The Call Up

February 12, 2013 2:38 pm

"Scholars, policy professionals, and journalists respect him, as do a handful of fellow wonks in the West Wing. “His voice matters a lot,” says a White House official. “The president talks to Ezra.” “I’ll put it this way,” says Nobel Prize–winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, “when I’m trying to get a quick handle on some currently hot policy, on the facts and the numbers, I very often find that I’m going to Ezra’s blog."

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This is the part about Ezra Klein that I think people willfully ignore (and which this article doesn’t pay enough mind to): He’s good at what he does. That’s what has made him successful. He’s not baiting people or scooping people or posting snark or pandering. He simply knows what he’s talking about and conveys his thoughts in a readable, compelling way.

I jumped on his bandwagon in 2008 when I was working on health care policy and he was consistently the only sane voice in the room. I regularly went to his blog for clear-headed analysis of the policy options. He’s just…smart. The fact that he parlayed his blog work into a sort of old/new media empire is just more evidence to that fact.

(Source: newrepublic.com)

February 7, 2012 8:06 am

Ezra Klein explores how Obama can ” simultaneously be one of the most divisive and most moderate presidents of the past century.” Answer: It’s the Republicans’ fault.

January 24, 2012 1:47 pm

"Gingrich argues that the prevailing view that the Supreme Court is the final word on constitutionality is wrong, and that Congress and the executive branch should begin ignoring the Supreme Court’s rulings when they disagree with them. As an example, Gingrich imagines Americans “ask that Congress pass a law insisting on the centrality of ‘our Creator’ in defining American rights, the legitimacy of appeals to God ‘in public places,’ and the absolute rejection of judicial supremacy as a violation of the Constitution’s balance of powers.” When the Supreme Court objects, he says, Congress should pass, and the president should sign, a second law affirming their power “to define the court’s jurisdiction."

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Say WHAT?

(Source: Washington Post)

October 17, 2011 11:37 am

"In one sense, the clinic has achieved the health policy ideal: cutting health-care costs by making people healthier. But consider how the clinic has done it — tying premiums to personal decisions, firing smokers, tracking employee metrics, eliminating popular sodas and foods from campus. By making it harder and more expensive for employees to be unhealthy, the clinic has radically overstepped the traditional, laissez-faire approach of employers to their workers’ personal habits."

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This is interesting—the Cleveland Clinic is tying personal wellness decisions to costs, payments, rebates etc. They have taken it to an extreme end, and Klein’s concerns are valid. But I have often wondered why insurance policies aren’t tied to gym memberships. What if you got a rebate for every trip to the gym and your policy gave you a membership discount, or automatically included gym access? It’s in your insurer’s best interest to keep us healthy on the cheap, without doctor visits! What if you lost out on those rebates when you purchased a pack of cigarettes or skipped a physical? If there is one thing people respond to, it’s money.

(Source: Washington Post)

July 20, 2011 4:09 pm

This chart always amazes me.

November 5, 2010 12:54 am

Assessing our first female speaker of the House

Shared by Brynna
THANK YOU. As I recently discussed with a friend, if she’s bad for democrats, then democrats are bad for democrats. She ran their platform and did it well. Speakers are supposed to be bullies.

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