It’s nice to see Aaron back in the blogosphere, though he deserves every minute of rest (or time away, if it isn’t restful) that he gets. I hope he is able to cover tonight’s debate on Twitter and with a subsequent, health policy-related reaction post. But I forgive him in advance if he can’t. For my money, he’s the best debate tweeter out there. If you can catch his feed during a debate, presuming he’s available, it’s worth it.
Anyway, as I try to drag Aaron back to debate tweeting, Aaron appears to take some credit for dragging me somewhere:
Austin also expressed some reservations about competitive bidding, which I agree, I don’t see specified in Gov. Romney’s proposal either. Also, I’ve always been a little more skeptical than Austin on this issue, so it’s only fair that since he has dragged me more towards support, I’ve dragged him a little away. (Emphasis mine.)
In fact, Aaron was joking here. But it is a nice setup for a point I want to make anyway. A lot of folks think I’m getting dragged hither and yon. They think they see it in my blogging. Some (not Aaron) selectively use posts and parts thereof to lend legitimacy to a certain perspective. That’s just the way the world works. I’m OK with that.
But, I thought I should mention for those of you that care, I don’t feel dragged at all. When I post, unless I say otherwise, I’m not expressing my opinion of a policy or idea. Instead, I’m reporting what I think the consequences or potential concerns about it might be, and, to the extent possible, I base those on evidence and research. Not every post can or should include every perspective. Nor should you want it to. You’ve got to look at the body of my posts on a subject to get the full picture. It cannot be otherwise or each post would be 4,000 words long. (By way of benchmark, this post is about 10% of that length.)
I try to be aware of the virtues and limitations of every policy idea and from all perspectives. That’s not possible, but I try. To be totally honest, I don’t have a lot of strong opinions, though I do have some. I’m comfortable arguing multiple sides of many issues. I blog as many of them as I think I can, given my limited time. So, that I posted on the limitations of competitive bidding is not an indication of being dragged anywhere but just consistent with what I do and how I think.
Some may think I haven’t posted on the limitations of some things enough. True! But remember, I also require credible evidence. Sometimes evidence has a (benign) bias in the sense that it tends points in one direction. I see no problem with that.
