That damn liberal media, part MDCXI

In reading the Times' story on Hillary Clinton's health care proposal yesterday, I was struck by the following passage:

“Republican candidates acknowledge problems in the health care system
but would rely more than Mrs. Clinton and the other Democrats on the
market, the states and tax credits to resolve them.”

This is an incredibly disingenuous passage.  To say that the Republicans acknowledge problems in the health care system is to say that a driver has acknowledged he may need a tune-up and oil change when his engine has fallen out in the road.  Republican politicians largely gloss over our problems and to the extent they admit them, they simply do not offer serious policy proposals to fix them.  To suggest that in any way, Republican plans to rely on “the market, the states, and tax credits” to resolve problems with out health care system is at all analogous to Democrats' proposed health care reforms is to egregiously misrepresent the issue to readers.  Does the Times have a liberal bias?  Of course, not.  Rather its bias is towards a false pretense of objectivity that serves to actively misinform its readers just so nobody reading the article can claim they have a liberal bias.  The losers?  The American public. 

If you can take subtitles

Its been a while since I've been moved to share my thoughts on any particular movie.  I realize that subtitles aren't for everyone, but if you don't mind them, the German film, “The Lives of Others,” is surely the best movie I have seen this year.  It is set in East Berlin in 1984 and tells of the surveillance by the Stasi– East Germany's notorious secret police– of a playwright and his girlfriend.  All the characters struggle with difficult moral choices in a tense story that increasingly pulls the viewer in.  Great stuff.