Christine Hall's blog

Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen scored a front page hit on...wait for it...conservative advocacy groups that oppose Obamacare. (See Funding for Health-Care Interest Groups Often Fuzzy.) Eggen is scandalized that (big) business interests want to fund groups that oppose President Obama's plans to socialize insurance in the U.S. Eggen singles out a handful of non-leftists groups and complains about "opaque financing" and "hidden support from insurers, drugmakers [and] unions."

The second part of Eggen's report similarly blasts left-of-center groups that take corporate money to support Obamacare. Yeah, right. Actually, Eggen expends just one paragraph mentioning that liberal groups might be "beholden to labor unions and liberal foundations with deep pockets." No serious discussion of the fact that industry lobbyists have been a huge backer of Obamacare - or, specific provisions thereof. (See, for example, DC Examiner author and columnist Timothy P. Carney's article this week on PhRMA's influence within the Obama administration and, last week, on another major trade association, America's Health Insurance Plans.)

Isn't it curious that Eggen omits entirely any examination of what corporate interests fund left-wing groups?

Washington, DC is considered more hip whenever the power balance shifts to the left.  I didn't say that - Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts of the Washington Post's Reliable Source column said it.  Wow!  WaPo writers acknowledge that the snoberati equate hipness and style with leftist politics. 

"Our examination of the evidence suggests that his [Obama's] influence on the city's cool/host metrics may be overstated," the duo report.  They then give as evidence a little snapshot of city hotspots, star presence, fashion, and reality TV. 

Count me impressed that WaPo writers question the whole "left is hip" zeitgeist.  My only quibble here is that the Reliable Source suggests that people in DC no longer wear running shoes with pantyhose to work.  Clearly, they are not on my bus or train route.

As Tim Graham mentioned earlier, Washington Post Style-page columnist/TV critic Tom Shales went completely rhapsodic over President Obama's speech last night.  It's a bizzaro read, actually.  Starting with the headline, "Obama's Enchanting Quizfest" and continuing with descriptors like "earnestly," "disarmingly," "enchantingly" (again), "comfortingly cool and collected," "truly flabbergasting" (in a good way, pretty sure he means), and so on.  Shales even compares Obama to a comic-book hero.  The level of abject fawning and slobbering on the part of Shales is itself truly flabbergasting (in not a good way, I mean).  What possessed him to lose sense of appropriate professional tone in covering an elected official?  Fine, you think the man is doing a great job in office.  But as a journalist, why write it that way?  Especially in the wake of Obama's massive government expansion and take-over of the US economy, Shales really does a disservice to WaPo readers by abandoning a more balanced, detached and critical write-up of the Obama 100-day presser. 

Much to the surprise of...everyone, I bet, the Washington Post today ran a front page story on how the Obama tax plan will hurt small businesses.  I am not making this up.  Small Businesses Brace for Tax Battle: Under Obama Plan, Some Entrepreneurs' Bills Would Soar.  Kudos to reporters Lori Montgomery and V. Dion Haynes for having the guts to write something questioning the Obama "Great Society" tax-and-spend extravaganza (and still within the 100-day honeymoon period of the new administration, at that).  One can only imagine Obama operatives having a collective cow this morning, gripped by a rampant feeling of betrayal by the normally-friendly Washington Post.  Anyhow, the article actually describes the predicament of a small business owner, Gail Johnson, who files her income taxes using the individual income tax form, like so many small business owners do.  The article points out that Johnson and her husband make more than $500,00 a year but that that includes individual and business income, so it's not as wealthy as it sounds. 

Environmentalists are leading a worldwide hour of shame and darkness on Saturday, March 28. Invented by the World Wildlife Fund in 2007, the annual event has people and government turning out lights as an expression of angst over human energy use and global warming. USA Today reports that one of New York City's symbols of human achievement, the Empire State Building, plans to shut its lights off for one hour Saturday night, along with the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza and "many other iconic structures."

 In response to this hour of darkness and shame, the Competitive Enterprise Institute launched a "Human Achievement Hour" - to celebrate the achievements of men, including the widespread use of energy that lifts the peoples of the world out of poverty.   Along with blog posts and press releases, CEI also created a Wikipedia page on Human Achievement Hour to let people know why it was established and how they might participate-- just as environmentalists had created a Wiki entry for Earth Hour.

However, not content with their hour of darkness, some in the environmental movement are determined to stamp out any opposition to their campaign.