The Life of Biden

Political reporters say that this White House manages the media as tightly as any of its predecessors.
Somehow though the occasional leak is coming from the Oval Office that paints view-president Joe Biden as the administration’s Cassandra. Okay, so not the occasional leak, but in fact major magazine profiles, such as the one that appeared in this week’s Newsweek.
The piece begins with a scene where Biden interrupts a Oval Office to ask hard questions about why the U.S. is devoting so many resources to Afghanistan and so few to Pakistan

The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region.

They give Rahm the chance to make the case:

“He says the things that others at the table don’t want to talk about, or which they find uncomfortable,” says White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

He also brought a dose of reality to the internal discussions over how far the administration could go. “He’s been asking, ‘What are the trade-offs here?’” says Emanuel.

This story has been so relentlessly flogged in the past few weeks that it points to a concerted effort on the part of the White House to paint the innver circle as one riven by debate and dissension, and more interestingly, to put Biden in the role of truthteller.
It is hard to know what the strategy here. Obama is already under fire for being indecisive. Adding a loud voice to create interference does not seem likely to help convince the public that the president is resolute.

A couple of guesses: 1. Painting Biden as the resident dissenter further distances the Obama administration from its predecessor and shows American that a diversity of viewpoints is tolerated. Ergo, you too, American, who disagrees with the President, are being represented in his White House and your voice is heard too.

Two: The Biden truth-teller meme is specific to this set of circumstances in Central Asia. Throwing Biden out as a dissenting voice gives Obama cover if he chooses to reject the recommendations of Gen. McChrystal. The White House can say, “Well, sure we ignored the military brass, but we listened to the former chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If something goes wrong, just check with him. Likewise, if Obama does follow the General’s advice, his people can say that he did so only after having welcomed the loudest voices against the plan.

Ensign on Incentives

Did I hear this right on NPR this am?

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers seem eager to encourage employers to create and expand programs that tie a portion of workers’ health insurance premiums to their willingness to change unhealthy behaviors. But there’s growing concern that some of those programs represent a new way to discriminate against those in less than perfect health.

By a vote of 18-4, the Senate Finance Committee added to its health overhaul bill an amendment offered by Sens. John Ensign (R-NV) and Tom Carper (D-DE) that would expand existing rules that let workplace “wellness” programs pay bonuses in the way of reduced premiums to workers to lose weight, quit smoking, control their blood pressure or practice other healthy behaviors.

Current rules allow premiums to vary by up to 20 percent of a worker’s total health insurance premium. Under the amendment adopted by the committee, that could rise to as much as 50 percent.

“We know that the more we pay for things the more we’re going to get. And so we need basically to pay for healthy behaviors,” Ensign said.

Eventually, satire will catch up to politics.