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."