Hurricane Katrina Analogy

The left is up in arms about the media comparing the health care debacle to Katrina. Ezra Klein Matt Yglesias.

Yes, Katrina was a colossal tragedy and many died while the botched role out hasn't claimed anyone's life. The effects are not comparable. But these two are missing the point. What is analogous are the President's reactions and the possible political ramifications. Bush's reaction to Katrina basically ended his presidency (he should have just ignored federal law and done whatever it took to aid Louisiana; of course, though they give President Obama a pass for flouting the law, I'm confident they would have brought impeachment charges against Bush). Like Bush, Obama's mishandling of the healthcare rollout could effectively end his presidency as well.

Another difference is that Bush did not cause Hurricane Katrina, and I'm not sure how much his administration was at fault compared to the leadership of Louisiana. In the healthcare fiasco, President Obama signed it into law, defended it, misrepresented it, and ran the administration tasked with enacting it.

Though Klein makes an argument that Obamacare is more like Medicare Part D, and he points out articles and offers quotes that back up his story, some of these quotes sound like square quotes from people already opposed to Bush. The "hideous complexity", "tears of bewildered frustration". I have a hard time with this, because honestly, I don't remember reading about the problems at the time. Looking at these quotes now, they're hard to believe because Medicare Part D has been a big success. Maybe the ACA will end up the same (but I doubt it considering the ACA does much, much more than Medicare Part D did).

I especially like this from Paul Krugman "We are ruled by bunglers. Every major venture by the Bush administration, from the occupation of Iraq to the Medicare drug program, has turned into an epic saga of incompetence." I believe President Obama has shown a lot of incompetence himself, but I doubt Paul Krugman would ever admit it.

Bad Analogy II - Tom Toles

Ezra Klein thinks this Tom Toles cartoon is a perfect representation of what's going on with the Healthcare law.  Bad analogies strike again!

Democrats, on their own, passed the Health Care Law. The Republicans have done nothing to harm the operations of what was passed. What the Republicans have done is refused to fix some of the clear mistakes of the bill. Also, they have refused to provide more funding than what was allocated by the bill itself.

A better (more accurate, but still critical of Republicans) cartoon would have a large, complex machine in the background, spilling oil, belching out smoke, with screws falling out of it.  Problems that hinder but don't incapacitate.  A Donkey is looking at it through a window, banging on the wall with a wrench, while an Elephant is just staring at it saying, "This piece of junk will never work!"

Bad Analogy

Liberals have been very good at creating analogies that seemingly make their opinions look reasonable while criticizing their opponents. But often, their analogies don't reflect the actual situation.

Norman Ornstein has painted a picture to help him make the case that the Supreme Court's Voting Rights decision was wrong-headed. But it doesn't hold water.

Imagine an intersection with a long history of high-speed car crashes, injuries and fatalities. Authorities put up a traffic light and a speed camera — and the accidents and injuries plummet. A few years later, authorities declare “mission accomplished” and remove the light and speed camera. No surprise, the high-speed crashes and fatalities resume almost immediately.

 A better analogy, one that captures the argument from the Justices, would be an intersection that 40 years ago, was extremely dangerous, so traffic control was added. This development helped the situation. Now, 40 years later, lots of things have changed--cars are safer, people may drive differently, pedestrians may be more careful, but we don't know because those traffic controls are still in place. Now, they want to add a left-turn signal, or take away a crosswalk that isn't used anymore. The neighboring intersections have extremely similar traffic patterns, actually, they're moderately more dangerous than this one, but the city government requires a year-waiting period to consider any changes for this intersection, while that intersection can be repainted over night.

The court has basically said, you can't more carefully scrutinize this one intersection because of its traffic patterns 40 years ago, you must treat every intersection based on today's data.

The Left has a tendency to oversimplify.