It would be a major understatement to say that Obamacare has had a bad spring.  Around the time of Lincoln’s birthday, registered voters told Fox News that, by a margin of 6 percentage points (48 to 42 percent), it would “be better to go back to the health care system that was in place in 2009” than it would be “to leave the new health care law in place.”   Three months later, as we head into Memorial Day, nostalgia for the good ol’ days of 2009 now beats Obamacare by a whopping 22 points (56 to 34 percent).

That’s saying something, because, back in 2009 — largely as a result of Republicans’ refusal to do much of anything on health care in the nearly decade-and-a-half between their defeat of Hillarycare and their defeat at the hands of Obama — Americans clearly weren’t very happy with the health-care status quo.  Every one of the half-dozen polls published by RealClearPolitics in the first half of 2009 — before Obamacare clearly took shape — showed Americans favoring efforts to reform our health-care system.  Now, Obamacare is even more unpopular than the unpopular pre-Obamacare status quo — and that has been true for nearly four years.

None of this, however, should lull Republicans into thinking there’s no need for them to advance conservative, limited-government reforms in lieu of Obamacare’s liberal, big-government model of centralized control over American medicine.  For at least two main reasons, it’s crucial that the GOP push not only for the full repeal of Obamacare, but also for real reform.

First, despite the Fox News polling, it’s very hard to beat something with nothing.  If Republicans refuse to advance a proposal for real reform, the almost certain result will be that voters will eventually seek the middle ground between Obamacare and the GOP’s nonexistent alternative — and that middle ground won’t be pretty.  Almost surely, it will mean keeping most of Obamacare, or at least most of its statist architecture — a result that should be unacceptable to liberty-loving Americans.

Second, although it was light years better than the nightmare of Obamacare, the health care system of 2009 was already broken — as the federal government (with the help of state governments) had already broken it.  Rather than being content to go back to that, the GOP needs to make the government fix what it broke.  This will principally require fixing the unfairness and the senselessness in the tax code, which has incentivized the purchase of pre-paid health care in lieu of actual insurance, has sapped the strength of the individual health care market (where one must buy insurance without the tax break enjoyed by those who get insurance through their employer), and has left us with a only a pale imitation of a genuine health-care market.  Even now, a few months before Obamacare and its system of coercion really kicks in, we have a market in which people generally don’t control their own health-care dollars, can’t see prices, and don’t have the opportunity or incentive to shop for value. 

At the conclusion of a lunch at the British embassy here in Washington, Britain’s ambassador, Sir Peter Westmacott, asked each of the four scribbler-economists he had invited to give his forecasts for the year. I usually decline to participate in this sport, but after hearing the unoptimistic views of the other guests, I found myself offering to buy lunch for Sir Peter and his other guests if the U.S. economy is not growing at a rate of at least 3 percent by the end of this year. After a recent, brief tour of the country—St. Louis, Houston (fastest growing job market), Phoenix (fourth fastest)—and chats with builders, retailers and business leaders in those cities and elsewhere, I sufficiently overcame my aversion to forecasting to make a safe, although hardly risk-free bet.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke and his monetary policy committee’s decision to run the printing presses is having the desired “wealth effect.” Unless the job market improves markedly, taking the unemployment down from 7.5 percent to 6.5 percent without a further increase in the number of workers too discouraged to remain in the work force, Bernanke will hold steady-as-she-goes, purchasing $85 billion per month in bonds to keep interest rates close to zero. If the economy gains steam, the Fed will dial back the speed of its money printing, and if the economy slows too much the dial will be twisted back to full-speed ahead. Whether the Fed’s dials are connected to the real economy, or merely tools to satisfy the Fed’s belief in its power and skill, is an open question. The possibility that hubris precedes nemesis rarely troubles Fed chairmen.

Despite some doubts about the ability of the Fed to fine-tune monetary policy, share and house prices are rising, people are feeling richer—the wealth effect—and purchasing homes and cars. Sales of homes are at their highest level in more than three years and permits issued to build new houses are at a five-year high. Gasoline prices are down, sales of profit-producing small trucks that construction workers favor are up, U.S. carmakers are cancelling traditional seasonal plant shutdowns, and Ford plans an almost 10 percent expansion of its North American capacity. Score one for the Fed chairman and his colleagues, some of whom would like to cut bond purchases now, but in the end go along with the chairman.

So, conclude Fed watchers, the Fed will be “data driven,” dialing up and down depending on the pace of improvement in the job market and the economy. John Maynard Keynes once remarked that if you want to predict the winner of a beauty contest don’t try to decide which contestant is the prettiest: guess which woman the judges will deem the prettiest. So with the data—we now have to guess how the Fed will view each new bit of economic news, regardless of how we view it.

Here are two clues to how the Fed sees things.

·     Last week’s hint of a “taper” in bond purchases caused share prices to drop—the plunge in the Nikkei helped. That is not what the Fed wants to see right now, as it is depending on a continued wealth effect to offset the fiscal tightening produced by a falling deficit.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on President Obama's recent counterterrorism speech at National Defense University.

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Georgia Democrats may finally have a candidate for next year's Senate race to succeed Republican Saxby Chambliss. Michelle Nunn, an Atlanta businesswoman and the daughter of former senator Sam Nunn, is "actively preparing" for a Senate campaign, the Hill reports:

“I don't think she'll make an announcement until the beginning of the summer, mid-June or early July. There's no urgency and she has to resolve some things with the charity [Nunn is in charge of]. But she is running,” said one source close to Nunn, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about private discussions.

Another senior Georgia Democrat said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has called a few key Democrats in the state in recent days to tell them Nunn, the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), was definitely running for the seat. 

While plans could stil lchange, both sources say Nunn intends to wait until after a major early June event being hosted by her charitable organization, Points of Light, to make any announcement. 

A recent poll by Better Georgia, a progressive group, found that Nunn would perform competitively against the three Republican congressmen in the race (Paul Broun, Jack Kingston, and Phil Gingrey). The poll also showed Nunn eight points ahead of the latest Republican to join the race, Karen Handel (though the poll was conducted before Handel entered the race).

A Nunn run could be a boon for Democrats looking to be competitive statewide in Georgia, which is still a solidly conservative state but may be moderating as the population becomes more diverse. (In 2012, for instance, Mitt Romney's second smallest margin of victory was in Georgia, just seven points.) As a white Democrat with Atlanta business connections and a popular last name, Nunn might be able to position herself as a moderate in the mold of her father. And as one Republican observer from Georgia puts it, the Atlanta media will be "rooting for her."

That being said, ever since 2002, when Chambliss defeated Max Cleland for the Senate and Sonny Perdue won the governor's race, Democrats haven't been able to win a major statewide race in Georgia. The closest the party came to doing so was in 2008, when higher turnout among Georgia's significant black population that year gave Democrats a boost. Chambliss ran just three points ahead of his Democratic challenger and was forced into a runoff, which he won handily.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with the Becket Fund's Adele Keim on the Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius case.

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THE WEEKLY STANDARD would like to thank The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Adele Keim for joining us.

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During his counterterrorism speech on Thursday, President Obama defended the use of drones by saying the following:

To begin with, our actions are effective.  Don’t take my word for it.  In the intelligence gathered at bin Laden’s compound, we found that he wrote, “We could lose the reserves to enemy’s air strikes.  We cannot fight air strikes with explosives.”

It is true that the drone strikes have been effective in killing terrorists. So the president is right in that regard and deserves credit for the slaying of some senior al Qaeda and al Qaeda-affiliated operatives. However, drone strikes are only an effective tactic, not a strategy, and the enemy has adapted to this tactic.

Don’t take my word for it. Below is the full quote from the declassified bin Laden document President Obama cited. The president cited only the last two sentences (emphasis added), but the rest of the quote shows that al Qaeda maintains “reserves” outside of the drones’ line of fire. In other words, the full quote shows the limitations of the drone program. Here, bin Laden claims to speak for the entire community of Muslims (the Ummah), but of course al Qaeda does not speak for all Muslims.

The Ummah should put forward some, but enough, forces to fight America. The Ummah must keep some of its forces on reserve. This will be in the Ummah’s best interests. The Ummah will use the reserve in the future, but during the appropriate time.

In the meanwhile, we do not want to send the reserves to the front line, especially in areas where the enemy only uses air strikes to attack our forces. So, the reserves will not, for the most part, be effective in such conflicts. Basically, we could lose the reserves to enemy’s air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives!

Therefore, the full quote actually supports a different argument – that al Qaeda’s “reserves” have been removed from the drones’ kill box. It is quite obvious that improvised explosive devices, car bombs, small arms and the like cannot takeout unmanned drones. So, al Qaeda has simply moved some of its forces elsewhere.

Other documents show that Osama bin Laden ordered some of his minions to relocate to Kunar, Nuristan and elsewhere in Afghanistan. Today, Kunar and Nuristan are al Qaeda safe havens. On the same page as the quote cited by President Obama, Osama bin Laden noted that his “Waziristani brothers” were “frankly exhausted” by the airstrikes. It is for this reason that “reserves” were moved elsewhere. Bin Laden writes:

It is known that they teach in military and war science that if a war breaks out between two countries, the two countries do not send all of their forces to the front line. Instead, they hold back some forces, especially forces with special training.

On Thursday, a House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on a bill that would ban most abortions during the last four months of pregnancy nationwide. Proponents of the legislation frequently cited the murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, as well as the words of President Obama himself, to make their case for a new law.

"The Gosnell trial reminds us that when newborn babies are cut with scissors, they whimper and cry, and flinch from pain," House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte said during opening remarks. "But it takes only a moment's thought to realize that wherever babies are cut, they whimper and cry, and flinch from pain. Delivered or not, babies are babies, and they can feel pain at 20 weeks. It is time to welcome young children who can feel pain into the human family. And this bill, at last, will do just that."

Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, the sponsor of the bill and the subcommittee chairman, quoted heavily from Obama's speech in response to the Newtown massacre. "This is our first task: caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how we as a society will be judged," Franks said, quoting Obama. "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage. That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?"

One of the witnesses, Dr. Anthony Levatino, an obstetrician who performed more than 1,200 abortions before a moral awakening led him to stop performing them, testified about the inherent brutality of the late-term abortion procedure he used to perform.

Whereas Dr. Gosnell killed newborns by cutting into their necks to sever their spinal cords, Dr. Levatino testified that a standard late-term abortion procedure known as "dilation and evacuation" involves the dismemberment of a very developed child in utero.

After tearing off the baby's limbs, Levatino said, “sometimes a face comes out and stares back at you. Congratulations. You have just successfully performed a second trimester Suction D&E abortion. You just affirmed her right to choose."

"These procedures are brutal by their nature," Levatino testified. "The Gosnell situation is a situation that has, I think, brought to the public's attention what we're talking about when we're talking about this level of abortion." Although the proposed ban on abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy contains exceptions for when the life or physical health of the mother is at risk, Levatino testified that in his experience late-term abortion was not necessary to save the mother's life. The doctor pointed out that late-term abortions take three days to perform, and a live delivery of the baby can be performed much more quickly. Levatino stopped performing abortions after his own daughter died and he could no longer stomach the killing. 

Opponents of the bill attacked the ban's lack of an exception to abort babies with severe disabilities. Democratic congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York said the biill "looks like just another battle in the Republican war on women."

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon, on the Center for American Progress:

What a fantastic talent liberals possess, the ability to talk out of both sides of their mouths. One side utters platitudes about campaign finance reform and the nefarious influence of money in politics, while the other whispers in the ears of oligarchs and plutocrats. One side slanders Republicans as the tools of corporate interests, while the other solicits donations from some of the largest corporations in the world. The next journalist to examine influence peddling on K Street need only walk two blocks south, to H Street. There he’ll find one heck of a story.

H Street is the home of the Center for American Progress (CAP), founded by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta in the fall of 2003. Originally conceived as a think tank to match the conservative Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, CAP quickly dropped the thinking and became, simply, a tank. Its objective was to overpower conservatives and Republicans, to devastate them with a fusillade of government activism, to pulverize their fortifications with ammunition loaded into the progressive echo chamber.

Good weapons don’t come cheap. CAP requires considerable stimulus to acquire, track, and destroy its targets. Podesta’s fundraising methods, as one might expect from a Clintonite, were ingenious. He incorporated two entities: The Center for American Progress as a tax-deductible nonprofit 501(c)(3), and the Center for American Progress Action Fund as a tax-exempt 501(c)(4). Donations would not be disclosed, allowing contributors the protection of anonymity even as CAP called for transparency in political giving and government regulation of political speech.

Read the whole thing here.