July 2009 Archives

7/31: It's Max Against The World

It's another day in the liberal blogosphere, which means another round of attacks on Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and his gang of six. The netroots are currently buzzing about Sen. Mike Enzi's (R-WY) declaration that he will only support Baucus's compromise health care bill if he receives "commitments" from Dem leaders that this bill will be the one that Pres. Obama ultimately signs. Lefty bloggers are describing Enzi's demand as "arrogant and laughably absurd." David Dayen writes: "Mike Enzi's conception of government is this: Mike Enzi agrees to a compromise with 6% of the total Senate representing 2.8% of the population, and it becomes law." The netroots see Enzi's statement as further evidence that Baucus is making a mistake by giving so much leverage to conservative GOPers such as Enzi.

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers continue to urge Senate Dems to follow through on Sen. Tom Harkin's (D-IA) implied threat to take away Baucus's chairmanship of the Finance Committee. One blogger declares: "Baucus has been bought and paid for by industries that want to block real reform, and his fellow Senate Democrats are the only people who can strip him of the power to block real reform." However, Baucus doesn't seem to care what his Dem colleagues think, especially now that he's told reporters that he's undecided about whether or not he'll vote to confirm SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Sudbay, Attaturk, McCarter) are buzzing about reports that Blue Dog Dems have received substantial donations from the health care and insurance sectors this year. Lefty bloggers (Sudbay, Hamsher, McCarter) are pleased that Progressive Dems are pushing back against the Blue Dogs, although Ezra Klein thinks the stand-off between the two groups is "a bit unsettling" since "it's not exactly clear where this leaves the bill."
• While most conservative bloggers believe that Obama was born in the U.S., some (McCarthy, Steyn, Hillyer) believe that the controversy over his birth certificate is still a relevant issue. Other righty bloggers (Williamson, Klein) disagree. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Kleefeld, Goldstein, Moulitsas, Benen) are buzzing about a new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll which finds that only 42% of GOPers believe that Obama was born in the U.S.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Allahpundit, McCain, Jessup) are mocking the Obama admin. now that its "cash-for-clunkers" program is reportedly running out of money.
• Conservative bloggers (hogan, Erickson) are blasting Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) for announcing that he'll vote to confirm Sotomayor.

ENZI: Talk About Chutzpah!

Liberal bloggers are blasting Enzi for declaring that he will only support Baucus's compromise bill if the Dem leadership promises that his priorities will be included in the bill that Obama ultimately signs:

"With liberal Democrats on and off the Finance Committee already angling to pull the measure to the left when it is combined with a rival passed by the Health Committee, Enzi indicated his support is contingent on Democratic leaders leaving any Finance Committee agreement intact.

'I also need commitments from Sen. [Harry] Reid and Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, as well as the administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the president,' Enzi said."

Lefty bloggers believe that Enzi's demand is absurd:

• dday: "Mike Enzi's conception of government is this: Mike Enzi agrees to a compromise with 6% of the total Senate representing 2.8% of the population, and it becomes law."
• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "Enzi will only agree to a deal if the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House agree to override the entire Congressional legislative process, kiss his ring and send the bill he endorses straight to the President. Well, that's certainly reasonable. . . if you're a dictator in some banana republic."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I'll gladly give Enzi credit for having chutzpah. But as a serious proposition, this is almost comical. [...] Enzi's little club features just six senators -- no liberals, no senators representing urban areas -- who represent less than 3% of the U.S. population. The gang has already abandoned key policy priorities of the president, the majority party, and the public, and is putting the finishing work on an inadequate piece of legislation. And Enzi expects -- indeed, he demands -- that no one touch his group's work once it's complete? Please."
• Open Left's Mike Lux: "With this arrogant and laughably absurd statement (we will only consider exactly what I agree to and no more), Mike Enzi has finally made clear what a lot of us have been saying to Max Baucus all along: the Republicans are never going to deal in good faith, and this idea of a bipartisan bill is not going to happen. Democrats should move quickly now to pass a bill out of committee, and then go to the floor with a Democratic bill, and bone-crunching party discipline should be applied to get us past a filibuster attempt. It is time to move forward with a bill, end of story."

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver argues that it's counter-productive for Baucus to negotiate with conservative GOPers like Enzi and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): "[Grassley] has almost no reason to compromise on any points of substance. At best, he's probably somewhat indifferent between a weak health care bill passing and the whole enterprise failing apart; that's a very dangerous person to be negotiating with. The same thing certainly goes for Mike Enzi, who is more conservative than Grassley and hails from a much redder state. [...] Instead of Grassley and Enzi, Baucus should be sitting in a room with [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson and [LA Sen.] Mary Landireu -- and maybe [ME Sen.] Olympia Snowe. Those are the swing votes -- the pressure points -- the people with whom there's actually something to be neogtiated. If Grassley wants to come in and snack on beef jerky and spitball a few ideas, then sure -- door's always open. But I don't know what good he's doing the Democrats by being given so leverage over the process."

BAUCUS: Take Away His Gavel!

Liberal bloggers are furious with the way that Baucus has conducted himself during the health care debate, and they're pushing for Senate Dems to follow through on Harkin's implied threat and take away Baucus's chairmanship of the Finance Committee:

• Benen: "When it comes to health care, there are some strong Democratic voices on the Finance Committee, including John Kerry [D-MA], Debbie Stabenow [D-MI], Chuck Schumer [D-NY], Maria Cantwell [D-WA], and John Rockefeller [D-WV], but they're not invited to the negotiating table. It's Baucus who's in the lead, and it's Baucus who won't advance reform until he can win over some conservative senators. [...] The chairman doesn't seem especially concerned about pushback from Montana voters, but if it's his Democratic colleagues who have his chairmanship in their hands, perhaps he'd be more amenable to his party's agenda?"
• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "Baucus has been bought and paid for by industries that want to block real reform, and his fellow Senate Democrats are the only people who can strip him of the power to block real reform. If they reject his bill and take away his gavel, there's a chance of passing a strong bill next year through the reconciliation process. This approach carries some political risks and will force Obama to be more engaged in the Congressional negotiations than he has so far. But that is better than letting Baucus ruin our best chance for health care reform in a generation."
• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Republicans have instituted term limits for their chairman, meaning they can't monopolize top committees for decades and giving other members of their caucus a chance to hold leadership positions. Democrats, on the other hand, work on a seniority system that rewards the longest-serving members and converts them into corrupt, arrogant and unaccountable autocrats. There's no better example of this dynamic in action than Sen. Max Baucus and his Senate Finance Committee, where he and three of his best buddies are working to overrule the will of the entire House and virtually the entire Democratic caucus in the Senate while vacuuming up huge dollars from his lobbyist friends. But he doesn't give a shit, because there's nothing anyone else can do about it. Except that some in the Democratic caucus are tiring of this arrangement. [...] Senate Dems should absolutely get this done. Any Democrat who doesn't have a chairmanship should want to vote for this. They outnumber the committee chairs."

Baucus further angered liberal bloggers when he told The Hill that he has "no idea" whether or not he'll vote to confirm Sotomayor:

• Sudbay: "In case we needed more reasons to loathe Max Baucus, he hasn't decided what to do on Sotomayor's confirmation. [...T]his episode gives further proof that Baucus shouldn't be the Chair on an important committee. He can't be trusted."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "While I am sure that Senator Baucus will come to his senses, his indecision is nonetheless rather disconcerting."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why Max Baucus Needed Ted Kennedy

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

"When I was researching my own profile of Max Baucus, a Finance Committee source made an interesting point to me. Baucus, she said, has a very similar legislative approach to [MA Sen.] Ted Kennedy. He has long relationships with Republican senators. He has an overwhelming instinct to cut a deal. But they are viewed differently. If Baucus had been President [George W.] Bush's partner on No Child Left Behind, for instance, it would be part of the case against him. But Kennedy was the president's partner on that, and suffered no blow to his liberal credibility. Kennedy is beyond reproach because he's Kennedy.

This, however, gets to this question of work and leadership. Kennedy has, over the years, given people on both sides of the aisle a pretty clear sense of his core values. So too have other liberal dealmakers, like [CA Rep.] Henry Waxman, and conservative dealmakers, like [UT Sen.] Orrin Hatch. So when Kennedy cuts a deal that seems to diverge from his principles, there's an underlying sense of trust that that was the best deal he could get. The problem for Baucus right now is that few trust him, or have a real sense of his core principles. He doesn't have the credibility to cut the deal on behalf of the liberals. If Kennedy walked out of that room with a weak public plan but excellent coverage provisions, a lot of liberals would be willing to accept his explanation. If Baucus announces the same deal, he will enjoy no similar forbearance.

Which gets to one of the problems with Kennedy's absence. I'm not one who believes any particular legislator is indispensable to the process. But it was very common for Hill staffers to tell me that Baucus and Kennedy understood each other's roles in health-care reform. Baucus needed Kennedy to bring the liberals on board and Kennedy needed Baucus to negotiate with the moderates. Without Kennedy, though, you just have Baucus negotiating with the moderates, which has left liberals increasingly angry at the process and mistrustful of the final product."

LEST WE FORGET: Pentagon Loses Hard Drive With All The Movies On It

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- In what they described as one of the U.S. military's 'most serious' security breaches to date, Pentagon officials acknowledged Friday that they could not confirm the whereabouts of a LaCie d2 Quadra external hard drive containing nearly 500 gigabytes of crucial materials, including all their favorite movies and several seasons of Entourage. 'It could take months to recover the critical information we have lost,' announced Adm. Michael Mullen, adding that the hard drive represents nearly 200 man-hours of confidential downloads. 'All we've got left now is Brig. Gen. Nowak's DVD boxed set of The Lord Of The Rings and YouTube.' The department's inspector general has vowed a full investigation, and military police have tightened security around other stores of highly sensitive data, including the file cabinet with all the takeout menus."

7/30: The Blue Dogs Get A Bone

Liberal bloggers weren't too upset about the concessions made by House Energy & Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) in order to strike a deal with four Blue Dog Dems on the committee. Jonathan Cohn analyzed the deal and concluded that "most of the bill's core elements seem to be intact, including the public insurance option." That said, the netroots are still disgusted that the Blue Dogs succeeded in delaying a vote until after August. Joe Sudbay fumed: "The Blue Dogs consider this a great victory. Of course, the biggest beneficiaries are House Republicans and the insurance industry who wanted a delay." Indeed, conservative bloggers believe that the August recess will provide them with a great opportunity to pressure wavering Dems into voting against the bill. Ed Morrissey writes: "Now the House will return to their constituents and hear an earful from all sides of the health-care debate [...] When Congress reconvenes, expect the moderates to have even more pull -- and for the split between Democratic leadership and its rank-and-file to widen."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Benen, Sudbay) are pleased that Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) "suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels" -- which they viewed as a warning to Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT).
• Liberal bloggers (Blue Texan, Lewison) are blasting Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) for declaring that his co-op plan "is the only one that has the prospect of getting 60 votes" in the Senate. Liberal bloggers (Klein, Eskow) do not consider Conrad's co-op plan an adequate substitute for a public health insurance option.
• Liberal bloggers (Kleefeld, Lewison, Benen) are criticizing Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) for saying: "What I don't know is why the president can't produce a birth certificate. I don't know anybody else that can't produce one, and I think that's a legitimate question."
• Conservative blogger Matt Lewis slammed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) after she announced that she would resign her seat this fall in order to challenge TX Gov. Rick Perry (R). Meanwhile, righty blogger Moe Lane hopes that Perry appoints RR Commis. chair Michael Williams (R) as Hutchison's replacement.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Erickson, Hinderaker, McCarthy) are buzzing about a Washington Times article reporting that a senior DoJ attorney "was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in Philadelphia during November's election."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Delay, Delay, Delay

Liberal bloggers weren't too upset about the concessions made by Waxman in order to strike a deal with four Blue Dog Dems on his committee:

• The New Republic's Cohn: "Waxman has now pried away four Blue Dogs, enough -- apparently -- to get the bill through his committee. And he did so with what appear to be pretty small substantive concessions, like a slight reduction in subsidies and a modest reduction in the program's overall size. Most of the bill's core elements seem to be intact, including the public insurance option."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "[T]he real concession was timing: The Blue Dogs didn't want to vote before the August recess if the Senate wasn't going to vote before the August recess. They won on that point. But that's really the substance of the deal: They won't have to take a hard vote before they know what the Senate will do. But the bill they'll have to vote on is pretty much the same as it was a week ago."

That said, lefty bloggers are still disgusted by the Blue Dogs' behavior:

• AMERICAblog's Sudbay: "The Blue Dogs consider this a great victory. Of course, the biggest beneficiaries are House Republicans and the insurance industry who wanted a delay."
• The Reality-Based Community's Jonathan Zasloff: "What is interesting is what the Blue Dogs wanted. Recall that the supposed entire reason for being of this caucus is 'fiscal conservatism.' So it might surprise you to learn that the Blue Dogs' chief demand was increasing the public option reimbursement rates to health care providers, otherwise known as doctors and hospitals. Increasing reimbursement rates? Doesn't that mean, you know, spending more money? Well...er...yes. This once again demonstrates that the Blue Dog position is pretty incoherent. But have no fear: the Blue Dogs had a solution to this undermining of the supposed central tenet of their philosophy: reduce the subsidies for families making between 300-400% of the official poverty line. [...] In other words, in order to pay hospitals and doctors more, the Blue Dogs decided to take money away from middle-class families."

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers are pleased that the Blue Dogs succeeded in delaying a vote on the legislation until after August:

• Hot Air's Morrissey: "Now the House will return to their constituents and hear an earful from all sides of the health-care debate, but the ground has shifted considerably in the meantime. The popularity of ObamaCare has plummeted as the costs have become more known, and so have Obama's polling numbers. Moderates will face more conservative constituents, but even more traditionally liberal districts are going to look at hundred of billions of dollars in increased deficits with some skepticism. When Congress reconvenes, expect the moderates to have even more pull -- and for the split between Democratic leadership and its rank-and-file to widen."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "This means that members will have time to study the legislation before voting. And because they will be hearing from their constituents during the August recess, some members may actually take advantage of their study time."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Stop Taking Progressives For Granted!

Liberal bloggers were pleased when progressive House Dems rebelled against Waxman's compromise with the Blue Dogs and forced him to postpone the committee mark-up:

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "I'm cautiously optimistic. Look, we always knew that if there was any hope for a public plan whatsoever, it would come from progressives in the House. [...] It appears they're doing it. For now anyway. [...] Keep calling. This is the first time anything even close to this has happened, and the calls you make letting progressive members of Congress know what you expect is making it possible."
• Sudbay: "I've had the sense that White House negotiators have long believed their biggest (only) hurdle was the Blue Dogs and the Baucus/Conrad roadblock. They've taken for granted the wishes of the real progressives, who actually support Obama's agenda. But, the progressives are letting it be known they won't be taken for granted. This is what we want from progressives -- a spine."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "In 2009, this has been the template for how legislative fights end in the House of Representatives. Blue Dogs hammering out the final details with [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and the relevant committee chair, the rest of the Democratic caucus swallows whatever is served up, and the place of the Blue Dogs as overlords is cemented even further. This time, however, progressives appear ready to force the House down a different path."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "I think the general sense is that this uproar is out of proportion to the relatively modest amount that was conceded on substance. But the fight is about more than the specifics of the fight; it’s about the fact that liberal Democrats feel powerless within their own caucus relative to the Blue Dogs even though they badly outnumber Blue Dogs. To gain leverage, you need to show some ability to throw fits, to hang together, to threaten to derail things, and to demand some courting and hand-holding."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Crisis In Israel

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg:

"One of the chief complaints leveled against the Palestinian Authority in the years of the Oslo process was that it did not, or would not, control the people who lived under its rule. The Palestinian government had no monopoly on violence, in other words; anyone with a gun had power. This was a legitimate complaint. It went to the seriousness of the Palestinian regime, and to its competence.

Well, the government of Israel today is facing a similar crisis. The building of new 'illegal' outposts by West Bank settlers -- building accompanied by racist slurs directed at Israel's main benefactor, the President of the United States -- is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of Israel's democratically-elected government. If these outposts are allowed to stand, it will mean that the government of Israel is incapable of enforcing its own laws, or unwilling to do so. Israel and the United States demanded of the Palestinian Authority that it jail those who defied Palestinian law and threatened the Palestinian national cause. Israel should treat these settlers in the same manner. They are criminals who undermining the sovereignty of the Jewish state. If they are not stopped, then we might as well face the harsh truth, that the settlers are in open revolt against the government of the State of Israel, and that their fanaticism may destroy the 2,000-year-old dream of Jewish independence."

LEST WE FORGET: When Science Meets Religion

From Overheard in New York:

Guy: I'd like the two-for-one sundae deal.
Employee, agitated: It's not two-for-one!
Guy: It's not?
Employee: It's "buy one, get one free"!

7/29: Going Public (Or Not)

Liberal bloggers are debating the relative importance of a public health insurance option, which currently appears to be on thin ice. First, Scott Lemieux wrote a post arguing that progressive Dems should kill any bill that doesn't include a public option, since "a bad bill would be worse than no bill." Ezra Klein disagreed, arguing that a public option "is not the core of reform" and that "the question should be whether this bill is better or worse than another 19.5 years of the deteriorating status quo." David Dayen linked to Klein's post and wrote: "Here comes the part of the health care debate where people start to talk themselves into half a loaf instead of fighting for a full one." Jane Hamsher was even harder on Klein, accusing him of "echoing the White House sales pitch" at a time when the WH is "try[ing] to pass off co-ops as a public option."

Klein is very respected among the netroots, but it seems to us that he's clearly in the minority here. For instance, Joan McCarter wrote yesterday that if Sen. Max Baucus's co-op plan "is what the Senate Finance Committee really ends up with, and Finance takes the lead on the whole package, then it's not worth doing at all." Moreover, lefty bloggers have spent the last few weeks promoting the Firedoglake campaign urging progressive Dems to vote against a bill that doesn't include a public option. These bloggers will be bitterly disappointed if Baucus's bill (or something resembling it) is what ultimately emerges from Congress.

Pres. Obama may believe that he can convince progressives that a bill without a public option should still be considered a victory for reformers. But it looks like that's going to be a very tough task.

What else is happening in the blogosophere?

• Conservative bloggers (Hinderaker, Hawkins, Stevens, Bandes, Morrissey) are denouncing the "birthers" who believe that Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and therefore isn't a legitimate President. However, a number of righty bloggers (Ham, Carroll, Allahpundit) are calling Andrew Sullivan a hypocrite for mocking the birthers, since he's written a number of posts questioning whether Trig Palin is actually Sarah Palin's son.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: You're No LBJ, Harry

Liberal bloggers are criticizing Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for declaring that he has "a responsibility to get a bill to the Senate floor that will get 60 votes," even if the bill doesn't satisfy his "personal preferences." Lefty bloggers are interpreting Reid's comments as a signal that he's willing to give up on a public option:

• Daily Kos' Laura Clawson: "No, Senator Reid. Passing a bill without a public option, without making health care affordable and portable and secure for every American, is not responsible exercise of your position. Avoiding a nasty rumpus over health care is not what is best for the country -- or, incidentally, for the Senate. There are bad people out there and some of them are trying to stop working families from being able to afford the care they need. It's your job to pass a bill that will help people, not protect insurance company profits. If it takes a fight, so be it."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "The Majority Leader didn't use the words 'public option,' but it certainly seemed like he was hinting, didn't it? What matters is what will 'get 60 votes,' which is more important, he said, than what he thinks 'should be in the bill.' Would now be a good time to mention that Reid is the leader of a 60-member caucus?"
• Oliver Willis: "Harry Reid is such a failure. Everything about him reads concede, retry, and fold. Who knew I would be longing for the comparatively bold leadership of Tom Daschle? And compared to strong Senate leaders of the past like LBJ? Reid will be lucky to win his seat back. At least then we can elect a new majority leader."

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are pleased that Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) declared that "we're going to have a strong public option":

• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "Despite [Sen. Kent] Conrad's and Baucus's intransigence, this thing isn't over. The overwhelming majority of Democratic senators -- and American people - support a strong public option. As long as people like Sherrod Brown stand up for the principles they were elected to follow, we can still win this thing."
• Firedoglake's Hamsher: "If the [Mike] Enzi-Baucus-[Olympia] Snowe deal picks up 3 Republican votes, there are still more than enough progressive votes in he Senate to derail the Baucus bill. There are a lot of Senators pissed off because the Finance committee -- which was only supposed to deal with finance -- decided to write the entire health care bill themselves and flip the bird to the HELP committee (which Sherrod Brown is on). If the progressives in the House likewise revolt, the Senate just might find the nerve to push back against Baucus."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Sympathy And Art

Alyssa Rosenberg:

"...I've always thought that sympathy was one of the gifts of art, and it's certainly one of the reasons I struggle forward with fiction, even though I'm not very good at that. It's a chance to absorb yourself in what you imagine someone else's life is like, to disappear from your own for a while and emerge a little disoriented and refreshed. Certainly, the process of immersing yourself in someone else's character isn't inherently good for you: it doesn't sound like Heath Ledger's experience as the Joker was particularly beneficial to his mental health at what sounds like a very difficult time. David Foster Wallace seems to have spent his career struggling with a contention that he wasn't entirely convinced is true, that life is worth living. But he could create the art he did because he understood both sides of that particular debate.

I don't understand how you can create a good performance or good art in general without at least some level of understanding the person you're willing into being or becoming. Someone like Meryl Streep has always seemed serene and at peace to me, she's been married for more than 30 years, has four children, and is never in the news for anything related to her personal life. I've always suspected that serenity comes from the same core understanding that makes her an astonishing actress. She understands other people in a way that few of us will ever be able to, even if the people she understands aren't actually real."

LEST WE FORGET: Terrier Bravely Defends Family From Squeak

From The Onion:

"VANDERBILT, PA -- Jasper, a 3-year-old short-legged terrier, gallantly defended the Henry household from a brief, high-pitched squeak Sunday night. According to safe and sound sources, the 18-pound canine launched from the living room couch upon hearing the peep and darted through the house multiple times in an effort to drive away the intruding sound. During his sweep of the premises, Jasper barked continuously and made brief stops in the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, and the kitchen again, bravely putting himself between his family and the millisecond-long chirp. 'Easy, boy,' Tom Henry, 42, said. 'Easy.' As of press time, Jasper is standing at the ready in preparation for the squeak's return."

7/28: Baucus Sells Out?

Liberal bloggers who have been closely following the health care reform debate were not surprised to learn that the bill being written by Sen. Max Baucus's (D-MT) Finance Committee doesn't include a public option or an employer mandate. But that doesn't mean that they're okay with it. On the contrary, the netroots are furious that health care reform is being watered down by a handful of centrists from sparsely-populated states when their party enjoys a 60-seat Senate majority. A quick scan of the Daily Kos "Recommended Diaries" list reveals that Kossacks are ready to revolt. Joan McCarter fumes: "What happens when you put Max Baucus in charge of healthcare reform? You get jack shit." McCarter goes on to argue that it would be "worse to pass this half-ass, chicken-shit slap on the wrist to the insurance industry so that you can call healthcare reform done and leave it for another four decades, than to do nothing at all." Along those same lines, the Firedoglake bloggers continue to wage an aggressive lobbying campaign to pressure progressive Dems to vote against a bill that doesn't include a public option. So while Baucus and his gang of six may believe that this compromise bill is the only one that could conceivably pass Congress, the left would rather pass nothing at all.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Morrissey, Wolf) are buzzing about an ex-Countrywide Financial employee's claim that Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) knew that they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from the company (Dodd and Conrad deny the employee's allegation).
• Liberal bloggers (Drum, Marshall, Lewison, Benen, Aravosis) blasted Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) for telling Politico that the birthers "have a point" and that he doesn't "discourage" them from raising doubts about Pres. Obama's citizenship. Lefty bloggers (Benen, Lewison) didn't buy Inhofe's subsequent attempt to clarify his statement. Meanwhile, bloggers (Morrill, Cole, Lewison) are buzzing about a Firedoglake video depicting various GOP congressmen refusing to say whether or not Obama is a U.S. citizen.
• Now that Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) has announced that he won't run for reelection in '10, Markos Moulitsas is urging him to "get back at [Senate Min. Leader Mitch] McConnell and the rest of his tormentors" by resigning his seat early and letting KY's Dem governor appoint his replacement. Meanwhile, at least one liberal blogger is hoping that KY Dems nominate AG Jack Conway instead of LG Daniel Mongiardo.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: An Epic Sell-Out

Liberal bloggers are blasting Baucus after the AP reported that the Finance Committee's health care plan doesn't include an employer mandate or a public option:

• Daily Kos' mocjoan: "What happens when you put Max Baucus in charge of healthcare reform? You get jack shit. Well, first you get a lot of secretive 'bipartisan' meetings in which key players in the Democratic caucus are shut out. Then you get a bill that sucks. [...] If this is what the Senate Finance Committee really ends up with, and Finance takes the lead on the whole package, then it's not worth doing at all. Worse to pass this half-ass, chicken-shit slap on the wrist to the insurance industry so that you can call healthcare reform done and leave it for another four decades, than to do nothing at all. Progressive Democrats in the Senate need to do what those in the House have done; follow [VT Sen.] Bernie Sanders' lead and say hell no to this crap."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk: "Well, it appears that after months and months of negotiating health care reform away from the prying eyes of, well, everyone, Max Baucus is on the verge of presenting a bucket of warm spit and calling it bipartisan. If you listen closely you can hear him counting that health care lobby money. So thanks Max, thanks ever so much, for absolutely nothing."
• Crooks and Liars' John Amato: "It looks like the mighty Emperor Max Baucus and his royal lords are finally releasing details of their health care plan and to nobody's surprise they decided to screw America. [...] Max and his gang are only worried about one thing. Making sure the health insurance industry makes out like thieves."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Baucus...has prioritized Republican support for a bill over the quality of the bill, and has given up on some of the key priorities Democrats, including the president, have prioritized from the outset."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "Remember what 'bipartisan' means to Democrats. It means we sell out our principles and adopt theirs. Then the GOP votes against the deal anyway. (Think $300bn in tax cuts in the stimulus package.) This really doesn't sound good."

FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver thinks the Finance Committee's bill is badly flawed:

"Does this look familiar to anyone?

-- No employer mandate
-- No public option
-- But yes, an individual mandate

It should -- because this particular permutation on health care reform looks an awful lot like the incomplete draft of the HELP Committee's bill that the CBO scored last month, which also lacked an employer mandate and a public option but contained an individual mandate. That bill, the CBO estimated, would cost about $1.0 trillion -- but would only cover a net of about 16 million people. In contrast, the revised version of the HELP Committee's bill, which did include both a public option and an employer mandate, would cost about the same amount but cover a net of 37 million people. [...] The good news is that the math on this bill is so bad that I doubt it will survive intact. Personally, I think the public option is probably a goner, but that the employer mandate will probably be restored -- especially if Baucus dares to put his bill before the CBO and see what they think of it."

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Hamsher, Lewison, publius) are decrying the fact that Baucus and his gang of six wield so much power in the health care debate. Others (Klein, Krugman) are more hopeful that the bill that ultimately emerges from the Senate won't resemble Baucus's bill.

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Surprise, Surprise

Conservative bloggers were surprised and pleased to learn that the Finance Committee's bill doesn't include an employer mandate or a public option:

• Dan Riehl: "Buh Bye Liberal Health Care Plan? It's far too early for me to take much comfort in believing we're going to be spared a liberal debacle when it comes to health care reform. But, there's always hope! And this Politico item offers just that."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Wow: Senate group ready to strip public plan, employer mandate out of ObamaCare? [...] This is kind of like stripping the amnesty provisions out of comprehensive immigration reform. Once the venom's been drained from the fangs, how much damage can it do? No wonder the Kossacks are ready to revolt..."

Ace of Spades isn't so happy: "Obama, as has been noted widely, is willing to sign anything called 'Health Care Reform,' just as long as his ego gets its big win. Which is sort of a problem. Because I really can't see these idiots doing anything helpful. Quite the opposite. So I'd rather Obama stood firm and vetoed anything that didn't contain his 'transformative' system-destruction provisions. The Democrats seem to be watering this down enough that it might end up getting passed. In all likelihood it will still be all kinds of bad. Just not all kinds of bad enough to prevent passage."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Real Issue

Reason's Radley Balko (h/t John Cole):

"The arrest of Harvard African-American Studies Professor Henry Louis Gates has certainly got everyone talking. Unfortunately, everyone's talking about the wrong issue. [...] The conversation we ought to be having in response to the July 16 incident and its heated aftermath isn't about race, it's about police arrest powers, and the right to criticize armed agents of the government.

By any account of what happened -- Gates', [Sgt. James] Crowleys', or some version in between -- Gates should never have been arrested. 'Contempt of cop', as it's sometimes called, isn't a crime. Or at least it shouldn't be. It may be impolite, but mouthing off to police is protected speech, all the more so if your anger and insults are related to a perceived violation of your rights. The 'disorderly conduct' charge for which Gates was arrested was intended to prevent riots, not to prevent cops from enduring insults. Crowley is owed an apology for being portrayed as a racist, but he ought to be disciplined for making a wrongful arrest.

He won't be, of course. And that's ultimately the scandal that will endure long after the political furor dies down. The power to forcibly detain a citizen is an extraordinary one. It's taken far too lightly, and is too often abused. And that abuse certainly occurs against black people, but not only against black people. American cops seem to have increasingly little tolerance for people who talk back, even merely to inquire about their rights."

LEST WE FORGET: Rewarding Incompetence

From Overheard in the Office:

Secretary: She asked me to file these but I'm not quite sure how she wants them.
Lazy old receptionist: Just do it wrong and she'll quit asking you to do stuff. That's what I do.

7/27: The CBO Strikes Again

Not surprisingly, health care reform remained the dominant topic in the blogosphere over the weekend. Conservative bloggers were delighted when the CBO estimated on Saturday that the Obama admin.'s proposed Independent Medicare Advisory Council would save little money over the next 10 years. Erick Erickson called the report "more bad news for Barry O and his socialist storm troopers," while Allahpundit gushed: "I feel like...dancing down the aisle at a wedding or something." When OMB dir. Peter Orszag criticized the CBO's analysis, conservative bloggers blasted him (although liberal bloggers think that Orszag was "right"). Meanwhile, Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) made news on Sunday when he declared that it is "not possible" and "not desirable" for Dems to pass health care reform without GOP votes -- a statement which prompted a round of criticism from lefty bloggers.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Mirengoff, Emanuel, Erickson) are arguing that Obama's plan for health care reform will reduce seniors' access to care and force them to die earlier. Liberal bloggers are pushing back against this argument.
• Liberal bloggers (Sudbay, Benen) are blasting Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) for declaring: "There are no Americans who don't have healthcare. Everybody in this country has access to healthcare."
• Conservative bloggers (Gary, Stevens) are predicting that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will do great things for the GOP in the years ahead. Meanwhile, other conservative bloggers are talking up the WH '12 prospects of MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R).
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Aravosis) are buzzing about Nate Silver's calculation that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) has voted with Dems "97% of the time" since Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) announced his intention to challenge Specter in the 2010 primary.
• Conservative blogger Patrick Ruffini predicts that 2010 will be "a big, big year" for the GOP, but liberal blogger Oliver Willis disagrees.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: CBO 10, Obama 0

Conservative bloggers were delighted when the CBO estimated that the Obama admin.'s proposed Independent Medicare Advisory Council would save little money over the next 10 years:

• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "I feel like...dancing down the aisle at a wedding or something. [...] The sweetest part of this? Obama tried to strong-arm the CBO the last time they sent up a red flag about what an awful boondoggle his pet program will turn out to be. Here's what he gets for trying things 'the Chicago way.'"
• Legal Insurrection's William A. Jacobson: "The Congressional Budget Office once again has poked a massive hole in the Democratic health care 'reform' bubble, in a report issued today. [...] So give double thanks this weekend. First, for the CBO not giving in to political pressure. And second, for the fact that the CBO works on Saturdays."
• RedState's Erickson: "According to a CBO analysis, the $1 trillion healthcare plan's independent panel designed to keep Medicare spending in check would, at best, save only $2 billion of the $1 trillion plan. [...] The Blue Dogs might want to hang their hat on CBO's more speculative cost savings projections, but those will whither away as the bill expands through Congress. In other words, this bill will devastate the economy and drive up the deficit even further."

Conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Dayton) are also blasting Orszag for suggesting that the CBO may be guilty of "exaggerating costs and underestimating savings." However, liberal blogger Ezra Klein argues that "Orszag is right on this one."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Can You Count To Sixty, Kent?

Liberal bloggers are blasting Conrad for arguing that it is "not possible" and "not desirable" for Dems to pass health care reform without GOP votes:

• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "How stupid does Kent Conrad think we are? Even if [Senate Maj. Leader] Harry Reid subjects the bill to a filibuster, it will only require 60 votes to bring the bill to a vote -- and there are 60 Democrats. Reid could also get creative and use the reconciliation process, which would only require 50 votes (and a lot of work with the parliamentiarian). Whichever path Reid choose[s], in point of fact, it actually is possible to pass legislation without Republican support, and Kent Conrad knows it. The real problem is that Kent Conrad doesn't want it to pass without Republican support, and by unilaterally declaring that without GOP support he (and perhaps a few other Democrats) won't support health care reform, he is effectively giving the them veto power over the legislation."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "If we're going to get real health reform, it will have to come from the House. So, our friends in the House have to stand strong. In addition to the idiotic Blue Dogs, we've got to contend with the likes of Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) who is ceding great power to the GOP."
• Daily Kos diarist icebergslim: "Republican votes are NOT NEEDED to pass solid health care reform. Not when you have 60 Democratic senators in the senate. Forget about whether these individuals are liberal or conservative, they are democrats and the count is 60. What IS NEEDED is some damn balls and guts on the part of the Democrats in the senate. Senator Kent Conrad went on This Week with George Stephanopoulous, ABC, and stated that Republican votes are needed to pass health care legislation, when this is a lie. Conrad is the senator that is in congress pushing for a 'co-op' plan to replace the 'public option'. Conrad clearly is not the choice or voice to deliver the strong Obama White House message for health care, not when he is constantly trying to placate the Republicans."

Other liberal bloggers (McCarter, publius) are criticizing Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) for his unsuccessful efforts to negotiate a bipartisan compromise on health care reform (although some wonder if delaying is part of Baucus's strategy). Still others (Yglesias, Drum, publius) are criticizing the House Blue Dog Dems.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Inevitable?

Ezra Klein explains "why Democrats will, at the end of the day, pass health-care reform":

"[T]here will be a deal. [...] Medicare Part D, for instance, barely survived the legislative process. It had a one-vote margin in the House of Representatives. Republicans almost broke the Congress securing the bill's passage. If it had failed, the ethics violations and angry Republicans and huge price tag would have launched a thousand editorials explaining the bill's failures and the deep inadequacies they demonstrated in the administration's policy process. But the bill didn't fail. Now it's law, and pretty popular law, at that.

Democrats know full well that there are two plausible outcomes to the health-care reform process. Health-care reform will fail, dealing a huge blow to the Democratic Party and giving Republicans tremendous momentum as we enter the 2010 campaign season. Or health-care reform will pass, and Democrats will criss-cross the country touting the largest legislative accomplishment in decades. Republicans may still attack them on the plan. But attacking a historic legislative success is a whole lot harder than attacking a historic legislative failure. Republicans know that, which is why they want to kill the bill. Democrats know it too, which is why they won't let them."

LEST WE FORGET: Biden On Obama: "Finally, Mr. Perfect Makes A Gaffe"

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"Just days after President Barack Obama stirred controversy with his remarks about the Henry Louis Gates case, Vice President Joe Biden said that Mr. Obama's troubles were 'a cause for celebration for me, because I was like, finally, Mr. Perfect makes a gaffe.'

The Vice-President said he has been silently seething as the President has slapped him on the wrist for a variety of gaffes in his first six months in office, 'but now that shoe's on the other foot and I for one am laughing my ass off.'

Mr. Biden said that he personally knew better than to comment on the Gates case, adding, 'Trying to find something noncontroversial to say about race is like trying to find a 7-Eleven that's not run by a Pakistani.'"

7/24: What's With The Hold-Up, Max?

Liberal bloggers are growing increasingly frustrated with Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus and his insistency on negotiating a bipartisan compromise on health care reform before "run[ning] any deal by his caucus". David Dayen echoes the frustration of many lefty bloggers when he complains: "Did you know that last November, you all voted for Max Baucus and [Senate Finance Committee ranking member] Charles Grassley to become Presidents of the United States of Health Care?" Meanwhile, David Waldman observes that "four of the five committees marking up health care legislation are underway or finished with their work, and Max Baucus's Traveling Bipartisanship Medicine Show is nowhere to be found." It's clear that the netroots view the Senate -- and the Finance Committee in particular -- as the primary obstacle to health care reform.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Klein, Morrissey, McLaughlin) are delighted that Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid declared that the Senate would not try to pass a health care reform bill before the August recess. Liberal bloggers are furious with Reid, and they're petitioning Congress to "stay and pass health care."
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Morrill, Levine) are criticizing Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) after he declared that House GOPers won't introduce a health care bill of their own.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hawkins, Hillyer, Mirengoff, Hinderaker, Hanson, Dick, Nordlinger, Morrissey) are blasting Pres. Obama for criticizing the conduct of the Cambridge police officer who arrested Harvard prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. Liberal bloggers (Fernholz, Yglesias, DougJ, Coates, Black) think the officer clearly made a mistake by arresting Gates, and they're criticizing conservative bloggers who argue otherwise.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Who Made Max Baucus President?

Liberal bloggers are growing increasingly frustrated with the role that Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee are playing in health care reform process:

• dday: "As far back as February, Max Baucus talked about a markup session in June. And he consistently agreed to that throughout the next several months. Now he hasn't only held up the process, but he doesn't even plan to run it by the Democratic caucus once he introduces it. [...] On the stimulus bill, we had Presidents [Ben] Nelson and [Susan] Collins dictating the size and scope of the bill. Now there's been a transfer of power. Presidents Baucus and Grassley are large and in charge. [...] Did you know that last November, you all voted for Max Baucus and Charles Grassley to become Presidents of the United States of Health Care?"
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "On the one hand, there's a block of Senate Democrats trying to achieve comprehensive health care reform. On the other hand, there's a block of Senate Republicans trying to block comprehensive health care reform. And in the middle, there's a bipartisan group on the Senate Finance Committee led by Max Baucus. And this group is keeping the blockers in the loop and reform proponents out of it. I have a bad feeling about this."
• Daily Kos' Waldman: "Today, when the eyes of the nation are on health care, Max Baucus strides to the fore and announces that he'll have the whole thing taken care of. Scout's honor. I'll get it done. You can count on me. Months later, four of the five committees marking up health care legislation are underway or finished with their work, and Max Baucus's Traveling Bipartisanship Medicine Show is nowhere to be found. And he wants the Senate to recess to give him more time."
• BooMan: "I have known for two years that the biggest obstacle to passing a health care reform bill was going to be Max Baucus and his Senate Finance Committee. [...] The Finance Committee...is made up of a lot of old bulls who fancy themselves moneyboys. You've got Standard Oil scion Jay Rockefeller and Heinz ketchup heir-toy John Kerry, and Blanche Wal*Mart Lincoln sitting on that committee, and they think it's their job to keep taxes low on multibillionaires. So, the Finance Committee can't agree on how to finance the Health Care bill and they're holding everything up."
• Oliver Willis: "Hey Harry Reid, how about you take some control in the freaking senate, quit letting Max Baucus dick around and get us to a vote on health care reform[?]"

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein argues that the Senate's legislative structure is to blame, not Baucus: "We're seeing how difficult it is to build bipartisan legislation when the minority believes it can kill the bill. You couldn't possibly have begun this process with more sincere bipartisan intent than Max Baucus, nor with a more productive cross-aisle working relationship than he enjoys with Chuck Grassley. But that hasn't left him with a bipartisan bill and Republican support. So far, it's given him no bill and time for Republican opposition to harden. One of the meta stories of this whole process was that the Senate Finance Committee was supposed to prove that bipartisanship could still work to pass major legislation. Instead, it's proving that it can't."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Obsessing About The Wrong Things

The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf:

"Interesting as it is to speculate about Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge Police Department, the attention the case is generating reflects an unfortunate feature of American public discourse: you've got someone like Radley Balko who spends the bulk of his career documenting the most grave instances of police misconduct imaginable -- including cases that involve the incarceration of innocent people for years on end -- and most of even the egregious cases he writes about never break into mainstream conversation, whereas a minor altercation involving a Harvard professor who isn't even being charged with a crime spawns wall-to-wall media coverage.

Isn't it notable that six months into his presidency, the most prominent advocacy President Obama has done on behalf of minorities mistreated by police is to stand up for his Ivy League buddy? Somehow I imagine that Professor Gates would've fared just fine absent help from Harvard's most prominent alumnus. Whereas if President Obama spoke up at a press conference on behalf of people wrongly imprisoned due to 'testimony' by police dogs, or advocated for those sexually assaulted by an officer, or spoke against prosecutors who block access to DNA testing, or called out the officer who choked a paramedic, or objected to the practice of police killing family pets, or asked the Innocence Project for a clear cut case of injustice to publicize...

I understand, of course, that Pres. Obama was asked about Henry Louis Gates, which is also part of the problem. Wrongly arrest a black men who happens to be a Harvard professor, release him without filing charges, and the national press corps asks the president to comment. Wrongly imprison for years on end a black man who happens to be working class and without celebrity, and the national press corps continues to utterly ignore a criminal justice system that routinely convicts innocent people. Apportioning blame for this sorry state of affairs isn't as important as recognizing that the news we get on these matters reflects a value system that is seriously flawed, and that news consumers bear blame for too."

LEST WE FORGET: The Value Of Stoicism

McSweeney's contributor Teddy Wayne adds to his running list of "Unpopular Proverbs":

"There's no use crying over spilled milk, unless you're stranded in a desert and that milk was your only remaining liquid, but even then, the crying may further dehydrate you and the salty tears will find their way into your mouth and exacerbate your thirst, so, on balance, it still makes sense not to cry."

7/23: Mixed Reviews

Liberal bloggers were divided in their reactions to Pres. Obama's presser on health care reform. On the one hand, many lefty bloggers were impressed by what they perceived to be Obama's "command of the substance of this debate." digby wrote, "[I]f actual Americans were listening they likely learned something tonight." On the other hand, some liberal bloggers complained that Obama "didn't explain things in terms that ordinary viewers were likely to understand." Dana Goldstein thought that Obama "seemed, more than ever before, on defense." Not surprisingly, conservative bloggers slammed Obama's performance, calling it "particularly awful" and suggesting that "he may have actually emboldened Republicans who no longer believe him to be the inevitable victor."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (JammieWearingFool, Malkin, Erickson, Allahpundit) are buzzing about Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R-IA) claim that Obama told House Dems who were opposed to the House health care bill, "You're going to destroy my presidency."
• Liberal bloggers (Aravosis, Benen, digby, Kurtz) are criticizing Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) after she appared to back away from supporting a public health insurance option.
• Liberal bloggers (Kurtz, Orton, Aravosis, Wheeler, Greenwald) blasted the Obama admin. for initially refusing to release a list of health industry execs who visited the WH to discuss health care reform (although the Obam admin. eventually backed down and released the list).
• Several conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hillyer) are criticizing Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) following his announcement that he'll vote to confirm SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor. That said, one conservative blogger thinks Graham "played this one exactly right."

OBAMA PRESSER: He Sure Knows His Stuff

Some liberal bloggers thought that Obama did a great job of answering questions at last night's presser:

• Balloon Juice's DougJ: "Obama is very good. And, shockingly, the questions are good too."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "President Obama, politically speaking, has knocked it out of the park. Bully pulpit indeed. A bravura performance by a tremendous politician."
• The New York Times' Paul Krugman: "I found Obama's health care presentation so impressive -- so much command of the issues -- that it had me worried. If I really like a politician's speech, isn't that an indication that he lacks the popular touch? [...] Seriously, it's really good to see how much he gets it."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I'm in the impressed camp. Obama's command of the substance of this debate was obvious, and he hit every point I wanted to see him make. [...] The president succeeded in acknowledging public anxiety, correcting misperceptions, and presenting the need for reform in personal ways. He made a plausible, if deliberately incomplete, case for hurrying the process along. Obama has a habit of taking on detractors' criticism directly, without sounding defensive, and turning the attacks around to his advantage. We saw that play out many times last night."
• digby: "[I]f actual Americans were listening they likely learned something tonight. Just as they did with [Bill] Clinton, they like information and explanations that don't insult the intelligence and prefer it when the president speaks to them as if they aren't in some sort of remedial classroom."

OBAMA PRESSER II: Not His Best Work

Other liberal bloggers were critical of Obama's performance:

• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "[T]his really struck me as nowhere near his usual performance. Obama avoided giving direct answers, rambled a lot, kept interrupting himself with asides, and didn't explain things in terms that ordinary viewers were likely to understand. He's supposed to be the communicator-in-chief, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people came away more confused than they were when they tuned in."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "Tonight's strategy seemed right, but the execution could have been better. My hope tonight was that Obama would focus more on the human side. The debate has been getting bogged down lately in costs, and CBO reports, and new commissions, etc. All that stuff is extremely important -- but it's also very hard for the public to follow these types of policy minutiae. And so I liked Obama's initial focus on 'what's in it for you.' That side of the debate should be more loudly emphasized because, at the end of the day, it's the most important. But Obama just didn't pull it off very well, either in the initial delivery or in the questions."
• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "I was not happy with Obama's answers to the questions. At least two reporters (Chip Reid and someone else) asked questions I very much wanted to hear him answer, and he rambled and deflected. Why couldn't he be as sure-footed and direct about health care as he was Professor Gates? I now have some skepticism about his health care plan I didn't have before."
• TAPPED's Goldstein: "In his health care press conference tonight, despite sounding a few optimistic notes -- 'what's remarkable at this point is not how far we have to go, but how far we've come' -- the president seemed, more than ever before, on defense."

OBAMA PRESSER III: "Particularly Awful"

Not surprisingly, conservative bloggers are blasting Obama's performance:

• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "I thought this was a particularly awful appearance."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Obama not only failed to have a message, he also failed to answer most of the questions. He talked endlessly after being asked them, a strategy obviously designed to cut down on questions through filibustering, but he didn't answer the questions."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "I don't think his talk last night changed one vote. In fact, I think he may have actually emboldened Republicans who no longer believe him to be the inevitable victor whom they cannot fathom defeating. [...W]hat is there to say about a new president who can't rely on the bully pulpit this early in his administration? In a similar situation, Ronald Reagan would have delivered last night. Bill Clinton would have, too. But President Obama seemed to be hedging his bets last night, afraid -- or unable -- to pull out all the stops.
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "President Obama had a chance tonight to reset the debate. Instead, he rambled on, rehashing a series of wonky talking points, and he wasted so much time dodging questions that he only had time for 10 of them in a press conference that spanned nearly one hour."

Conservative bloggers were particularly critical of Obama's hypothetical scenario about a doctor who removes a child's tonsils unnecessarily in order to maximize insurance reimbursement:

• Klein: "At one point, Obama made the insulting suggestion that when children go to doctors with sore throats, doctors consult payment charts, and unneccesarily remove kids' tonsils just to earn extra money. Aside from being a cynical remark, it isn't smart politically, as polling shows that Americans trust doctors far more than politicians when it comes to health care."
• Morrissey: "The incentives are set up against tonsillectomies, not favoring them, mainly because a few experts decided a few decades ago that they were generally unnecessary. In ObamaCare, those experts will be in charge of all doctors."
• Michelle Malkin: "Uhhhhhh, demonizing doctors doesn't exactly seem the best way to shore up support for the ailing, failing government health care takeover. But the fear-mongerer-in-chief can't seem to help himself."

Conservative bloggers (Levin, McCarthy) also criticized Obama's response to a question about the recent arrest of Harvard prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr., although liberal bloggers (digby, Marshall, Yglesias) defended Obama's answer.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why We Should Eliminate The Filibuster

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

"When you talk about potentially eliminating the filibuster, liberals have a tendency to quickly bring up the specter of Social Security privatization. That is to say, they have a tendency to quickly bring up an instance in which the filibuster worked, or appeared to work, for them. But this is a really bad argument. Privatization was not a popular policy that was effectively killed when Republicans couldn't get a couple of Democrats to vote for cloture. It never came up for a vote at all. It never even got out of a committee. It was very unpopular, and wouldn't have gotten 50 votes. It died because the majority opposed it. That's democracy.

Imagine, however, a filibuster-less world. In this world, Republicans managed to persuade every member of their party to vote for an unpopular bill. Well, what happens? Presumably, Democrats run against them in the next election and, as happened in real life, take back Congress. And then they repeal the bill. Or President Obama does it two years later, when he enters office atop a promise to overturn President [George W.] Bush's veto of the very popular Social Security Privatization Repeal Act of 2007. That too is democracy. [...]

The problem with the filibuster isn't so much that it enables bad outcomes so much as it makes a mockery of the democratic process. The question of the filibuster is not a partisan question and it's not a question of outcomes. The claim for the filibuster is a claim for the preservation of the status quo -- whether that status quo is liberal or conservative -- against the preferences of the majority. Eliminating the filibuster is not a Democratic or a Republican goal. It's a majoritarian goal."

LEST WE FORGET: Obama Proposes Replacing Anesthesia With Press Conferences

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"President Barack Obama made a bold new health care proposal last night, saying that the nation could save billions annually by replacing anesthesia with press conferences.

'Instead of administering costly anesthetics, a doctor could simply pipe in a few minutes of me talking about electronic medical records,' Mr. Obama said. 'I guarantee you, that patient will be out cold.' [...]

Mr. Obama's press conference appears to have been a big success, with a new poll showing that 57% of Americans favor the President's health care plan 'if he will promise to stop talking about it.'"

7/22: You're Playing Into Their Hands!

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about an internal RNC memo -- a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post's Sam Stein -- which "calls for like-minded advocates to help defeat" Pres. Obama's health care proposal "by delaying its consideration." The netroots see this memo as proof that the GOP "isn't interested in reforming the existing health care system" and that congressional Dems should stop trying to negotiate with them. Joan McCarter writes: "The sooner Democrats on the Hill recognize that delaying this process just plays into the Republicans' hands, the better." However, that's not stopping Blue Dog Dems from demanding that health care reform "happen in a bipartisan way" -- to the netroots' frustration.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• The liberal blog Firedoglake continues to lobby congressional Dems on health reform. The latest Dems being targeted are Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Diane Watson (D-CA), and Dan Boren (D-OK).
• Conservative bloggers (Faughnan, Geraghty, Allahpundit, Malkin) are mocking Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) after several audience members laughed at him during a recent health care forum.
• Conservative bloggers (Lane, Klein, Geraghty) are excited about the new Quinnipiac Univ. poll showing ex-Rep. Pat Toomey (R) tied with Sen. Arlen Specter (D) in a hypothetical '10 matchup. Meanwhile, Markos Moulitsas calls Gov. Ed Rendell (D) an "asshole" for urging Rep. Joe Sestak (D) to drop his Senate bid.
• Liberal bloggers (Bergmann, Benen, Dayen, Klein, Fallows, Drum) are pleased that the Senate voted to end production of the F-22 fighter jet, as Def. Sec. Robert Gates has recommended. Conservative bloggers are divided on the issue: The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb condemns the move, but The Cato Institute's Christopher Preble supports it.
• Erick Erickson is urging RedState readers to call senators and ask them to support the "Concealed Carry Reciprocity Amendment" that Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is trying to attach to the Defense authorization bill. Meanwhile, liberal blogger David Waldman is frustrated by the GOP's "habit of bringing gun riders to the floor."
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, Sudbay, Serwer, Benen) are buzzing about the fact that various prominent conservatives -- including Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) -- seem unsure whether Obama is a U.S. citizen.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Bad-Faith Negotiators?

Lefty bloggers see the RNC memo as proof that the GOP isn't interested in reforming the health care system:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "This is just longer form (10 pages, in fact) Bill Kristol. Kill it, kill it through delay. The sooner Democrats on the Hill recognize that delaying this process just plays into the Republicans' hands, the better. But it also has the potential to put the Republicans in deeper political doo-doo, as the White House well knows. They are exposing the GOP's effort to kill healthcare reform for what it really is -- an effort to bring down a very popular president. They're playing politics with our lives."
• Oliver Willis: "A memo being circulated in GOP circles shows us much of what we already knew: the right isn't interested in reforming the existing health care systen, and in fact their overriding goal is to prevent President Obama from doing so. The Republican alternative to health care reform being enacted by the president and Democrats is for you to pray for your ailments to be cured and to pray for the mountain of debt caused by medical needs to evaporate."
• Firedoglake's Jason Rosenbaum: "[R]emember, there is no Republican plan for health care, not to mention one that addresses either health care costs or quality. So their line about proposing a sensible alternative is pure fiction. Their opposition to health care reform has nothing to do with saving you or your family money, helping small businesses being crushed by health care costs, or stopping rising premiums from wrecking our economy. Instead, the strategy here is to make sure health care is President Obama's 'Waterloo', so Republicans can win back at least a shred of the power in Congress they squandered passing President Bush's policies that destroyed our economy in the first place. And anybody on either side of the aisle who talks about slowing down or killing health reform (and make no mistake, slowing down reform is killing it), is playing into Republican hands."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "The Republican strategy against health care reform is entirely transparent. It's like watching a football team that doesn't bother huddling to call a play in advance, but instead just tells the other team exactly what they're about to do. [...] Republicans are saying the same things in private that they're saying in public -- and they're effectively daring the majority to overcome their opposition."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Are The Blue Dogs Digging Their Own Graves?

digby:

"Regardless of the merits of the [health care reform] plan itself, which I'm sure will be the subject of arguments for decades to come, the political stakes of everyone concerned will rest on whether or not the Democrats were able to pass a much needed reform when they had the power to do it. This is what Democrats say they want to do and the people said, go forth and get it done --- here's a popular president, a large majority and [60] Senate votes. If they can't do it now, they will have lost all credibility and the Republicans will be handed an undeserved chance to recover prematurely.

Now, I have no doubt that certain Blue Dogs and Democratic wingnuts think they can personally benefit by distancing themselves from Democratic initiatives. They are stupid. If Obama goes down in flames, as [Ronald] Brownstein says, those in conservative districts will get creamed by a Republican challenger in 2010, regardless of whether they voted against the health care bill. They are the ones who will pay the price for Obama's failure, not him and not the liberals who voted for it.

Any Blue Dog from a swing district who is listening to little Republican birdies whispering in his ear telling them that he has to vote against Obama's agenda or risk losing in 2010 is a useful idiot who is engineering his own defeat. This isn't 1994 and it isn't 2004, and if these guys don't see that the only thing that can defeat them at this point is a widespread belief in Democratic failure, then they probably need to go back to the private sector and stand in the unemployment line like everyone else. The glory days of self-serving bipartisan backstabbing and double dealing are no longer operative. They will be the first ones to drown if the Democratic ship goes down. This is party politics now whether they like it or not."

LEST WE FORGET: Man At Bar Clinging To Muted 'King Of Queens' Episode Like Life Preserver

From The Onion:

"DENVER, CO -- Like a desperate shipwreck survivor clutching at flotsam in the North Atlantic, area bar patron Kyle Whaley kept his eyes glued to a muted episode of the sitcom King Of Queens Monday, attempting to look as if he had some reason to be at Snooker's Bar and Grill despite not knowing anyone there. 'Last I hear Bob was back at his landscaping job,' a nearby bar patron said in a conversation Whaley had no hope of joining. Watching without sound or subtitles, Whaley shifted nervously on his barstool and locked his gaze on the program like a man cornered by an angry bear. As of press time, there was only one segment left after the upcoming commercial break, and Whaley's options were quickly running out."

7/21: Mr. President, The Bloggers Are On The Phone

Pres. Obama held a conference call with progressive bloggers yesterday to discuss health care reform. During the call, he emphasized "the important role" that bloggers can play in the process by "keep[ing] the pressure on members of Congress" (as Firedoglake has been doing) and "debunking myths that can slip through a lot of the traditional media outlets." Many of the bloggers who participated in the call (McCarter, Amato, Dayen, Singer, Sudbay) are offering their thoughts on the President's remarks, along with transcripts of the relevant exchanges. While Obama didn't break any new ground during the call, lefty bloggers noted that the President (1.) is still open to using the reconciliation process; and (2.) is focused on getting a bill out of the Senate even if it doesn't meet all of his requirements, since "conference is where these differences will get ironed out." Bloggers were also pleased that Obama reiterated his support for a public option and expressed doubts about the co-op model being pushed by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND).

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Morrill, McCarter, Benen) are pointing to GOP strategist William Kristol's remarks about the need to "kill" health care reform as evidence that Dems should stop trying to negotiate with GOPers.
• Conservative bloggers (Allahpundit, Ham, Malkin) are buzzing about the news that the Mayo Clinic -- which Obama and other Dems have cited as a model -- criticized the House health care bill yesterday, saying it "misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care." Meanwhile, both liberal and conservative bloggers are urging their readers to call members of Congress and lobby them on health care reform.
• As we noted yesterday, conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hawkins) harshly criticized the American Conservative Union after Politico reported that the organization tried to sell its support for money. Now that ACU Chairman David Keene has responded to Politico's charge, conservative bloggers are still criticizing the organization's conduct, although Erick Erickson thinks that "this whole exchange is not as bad as it looks."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: You Only Get One Shot

Liberal bloggers were impressed by the sense of urgency that Obama conveyed during the conference call:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "[T]he main message of the call was the urgency of getting this done sooner rather than later. In answer to John Amato's first question about the latest push for delays from Democrats and Republicans alike, President Obama answered that 'we've been debating this for 50 years, that now's the time to make the tough decisions' with the options now on the table. In a followup question after President Obama left the call, [WH adviser David] Axelrod reiterated that message. This issue has been 'talked to death for decades,' and we've been 'circling around the same issues' -- what matters now is getting it done. He added that if you needed a demonstration of the urgency of getting it done, it's that those who want to stop it are counting on delays that will give them enough time to kill it. He also suggested that those pushing for delays, be they arguing in good faith or not, listen to their constituents who call and e-mail every day with their insurance horror stories."
• Crooks and Liars' Amato: "Since the goal of the opposition is to defeat the bill, a key way to do that is by delaying the process. I asked the President if he would demand that Congress work through their cushy vacations in August if they try to delay the bill. [...] He dodged the question, but in doing so he made it clear that he does not want any delays. Stalling cannot be an option so I want to make the case that if [CT Sen.] Joe Lieberman wants more time to read the bill then he should stay at work doing so."
• dday: "Clearly the very fact of this conference call's existence shows that the White House is leaving no stone unturned in searching for allies to help sell reform, and that the President is ready to step forward in this debate. That's a good thing. He still has enough political capital to manage the process where he wants it to go, and if he wants certain elements of the policy included in the final bill, provided that there is a final bill, I wouldn't bet against them getting in there."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "The White House appears to be pulling out all the stops."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Get It To Conference, Then We'll Straighten It Out

Many liberal bloggers were struck by Obama's comments about reconciling the House and Senate bills in conference, "where these differences will get ironed out":

• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "[T]his is the clearest indication we've gotten that the White House sees conference committee as the focal point for its efforts. But that's the message. The audience for this call...was mainly progressive bloggers, and so the underlying argument was that liberals should have some faith that a disappointing draft out of the Senate Finance Committee is not the end of the process, and they should not lose heart."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Obama didn't say this explicitly, but the clear implication is that in the initial round of bargaining it's sort of not that important what's in the Senate version of the bill. The important thing is to keep the process moving forward. Get something voted out of the Finance Committee, then get something to the floor of the Senate, then get something passed the Senate. If and only if that happens, you then get to the stage where you write the real bill and then you have the real legislative fight, the battle to get the real bill passed the Senate. The key thing for now is to make sure we reach that point."
• dday: "The President was basically saying: get it to conference, and we'll straighten it out. That probably doesn't mean that the President gets everything he wants, but it means that the big issues will be at his determination and discretion, almost certainly. I think that's an important reminder. Past White Houses have used the conference committee very effectively to make sure bills matched preferences. Obama signaled his willingness to do that. Which means that, while we can have a role in getting this bill through each chamber, the White House will be able to make their presence felt to a degree at the finish line. In effect, he will take ownership of the policy and ensure it beats the status quo."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Face It, We're All Gonna Die Anyway

The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf responds to Tom Wolfe's argument that the U.S. should invest in space travel in order to "keep alive the only meaningful life we know of" when the sun eventually burns up:

"That's a sound way to think about the space program. Robert Heinlein put it this way: 'The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in.'

But look. Earth is going to be hit by another extinction level asteroid long before the sun is going to burn up. An obligation to preserve the only meaningful life that we know suggests that we spend money on scanning the sky for gargantuan rocks hurtling toward us, safeguarding humanity against pandemic diseases and stopping nuclear proliferation. I'd be thrilled to learn that we'll survive half as long as it takes the sun to burn up!"

LEST WE FORGET: But You Have To Promise To Only Use The Pizza For Good

From Overheard in the Office:

Woman: Can you put green peppers and mushrooms on one half and pepperoni on the other?
Pizza Hut guy: Yes, we have the technology to do that.

7/20: The Cost Of Delay

As the debate over health care reform heats up, we're experiencing a serious case of deja vu. First of all, we have a group of centrist senators "urging delay in consideration of health care reform" until more GOP senators are on board -- just like centrist Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) did back in '93. Next, we have GOP strategist William Kristol urging opponents of health care reform to "kill" the bill rather than seek a compromise -- just like he did back in '93. Liberal bloggers have seen this movie before and don't like the ending, so they're blasting the centrist senators who are trying to slow down health care reform. In their view, "delay is simply a plan to kill reform." Lefty bloggers are also warning moderate Dems that they'll be punished in the '10 midterms if they fail to pass health care reform this year. Matthew Yglesias writes:

"In 1993, we had a new president elected on a promise of providing access to high-quality affordable health care to all Americans. In 1994, that promise went down in flames. The result of that failure was not only substantively bad, but politically disastrous for Democrats. [...I]t's curious that many centrist Democrats -- particular those now eager to delay action on a bill and give special interests and the right more time to kill it -- don't seem to remember this."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Morrissey, Hewitt, Riehl) are excited that the new Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates that Pres. Obama's approval rating on health care is dropping.
• Conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Klein, Gateway Pundit) are criticizing the Obama admin. for delaying the release of the annual midsummer budget update.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Erickson, Hawkins) are criticizing the American Conservative Union and its chairman, David Keene, following Politico's report that the organization tried to sell its support for money.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: The Gang Of Six

Liberal bloggers are blasting the six centrist senators who wrote a letter "urging delay in consideration of health care reform." Lefty bloggers believe that delaying a vote on a health care bill will only decrease the odds of its passage:

• The New York Times' Paul Krugman: "If the Gang of Six really does kill reform, remember their names; they will bear the responsibility for vast, unnecessary suffering over the years to come."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "Many things annoy me about the calls to 'slow down' on health care coverage. But what most annoys me is the idea that we should wait for a 'bipartisan' result, as the latest letter from the 'Gang of Moderates Protecting Really Rich People' suggests. In the abstract, these requests sound reasonable. But these requests assume that Republicans are interested in passing real reform -- which they're not. They've never made any serious efforts -- institutionally speaking -- to enact reform, and there's exactly zero reason to think that they will. They're slowing things down to kill reform -- and the Gang is facilitating them."
• Firedoglake's Swopa: "[A] historical echo of the Senate faux-centrists' letter is August 1994, when uber-wanker Sen. Bob Kerrey made a similarly ostentatious plea for delay and supposed moderation, insisting that although he wanted reform, he didn't want the debate to be 'covered in partisan spit.' In fact, though, Kerrey's feigned desire for bipartisanship provided the Republicans with the political cover needed to kill the 1994 reform effort -- and that's clearly the model that the current 'gang of six' is trying to duplicate."

Many liberal bloggers are pointing out that some of the senators who are currently expressing concern about the cost of health care reform had no problem voting for George W. Bush's expensive tax cuts:

• TPM's David Kurtz: "Of the six senators begging President Obama to slow down health care reform, four of them -- Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Susan Collins (R-ME) -- voted for those huge Bush tax cuts. Their votes were cast on May 26, 2001. Bush signed the tax cuts into law on June 7, 2001. Here we are in mid-July, eight years later, struggling to get health care reform passed by the end of the year. So whatever these four foot-draggers are saying about why they want health care reform slowed down (and Nelson, for one, was all over the place yesterday warning against 'rushing into this'), it's not really about wanting to be more deliberative or avoid ballooning the deficit. All you have to do is look back to 2001. Their records speak for themselves."
• Think Progress' Yglesias: "When you see a moderate Democrat who didn't mind voting for the Bush tax cuts -- Ben Nelson or [MT Sen.] Max Baucus say -- now worrying that the country doesn't have the money to make health care affordable, then you really need to wonder where their priorities are."

Many liberal bloggers (Kleiman, Klein, Yglesias, Benen, Atrios) are warning centrist Dems that they'll be punished at the polls if they fail to pass meaningful health care reform this year.

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Drawing A Line In The Sand?

Liberal bloggers are pleased with the recent noises that the Obama admin. has been making with regard to health care reform. First of all, lefty bloggers are happy that Obama declared that "any plan" he signs "must include" a public insurance option:

• Firedoglake's slinkerwink: "Bravo, Mr. President. Now that is presidential leadership that we've been waiting for."
• digby: "[T]his is a step in the right direction. Up until now [Obama] has only expressed preferences and has not said that certain things must be included in a bill he would sign. It's helpful for keeping Dems on track if nothing else."
• Atrios: "Obama says no public option is a dealbeaker. While I don't especially care about the deficit fetish, it seems he might be turning a bit of jiu jitsu back on the Blue Dogs by making it clear that a plan with a public option will of course be cheaper. We'll see where we go from here, but good noises this morning."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "These weekly addresses are written pretty carefully -- it's not just the president riffing or speaking extemporaneously during a media interview -- and it seems pretty clear that 'any plan' that reaches the president's desk 'must include' an exchange with consumer options, and those choices need to include a public option. The president didn't include an explicit veto threat, but it's my understanding that 'any plan' and 'must include' are phrases meant to serve as a step forward on White House policy. [...] Obama, in other words, is pushing back. When one might expect him to start walking back expectations, he's playing a little hardball. Good."

Liberal bloggers are also pleased that OMB dir. Peter Orszag declared that some congressmen "are advocating delay just as a desperation move to try to kill [health reform]":

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "I'm glad to see Peter Orszag at least hinted at the key point in the current tug of war over the health care overhaul. Capitol Hill is now divided between those pushing for fundamental health care reform and those working to scuttle it. Only the people in the latter category know that that's not politically palatable position. So those pushing to prevent action are advocating 'delay', which they know will make legislative action impossible. Getting this truth in advertising on the table is probably the key hurdle for the reformers this week."
• Yglesias: "Orszag was kind enough not to drag House Blue Dogs or the Senate's 'Gang of Six' into this critique. Still, it is what it is. For 2009, the key Republican Party priority is to kill health care reform. For July of 2009, the key Republican Party tactical gambit is to advance the cause of killing health care reform by pushing for delays. And reality doesn’t suddenly change when the party labels flip. Democrats who are spending July of 2009 pushing for delay in health care reform are joining in a tactical gambit whose purpose is to advance the cause of killing health care reform."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Celebrating Cronkite While Ignoring What He Did

Salon's Glenn Greenwald:

"Tellingly, [Walter Cronkite's] most celebrated and significant moment -- Greg Mitchell says 'this broadcast would help save many thousands of lives, U.S. and Vietnamese, perhaps even a million' -- was when he stood up and announced that Americans shouldn't trust the statements being made about the war by the U.S. Government and military, and that the specific claims they were making were almost certainly false. In other words, Cronkite's best moment was when he did exactly that which the modern journalist today insists they must not ever do -- directly contradict claims from government and military officials and suggest that such claims should not be believed. These days, our leading media outlets won't even use words that are disapproved of by the Government.

Despite that, media stars will spend ample time flamboyantly commemorating Cronkite's death as though he reflects well on what they do (though probably not nearly as much time as they spent dwelling on the death of Tim Russert, whose sycophantic servitude to Beltway power and 'accommodating head waiter'-like, mindless stenography did indeed represent quite accurately what today's media stars actually do). In fact, within Cronkite's most important moments one finds the essence of journalism that today's modern media stars not only fail to exhibit, but explicitly disclaim as their responsibility."

LEST WE FORGET: God Orders Sanford To Stop Putting Words In His Mouth

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"One day after embattled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford claimed that God was trying to make him a better person, the Almighty held a rare press conference to demand that Sanford 'stop putting words in My mouth.'

For the usually publicity-shy King of the Universe, the press conference held at the Chicago O'Hare Airport Marriott signaled a sharp break with tradition. But appearing before the press in His trademark flowing robes and white beard, and carrying what appeared to be a lightning bolt, God said that He decided to convene the extraordinary press briefing because 'I had to set the record straight about this.'

'At no point did I say that I was trying to make Mark Sanford a better person,' the Almighty told reporters. 'And the only time that bastard has prayed to Me was last month, when his exact words were, "Please don't let Jenny find out where I really am."'"

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: John Hawkins

Today the Blogometer talks to John Hawkins, who blogs at Right Wing News in addition to maintaining two other websites, Conservative Grapevine and Right Wing Video.

(If you're looking for Friday's edition of Blogometer, click here).

Where did you grow up?
Small town America. Stoneville, NC: population 1000.

Where do you live now?
On the Carolina Coast. I don't give out any more details than necessary. It helps keep liberal bloggers from posting my address and phone number in hopes that their readers will harass me.

If you have an occupation other than blogging, what is it?
I've been a professional blogger since early 2005.

What's on your iPod right now?
3 Doors Down, Nickelback, Snoop Dogg -- a little of this, a little of that. I like just about everything from rap to country to classical music in small doses.

What book do you think every person should read?
I would say the Bible, but I haven't finished reading it cover-to-cover myself, so that would be hypocritical. How about Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"?

Please finish this sentence: "When I'm not blogging, you'll probably find me..."
...preparing to blog tomorrow. I eat, drink, breathe, and sleep politics -- and when I dream, it's of polls, elections, and news stories. Granted, the news stories I dream about may involve shooting zombies with Sarah Palin, but you get the idea.

What has been your favorite blog post, or your favorite story to write about?
I have been writing about politics since early 2001, so there are a lot of fave posts, but this one seems to have really resonated with people: "Confessions Of An Isolationist Wannabe".

Which blogger(s) do you consider indispensable, if any?
There are no indispensable bloggers or other human beings, my friend.
Except in the rarest of cases, 30 days after you're dead, everyone except your family will barely remember that you ever lived.
Depressing, but true. That's why we have to make as big an impact as we can while we are still above ground.

Who's your favorite non-conservative blogger?
Glenn Reynolds, with Mickey Kaus, Ann Althouse, & Megan McArdle also in the mix.

Who's your favorite active politician? Least favorite?
Jim DeMint is the prototype of what a Republican politician should be.
On the other hand, John McCain is a living example of the Inside-the-Beltway thinking that has crippled the Republican party and let the Democrats take complete control.

What would you realistically like to see Republicans accomplish in 2009?
The GOP needs to recruit blue chip candidates, raise lots of money, fix the primary system, upgrade our tech, and repair the relationship with conservative activists. In other words, lay the groundwork for a big comeback in 2010 and 2012.

If you could give President Obama advice, what would it be?
Obama wouldn't take any advice that I'd give him. He has the staggering arrogance that comes with rising as high as a man can rise in life without having the balancing humility that comes from the struggle it takes to accomplish big things in the real world outside of politics.

What keeps you up at night?
Work. When I am done with that, I sleep like a baby. If only it were on a big pile of money, I would be completely content.

7/17: Good News & Bad News

Since both liberal and conservative bloggers think it's a near certainty that SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed, they're focusing most of their attention on the health care reform debate. Yesterday provided good news for both supporters and opponents of reform. To the delight of conservative bloggers, CBO dir. Douglas Elmendorf "delivered a devastating assessment yesterday of the health-care proposals drafted by congressional Democrats," warning that these proposals would substantially grow the deficit. Righty bloggers are wondering if Elmendorf's comments will "further embolden the Blue Dogs to torpedo the House bill." On the other hand, liberal bloggers were surprised and pleased to learn that the AMA endorsed the House Dems' health reform bill, which includes a public option (a provision which the AMA opposed last month).

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Reynolds, Jessup, Morrissey, Malkin, Perrin) -- along with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) -- are buzzing about an Investor's Business Daily editorial alleging that the House Dem health care bill contains "a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal." Liberal blogger hilzoy argues that the editorial is wrong and that every conservative blogger who promoted it is "intellectually irresponsible."
• Conservative bloggers (Streiff, Hengler, Allahpundit, Geraghty) are accusing VP Biden of making a gaffe after he told AARP members, "We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt."
• Liberal bloggers (Carlile, Morrill, Willis) are calling TX Gov. Rick Perry (R) a hypocrite now that the vociferous stimulus opponent is asking the federal gov't for a $170M loan in order to replenish the state's unemployment benefits fund.

Finally, please check back later today for our interview with Right Wing News' John Hawkins!

HEALTH CARE REFORM: The CBO Strikes Again

Conservative bloggers are delighted that Elmendorf warned that the Dem health care proposals "could make the nation's bleak budget outlook even worse":

• NRO's Yuval Levin: "Not a great day for Obamacare, but a good one for CBO, and for honesty in Washington."
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "[R]eally, what did [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the Obama team expect? They have become so allergic to serious policy-making that they apparently thought the mere magnificence of Obama's persona would cast a spell over moderate lawmakers, CBO, and the public. What, they thought no one would spot the trillion dollar gambit to take over health care? The problem with believing your own press-clippings is that it does not prepare you to deal with reality. Today, reality showed up in the health-care debate."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "The cat's all the way out of the bag now. [...] It's a month to the day since the first time Elmendorf kneecapped Hopenchange by announcing that not only would an early iteration of ObamaCare cost a trillion dollars over the next decade, it would still leave millions uninsured. The money question now: Will this further embolden the Blue Dogs to torpedo the House bill? [...] If fiscal conservatives can't stop ObamaCare now -- or at least vastly improve it -- then we never will."

Liberal blogger Ezra Klein pushes back: "Politicians who are going to use this CBO report against the existing health-care reform proposals must do some combination of the following: (a) Support, as the CBO says you should, the eradication of the tax exclusion that protects employer-based health-care insurance; (b) Support, as Lewin and Commonwealth say you should, a public insurance option that can bargain at Medicare's rates; (c) Support, as the Office of Management and Budget and every health-care wonk in town says you should, one of the various policies floating around to give MedPAC authority to continually reform and modernize Medicare; (d) Support some form of aggressive cost-sharing that would make people extremely angry because it will save money by reducing their access to health-care services; (e) Support comparative effectiveness review that can judge not only the effectiveness but also the cost-effectiveness of various treatments, and give the federal government authority to use that data when deciding reimbursement rates. [...] I would also like to propose a related rule: any reporters who receive a quote from a politician referencing this CBO score should be required to ask the politician which of these policies -- or which alternative cost-saving policies -- they support."

Many liberal bloggers (Benen, Yglesias, digby) are endorsing Klein's argument.

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: The AMA Comes Around

Liberal bloggers attacked the AMA when the organization came out against a public health insurance option back in June. Yesterday, lefty bloggers were pleasantly surprised when the AMA endorsed the House Dems' health reform bill:

• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "Here's a pleasant surprise: the AMA has decided to endorse healthcare reform. And not just any healthcare reform. Jon Cohn reports that they've endorsed the House Tri-Committee plan, one of the better proposals out there. [...] I'm not sure what all is going on behind the scenes (Jon thinks this might be a quid pro quo for higher Medicare reimbursements), but it's good news. Max Baucus, please take note."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Wow. I have to say, I didn't expect this from the American Medical Association. Could it be that doctors have finally figured out just how much they get screwed by insurance companies? I hope so."
• The New Republic's Cohn: "This is unexpected. Or, at least, I wasn't expecting it. Recent signals from the AMA suggested they were reluctant to embrace reform, in no small part because they believed a public insurance option would underpay them. But the AMA letter contains no caveats. It is a straightforward endorsement. And that makes it a pretty big deal. No, the AMA is not as powerful, nor as representative of the medical community, as it once was. But an unqualified endorsement for the most liberal plan out there has large symbolic value, given the role AMA played in killing health care reform for most of the 20th Century."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "[I]n terms of political salience, it's bound to help proponents of reform note that in successive days, the Democratic plan has been endorsed by the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association. That the AMA was expected to be an opponent -- and has always resisted reform efforts -- makes this all the more significant."

Conservative blogger Philip Klein thinks this endorsement is significant: "As liberals always remind us when the AMA is opposing their agenda, the AMA does not represent most doctors. However, politically speaking, this will provide a strong boost to proponents of government-run health care. The AMA has just thrown its weight behind the most liberal health care legislation that could conceivably pass into law, and so Democrats will now be able to say that it has the backing of the nation's largest group of physicians, and argue that it can't really be that radical."

RedState's Brian Faughnan speculates about the AMA's motives: "[I]s the AMA really representing the views of its members, or are they playing a Washington game: currying favor with the Democrat majority, in the hopes that when negotiators decide who'll pay for national health care, they're not left holding the bill? [..] Given the threats Democrats have been leveling against groups that refuse to cooperate with their agenda, it would be no surprise if the AMA's leadership simply calculated that it would be more dangerous to fight than to give in."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: But Could Daniels Win A GOP Primary?

TAPPED's Tim Fernholz responds to Soren Dayton's post praising IN Gov. Mitch Daniels (R):

"...I went looking for some kind of evidence that Indiana state government is actually performing effectively, and, what do you know, Daniels was selected by Governing magazine as one of their top public officials of the year. Among their reasons: privatizing some transportation infrastructure, pushing a public-private corporation for job creation, putting together a subsidized health care plan for the uninsured and -- possibly my favorite thing -- ramming through an initiative to have Indiana adopt daylight savings time. (Hoosiers, enlighten me: Why is this controversial? Some kind of agricultural objection?) He's also done some things that seem, from my liberal perspective, to be awful ideas: privatizing welfare, for one, and using health savings accounts to achieve his health reform aims.

Nonetheless, it's an impressive and ambitious governing record that would serve him well if he seeks higher office. (Apparently, he's not interested). But despite his conservative bona fides (he's been an adviser to [IN Sen.] Dick Lugar and Ronald Reagan and was, before running for governor, George W. Bush's OMB director), part of Daniels' plans have involved raising taxes. He raised cigarette taxes to pay for health care, raised sales taxes while capping property taxes (a regressive trade-off that might have Proposition 13 style consequences in the future), and proposed a surtax on the top 1 percent of earners to balance the budget, leading [conservative activist] Grover Norquist to apoplexy.

Dayton observes, 'No wonder people are talking about this guy for President. He has actually run something successfully.' But in so doing, he violated one of today's key conservative tenets. I wonder if Dayton thinks Daniels' pragmatic record would survive a GOP primary?"

LEST WE FORGET: Researchers Quietly Chuckling At Placebo Group

From The Onion:

"NEW YORK -- Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine were hardly able to stifle their laughter Tuesday while administering a placebo to 25 patients participating in a single-blind trial of an experimental new emphysema drug. 'Did you see Participant No. 425? He was like, "I think it's really working, Doc,"' Dr. Lewis Rodriguez said to a team of snickering pulmonary specialists. 'How gullible can you get? I can't believe those guys think they're actually getting CDDO-Im.' Although the trial is expected to run for two more months, Rodriguez told reporters that he almost could not wait to analyze the data, compile the results, publish the findings, and see the looks on their stupid faces."

7/16: With Dems Like These...

As has so often been the case during the past six months, liberal bloggers are criticizing congressional Dems for opposing elements of Pres. Obama's agenda. Today the netroots are angry that Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) and his fellow Blue Dog Dems are threatening to block the House Dems' health care reform bill. Lefty bloggers are complaining that Ross's criticisms of the bill are "inconsistent" and amount to a "mess of contradictions". Liberal bloggers are also criticizing Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) and Sen. Ben Nelson for opposing the bill's proposed income tax surcharge on the wealthy. On the other side of the political spectrum, Michelle Malkin is urging her readers to call Blue Dog Dems and give them some encouragement.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Beutler, Benen, Black) are criticizing the Associated Press for repeatedly claiming that the House Dems' health care bill will cost $1.5T -- a figure that is based on an anonymous Dem aide's estimate rather than the official CBO estimate (which is $1T).
• Conservative bloggers (Geraghty, Erickson) are complaining about SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor's answers to the questions that GOP senators are asking her. However, most righty bloggers (Morrissey, Hawkins, Mirengoff) expect Sotomayor to be confirmed.
• Malkin is unhappy that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) appears to be running for Senate, calling it "bad news for fiscal conservatives who reject the global warming cult of Al Gore." Meanwhile, fellow conservative blogger Matt Lewis thinks Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) is off to a very poor start in her campaign to challenge TX Gov. Rick Perry (R).
• Although liberal bloggers expressed concerns about Kirsten Gillibrand's (D-NY) centrist voting record when she was first appointed to the Senate, they're now praising her for taking progressive positions on gay rights and health care reform.
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, watertiger) are criticizing SC Gov. Mark Sanford (R) for skipping state meetings in order to take a personal trip with his wife.
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, Aravosis, Benen) are enjoying the back-and-forth between the Obama admin. and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) over stimulus spending. Conservative bloggers are pushing back the Obama admin.'s arguments.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Bloggers Vs. Blue Dogs

Liberal bloggers are criticizing the arguments being made by Ross and his fellow Blue Dogs who are threatening to block the House Dems' health care reform bill:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "[The Blue Dogs are] concerned that the bill (a) costs too much overall and (b) will increase the deficit. And their proposed solutions to this are to (a) increase the cost of the bill by neutering the public plan and (b) decrease the quantity of revenue by fiddling with the employer mandate. Under the circumstances, it's no wonder that Ross didn't want to go into detail with CNN about how he'd propose changing the bill. Maybe Harry Potter knows a spell that could untie this mess of contradictions."
• dday: "[The Blue Dogs' argument] is inconsistent. You cannot control costs in the health care system while demanding higher payments to rural doctors and hospitals. I wonder if anyone has pointed that out. The same with the mandates on small businesses. House Democratic leaders actually exempted small businesses from the employer mandate with a higher amount of payroll than what was initially in their discussion draft -- up to $250,000. But the Blue Dogs want larger small businesses to be exempted as well. That means less money in the system, because businesses would pay 8% of payroll for each employee if they don't provide health care. So the Blue Dogs want both cost controls, less cost controls, and more targeted health spending. It's not supposed to make any sense."

Meanwhile, Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas complains that Rep. Polis "is shaping up to be a serious pain in the ass," now that Polis is circulating a draft letter among freshman Dems expressing opposition to the bill's $544B income tax surcharge on the wealthy. Liberal bloggers (Chait, Yglesias, Klein) are also criticizing Sen. Nelson for opposing the tax surcharge proposal.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Protestant Rebellion That Wasn't

The Atlantic's Matthew Cooper:

"A few commentators haven noted that if Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed, she'll be the sixth Catholic to sit on the court. There will be two Jews and one Protestant. That this is a total non-issue says so much about the country, how it's changed and our notions of diversity. Anti-Catholicism was a mainstay of American life for so long. One need only recall the 1960 presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy and his assurances that he wouldn't take orders from the Pope and contrast it with that of John F. Kerry who, in 2004, had to address windsurfing more than his religion. So it's remarkable that today this is not an issue. No Protestant group lobbied for another WASP on the court. It just worked out that six Catholics wound up on the bench, not by design but by the organic choices of multiple presidents."

LEST WE FORGET: Bad Times

From FMyLife.com:

• Today, the dentist sneezed in my mouth. FML.
• Today, while I was working as a waitress, I had to wait on a table of 13 people. I was struggling through it and when they finally left I went by the table to pick up my tip. Instead of money I got a napkin saying "Here's your tip, don't be a waitress." FML.
• Today, I went to the pool. When I hit the water the top of my swimsuit came off so I tried to put it on underwater. The lifeguard thought I was drowning and pulled me out in front of everyone. Topless. FML.
• Today, I ran into an old student of mine at the grocery store. She didn't recognize me at first so I introduced myself as her old teacher. She looked taken aback for a moment, and then said, "Oh my God... you're still alive?" FML.
• Today, I received in the mail a hockey puck autographed by recent Hall of Fame addition Steve Yzerman. When asked, I had to explain to my 4-year-old brother that someone famous had written his name on it. Later, I discovered that my brother decided it needed his name on it too. FML.

7/15: Sessions vs. Sotomayor

It's now Day 3 of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, and liberal bloggers continue to target Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-AL). The netroots are pounding Sessions for pointing out that Judge Jose Cabranes -- Sotomayor's 2nd Circuit colleague who disagreed with her Ricci decision -- was also "of Puerto Rican ancestry." They're accusing Sessions of engaging in racial stereotyping, since Cabranes' ethnicity didn't appear to be relevant to the point Sessions was making. Steve Benen wonders: "Does Sessions think judges of similar ethnicities should vote together for some reason?" Meanwhile, Armando Llorens argues that "having Jeff Sessions being the leading voice for the GOP on this nomination is an unmitigated political disaster for Republicans." Conservative bloggers disagree; they think Sessions' performance this week has been "magnificent."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Klein, McCarter, Cohn) are generally pleased with the House Dem leadership's health care reform plan. Conservative bloggers (Jessup, Klein, Allahpundit, Malkin) are criticizing the bill's proposal to raise taxes on wealthy Americans.
• Now that Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA) is running for governor, both liberal and conservative bloggers believe that Dems have a good chance of winning his seat.
• Liberal bloggers (BooMan, Cole, Singiser) are buzzing about Sen. John Ensign's (R-NV) decision to seek reelection in '12, which they think will undermine the GOP's ability to run on family values issues.
• Liberal bloggers (Hamsher, Bowers) are criticizing Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) for refusing to pledge to vote against any health care bill that doesn't include a public option. Lefty bloggers are also targeting Reps. John Salazar (D-CO) and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL).

SESSIONS: But -- You're Both Puerto Rican!

Liberal bloggers are accusing Sessions of engaging in racial stereotyping after he pointed out that Judge Cabranes -- Sotomayor's 2nd Circuit colleague who disagreed with her Ricci decision -- was also "of Puerto Rican ancestry":

• Daily Kos' David Waldman: "Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, ladies and gentlemen. Puzzled as to why all Puerto Ricans judges don't rule exactly the same way. I mean, given that they're all... you know... Puerto Ricans and stuff. Gosh, I wonder why the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee sunk this dumbass's own nomination back in '86?"
• Oliver Willis: "Jeff Sessions: Why Doesn't Sotomayor Think Like All Puerto Ricans? Because to the Republicans anyone that isn't a wealthy white male is part of the unwashed masses who should vote the same. Onward, regional southern party, onward."
• The Washington Monthly's Benen: "Now, why would Sessions find it necessary to point out that Cabranes is 'of Puerto Rican ancestry'? Does Sessions think judges of similar ethnicities should vote together for some reason[?] Put it this way: imagine how absurd it would have been if, during [SCOTUS Justice Samuel] Alito's confirmation hearings, [WI Sen.] Russ Feingold pressed him on why he didn't vote in a certain case with another Italian-American judge."

Many lefty bloggers believe that Sessions' conduct this week is hurting the GOP's image:

• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Note to GOP leaders: Bad idea to put a racist in charge of the Judiciary Committee."
• Benen: "I know the Senate GOP caucus was in a bit of a jam when [PA Sen.] Arlen Specter switched parties, but making Jeff Sessions the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee was a mistake -- and the nationally televised hearings this week only help make this mistake more obvious."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "[H]aving Jeff Sessions being the leading voice for the GOP on this nomination is an unmitigated political disaster for Republicans. Top it off with no GOP votes for Sotomayor in the Judiciary committee and no GOP votes for her in the Senate would be political manna from heaven for the Democratic Party. The Latino vote will be 75% Democratic for the foreseeable future."

Liberal bloggers (Morrill, Benen, Marshall, Yglesias) are also making fun of Sessions for citing Miriam Cedarbaum as an example of a judge who supposedly disagrees with Sotomayor -- only to have Sotomayor point out that she and Cedarbaum are "good friends" and that they "both approach judging in the same way."

SOTOMAYOR: She's Not Who She Says She Is!

Conservative bloggers are accusing Sotomayor of portraying herself as more conservative than she actually is:

• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Over on the homepage, I have a review of the first day of questioning of Sonia Sotomayor, the judge nominated to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. No, wait, she was nominated by President Barack Obama. You'll have to pardon me, because from some of her answers yesterday, it was rather hard to tell."
• RedState's E Pluribus Unum: "Unwilling to have her views judged, [Sotomayor] borrows [SCOTUS Justice Antonin] Scalia's views for a week. [...] This is a woman who, like so many leftists, knows that what she does is wrong, but doesn't want to be called on it. She won't admit that she judges racial issues with her sentiment and not the law, because doing so exposes her fraud. She won't admit that she considers her position a free ticket to write government policy, because she does not want to be told that it's wrong. Judicial activism is indefensible, and she knows it. It is the lie that reveals that she knows what the truth is."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "By her own account, she is single-mindedly devoted to the rule of law -- feelings be damned!"
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "I think Sotomayor has said what she needed to say. In fact, at times she has sounded almost conservative. For example, though she was evasive on the 2nd Amendment, but also said she recognizes it as an 'individual right.' To be sure, her answers were full of legalese and sophistry, but it got her through the tough spots."

The Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro argues that Sotomayor's answers reveal "a lack of deep thinking": "The more Sotomayor speaks, the more it becomes clear that these types of nonanswers, this inability to see (or lack of desire to express) a big picture view, is her own essence. It continues a pattern that is evident from her judicial opinions, which are mostly unremarkable and, in the neutral sense of that term, unimpressive. For all her career success and a personal story we should all celebrate, she is an average judge who apparently gives little thought to the broad swath of law and where her rulings fit into that. [...F]or all her bluster about being a 'wise Latina,' she is little more than a left-leaning empty robe."

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers appear to be divided in their assessment of the GOP senators' performance thus far. On the one hand, Lewis is "impressed with...how Republicans have been able to ask very tough questions while simultaneously doing so in a respectful manner." On the other hand, AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer complains that the GOP senators' treatment of Sotomayor has been "pathetically deferential" -- with the exception of Sessions, whose performance was "magnificent".

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Huckabee's The GOP Front-Runner? No Way

Hot Air's Allahpundit criticizes an AP article which claims that "[ex-AR Gov.] Mike Huckabee is turning into a front-runner for his party's 2012 presidential nomination":

"What color is the sky in your world, AP? [...] Assuming [ex-MA Gov. Mitt] Romney runs, which is a near certainty, give me a scenario in which Huck tops him for the nomination. He'll have his strongholds -- Iowa, South Carolina, plenty of other southern states -- but Romney will have the coasts, the northeast, lots of the midwest, most of the party bigwigs, all of talk radio, and a huge war chest on his side. He'll also be seen as the 'economy' candidate while Huck is pigeonholed as the social con. And needless to say, if [AK Gov. Sarah] Palin runs and pulls evangelicals away from him, Huck will be lucky to win a single primary. So I repeat the question. How does Huck win the nomination?"

LEST WE FORGET: Pet Owner Not Bothering To Neuter Loser Cat

From The Onion:

"CORAL SPRINGS, FL -- Mike Oakland, 29, told reporters Monday he is not about to pay $100 to have his 5-month-old cat, Mowgli, neutered, because he has no expectations that the dull, paunchy tabby will ever get laid. 'For all he's going to use those balls, he might as well keep them,' said Oakland, adding that he'd bet anyone any amount of money that the striped kitten will die a virgin. 'He never leaves the house, and I've seen how the neighbor cat looks at him. Completely platonic.' When reached for comment, a spokesperson from the Florida Humane Society reiterated that it's important to have all pets spayed or neutered, even ugly lame-o's who probably couldn't score in a roomful of calicos in heat."

7/14: Sessions Plays To The Base

In his list of "winners and losers" from Day 1 of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza placed Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in both categories. According to Cillizza, Sessions emerged from Day 1 as a winner because "Republicans, to a person, cheered [his] aggressive tone in his introductory remarks." However, Cillizza also labeled Sessions a loser because "Democrats insisted that [his] tone was way over the top, coming across as mean-spirited rather than merely challenging."

Cillizza's analysis mirrors the blogosphere's reaction to Sessions' combative opening statement. Liberal bloggers thought it was "pretty rich" that Sessions -- whose '86 nomination to a federal court was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee due to accusations of racial insensitivity -- would argue that Sotomayor displayed "prejudice" against white firefighters in the Ricci case. Armando Llorens thinks Sessions "play[ed] the Angry White Southern Male to a tee" while Matthew Yglesias declares: "I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, 'Senator Sessions, I think it's ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he's a huge racist.'" Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, thought Sessions was "fantastic" and praised him for having "laid out clearly and eloquently the difference in judicial philosophy between Republicans and Democrats." If Sessions is indeed "play[ing] base politics over Sotomayor" (as NBC's First Read suggested this morning), then he appears to be doing a good job of it.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Chait, Fernholz, Drum, Yglesias, Clarke) are criticizing AK Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) Washington Post editorial on cap-and-trade, while conservative bloggers (Gateway Pundit, Morrissey, Lane) are praising it. Meanwhile, Palin won 70% of the vote in a Hot Air poll of WH '12 contenders -- destroying ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney in the process.
• Prominent liberal blogger Jane Hamsher is criticizing Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Joe Courtney (D-CT) for refusing to pledge to vote against any health care bill that doesn't include a public option. Meanwhile, Chris Bowers supports the House proposal to pay for health care reform by raising taxes on people who earn more than $350K/year.
• Liberal bloggers (Morrill, Benen, DougJ, digby) are blasting one of their favorite targets, the AP's Ron Fournier, for his latest piece about Sotomayor.

SESSIONS: Glass Houses

Liberal bloggers are arguing that Sessions -- who has reportedly made racially insensitive comments in the past -- is in no position to accuse Sotomayor of "prejudice":

• Think Progress' Yglesias: "I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, 'Senator Sessions, I think it's ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he's a huge racist.'"
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "He can go through the motions if he likes, but to hear Jeff Sessions accuse anyone of 'prejudice' is pretty ridiculous. All it does is offer a chance to revisit Sessions' own lengthy record."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III set an ugly tone -- to hear him express concern about prejudice is rich. (Note to Sessions: Look in the mirror.)"
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "Sessions plays the Angry White Southern Male to a tee -- even attacks Sotomayor for being Puerto Rican -- his attack on the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund was blatant bigotry. He lived up to all my expectations."
• TAPPED's Adam Serwer: "Remarkably, Sessions, who called the ACLU and the NAACP 'communist-inspired' as an Alabama District Attorney in the 1980s, called the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund (which he had previously referred to as 'radical') a 'fine organization' before suggesting that Sotomayor's ruling in the Ricci case was due to Sotomayor's work for the PRLDEF. Sessions declared that 'Judge Sotomayor's empathy towards one group of firefighters resulted in prejudice towards another'. In other words, Sessions spent his opening statement calling Judge Sotomayor a racist. That's pretty rich coming from a man who once thought white civil rights lawyers were 'race traitors.'"

SESSIONS II: You Tell Her, Jeff!

Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, praised Sessions' opening statement:

• NRO's Wendy Long: "Senator Sessions was fantastic. He was personally gracious and statesmanlike, yet he made the strong statement that 'our legal system is at a dangerous crossroads'..."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "[Sessions] laid out clearly and eloquently the difference in judicial philosophy between Republicans and Democrats."
• The Heritage Foundation's Brian Darling: "This is Sessions' first high profile hearing as Ranking Member and Sessions has delivered a strong statement explaining the differences between a conservative and liberal view of the proper role of a federal judge."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Sessions hits exactly on the problem of 'empathy' as a model for judicial action. When judges start tweaking their rulings based on the relative sympathy of the plaintiff or the defendant, they deviate from the rule of law into the rule of whim -- and even worse, the rule of politically-correct bias. Judges should impartially act according to the law, and not their sympathies."

Meanwhile, several conservative bloggers were annoyed by Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) prediction that barring "a complete meltdown, [Sotomayor is] going to get confirmed":

• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "For the first time in the memory of most, we have a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on a Supreme Court nominee in which Sen. Arlen Specter is not participating as a Republican. Unfortunately, the Republican committee membership still includes Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Arlen Specter of the South. And in his opening statement, Graham served up a cornpone rendition of Specter. Graham opined that, barring a meltdown, Judge Sotomayor wil be confirmed. That may be true, but shouldn't Graham's role be to provide analysis about whether she should be confirmed, not predictions about whether she will be?"
• Michelle Malkin: "I think Graham's Kabuki act is rather transparent. He'll wait for Sotomayor to reassure him that she can be impartial, and after all his obligatory sound and fury, he will vote for her."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is The Clock Ticking On Health Care Reform?

Ex-Bill Clinton Labor Sec. Robert Reich:

"Universal health insurance won't happen unless [Barack] Obama can light a fire under the Senate Finance Committee this week. Within the next two weeks, the Committee must report out a bill that contains a public option and a credible source of money (either limiting deductions of the wealthy to 28 percent or capping tax-free employer-provided health care, or some of both). Obama then has to get both the Senate and the House (which reports out a bill today) to approve their respective bills before August 7, when Congress heads home for recess.

Why is timing so important? Because the health-care clock is ticking, and doesn't have many weeks left. Universal health care is so complicated -- touching on so much of the economy, stepping on the toes of so many vested interests -- that to allow the bills to languish past recess risks the entire goal. Speed is essential. Recall that after Bill Clinton was elected, universal health insurance looked inevitable. A year later, it was doomed. As Lyndon Johnson warned his staff after the 1964 landslide, 'every day while I'm in office, I'm gonna lose votes.'

Republicans don't want any bill. Blue Dog Democrats are afraid of the costs of any bill. The AMA, private insurers, and pharmaceutical companies would be delighted if universal health care died. If bills aren't passed in the House and Senate before August 7, the fights in both chambers over the public option and money will carry over into the fall, where they'll become more intense and more prolonged. Obama won't have a bill on his desk before the end of the end of the year. That's a death sentence for health-care reform. The gravitational pull of the mid-term elections of 2010 will frighten off Blue Dogs and delight Republicans."

LEST WE FORGET: AIG Bonus Recipients Upbeat About Economy

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"In a sign that the economic stimulus may be beginning to work, AIG executives who have received multimillion-dollar bonuses in recent days now say they are upbeat about the national economy.

'I was definitely feeling negative about the economy last year, when I lost the company billions of dollars and all,' says Josh Harbock, an AIG executive who just cashed a seven-figure bonus check. 'But now I'm starting to feel like things are beginning to turn a corner.'

Mr. Harbock says that his consumer confidence has also taken a positive turn since receiving his bonus check, which totaled $5.4 million.

'I was tightening my belt the last few months, but now I think I'm going to buy a house in the Hamptons,' he says."

7/13: Mr. Ricci Goes To Washington

As SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings begin, liberal bloggers are turning their attention to Frank Ricci, the white CT firefighter whose reverse discrimination suit was thrown out by Sotomayor (and who will testify against her). Lefty bloggers are portraying Ricci as a hypocrite, since he obtained his job in the first place by suing the fire department for discrimination. Brian Beutler argues that "[Ricci's] views on jurisprudence seem to begin and end with the proposition that legal protections against discrimination are great when they work in his favor, and unconscionable when they don't." Susan Gardner quips: "Funny, isn't it, how easily Republican Senators can become fan boys of serial litigants (and, we must assume, their grievance-filled trial lawyers) if they are members of that famous oppressed minority, the American white male."

Conservative bloggers, of course, are defending Ricci. They're arguing that Ricci's history of lawsuits "has [no] relevance to Judge Sotomayor's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court" and they're accusing Ricci's critics of "attacking firefighters."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Dayen, Sudbay, Lemos, Benen) want AG Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the George W. Bush admin.'s use of torture. However, lefty bloggers (Tim F., Greenwald, hilzoy) -- along with Andrew Sullivan -- are strongly opposed to an investigation that does not address "the actions of higher-level Bush policymakers".
• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) will reportedly announce his Senate bid today, but conservative bloggers (Malkin, Horner) are still furious about Kirk's vote in favor of the climate change bill and they don't want him to be the GOP nominee.
• Liberal bloggers (Clawson, Yglesias) are criticizing MO SEN candidate/Rep. Roy Blunt (R) for suggesting that "government should have never" created Medicare and Medicaid.

RICCI: A Serial Litigant?

Liberal bloggers are portraying Ricci as a hypocrite for testifying against Sotomayor, since he appears to have a "penchant for filing employment discrimination complaints":

• TPM's Beutler: "If you were Frank Ricci, you might say something like, 'Frank Ricci got a job and somebody who wasn't dyslexic didn't.' Remember, this is the same Frank Ricci who took his reverse discrimination suit all the way to the Supreme Court, where lower court rulings against him -- including one by Sotomayor's Second Circuit -- were overturned. Ricci will testify against Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week -- this despite the fact that his views on jurisprudence seem to begin and end with the proposition that legal protections against discrimination are great when they work in his favor, and unconscionable when they don't."
• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "It turns out that Ricci's quite the veteran of employment lawsuits. He sued the city of New Haven in 1995, claiming that he was discriminated against because of his dyslexia, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ricci also went to court to fight his 1998 dismissal from Middletown's South Fire District. [...] My hunch is that we won't hear much about Ricci's litigious history during the cable tv coverage of the Sotomayor hearings."
• Daily Kos' SusanG: "Funny, isn't it, how easily Republican Senators can become fan boys of serial litigants (and, we must assume, their grievance-filled trial lawyers) if they are members of that famous oppressed minority, the American white male."
• Balloon Juice's DougJ: "We've heard a lot from the Village about what an extreme decision Sotomayor made in Ricci v. DeStefano, how it proves she's too much of a hot-blooded Latina victimologist, and so on. It seems worth noting that Ricci had a job as firefighter in the first place because of a suit he filed. [...] This isn't meant to demonize Ricci; I support the right to litigate. But if he'd been black and sued twice to get a job, he'd certainly be called an uppity Negro (if not perhaps with those exact words but close enough) by the media powers that be. I don't know enough about the law to comment on either case, but Ricci sure is an unlikely foot soldier in the Global War Against Affirmative Action."

RICCI II: Stop The Smear Campaign!

Conservative bloggers are pushing back against Ricci's critics:

• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "Ricci is on the list of witnesses Republican Senators will call at Sotomayor's confirmation hearing. But does this make his 'litigious work history' an issue that deserves scrutiny? It does so only if that history has some relevance to Judge Sotomayor's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. And plainly, it has no such relevance. No matter how many actions Ricci may have filed in the past, the only one that pertains to Sotomayor is the one she decided. That suit, in which a substantial number of other plaintiffs joined, was found to be meritorious. [...] In any case, one ought to be able to file a successful lawsuit and to testify about that case without being 'targeted' by the left."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "It's disheartening, but hardly surprising, that Sonia Sotomayor's backers are trying to smear Frank Ricci, the fireman against whom the city of New Haven discriminated because he is white. [...] Object to the left's color-conscious brave new world, and you're painting a big, red target on your back."
• RedState's hogan: "This is not unusual. It is the M-O of liberals...they're all for the 'little guy' as a political poster-child, but they simply don't bat an eye at running over him if it's necessary to accomplish their agenda. Mr. Ricci, whatever his past may reveal, is a private citizen who had his day in court... but not just any court, he had his day in the United States Supreme Court, and he won. And now liberal special interest groups want to go after HIM -- personally -- simply because Judge Sotomayor wrote a lousy opinion with her colleagues and now is getting repudiated for its foolishness. Republicans should object strongly to these types of personal attacks... and so should Judge Sotomayor."
• NRO's Jonathan Adler: "McClatchy reports that People for the American Way and other activist groups are encouraging journalists to investigate Frank Ricci's 'troubled and litigious work history' in advance of his testimony at Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. Well, I suppose the politics of personal destruction has become part of the 'American way.' Welcome to Washington, Mr. Ricci."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Don't Bet On Crist Over Rubio

The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini argues that FL Gov. Charlie Crist's massive fundraising advantage over ex-state House speaker Marco Rubio doesn't necessarily mean that he's a lock to win the GOP Senate primary:

"Crist may be a slight favorite in the Republican primary, but money will have nothing to do with why. I bang this drum pretty often, but ask presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney how far early, high dollar bundler support got them. Or Virginia Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe on how much a 10-to-1 cash advantage is worth.

Underfunded candidates like Rubio don't need more money now. The need an argument. A bulletproof argument from a plausible candidate is worth tens of millions of dollars in any primary, overwhelming a financial advantage of any magnitude. While frontrunners confuse high-dollar fundraising for actual grassroots support, a conclusion that headlines like The Hill's do nothing to discourage, smart underdogs would do right to focus on building an impregnable message advantage. Because that's the part that counts for 90% in any electoral victory. [...]

The primary will be close. Among voters who know both, Crist and Rubio are tied. Crist's money will not buy him more name ID or goodwill; only his bully pulpit as Governor can do that, and he's surrendering it. Meanwhile, Rubio's talents as a candidate, his crossover potential, and his appeal to grassroots conservatives mean he has nowhere to go but up. I still think Crist narrowly wins absent a massive screwup, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Recent elections have not been kind to moneyed 'frontrunners.'"

LEST WE FORGET: In Her Defense, It's Hard To Think Clearly When You Haven't Had Your Coffee

From Overheard in New York:

Woman at street vendor: I'll have a small coffee.
Vendor: We only have one size.
Woman: Well, I'll take the smallest size you have.

7/10: Ensign O' The Times

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about the revelation that Sen. John Ensign's (R-NV) parents paid $96K to his mistress. David Waldman quips: "Is $100K the going rate for boning your staffers' wives these days? Indecent Proposal was $1M and that was 15 years ago." Many on the left are arguing that Ensign should resign; John Cole writes: "Why is this guy still in office?...We've gone past 'affair' and have now moved to bribery, hush money, etc." Liberal bloggers are also pointing their fingers at Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who is accused of urging Ensign to pay off his mistress (although Coburn denies the allegation). Meanwhile, most conservative bloggers are remaining silent about the matter, although Michelle Malkin is angry that Ensign "continues to drag [the] GOP down."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Jessup, Morrissey, Richardson) are criticizing the Obama admin. after ABC News reported that $18M in stimulus funds "are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site."
• Liberal bloggers (digby, Black, McCarter) are criticizing Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) after he urged his colleagues to continue to push for a bipartisan health care reform bill.
• Liberal bloggers (Bowers, Benen) are blasting Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) after he declared that his primary opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), is a "flagrant hypocrite" who "did not register as a Democrat until 2006, just in time to run for Congress."
• Liberal bloggers (Sudbay, Willis, Lewison) are pleased that Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) will not run for election in '10.

ENSIGN: Hush Money

Liberal bloggers are mocking Ensign after his lawyer revealed that Ensign's parents paid $96K to his mistress:

• Daily Kos' Waldman: "Is $100K the going rate for boning your staffers' wives these days? Indecent Proposal was $1M and that was 15 years ago."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Which is more emasculating? Getting paid a hundred grand by the guy who screwed your wife? Or being a fifty-something United States senator and still needing mom and dad to cut the check to pay off your mistress and her husband?"
• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "I'm trying to imagine how the conversation between Sen. Ensign and his parents went. Senator Ensign is 51, old enough, I would have thought, to take care of his own problems. Is he in the habit of asking his parents for nearly a hundred thousand dollars? Why on earth didn't his parents do the sensible thing and tell him to deal with his problems himself?"
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Ensign's scandal was embarrassing enough before. After all, Ensign carried on an affair with one of his aides, who was married to another one of his aides, despite championing 'family values,' lecturing others on the 'sanctity of marriage,' and boasting of his membership in the Promise Keepers. Now we learn that Ensign, a grown man and a powerful U.S. senator, turned to his parents to help pay off his mistress."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "Sen. John Ensign is one of those rugged southwestern types. He represents Nevada. The picture on his web site has mountains. The rotating photo atop his page shows him talking to a soldier in a fighter jet. And now we learn he had his parents give $96,000 to the girl he had an affair with. His parents. It's the least rugged approach to solving a personal problem that a grown human has ever employed."

Most conservative bloggers aren't commenting on the latest Ensign revelation, but Malkin is furious: "Gift. Severance. Whatever you call it, it was hush money. It didn't work. And Ensign's former lover's husband is enjoying the fruits of blabbing publicly about the lurid affair and the attempted cover-up. Ensign's adultery hurt his wife and kids, his mistress and her husband's kids, his state, his party, and the Senate GOP leadership. Now, one of the Senate's best and most upstanding members, Tom Coburn, is getting dragged through the mud. [...] What more will seep out? Who else will be dragged down in the process? How long will he subject the GOP to humiliation? Republicans can't combat their political foes' culture of corruption unless and until they clean up their own."

ENSIGN II: Resign, Senator!

Several liberal bloggers are arguing that Ensign should resign:

• Balloon Juice's Cole: "Why is this guy still in office? [...] We've gone past 'affair' and have now moved to bribery, hush money, etc."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "This is starting to sound like blackmail territory. The man is a sitting US Senator. Who is increasingly looking compromised. [...] How long until the FBI enters the picture?"
• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "[This story] should eventually lead to Ensign's resignation."
• BooMan: "Look, I don't know what is legal or precisely what is allowed or not allowed under the Senate ethics rules, but getting your rich daddy to pay off your mistress to the tune of $96,000 just doesn't seem worthy of a U.S. Senator. When you add to it that the mistress and her husband were both your employees and that you had them both terminated...I'm just not sure this whole transaction is kosher, let alone survivable politically. Now, I know that the money could be as easily interpreted as fair compensation as hush money, but it was definitely an investment in containing knowledge of Ensign's indiscretion. And, while it's true that he didn't use any campaign funds, the use of his Daddy as a cut-out was clearly intended to hide obvious traces and probably to avoid Senate disclosure rules. [...] In any case, it would probably be best if Ensign followed [ex-NY Gov.] Eliot Spitzer's example and resigned his post. The fact that he's a hypocrite of the highest order only adds urgency to his decision."

hilzoy wonders if Ensign's parents violated the tax code: "$96,000 is a lot of money. Interestingly, it is precisely the amount you can give as a gift without having to report it to the IRS, multiplied by eight: one gift of $12,000 from each parent to Ensign's lover, her husband, and two of their children. I wonder what the IRS will make of that? I certainly hope that neither of the parents has made use of their children's money, or done anything else to suggest that this was all one big gift split up to avoid paying gift tax, or (more likely) having to report the gift. It's bad enough asking your parents to cough up $96,000 to cover up your indiscretions; asking them to violate the tax code and risk prison is a whole lot worse."

COBURN: Knee-Deep?

Liberal bloggers are also discussing the allegation that Coburn urged Ensign to pay off his mistress (which Coburn denies):

• Firedoglake's watertiger: "Coburn knows he's in deep shit, because at this point, he's pulling out the stops to avoid testifying before the Senate Ethics Committee or in a lawsuit."
• BooMan: "I think Tom Coburn is out of his mind pretending to have advised his roommate in his capacity as a physician and ordained deacon, and therefore his urging to to Ensign to pay for the couple's relocation to Colorado is privileged. That is horse-hockey."
• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "What we have here is another example of a 'Godlier than thou' Republican whose first reaction was to lie, providing political cover to a political ally. Then his lies changed to protect himself. That's certainly within the realm of normal behavior by politicians, but Tom Coburn has always claimed he was different than normal politicians. Time and time again, Republicans like Tom Coburn prove that they can't walk the talk. Maybe it's time they start talking the walk."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Snowe Jobs

AmSpec Blog's W. James Antle, III:

"The fact is that many of the Senate Republicans' top recruits are, in varying degrees, moderates: [Gov.] Charlie Crist in Florida, [ex-Rep.] Rob Simmons in Connecticut, [Rep.] Mark Kirk in Illinois, [AG] Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, and they are still hoping for [Rep.] Michael Castle in Delaware. (Castle is 70 and another member of the cap and trade eight.)

In some cases, like Florida and Connecticut, there are more conservative candidates in the race who poll competitively in general election matchups but not quite as well as the moderate frontrunners. (I discuss this in the July/August issue of the print magazine.) In other cases, like Illinois and Delaware, the moderates are pretty clearly the best -- only? -- chance the Republicans have.

Generally speaking, I don't think electing someone with an 'R' next to their name rather than a 'D' is that important if they are going to vote in ways I dislike most of the time. This is especially true for someone like me, who is off the reservation on the few issues where moderates tend to vote with the party. But for conservatives to have any leverage in Washington, it is important to get the Democrats below 60 seats in the Senate, which may sometimes require supporting less than ideal candidates. It's the Arlen Specter dilemma all over again. Unless all these moderates become Democrats."

LEST WE FORGET: Military Institutes New "Don't Tell, Let Me Guess" Policy

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- Pentagon officials announced Tuesday a new policy toward homosexuals in the armed services, the so-called 'Don't Tell, Let Me Guess' system, which gives Pentagon brass the opportunity to state their opinion on a soldier's sexual orientation, provided it's followed by the phrase 'Am I right?' 'These new guidelines allow homosexuals to serve in the armed forces, as long as they don't show any outward traits that would tip us off and ruin all the fun of guessing,' said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who purports to have 'excellent' gaydar. 'When you make a game out of it, you're much more invested in the survival of your fellow serviceman -- at least until you guess whether or not he or she enjoys sex with members of the same gender.' Pentagon officials said soldiers who are correctly guessed to be homosexual will face immediate dishonorable discharge, unless they can prove they have killed at least 10 enemy combatants in a particularly brutal fashion."

7/9: No One Tells Max What To Do!

As we reported yesterday, liberal bloggers were delighted to learn that Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) to "stop chasing Republican votes" on health care reform. Lefty bloggers have repeatedly criticized Baucus's efforts to compromise on various progressive priorities (e.g., the public option) in order to win GOP votes for health reform, and they praised Reid for "dropping futile attempts to appease Republicans by weakening major legislation." However, Roll Call reports that Baucus is still trying to win GOP support, "despite an urgent warning from Senate Democratic leaders that the potential cost of wooing GOP votes could have a devastating effect on Democratic support for the measure." Not surprisingly, liberal bloggers are upset about this report, calling Baucus's logic "maddening" and criticizing his "bizarre fetish for process over policy goals".

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Cohn, Klein, Yglesias, Hamsher, publius) are discussing how to pay for health care reform. Meanwhile, conservative bloggers (Capretta, Klein) think the health reform effort is floundering.
• Liberal bloggers (McCarter, Kurtz, Dayen, Scarecrow, Benen) are pleased that Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) shifted her rhetoric slightly on health care reform, saying that legislation should include "[a] public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan."
• Liberal bloggers (Waldman, Benen, Bowers) are praising Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) for urging his Dem colleagues to stick together on procedural votes, and they're criticizing Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) for pushing back against Durbin's request.
• Liberal bloggers (Greenwald, Dayen, BooMan, Llorens) are furious that the Obama admin. believes it has the right "to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission." However, one liberal blogger is defending the Obama admin.'s position.
• Liberal bloggers (Kurtz, Wheeler, Smith) are buzzing about the revelation that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) urged Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) to pay off the latter's mistress and her husband.
• Liberal bloggers (Cole, Benen, Neiwert, Aravosis) are buzzing about Greg Sargent's allegation that "one of the chief reasons Sarah Palin has given for resigning as Governor of Alaska" may be false.
• Conservative bloggers (Hinderaker, Klein, Geraghty, Morrissey) are buzzing about Obama's declining poll numbers.
• Conservative bloggers (Lane, Goldfarb, JammieWearingFool) are mocking the WH for misspelling Obama's name in a press release.

BAUCUS: I Got A Fever, And The Only Prescription Is More Bipartisanship

Liberal bloggers are angry that Baucus is still trying to win GOP votes for health reform, even though progressive Dems are balking at some of his proposed compromises:

• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Apparently, as Baucus sees it, the opinions of his leadership and the White House are nice, but if he make the bill just bad enough to get a handful of Republicans to support it, Democrats will accept it, concluding that it's better than nothing. [...] It's just maddening. What will inspire public confidence is if lawmakers pass a good bill that lowers costs, offers consumers choices, and makes quality, affordable care available to everyone. The public will have less confidence -- and the reform will be less 'durable' and 'sustainable' -- in a package that was made deliberately worse to satisfy the demands of a handful of members of a failed party."
• Balloon Juice's Tim F.: "Baucus is not a complete idiot. Almost no one in DC rakes in more insurer cash, so he certainly has naked self-interest as well as this bizarre fetish for process over policy goals. Whatever the problem is with Max Baucus, he is Harry Reid's problem. If reforming health care matters more than one Senator's process fetish then Reid needs to put everything on the table. Make Baucus decide whether compromise with a bad-faith partner matters more than his committee seniority. If that is too drastic, pick any of the dozens of plums that the Senate offers a senior legislator like Baucus. This is Reid's test. Talk isn't working. If Reid fails, I cannot see how he has much credibility left as Majority Leader."

BAYH: There He Goes Again

Liberal bloggers are criticizing Bayh for asserting his right to join GOP filibusters of Dem legislation:

• Congress Matters' David Waldman: "Who's holding out on the Dems' anti-filibuster strategy? Why, it's Evan Bayh, of course! [...L]eave it to Evan Bayh to be the jackass with the mouth big enough to go to the press and declare himself the voice of internal Democratic opposition to the Democratic agenda. [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson at least has the good sense to proceed quietly."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "It's hard to overstate how absurd [Bayh's argument] is. If legislation Bayh doesn't like comes to the floor, he can vote against it. Before that, he can offer amendments, give speeches, and encourage others to agree with him. Senators, as he noted, aren't sheep. Some bills may enjoy the party's support, but not everyone in the party will see the issue the same way. But that's not what Bayh is arguing here. He's saying he's inclined to help the failed, discredited minority block the Senate from even giving bills a vote in the first place. It's not enough for Bayh to vote with Republicans on key issues, he wants to help the GOP ensure there is no vote."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "Democrats don't need 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate. Instead, only 50 votes plus [VP Joe] Biden are required to pass legislation, while 60 votes are required to bring a bill to a vote. Now that we have 60 votes in the Senate, conservative Senate Democrats need to allow all Democratic bills to come to a vote. The response to this request from [LA Sen.] Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson has been predictably negative. The response from conservodem ringleader Evan Bayh is actually kind of hilarious."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Republican Hot Streak?

FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver thinks the GOP is recruiting strong Senate candidates:

"[Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL)] is probably still an underdog against the eventual Democratic nominee -- most likely State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a 33-year-old friend of Barack Obama's who has considerable political upside. But the race is now going to be competitive, whereas if [AG Lisa Madigan (D)] had run, or Kirk hadn't, it probably wouldn't have been. And this isn't the only recruitment coup that the Republicans have had of late. Earlier this weak, New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said she'd challenge [Rep.] Paul Hodes for Judd Gregg's seat in New Hampshire, which substantially improves the Republicans' chances of holding on. And of course, [Gov.] Charlie Crist is running in Florida (even if half of Republican establishment wish he weren't). Meanwhile [AG] Roy Cooper, the Democrats' preferred candidate in North Carolina, won't be running there.

By no means have Republicans batted 1.000. They missed a big opportunity in Pennsylvania when [ex-Gov.] Tom Ridge declined to run. Meanwhile, it looks like they may get a serious race in Louisiana when they were hoping to avoid one, with U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon apparently set to challenge David Vitter.

Increasingly, however, the Republicans have a bit of momentum in the Senate picture. And the White House's decision to recruit both [ex-NM Gov.] Janet Napolitano and [ex-KS Gov.] Kathleen Sebelius into their cabinet -- two women who were uniquely qualified to mount competitive races in Arizona and Kansas, respectively -- is looking increasingly suspect."

LEST WE FORGET: Eventually He Wore Them Down To The Point Where They Hired One

From Overheard in the Office:

Support staff: Hello, how can I help you?
Caller: Can I speak to Nora?
Support staff: I'm sorry, there is no Nora in this office.
Caller: I called yesterday too.
Support staff: Yes, I remember. There was no Nora yesterday, either.

7/8: Health Care On The Hill

Yesterday we observed that liberal bloggers were upset by WH CoS Rahm Emanuel's claim that the White House would be willing to accept a health care reform bill that didn't include a public option. After activists complained about Emanuel's remarks, Pres. Obama issued a statement from Russia in which he reiterated his support for "a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest." While some lefty bloggers were pleased by Obama's statement, others pointed out that "the differences between Obama and Emanuel on the public option are largely rhetorical." Moreover, Jane Hamsher observed that managed-care stocks rose in spite of Obama's statement: "Wall Street doesn't screw around with weasel words. [...] Note that they don't take Obama's statement to contradict what Rahm said. Neither do I."

The other big health care reform news from yesterday did not involve Emanuel or Obama, but Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who reportedly told Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) "to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes." Liberal bloggers were delighted by Reid's apparent change of heart, as they've been complaining for weeks about Baucus's efforts to compromise on various progressive priorities in order to win GOP votes. Several bloggers are attributing Reid's shift to progressive Dems' warning that they will oppose any bill that doesn't include a public option. Chris Bowers gushes:

"This is like some beautiful dream come true. At the behest of a determined bloc of progressive Democrats, the Senate leadership is dropping futile attempts to appease Republicans by weakening major legislation. It is difficult to even count all of the times Open Left and other blogs have urged the Democratic leadership to do just that."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Several conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Lane, Reynolds) are buzzing about the news that a figure close to Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) "has been charged by federal prosecutors with taking about $200,000 in kickbacks from a subcontractor."

EMANUEL: The President Steps In

Yesterday we observed that liberal bloggers were upset by Emanuel's claim that the White House would be willing to accept a health care reform bill that doesn't include a public option. Some of these bloggers were pleased when Obama subsequently released a statement from Russia in which he reaffirmed his support for "a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest":

• Open Left's Adam Green: "What happened here? Rahm likely was blabbering to a reporter and just went with his natural gut instinct -- to be weak, and cave to Republicans. [...] Today's quote by Obama was a great step. Good job, White House (minus one)."
• BooMan: "[T]he overall lesson from today was that Rahm Emanuel floated a trial balloon to examine the support for putting in a trigger mechanism for the public option (thereby passing health care reform without a public option) and his balloon got blasted out of the sky. That's good."

Other lefty bloggers are still concerned about Emanuel's remarks:

• digby: "So, the latest scuttlebutt is that Obama walked back Rahm's 'trigger' comments to the Wall Street Journal today by saying that he still thinks a public option is the best way to get to serious health care reform. But it looks to me as if we are seeing the trigger being set up as the 'compromise.' I don't know that, of course, but it's highly doubtful to me that Rahm was totally off the reservation. But it would probably be a good idea to get the trigger off the table sooner rather than later. The trigger is a reform killer. [...S]omeone should get the president to confirm that he isn't backing it."
• Firedoglake's Hamsher: "Insurance Stocks Jump When Rahm Says 'Trigger': Someone actually said to me the other day that the safe bet is to buy health insurance industry stocks because the Democrats would ultimately cave on a public plan. I guess he was ahead of the curve. [...] Wall Street doesn't screw around with weasel words. They know what's good for the insurance industry, and triggers are very very good for the insurance industry. Note that they don't take Obama's statement to contradict what Rahm said. Neither do I."
• Atrios: "I don't know if this is some weird coordinated game or if Rahm just likes to signal a willingness to cave whenever possible."

Meanwhile, TPM's Brien Beutler points out that "the differences between Obama and Emanuel on the public option are largely rhetorical."

EMANUEL II: Progressive Pushback

Liberal bloggers were pleased when the Congressional Progressive Caucus reacted to Emanuel's comments by sending Obama a letter "warning him against dropping a public insurance option from health care reform plans":

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "[U]p until now, members of Congress have been loathe to criticize Obama on anything, as have liberal groups. MoveOn, to its credit, has been trying to work with the administration as a friend, not an adversary. Today that all changed. This not only signifies that we may be reaching a perilous moment in the health care debate, but it also signifies that other constituencies, besides the gays, are becoming concerned with where this White House is headed on key legislative promises. For their willingness to speak out when it's still not entirely PC to do so, the House Progressive Caucus and MoveOn both deserve our praise."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "[H]ere's hoping the pushback has left [Emanuel] feeling at least a little chastened. The less he emphasizes even more needless compromise, the more likely it is this larger effort will come together."

Hamsher is very wary of Emanuel's support for a "trigger" mechanism: "A 'trigger' means that a public option gets implemented at some time in the future if the insurance industry doesn't do what they are supposed to do. A 'public plan' and 'triggers' aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, which is why we've always emphasized FROM DAY ONE as part of our Whip Count on the public option. Sam Stein repors that Rahm has been pushing for triggers since February. It's a way to keep from implementing a public plan NOW, and gives us absolutely NOTHING to build upon toward the goal of providing single payer coverage. It's a vile proposal designed to protect insurance company profits at the expense of the public."

REID: He Finally Comes Around

Liberal bloggers are thrilled that Reid reportedly told Baucus "to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill":

• Atrios: "Some good news: Reid apparently has figured out that sacrificing 15 Dem votes for 2 Republican ones is a bad idea."
• Crooks and Liars' John Amato: "Wow, I'm shocked that Harry Reid acted like a Majority leader for a change. [...] We don't need no Republican votes to pass health care. About time somebody told that to Max."
• Open Left's Bowers: "This is like some beautiful dream come true. At the behest of a determined bloc of progressive Democrats, the Senate leadership is dropping futile attempts to appease Republicans by weakening major legislation. It is difficult to even count all of the times Open Left and other blogs have urged the Democratic leadership to do just that."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "This strikes me as a major vindication of Chris Bowers' 'progressive block' theory. By building a critical mass of progressive legislators who are prepared to walk away from a deal that doesn't include a public option, the leadership either needs to find a big block of Republican support for a more moderate measure, or else include the public option."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "If this is true, and where Harry Reid is concerned, take it with a grain of salt, but Reid may have been listening after all. [...] Good for those 10 to 15 Democrats in the caucus for holding a firm line. While the Senate progressives, outside of Sens. [Bernie] Sanders and [Chuck] Schumer, haven't been as public as the House progressives in drawing a line in the sand over health care reform, they seem to now be shaping the debate. Getting [Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Charles] Grassley and his Republicans on board with any kind of meaningful reform has been a fool's errand from the get-go. That this much time has been wasted trying to appease them has jeopardized the effort to get this bill done by August recess and to the President in October."
• Benen: "Republicans deserve to be abandoned on this. They don't want health care reform, and making the bill worse to placate a shrinking minority, with no credibility or support on this issue, is ridiculous."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Nagging Questions About Afghanistan

The Reality-Based Community's Quincy Adams:

"NBC Nightly News last week had a few minutes of a fire fight with a Marine unit. The Marines hiked up to a seemingly deserted unit, saying along the way that they expected to be ambushed because they figured locals would have tipped off the Taliban. Sure enough they set up and were attacked by about ten enemy, of which they thought they killed maybe three, with no US casualties. The Marines and the Taliban fought with essentially the same weapons, though the Marines could call in air strikes if needed. No advanced technology was in evidence on the US side. The US forces were not accompanied by any Afghani nationals. In fact, given that the 'Taliban' may have been non-Afghani forces, it's possible that no one from Afghanistan was involved in the episode. NBC saw this engagement as a success, primarily because of the lack of US casualties but what did it accomplish? Practically, nothing, except perhaps demonstrating that the US did not control the area. Why are we sending US forces to fight for no real tactical or strategic purpose and without any decisive military capability?"

LEST WE FORGET: Biden Requests To Be Named Special Envoy To Reno

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- Saying there are national security matters that 'need sorting out down there,' Vice President Joe Biden requested Friday an appointment as special envoy to the city of Reno, NV. Saying he had already done some of the preliminary work necessary to establish relations with the city, Biden assured President Obama that he had even made significant headway with a local dignitary named Candi. 'Though the United States has not, historically, found it necessary to establish diplomatic relations within our own boundaries, the vice president did make a very convincing argument,' White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said. 'Although I'm not sure why he was so insistent about getting diplomatic immunity for the weekend.' While Obama was noncommittal about the appointment, he did grant Biden the special 26E2BVP license plate the vice president had been asking about for months."

7/7: The New Benchmark

Although the abrupt resignation of AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) remains a topic of much discussion in the blogosphere, liberals are once again turning their attention to health care reform. Lefty bloggers are currently upset that WH CoS Rahm Emanuel said that the White House is willing to accept a health care reform bill that doesn't include a public option. One blogger complains: "Emanuel's orientation is to accommodate centrists and kick liberals. He's been doing it since he entered politics." It's become clear that the existence of a public option (or lack thereof) will determine whether or not liberals consider health care reform a success -- even though some complain that "it's not necessarily a very good benchmark."

Meanwhile, other liberal bloggers are contrasting Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) strong statement about the importance of providing a public option with Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) unwillingness to demand loyalty from his 60-seat caucus. Needless to say, the netroots are praising Schumer and criticizing Reid.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Some liberal bloggers (Lange, Llorens) are expressing concern about VP Joe Biden's comments about a hypothetical Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities during his appearance on ABC's "This Week." Others (Farley, Yglesias) didn't find Biden's comments alarming.
• Most conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Ace, Fiano) believe that Palin damaged her political fortunes with her abrupt resignation, but some disagree.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Seriously, Rahm?

Liberal bloggers are upset that Emanuel said that the White House is willing to accept a health care reform bill that doesn't include a public option:

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "Thanks, Rahm. [...] Let's give an industry that has acted in complete bad faith a chance to get it right, and kick the can down the road a few years so that we can all wind up in a huge fight about whether the trigger standards have been met, hopefully in a Republican era when the entire mess can be rolled back. Because Medicare Part D was such a huge success. [...] Well, it's good to know that Rahm is at least admitting that all that BS about controlling costs is just protection for private insurance companies, and that he's looking to Republicans for solutions. So he can what, finish the job of screwing the country he started with NAFTA?"
• dday: "Emanuel's orientation is to accommodate centrists and kick liberals. He's been doing it since he entered politics. There's plenty of elements to health care just as important as a public option, but that's the most controversial, and so the Chief of Staff wants to cave on it to reach a compromise. The other issues, like the health insurance exchanges, the subsidies for the poor, Medicaid eligibility, the baseline level of care, etc., isn't getting the same attention, so Emanuel figures he can just strangle them behind closed doors. With the public plan, a high-profile issue, Emanuel probably thinks he has to lay the groundwork for a capitulation."
• digby: "It's always possible that Emanuel is playing 45 dimensional chess. Gosh I sure do hope so."

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Sargent, McCarter, Benen, Orton) are praising Schumer for his statement about the necessity of creating a public option and criticizing Reid for his stated unwillingness to "bulldoze anybody" in order to get 60 votes.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In Retrospect, Or Not

Firedoglake's Spencer Ackerman offers some thoughts on the late Def. Sec. Robert McNamara:

"McNamara possessed a characterological pathology I had never before encountered outside of a toddler: a bent for demonstrative public apology combined with a strident defense of both his course of action and the reasoning chain that led to it. [...] I forget whether I read this in The Best And The Brightest or somewhere else, but I recall some (possibly-apocryphal) story about McNamara considering it his responsibility to attend Georgetown dinner parties and receive verbal abuse about Vietnam, particularly from the antiwar children of the establishment. The airing of this dissent, McNamara thought, was a solemn responsibility of power. Which sounds lovely and civic-minded until you consider that McNamara had by mid-1967 come to the conclusion, entirely in secret, that the war was unwinnable and he possessed considerable power as defense secretary to end it. Instead, he subjected himself to harsh language determined to reinforce his apoplexy while Americans and Vietnamese died for no reason. Viewed in that light, the 30 years between McNamara's Pentagon tenure and his memoir were basically a period of dress rehersal.

I don't know if it really serves any purpose to compare McNamara to [ex-Def. Sec.] Donald Rumsfeld, irresistable as the comparison is. But it's always been striking to me how much Rumsfeld appeared to want to avoid what he considered to be McNamara's chief mistakes. Concede that troop levels in Iraq were too low? Why, that merely sets the stage for an endless and politically untenable series of escalations. Concede that strategy had gone off-course? Why, that merely sets the stage for the press picking the strategy to death. Concede that you made mistakes? Why, that merely positions you as a vain and irresponsible know-nothing. None of this is to say that Rumsfeld's errors look better than McNamara's -- judging which of two train wrecks is the worse one is academic -- only to warn that an attempt to avoid the disasters of the past can steer us into disasters of our own, because the world is an evil and inscrutible place."

LEST WE FORGET: The Audacity Of Fuchsia

From Overheard in New York:

Defensive blonde: You can't mock my leggings, they're awesome! How dare you?!
Offended brunette: They're fuchsia. How dare you?

7/6: So Long, Sarah

Conservative bloggers and liberal bloggers rarely agree on anything, but virtually all of them think that AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has effectively ended any WH hopes that she may have had with her decision to resign 16 months before the end of her first term. Righty bloggers still have a lot of affection for Palin, but they were disappointed by her decision to quit, which they described as "incomprehensible" and "an appalling dereliction of duty". Some of them believe that ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney is now the frontrunner for the '12 GOP presidential nod. Meanwhile, lefty bloggers agree with their righty counterparts that Palin is no longer a legitimate Presidential contender. Josh Marshall declares: "[W]hat very little shot she had as a future presidential candidate (and it was a much longer shot than I think many realized) is over. She's done."

PALIN: Stick A Fork In Her

Many conservative bloggers believe that Palin has permanently damaged any Presidential hopes she might have had:

• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "I liked Sarah Palin and supported her inclusion on the GOP ticket last fall. I thought she had more toughness than this. It's a big disappointment, and it's the end of any hope of Palin getting taken seriously as a politician on the national level in the future."
• The Next Right's Jon Henke: "[Palin's] Presidential prospects are done, and it's hard to see how Republicans will still consider her a potential leader of the movement."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "Well, Nicolle Wallace, Andrew Sullivan, and the left can claim a scalp today. [...] Sarah Palin will not be President in 2012. She will not run for President. She will not run for any elected office ever again."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "It's not clear why Sarah Palin resigned her position as governor of Alaska, but it must have been for one of the following reasons: (1) there is a scandal that would have made her position as governor untenable, (2) she couldn't take the heat that was coming her way, or (3) she concluded that it was in her best interests to do something other than fulfill the duties associated with the position the voters of Alaska entrusted to her. In all three scenarios, Palin is unfit for high office, and certainly unfit to be the vice president or the president of the United States. Moreover, Palin's resignation confirms how disappointingly reckless it was of John McCain to choose the then-untested governor to be his running-mate."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "I have absolutely no problem with those who are arguing that Palin's story is one of a citizen politician thrust into the national spotlight who left office to protect her family from merciless attacks. But for those still arguing that she can or should have a future as an elected political leader, let alone president, I'm baffled. [...] Last October, an ABC/Washington Post poll found that only 35 percent of Americans thought Palin was qualified enough to be president, yet now her boosters expect us to believe that an additional nine months in office is all she needed to assauge Americans' concerns, allowing her to resign and prepare for a presidential run."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "There are many, many things to say about Sarah Palin's announcement today, but one point has not really been made, and that is that quitting is not a conservative value. [...] If Sarah Palin has some personal or family issues which preclude her finishing her term, I certainly respect her decision to step down. But if she thinks quitting the job she was hired to do is somehow a wise political strategy for earning a promotion -- she's just plain wrong..."

Other righty bloggers were even more critical of Palin's decision:

• AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "Sarah Palin's resignation is an appalling dereliction of duty and a highly cynical move to set herself up for a presidental run for which she is manifestly unqualified. [...] Statesmen hang tough. Sarah Palin is cutting and running. 'Nuff said."
• NRO's Amy Holmes: "[Palin] has just labeled herself a 'quitter.' Someone who doesn't finish what she started. What in the world is wrong with Republican governors? One self-absorbed politician after the next. Governors: 'It's not all about you!'"

Meanwhile, several righty bloggers (Klein, Lewis) think that Romney is now the frontrunner for the '12 GOP presidential nod.

PALIN II: What The Heck Was That?

Liberal bloggers spent much of the weekend mocking Palin's resignation speech:

• Oliver Willis: "Holy crap did you see her statement? Welcome to crazytown."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "That [speech] was rambling and disjointed even by Palin's low standards. [...] It was manic. I have no idea what is going on, but this was just bizarre."
• digby: "I don't know if you saw her press conference, but I almost expected her to start babbling about soul mates and David and Bathsheba. The Republicans are getting more deeply weird every day."
• BooMan: "Her speech was totally incoherent and made more odd by the loud ducks in the background."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "True story: I was eating a bowl of popcorn when CNN cut to Palin's speech. Very appropriate. So have you watched it yet? If you haven't, do it now. Seriously. It was an instant classic, right up there with [Richard] Nixon in '62 as a resentment-fueled blast of grievance and self-pity mongering -- though this was sort of the breathless junior high school version."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "The main thing I'd point out about Sarah Palin's dazzlingly incoherent farewell is that it's pretty clear she wrote it herself. The proof is in the punctuation. The transcript was posted to her official Web site earlier today. The style is closer to a high schooler's angry diary entry than to an official speech."
• Firedoglake's Eli: "Wow. That really was something else. A little less WTF than the last Rambling Governor's Press Conference we saw, but at least [SC Gov. Mark] Sanford eventually explained what he was talking about. Palin's explanation for her resignation is one of the worst ever."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "Today's announcement was so ill-timed and rambling that it's hard to believe she's seriously considering a presidential run. [...] Today only makes sense if she either (1) is done with politics entirely, or (2) is a looney toon."

Most liberal bloggers think Palin's presidential aspirations are over:

• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "Unless she's a total moron, there's no way she's running for president. Then again, maybe she is a total moron."
• TPM's Marshall: "She may resurface as a latter-day [Sean] Hannity or she may found some Palin-specific Anti-Defamation League dedicated to calling out obscure bloggers who've written mean things about her. But what very little shot she had as a future presidential candidate (and it was a much longer shot than I think many realized) is over. She's done. She's back to what she was -- a small person looking for someone to be angry at."

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen isn't so sure: "The kinds of voters who participate in, say, the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa in 2012, may not care whether Palin has thoroughly discredited herself as a credible and serious political figure. [...] Can Palin recover from her humiliating fall? She shouldn't be able to, and the country will be better off if she isn't able to, but I'm not quite ready to rule out the possibility."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Give Her Time, Conservatives

While many conservative bloggers are criticizing Palin for abruptly announcing her resignation, RedState's Josh Painter supports Palin's decision:

"I will neither condemn her nor cry in my beer if she decides not to run for president. God knows she has given much and received little reward and much punishment for herself and her family. Gov. Palin saved the GOP and John McCain from an electoral blowout of [George] McGovern proportions, and she made Saxby Chambliss' return to the U.S. Senate a sure thing with a safety margin of 10 insurance points. She's been fighting for missile defense, fiscal restraint and energy security, among other things. She's defended young girls and women of all ages against misogynistic attacks by dirty men both young and old. And she has been a source of encouragement to women everywhere to be all that they can be, and not just in the U.S. Army. Whatever we have given her, she has repaid with interest. Today, she asked us to trust her decision. Let's give her that much at least, see what her intentions are and keep her and hers in our prayers."

LEST WE FORGET: New England Journal Of Medicine Reports Mental Health Epidemic Among Republican Governors

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"A new study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine warns of a 'mental health epidemic' afflicting the nation's Republican governors. According to the study, the symptoms of the epidemic include 'bizarre, uncontrollable behaviors' and 'grandiose self-ideations,' including an impulse to compare oneself to Biblical figures.

The study also says that the mental disorder is manifest in 'erratic, incoherent' speech and a syndrome akin to Tourette 'in which the patient does not appear to know when to stop talking.'

There are other worrisome symptoms, such as 'geographical dislocation,' in which the afflicted person may think he is hiking in North America when he is actually having sex in South America.

Finally, and most troubling according to the study, the patient 'may speak in basketball analogies that have meaning to no one but the speaker.'"

7/2: Is HELP On The Way?

Liberal bloggers are praising the revised health care plan released by the Senate HELP Committee, which includes a public option and carries a price tag of roughly $600B over 10 years (which is significantly cheaper than the estimated $1T cost of the initial version of the plan). Jane Hamsher declares: "So, with a public plan added, health care is actually LESS expensive." Jed Lewison also loves the bill: "Politically, this puts Republicans and Democratic opponents of the public option in a terrible position. They can't argue that the public option is too expensive. And they can't argue that it won't lower costs and expand coverage." That said, some bloggers think the bill will end up costing more than $600B, since it doesn't include the likely cost effects of the Medicaid expansion (which is under the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee).

In other health care reform news, prominent liberal bloggers are declaring that they will not accept a bill that does not include a public option. Moreover, they're asking progressive Dems in Congress to promise to kill any such bill. Markos Moulitsas writes:

"There can be no health care reform without the public option. Any such attempt should be DOA, as they are nothing short of industry giveaways. If the Senate balks, pass legislation under reconciliation. If the Senate still balks, House progressives should make sure to kill any such effort."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Geraghty, Morrissey, Erickson, Malkin) are pointing to the latest unemployment numbers as evidence that Pres. Obama's stimulus bill has failed. Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias thinks job losses are accelerating because the stimulus bill was too small.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Liebau, Goldberg, Schiffren) were disgusted by SC Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) recent AP interview and are urging him to resign.
• Liberal bloggers (Bowers, Sudbay) are pleased that Reps. Joe Sestak (D-PA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have announced primary challenges to Sens. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), respectively.
• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Hinderaker) love TX Gov. Rick Perry (R), as evidenced by their positive reaction to Glenn Reynolds' recent interview with him.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: HELP! I Need Somebody

Liberal bloggers are praising the revised health care plan released by the Senate HELP Committee:

• Firedoglake's Hamsher: "The first draft, which the CBO scored without a public plan included, came in at over $1 trillion over 10 years. It had holes in it for a public plan, though. Now that the holes have been filled in, the CBO has scored the whole thing cheaper, at $600 billion over ten years (small potatoes next to the $750 billion in TARP money in less than one year). So, with a public plan added, health care is actually LESS expensive."
• Daily Kos' Lewison: "The key thing to remember is that last time around, we were looking at a $1 trillion price tag over 10 years -- and millions without coverage. This time we're looking at $600 billion over 10 years and 97% coverage. What changed? Two things. First, now the plan includes a public option, which is a far more cost effective way of expanding coverage than only subsidizing private insurance. Second, it contains a funding mechanism requiring employers who do not provide health insurance to pay an annual fee for each uncovered employee. Small businesses would be exempt from this fee. Politically, this puts Republicans and Democratic opponents of the public option in a terrible position. They can't argue that the public option is too expensive. And they can't argue that it won't lower costs and expand coverage. The only argument they have left is that private insurers won't be happy with the public option. To the extent that argument sways opinion, it will sway opinion in our direction."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "The most noteworthy part of this is that a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion is slightly less than the $634 billion President Obama set aside for health care spending in the budget. [...] The Senate has already passed the budget with the health care spending intact. [...] Add it all up, and the Senate has already passed a budget that can pay for the public option. While a few details need to be clarified, the overall structure is now in place. At this point, the only way that a public plan does not pass into law is if right-wing Democratic ideologues like [CT Sen.] Joe Lieberman overwhelm The Progressive Bloc(k)."

On the other hand, some bloggers think the HELP bill will end up costing more than $600B if one factors in the likely cost effects of the Medicaid expansion. Ezra Klein explains:

"CBO estimates that by 2019 the bill will cover 21 million people at a cost of $597 billion. But -- and this is important -- the HELP Committee's bill doesn't include the Medicaid expansion, because Medicaid is under the sole jurisdiction of the Finance Committee. But if Medicaid is expanded to 150 percent, it will cover an additional 20 million at a cost of about $1 trillion. Add in the savings that Finance is expected to get from reforming Medicare and you're looking at a bill that will cost $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion and cover 42 million people (which would mean 97 percent of the legal population in 2019 would have health insurance) by 2019."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Drawing A Line In The Sand

Liberal bloggers are not willing to accept a health care reform bill that does not include a public option, and they are asking progressive Dems in Congress to promise to kill any such bill:

• Daily Kos' Moulitsas: "There can be no health care reform without the public option. Any such attempt should be DOA, as they are nothing short of industry giveaways. If the Senate balks, pass legislation under reconciliation. If the Senate still balks, House progressives should make sure to kill any such effort."
• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "[W]ith minor exception[s], members who have floated all kinds of lofty rhetoric about their support for a public plan don't want to say they won't vote for a bill that doesn't have one. They want to 'leave themselves open.' Meanwhile, President Lieberman and President Nelson and President Landrieu have absolutely no trouble whatsoever saying they won't vote for a bill that HAS a public plan. Saying what you won't vote for seems to be easy, as long as it's pro-insurance industry and regressive. I think it's pretty clear where we're headed on this. It's 'public plan' kabuki. The progressives are putting on a nice show but in the end, they're fully prepared to sell the public plan -- and women -- down the river. If you want a decent health care bill, you're going to have to get on the phone and tell people you're pissed and that you're not going to settle for kabuki. If Joe Lieberman can say where he draws the line, so can they."

Other liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Drum, Cohn) are warning congressional Dems that they'll be making a huge political mistake if they compromise too much on health care reform.

Meanwhile, many lefty bloggers (Moulitsas, Hamsher, Llorens, Kurtz) are blasting Lieberman for announcing his opposition to a public health care plan after expressing support for such a plan during his '06 re-election campaign.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Tragic Love Story? Give Me A Break

The New Republic's Michelle Cottle has little sympathy for Sanford:

"...It's not simply that he couldn't choose between Jenny [Sanford] and Maria [Belén Chapur]. We're talking about a guy who repeatedly asked his wife's permission to run off for a quick visit with her competition. Sanford not only wanted to have his cake and eat it too -- he wanted his legally wed cake to tell him that it's ok to keep dipping his fork into his extramarital cake -- excuse me, extramarital Soul Cake. In theory, of course, he was struggling to gently disentangle everyone from the ridiculous web he had woven. But he didn't disentangle. He just kept tangling and tangling and tangling. Until he tangled so completely that the entire world found out about his situation -- which, in turn, only prompted him to spin more stories on national TV about himself as the tragic slave to love. And then a few days later -- even more stories, with more talk about his commitment to his family even as his poor heart is shattered. Oh, boo hoo hoo. Say what you will about [Newt] Gingrich, at least he never asked any of his wives to become an accessory to his betrayal of her and to his public deception -- pardon me, his grand and glorious love story.

Now, of course, Sanford wants to be cheered, or at least pitied, for buckling down and committing to 'falling back in love with' his wife -- despite having announced to the entire globe that Maria is his true love. What nobility. What self-sacrifice. What moral fortitude. What utter nonsense. What now happens within the Sanford family should be an entirely private matter (as, indeed, this entire Love Story should have remained, if only the governor could have handled it less absurdly -- and without taxpayer funding.) But however it ends, let's not kid ourselves: Mark Sanford isn't remotely special. He isn't even particularly tragic, at least not in the romantic sense. The man isn't a fool for love so much as he's just a fool. And his political future now largely depends on how gladly the voters of South Carolina will suffer having a fool as their leader."

LEST WE FORGET: Iran Or Star Wars?

McSweeney's contributor M. Lindsay Moore:

1. Supreme Chancellor
2. The Special Clerical Court
3. Assembly of Experts
4. Third Senate
5. Guardian Council
6. Imperial Ruling Council
7. Supreme Leader
8. Army of the Guardians
9. General Ministry
10. Galactic Senate

Iran -- 2, 3, 5, 7, 8

Star Wars -- 1, 4, 6, 9, 10

7/1: Sixty Senators

While liberal bloggers are extremely critical of ex-Sen. Norm Coleman's (R-MN) actions over the past eight months, they're pleased that he finally conceded and allowed Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) to be seated. Now the netroots are discussing the political implications of a 60-seat majority in the Senate. On the one hand, lefty bloggers caution that the Dem majority isn't exactly filibuster-proof, since (a.) centrists like Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) have been only too willing to buck their party, and (b.) ailing Sens. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) haven't cast a vote in weeks. On the other hand, lefty bloggers are declaring that Dems no longer have any excuses for not passing legislation. Markos Moulitsas writes: "Psst, Harry [Reid]? You've got 60 Dems. No more excuses." Similarly, Atrios warns that Franken's victory means that "a new game begins -- which Dems vote against cloture." Liberal bloggers already had little patience for Dem senators who obstruct Pres. Obama's agenda; it seems likely that they'll have even less patience now.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Allahpundit, Antle, Steyn, Geraghty) think that SC Gov. Mark Sanford (R) further embarrassed himself with his latest comments about his extramarital affair. Liberal bloggers (Hunter, Kurtz, digby) agree.
• Conservative bloggers (Liebau, McCarthy, Ledeen) continue to criticize Obama for condemning the military coup in Honduras, which the right supports. RedState is telling its readers to call members of Congress and urge them to "support [Honduras' interim leader] Roberto Micheletti and the actions of the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress."
• Liberal bloggers (Hamsher, Scarecrow, Benen) continue to push hard for a public health insurance option. They're also criticizing senators who oppose a public option, such as Kay Hagan (D-NC), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

MN SEN: Thanks For Nothing, Norm

Liberal bloggers are pleased that Coleman finally conceded, but they're angry that it took him this long to do so:

• dday: "Norm Coleman just said he would abide by the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling and congratulated Al Franken as the newest Senator from Minnesota. I guess seven months of obstruction was long enough. What a stand-up guy!"
• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "Norm Coleman has dragged this out for nearly eight months. It has been clear that Franken would win at least since the three-judge panel ruled in his favor. That was on April 13th. Since then, Norm Coleman has just been trying to delay the inevitable, and denying Minnesota's voters the representation they are due in the process. I'm glad he has finally decided to end it. But he's several months too late."
• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "We can laugh at Coleman's pretzel logic during the legal proceedings, but unfortunately, his gamesmanship deprived Minnesota of full representation in the Senate for half a year. In all likelihood Franken will be stuck with less-than-stellar committee assignments. Also, the delay did lasting damage to Franken's seniority. Had he been sworn in on time, he would have outranked several fellow Senate Democrats, which could become important one or two terms down the road."

MN SEN II: The Meaning Of 60

Several liberal bloggers are arguing that Senate Dems no longer have any excuses for not passing legislation:

• Daily Kos' Moulitsas: "Psst, Harry? You've got 60 Dems. No more excuses."
• Atrios: "It's over. And a new game begins -- which Dems vote against cloture."
• BooMan: "In order for Al Franken's mere presence in the Senate to make a difference, two things need to happen. First, the Democrats will need to get both Robert Byrd and Teddy Kennedy to show up to cast a vote for cloture. That is not an easy thing to do, given their health issues. Second, the Democrats have to remain totally united. If they can do both those things, they can pass anything they want on any terms they want. [...] In reality, Franken doesn't make much difference. The real difference is that with Franken in the Senate, the Dems have no ready-made excuses for failing to pass their agenda."

Conservative blogger Carol Platt Liebau agrees with her liberal counterparts that Dems no longer have any excuses for not passing Obama's agenda: "The Democrats now have no excuse, whatsoever, for not making good on their campaign promises. They now officially have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and a solid majority in the House."

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum is somewhat pessimistic about the implications of having a 60-seat majority in the Senate: "The corruption of the filibuster into a routine requirement for 60 votes in the Senate (an arguably unconstitutional evolution, IMHO) combined with the continuing presence of half a dozen non-liberals in the Democratic caucus combined with an almost iron self-discipline within the Republican caucus -- well, all that combined means that liberals now have the illusion of control of Congress but not the reality. In a way, it's almost the worst of all possible worlds. Dem vs. Dem is now practically the only narrative that anyone will pay attention to, and since unanimous agreement is the only way for that narrative to play out well, this means it's almost always going to play out badly."

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen agrees: "[W]hile this is an impressive milestone for the Democratic Party, it's hardly a breakthrough that will produce problem-free governing. [...] For all the emphasis Republicans put on party loyalty and discipline, the 60-seat Democratic caucus includes Ben Nelson. And Joe Lieberman. And [IN Sen.] Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, [AR Sen.] Blanche Lincoln and their merry band of Blue Dogs. And two ailing and elderly legends whose health problems makes attendance unlikely anytime soon."

MN SEN III: The Right's Worst Nightmare

Conservative bloggers absolutely despise Franken:

• Glenn Reynolds: "Caligula sent a horse to the Senate. Minnesota is just sending part of the horse."
• Michelle Malkin: It's official. The Senate gets another buffoon. Don't worry, Al. Bozo the VP Joe Biden's shoes won't be that hard for you to fill."
• Liebau: "Please, please NRSC and everyone else -- train your cameras on Senator Franken. I'll bet anyone that he's going to embarrass both himself and his state."
• AmSpec Blog's Matthew Vadum: "[F]or conservatives, it hardly needs to be pointed out that this Frankenstein is a fundamentally unserious and untested figure worthy of ridicule. After being isolated in the echo chamber of the entertainment-media-academia complex where he got nothing but praise for decades, Franken is quite unsuited for the world outside. He cannot tolerate criticism and characteristically responds to it with over-the-top vitriolic attacks. He is the living embodiment of all the horrible things that conservatives fairly or unfairly impute to DailyKos bloggers. A professional comedian originally, Al Franken remains a joke."

Several conservative bloggers think Coleman should have been declared the winner of the election:

• Vadum: "[A]s a senator Al Franken is not legitimate. The election was stolen at the precinct level, during the recount, and during the post-election litigation. Never forget the role that ACORN played in this."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "We are left with the realization that every Republican in a statewide race here in Minnesota starts a few thousand votes in the hole, due to the disparate standards for judging absentee ballots used in Republican-leaning versus Democratic-leaning counties. Of course, that understates the case: the Republican starts out farther behind than that, due to illegal votes that cannot be prevented because of the Democratic Party's blocking of a photo ID requirement. We have no real idea of the magnitude of this disadvantage. I have little doubt that Coleman received more legal, properly cast votes than Franken. [...] The moral of the story, I guess, is that Republican counties should loosen their absentee ballot standards; that is to say, quit following the law."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Word "Mistress"

TAPPED's Dana Goldstein thinks people should stop using the word "mistress" when referring to Sanford's lover:

"Whether it's the John Edwards saga or the Mark Sanford story, it seems a lot of folks are throwing around the word 'mistress' these days. But isn't the term hopelessly old-fashioned -- and just a little bit demeaning to the women involved? For me it fails the basic sniff test for sexism: There is no equivalent term to describe a married woman's male lover.

This is totally unscientific, but I agree with Wikipedia's description of the word: 'there is the implication that a mistress may be "kept" -- i.e., that the man is paying for some of the woman's living expenses, or provides her with an allowance.' And while this may have been true in the case of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter, it's certainly not the case for Mark Sanford's lover, Maria Belen Chapur, a former journalist who lives with her two children in a luxurious Buenos Aires apartment building. A divorcee, Belen Chapur and Sanford met first met on a trip to Uruguay, and subsequently spent time together in New York City and the Hamptons.

Then there's that other, more contemporary use of the term 'mistress' -- as a synonym for 'dominatrix,' as in S&M play. But I don't think that's what any headline writer was thinking when they chose the term!"

LEST WE FORGET: Everything You Ever Needed To Know About Ice Fishing

From Overheard in the Office:

Russian coworker: Ice fishing isn't about fishing. It's about drinking vodka.