Grading the Graders

David Brooks offers grades on the first 100 hours of the new congress, including this:

Prescription drugs: D. While they were the opposition, Democrats fulminated that the Republicans were so deep in the pockets of Big Pharma that they wouldn’t even let the government negotiate lower drug prices. But governing is harder than kvetching, and the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the Democratic plan would have a negligible effect on prices for the elderly.

The plan allows the government to negotiate, but doesn’t take the politically difficult step of giving it any leverage to actually lower prices. A symbolic gesture.

I agree with that. But am I to infer from this that Brooks would favor a toothier measure? The de facto price controls the right's economists have warned us about? I sort of doubt it, but I'd be interested to know.

Comments

Question about the end bill -

Does the Bill allow the government not to add drugs? Because, if so, it seems like this is a "phased" real negotiation - as new drugs are developed the government can negotiate for them, etc.

Or is the list of covered drugs developed completely differently?

Posted by MDtoMN | January 21, 2007 8:07 PM

A bit of a meta-level comment (though I don't have access to the entire article); Brooks writes:

In conclusion, if a wonky Mr. Chips were to step back and render a judgment on the new Congress so far, he'd note that it's not a terribly ambitious student.

Actually, a responsible person would resist rendering a judgment of his students barely two weeks into a two-year-long semester. Good or bad. If it's mainly ambitions Brooks is judging, he could have done that weeks ago.

Posted by RSA | January 21, 2007 8:16 PM

Grade inflation. Friday on The News Hour he gave it an F.

Posted by KH | January 21, 2007 9:19 PM

I think the bill is fairly tepid but the grade is wrong.
The Dems said they would empower the government to negotiate and that is what the bill does. Brooks must be confused since a party promised something and then delivered.

Posted by Shields hates Brooks | January 21, 2007 9:32 PM

With the total collapse of Administration respectability, Brooks (and other GOP symps) are finding to their horror and confusion that the only plausible way to attack Democrats is for not living up to their own standards. Hence they end up effectively outflanking the Dems on the left.

Watching conservatives these days is like watching a damaged fighter plane in a terminal spin.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 21, 2007 10:02 PM

David Brooks has been a pure shill since the night after John Kerry's 2004 Convention speech, when he downgraded it from awesome (his immediate reaction the night before) to the worst thing he'd ever seen. I assume that during the interval Karl Rove reminded him of certain photographs involving dead girls or live boys, but whatever it is Brooks never recovered.

Posted by aleks | January 21, 2007 10:09 PM

That's the most unconvincing use of Yiddishease so far this year.

Posted by Linus | January 21, 2007 10:46 PM

..the only plausible way to attack Democrats is for not living up to their own standards. Hence they end up effectively outflanking the Dems on the left. (..) Watching conservatives these days is like watching a damaged fighter plane in a terminal spin.

Exactly right. It's a very healthy thing, in a way, to take someone like Brooks seriously, and sneer at the supposedly 'liberal' standard (eg Broder). But it's *all* horseshit, especially Brooks. The only difference is that Our David (Brooks) spouts 'operative' bullshit.

Posted by jonnybutter | January 21, 2007 11:15 PM

How do you like Steve Blake now?

Posted by BDK | January 22, 2007 12:34 AM

Heh - conservatives attacking Dems from the left is a fine thing - a wonderful thing in fact. The Dems only course of action to counter criticism will have to be to move ... more to the left. Decades of attacking them from the right moved them rightward - its only in the last half decade or so that they've been getting any adequate criticism from the left. So please, let more conservative pundits pile on and attack from the left.

Posted by NonyNony | January 22, 2007 10:03 AM

David Brooks is lower than a worm, and I could care less about what the mean-spirited creap thinks about anything. Wonderful Democratic House!

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