James Pinkerton: All Related Content

JIM PINKERTON, FELLOW, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: I agree. It was outrageous. And the way you detailed it there, the family had false hope. That was just -- whatever criminality might be there, it's also incredibly unethical and immoral. ...

On the panel this week, writer and Fox News contributor, Judy Miller; syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas; Jim Pinkerton, fellow, New America Foundation; and former president of Women's Media Center and Fox News contributor, ...

JIM PINKERTON, FELLOW, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: I think he handed them three swords in that "Meet the Press" interview. One is the food stamp presidency, which the liberals went nuts over. Two, was the seeming embrace of Romney-care. ...

JIM PINKERTON, FELLOW, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Yes, as Gabriel Schoenfeld (ph), in The Wall Street Journal pointed out, they can keep a secret. OK, so I -- As Arthur Conan Doyle said, it's the exception that probes the rule. Probes -- that's an exact ...

JIM PINKERTON, FELLOW, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: No, he doesn't and he's been conspicuously absent, as many commentators mentioned, for the last year on the budget and so on, such that now he's inserting himself now. and Dan Bolt, from The Washington ...

JIM PINKERTON, FELLOW, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so many chased after so little true information that you can verify. Meanwhile, we're all watching on TV, A, the disaster and wreckage, and, B, ...

JIM PINKERTON, FELLOW, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Well, they're continuing their triangulation. They're continuing to take credit for spending cuts that Republicans say are -- shall I say itty-bitty, and should be bigger. But look, Obama as got the bully pulpit and he should use it, from his point of view, to get his message across. ...

By now it is obvious that the Establishment was snookered on Obamacare. The political impact of that miscalculation will be felt today, as voters repudiate the Democrats who supported the legislation. But what will happen next on healthcare? Right now, the Establishment seems clueless, and yet fortunately, insurgent Establishmentarians, led by Maria Shriver and Sandra Day O'Connor, are breaking with elite orthodoxy, offering a better healthcare solution.

SCOTT: Is that what you get, Jim, when you hire a 27-year-old speech writer, chief speech writer?

JIM PINKERTON, FELLOW, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: A 27-year-old speech writer who has had several YouTube early moments, if anyone is curious, about him, what he thinks of Hillary Clinton or playing beer pong with his friends. Yes, there is — there's much to be said for having Ted Sorenson or Arthur Schlesinger as opposed to this kid writing speeches.

In the first part of this two-part piece, I noted that the hot issue-within-an-issue for Washington health care wonks is "bending the curve" on health care costs--that is, reducing future increases.

Even Barack Obama is talking the "bend" talk. In an interview with The Washington Post in July, the president used the "b-word" no less than 11 times. In this particular passage, he said that he wants to "bend" the cost curve, not only for government expenditures, but also for private-sector expenditures:

Should health care be about activism and adrenaline, or about actual health and wellness? Perhaps we can agree that health care should not be about reckless driving--because car wrecks bad for America's health, and costly, too. Please keep reading, as I report, and you decide.

President Obama campaigned on the repudiation of Bush-era policies, most notably the neoconservative idea of military pre-emption. The Bush Doctrine--regime change, followed by democratization and reconciliation--is indeed in disarray, but Barack Obama has yet to offer a fully complete alternative.

Seven-and-a-half years after George W. Bush's "axis of evil" speech, two thirds of that axis--Iran and North Korea--are more hostile and dangerous than ever. Iran elected the Israel-hating, saber-rattling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, and North Korea has exploded two atomic bombs.