Welcome to today’s Purple Post (why not go on over and read it at Purple, John’s about to write about tomorrow’s rapture, which will probably not be boring):

This week’s brouhaha surrounding the newly-minted candidacy and ensuing political missteps of Newt Gingrich provides an opportunity to understand just how wacky our civic conversation has become. Here’s how the apparent crash and burn started:

DAVID GREGORY (Meet the Press): “…Do you think that Republicans ought to buck the public opposition and really move forward to completely change Medicare, turn it into a voucher program where you give seniors…”

GINGRICH: “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate… I think what you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options, not one where you suddenly impose upon the–I don’t want to–I’m against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.”

Essentially Gingrich had just staked out a semi-populist/smidge libertarian middle position that appears now to be similar to that of the majority of the American people (who don’t quite like either Ryan’s or Obama’s).

The right’s reaction was predictably based on Gingrich’s lack of loyalty rather than a recognition that he was riding the cresting public opinion wave while the rest of the party was likely being cumulatively tugged under it. This was so predictable because we’ve gone tribal, Shia and Sunni style, where no one on one side is ever going to advisedly take an opinion (publicly) against their own “tribe”, never mind what they actually think. The condemnation was round and swift, ending the week in the traditional conservative perp walk to the Rush Limbaugh show where countless Republicans have found themselves after saying ridiculously obvious things such as… no, Limbaugh isn’t the head of the Republican party, he’s an entertainer (Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-KS and RNC Chair Michael Steele) or that Limbaugh throws bricks (uh, duh) (Rep. Phil Gingrey R-GA). Gingrich did the standard prescribed perp dance too, trying to say he didn’t say what he clearly said.

Of course none of this has ever been about reality, Gingrich just had to pay his tribal dues. Then again having paid them, it won’t make a bit of difference because in tribal politics like ours, he a goner. No “Sunni” would ever have supported him no matter how reasonable he became measured against their positions and he’s politically dead to the “Shia” now having disagreed with them on 1 (one) topic.

Indeed, over at America’s other political tribe, I heard precious little discussion of whether Gingrich had a point or possibly a bit of political courage, notably not by the people who ought to have thought he did. Ridiculing him has become sport, so why stop when he says something that presumably makes sense to them? Gingrich couldn’t buy a friend, even while representing a majority opinion in America. Instead most liberals didn’t seem able to resist taking general cheap shots. If you lean left and are resisting my point, think of the syndrome suffered by talk radio where no matter what position a Democratic leader takes and how close it is the position espoused by conservatives, the talk-radio crowd will tie themselves up in twisty illogical rhetorical knots to stake a position against him/her even if they have to argue against what they’re always arguing for. Hypocrisy is just so last season these days.

Liberals did that to Gingrich this week. It’s all because we lead now with our tribal anger.

Queue up Gingrich’s official spokesman’s statement, maybe the most bizarre I’ve ever heard, and you’ve got the three-ring circus at full-freakish tilt (you can also watch John Lithgow’s dramatic reading of the statement, starts about 3:30):

“The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,” Tyler wrote. “Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”

And so it goes.

Barely a peep this week in the way of an articulate conversation on health care and about whether Gingrich’s point had any merit at its heart. You see, we aren’t actually trying to solve any problems anymore. Keep this up and we’ll be getting exactly the public policy we deserve.

Ask the Shia or Sunni how well this has worked for them.

(Illustration credit: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Senator Tom Coburn (R- OK) made comments in a town hall last week with a little bit of something for everyone. For The Village Square, Republican Coburn stuck up for rival Democrat Nancy Pelosi, calling her “a nice lady” to a crowd that didn’t want to hear that.

But what was most interesting was to watch the coverage of different aspects of Coburn’s town hall depending on which network covered it.

At The Village Square we have observed an attendance pattern at events: People tend to come to the forum that interests them, therefore we get more conservatives when we talk taxes and and more liberals when we talk environment. We’d like to reverse the trend, for the sake of improving the civic dialogue. So… in that spirit, please note the reading instructions for this blog post:

For Republicans, please read this:

“What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what’s going on and make a determination yourself,” the Oklahoma senator said in remarks to a home-state town hall meeting… “So don’t catch yourself being biased by FOX News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don’t know what they don’t know.”

“I want to tell you, I do a lot of reading every day and I’m disturbed that we get things… that are so disconnected from what I know to be the facts. And that comes from somebody that has an agenda that’s other than the best interest of our country. And so please balance and be careful.”

And here is the reading assignment for Democrats:

“The motivation is not to fix health care,” Coburn told about 40 people at the Miami Civic Center. “The motivation is to put the federal government in charge of health care.

“This sounds somewhat paranoid, but I think they know this is going to fail,” he said. “Then they can say, ‘See, the government needs to be in charge of all prices doctors (charge) at all levels.’?”

Rigging the system to fail will pave the way for “single-payer, government-run, rationed health care,” he said.

(Photo credit.)

‘People are trying to understand a really complicated bill that keeps changing all the time… I think it’s a danger for Democrats to treat this like “the bad guys are coming to get us. They’re racists, they hate Obama… They’re better off trying to explain the bill.’ – The New Republic’s Michael Crowley on Morning Joe (commenting on Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s comments about the vitriol on the right toward President Obama, implying that opposition to health care is fundamentally based on their their fury.)

James 1:19-27:

“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

(Photo credit.)

Hat tip to Patty for the eagle eye.

Rudy Ruiz, founder of RedBrownandBlue.com writes on our current difficulty in having a national conversation. He describes a “contagious culture of closed-mindedness:”

Three factors exacerbate this paralysis by lack of analysis: labels, lifestyles and listening.

First, the labels ascribed to many potential policy tools render sensible options taboo, loading what could be rational, economic or social measures with moral baggage. This narrows our choices, hemming in policy makers.

Any proposal including the words “government-run” elicits cries of “socialism” and “communism.” Any argument invoking the words “God” or “moral” sparks accusations of “right-wing extremism,” “facism,” or “Bible-thumping.” Instead of listening to each other’s ideas, we spot the warning label and run the other way.

Second, our lifestyles favor knee-jerk reactions. The way we think, work and live in the Digital Age demands we quickly categorize information without investing time into rich interaction, research and understanding.

We’re hesitant to ask questions because we don’t have time to listen to the long, complicated answers that might follow. And we lack the time to fact-check competing claims. In our haste, it’s easier to echo our party’s position than drill down, questioning whether party leaders are motivated by our best interests or the best interests of their biggest contributors.

Third, we tend to listen only to like-minded opinions as media fragmentation encourages us to filter out varying perspectives. If you’re a liberal, you avoid FOX News. If you’re a conservative you revile MSNBC. The dynamic is even more pronounced online, where a niche media source can be found for any outlook.

This silences the opportunity for meaningful dialogue and deliberation that might lead to reformulating positions, forging sustainable compromises, and developing consensus crucial to moving our nation forward on complex issues.

Read the whole article for his prescriptions.

Here are key features of the Massachusetts Heath Plan implemented under Governor Mitt Romney, which is a health exchange as is being considered by the Senate Finance Committee:

Minimum benefits, such as preventive care, mental health care and hospitalization

A ban on gender discrimination

Limits on total out-of-pocket costs

A prohibition on pre-existing conditions as a qualifier for health coverage

No medical underwriting, so insurers can’t ask an individual about his or her health status in order to determine coverage

Limits on age restrictions, which means what is charged for an older individual cannot be more than double what is charged the youngest.

Jim Galloway writes in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on a new civility project out of Atlanta:

At least one Republican thinks the harsh language and disruptions we’ve seen at town hall meetings across the country constitute a blunder — both moral and strategic — that could hurt the conservative cause in the long run.

Mark DeMoss is a conservative Southern Baptist whose Buckhead-based public relations firm serves evangelical organizations. He supported Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primary.

Earlier this year, he joined with Lanny Davis, a prominent Washington Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, to form something called the Civility Project.

The rules, which can be found at civilityproject.org, are simple: “(1) I will be civil in public discourse and behavior; (2) I will be respectful of others, whether or not I agree with them; and (3) I will stand up and call out incivility whenever I see it.”

Three events pushed DeMoss toward a demand for better manners in politics. “I saw an awful lot of pretty ugly rhetoric directed at Mormons in general or Mitt Romney in particular, and then eventually at me — because I was helping a Mormon,” DeMoss said. “And a lot of it came from my own camp, from evangelicals.”

Then there was the November vote in California to ban gay marriage. “Because Mormons gave so much money in support of Proposition 8, you had these cases of gay activists vandalizing Mormon churches,” he said.

At the same time, DeMoss was put off by certain comments from conservatives following Barack Obama’s victory. “I didn’t vote for him, I don’t agree with him on much of anything, but I didn’t think it was right,” he said.

DeMoss knows that some conservatives will think him wimpish for urging politeness. But he assures those who disagree that civility and surrender are not the same.

As a rule, civility keeps you humble and clears your head. Incivility amounts to a display of contempt. And a lack of respect for one’s adversary is often the first step toward disaster. See “Custer, George Armstrong.”

DeMoss would add that rudeness in the health care debate, aside from making poor video, has struck many as weakness. “Is my case against it not strong enough on its merits, so that I’d have to stop it by disrupting meetings and causing chaos?” he posed. “That’s a sad admission.”

The Bipartisan Policy Center, founded by former Senators Bob Dole, George Mitchell, Howard Baker and Tom Daschle has produced a report called Crossing Our Lines: Working Together to Reform the U.S. Health System. The short version of the report offers very specific bulleted recommendations toward the end of the download. It’s worth a read (although – warning – it’s a bit wonky).

(Watch their video above for very Village Square-ish viewing.)

Apparently some liberals don’t think some conservatives have already made town halls quite shrill enough. Apparently they like a little combustion with their decision-making:

The right-wing nuts who cry that ObamaCare is introducing euthanasia for the elderly and infirm, or that it is socialism, are ignorant wackos, to be sure, but they are right about one thing: Americans are about to be royally screwed on health care reform by the president and the Democratic Congress, just as they’ve been screwed by them on financial system “reform.”

The appropriate response to this screw-job is the one the right has adopted: shut these sham “town meetings” down, and run the sell-out politicians out of town on a rail, preferably coated in tar and feathers they way the snake-oil salesmen of old used to be handled!

This is not about civil discourse. This is about propaganda… The only proper response at this point is obstruction, and the more militant and boisterous that obstruction, the better.

(Photo credit. Got to like the pork rinds and beer bottle with the gasoline for a little color.)

The long and vigorous debate about health care that’s been taking place over the past few months is a good thing. It’s what America’s all about.

But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

Read the whole op-ed HERE.

(Please forward us good CIVIL articles, both sides of the debate… thecrier@tothevillagesquare.org.)

Good idea. (That’s all.)

There’s this, and then there is The Village Square…

Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.

On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to temporarily suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.

Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.

“I have no problem with someone disagreeing with positions I hold,” Bishop said, noting that, for the time being, he was using other platforms to communicate with his constituents. “But I also believe no one is served if you can’t talk through differences.”

Bishop isn’t the only one confronted by boiling anger and rising incivility. At a health care town hall event in Syracuse, N.Y., earlier this month, police were called in to restore order, and at least one heckler was taken away by local police. Close to 100 sign-carrying protesters greeted Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) at a late June community college small-business development forum in Panama City, Fla. Last week, Danville, Va., anti-tax tea party activists claimed they were “refused an opportunity” to ask Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.) a question at a town hall event and instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property after they attempted to hold up protest signs.

Read more at Politico.com

The LeRoy Collins Institute expects a coming increase in Medicaid enrollment and calls it the “800 pound gorilla” as we make tough fiscal choices. From the recently updated report “Tough Choices: Shaping Florida’s Future”

Medicaid currently accounts for more than 25% of Florida’s budget, insuring a quarter of Florida’s children and funding 63% of the state’s nursing home care. As we noted in Tough Choices: Update 2008, cuts in Medicaid spending not only leave many residents of Florida with costly, uncovered medical expenses but they also leave available matching federal money on the table. Health care research shows that when providers are financially strapped, quality of care for serious conditions gets worse.

In our original Tough Choices recommendations in 2005 we urged a careful assessment of Medicaid as a prerequisite for both making cuts and improving the effectiveness of the massive safety-net program. Instead, the state has continued to cut services here and there without a careful assessment of their impacts and without a full understanding of the intricacies and myriad components of the Medicaid system. We continue to urge a careful assessment of Medicaid, including prioritization of services and recipients, prior to additional incremental reductions.