Frank Bruni on "Cheney family values":
But Liz’s decision to chart a course and publicize a view bound to offend her sister is entirely volitional. It’s also entirely different from airing other ideological disagreements within families. Conflicting views on abortion or the death penalty don’t challenge the very structure and foundation of a loved one’s home. Questioning the validity of a marriage does. [...]
In a statement released Monday, Dick and Lynne Cheney insisted that Liz had “always believed in the traditional definition of marriage.” I suppose that’s the politically prudent tack at this point, but now the Cheneys’ support for gay marriage, so moving over the years, is buried beneath a family feud. Their statement paid less attention to Mary, who’s not running for anything, not carrying her parents’ ambitions into a new era.
One word stood out. They said that Liz had shown Mary “compassion.” This echoed a statement of Liz’s own, in which she noted that she had “always tried to be compassionate” toward Mary and her family. What a curious vocabulary. It was as if they were all talking about some charity case. I hope the Cheneys find their way out of this. It’s an ugly spot that Liz, in all her compassion, has put them in.
Eugene Robinson adds his take:
[T]he tension between the Cheney sisters reflects the larger struggle within the Republican Party to keep pace with a changing America. [...] There ought to be brave Republican politicians willing to lead the party in the direction the nation is headed. But according to the conventional wisdom, winning a GOP primary means kowtowing to the party’s activist base, which means saying you oppose gay marriage, whatever your actual view might be.
Liz Cheney has shown herself to be anything but brave. The irony, however, is that she’s still being attacked in Wyoming as insufficiently doctrinaire against gay marriage.
The Cheney sisters, once extremely close, reportedly haven’t spoken since the summer. What price political ambition?
Head below the fold for much more on the day's top stories.
The New York Times looks at continued attempts to kill the Affordable Health Care Act and other reforms:
With unrestrained glee, Republicans are using the calamitous debut of the Affordable Care Act as their latest justification for undermining all of health care reform. But they’re not stopping there. The Obama administration’s fumbling is apparently a good excuse for them to do nothing on immigration reform, on a budget agreement, and on any other initiative coming out of the White House. [...]
just as these blunders are not the end of the health reform, they will also, in the end, not stop the long march to immigration reform, more jobs or desperately needed improvements to education, transportation and other fundamental functions. The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, was right to urge Democrats on Sunday not to be “knocked for a loop” by the Republican feeding frenzy. Most people, she said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” still support progressive goals like guaranteed health insurance, a humane path to citizenship for immigrants, background checks for gun ownership and ending workplace discrimination.
Jeffrey Kurtz reflects on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address:
Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address 150 years ago Tuesday.
At 272 words, it is a model of brevity and a testament to Lincoln's political wisdom. He shows us that words can clarify, challenge, inspire. Perhaps most of all, they can stop us in the muck of our political selfishness and prompt us to imagine a country greater than the silly procedural games and hate-filled diatribes that pass for civic discourse these days.
Paul Begala on the Affordable Care Act and the media frenzy around Obama's presidency:
[D]espite the bed-wetting from Beltway Chicken Littles, the President's problems are eminently fixable. The Affordable Care Act isn't collapsing. The Obama presidency isn't imploding. And the ninnies making those sweeping and stupid predictions will one day look like the Washington pundit who boldly declared of the Clinton presidency, "This week we can talk about 'Is the presidency over?' " He asked that question 11 days after Bill Clinton's inaugural. His first inaugural. Clinton's presidency was not over for another 2,911 days.
Noam Levey at The Los Angeles Times reports:
Despite the disastrous rollout of the federal government's healthcare website, enrollment is surging in many states as tens of thousands of consumers sign up for insurance plans made available by President Obama's health law.
A number of states that use their own systems, including California, are on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 because of a sharp increase in November, according to state officials.
Kevin Drum adds:
It really is all about the website. In places where it's working, people are signing up and are pretty happy with what they're getting. Rate shock is an issue for a few of them, but not for a lot. The bottom line is the Republican Party's worst nightmare: Once Obamacare has been up and running for a while, it's going to be pretty popular.