3/4: Oh, It's On Now!

Liberal bloggers are pleased that Pres. Obama demanded an "up-or-down vote" for health care reform in his speech yesterday. The netroots perceive Obama's remarks as a signal that he supports their favored strategy of having Senate Dems amend their bill through reconciliation so that a majority of House Dems can vote for it. Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, are furious. They're accusing Obama of advocating "the nuclear option" and are equating it to the 2005 effort by Senate GOPers to eliminate the use of filibusters to block judicial nominees. Righty bloggers are also warning cong. Dems that the effort to pass health care reform is "a kamikaze mission" that will compel them "to take suicide votes". They're trying to drive home their point by calling House Dems in vulnerable districts and telling them "that their hopes of re-election depend upon continuing to stand against the government takeover of American health care."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (McCormack, Malkin, Allahpundit, Jessup, Ziganto, Reynolds) are accusing Obama of bribing Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) to vote for the Senate health care bill by nominating his brother to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. However, one righty blogger -- John Hinderaker -- thinks Matheson's nomination was justified.
• Liberal bloggers (Drum, Klein, Benen) are criticizing Senate GOPers for targeting Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin, considering that Frumin "was elevated to the post by Republican leadership in 2001."
• Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas continues his assault on Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR).
• Liberal bloggers (Morrill, Fernholz) are pleased that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) is temporarily stepping down as Chair of the House Ways And Means Cmte due to an ongoing ethics investigation. Lefty bloggers (Bowers, Dayen) are also pleased that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) picked Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) to replace Rangel, although conservative blogger Brian Faughnan thinks Stark is a "racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobe."
• Conservative bloggers (Jessup, Lane, Rubin, Allahpundit) are buzzing about allegations that Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) -- who just announced his decision not to seek reelection -- "made unwanted advances toward a junior male staffer." Meanwhile, liberal blogger David Dayen slams Politico for its reporting, accusing the news organization of "besmirching the good name of a guy who had his third cancer recurrence scare in December."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Obama Goes Nuclear?

Conservative bloggers are accusing Obama of advocating "the nuclear option" by implicitly expressing his support for reconciliation:

• RedState's Brian Darling: "President Obama is advocating the use of the budget reconciliation process to pass ObamaCare through the House and Senate. This procedure also referred to as the ObamaCare Nuclear Option and the Health Care Nuclear Option because the liberals are using this procedure as a means to get around the filibuster in the Senate. This same President Obama who opposed the Nuclear Option in 2005 as a back bench Senator."
• Michelle Malkin: "It's official. After months of threatening to push the button on the so-called nuclear option, reconciliation -- the parliamentary maneuver that [Senate Maj. Leader] Harry Reid said 'nobody' is talking about and that President Obama said Americans didn't care about last week -- is a go."
• Dan Riehl: "That this inexperienced travesty of a chief executive, Obama, more a byproduct of timing and media collaboration, than his own worth, or accomplishment, is personally advocating for the so-called nuclear option is the final straw. [...] This neophyte, this joke we have in the White House has absolutely no idea of the force and the rage he is about to unleash on him and his entire political party. If there are not enough responsible adults left within his party to rein in this accidental, affirmative action jerk, this self-styled, extremely flawed little man, then his party is worthless to America. It deserves to be marginalized electorally and, ultimately, utterly destroyed, before being relegated to the dung heap of history with the rest of the marxist, socialist clowns Americans have dispatched before."

Righty bloggers are also arguing that cong. Dems will destroy their reelection prospects by passing health care reform:

• The American Spectator's Philip Klein: "The fate of the health care legislation, at this point, hinges on whether Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi can convince enough Democratic members of the House to take suicide votes."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "[This is] a kamikaze mission...ordered by yet another prominent Democrat whose own ass conveniently isn't on the line in November. Amazing how bold he and Pelosi are in asking centrists to ignore their constituents and volunteer for an operation they themselves don't have to take part in. Chickenhawks!"
• NRO's Kristen Soltis: "The best thing the Democrats could do at this point is take the Republicans' advice and hit the reset button. These bills are so toxic and so loaded down with nonsense that the American people will be outraged if they pass. Why not start over, bring Republicans on board for commonsense items like tort reform, and come out with a political victory and some change to the system? Democrats have proven that they are their own worst enemies these last few months. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have a massive task in front of them and are hoping that this display of strength from the White House will help get their members in line to take a tough, likely disastrous vote. The real question is whether or not enough Democrats have it in them to stand up and say no."

Not surprisingly, liberal bloggers (Cole, Waldman, BooMan, Klein) are defending the use of reconciliation. Meanwhile, Open Left's Chris Bowers is trying to count the votes for health care reform in the House.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Future Of The Public Option

Jonathan Bernstein:

"[LG] Bill Halter is probably not going to be the next Senator from Arkansas. He'd have to knock off an incumbent (Blanche Lincoln), which would be I think a fairly surprising upset, and then he'd still be a longshot in the general election -- Arkansas isn't an especially friendly place for Democrats these days. That said, by endorsing the public option he's providing useful evidence that a future Democratic Congress is very likely to add a public option to health care reform, or at least they will if the current Democratic Congress manages to enact health care reform this year.

In fact, I expect virtually every Democrat in contested primaries during this and (if still not enacted) the next campaign cycle to support the public option, at least in any district in which Democrats have a chance to win. The main exceptions will be incumbents such as Lincoln who already voted against it...and I won't be shocked if she switches. In a Democratic primary, I don't see any potential downside. Liberals love it, and for better or worse Democrats don't believe that it will be a general election liability.

The other part of this is that the public option should be eligible for a reconciliation bill, so it won't take sixty Democrats to get it done. So for all you public option fans out there: it ain't gonna happen this year, but if the Democrats hold Congress there's a good chance that it will be law by the time the exchanges are up and working. Assuming, of course, that the bill passes."

LEST WE FORGET: For The Rock Fans Out There

McSweeney's contributor Selena Coppock makes a list of "Philosophical Queries of Academia That Prompted Classic Songs By Hair Bands":

• To endure the inherent emptiness of the human experience, does one need anything more than a good time?
• Supposing there is an afterlife that will follow this present period of moral ambiguity, is heaven especially far away?
• If Nietzsche is correct and God is dead, then is there any sort of master of puppets pulling the strings?
• To escape the self-deception of bad faith, must one step back and ever stop believing?
• Is there a negative (yin) side to every seemingly good (yang) thing? To use an example from flora, does every rose have a thorn?
• Utilizing Descartes theories of existence (that whatever one perceives clearly and distinctly is true), does there exist a person who could, theoretically, ever take me high enough?
• Is life such agony and constant dread that one should kill oneself, or should one simply continue to take it?