everything they’ve done.

Clip two comes from DC motormouth, Lee Doren, of How the World Works, who gives you the week’s news in less than five minutes: