What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• While acknowledging the late Rep. Jack Murtha's (D-PA) flaws, liberal bloggers (digby, Willis, McCarter, Benen) are praising him for speaking out against the Iraq War. Jonathan Zasloff worries that Dems have lost another vote for health care reform, although Chris Bowers suspects that "[Murtha's] vote was probably already lost anyway." Conservative bloggers (Klein, Allahpundit, Hinderaker) also believe that Murtha's death will make it harder for House Dems to pass health care reform.
• Liberal bloggers (Whitney, Benen, McCarter, Sudbay) are angry that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is joining Senate GOPers in opposing the confirmation of Obama's nominee for NLRB chair, Craig Becker. One lefty blogger is wondering if Nelson plans to switch parties in '12. Conservative bloggers are delighted by Nelson's decision, as they think that Becker's nomination is now "defeated" or "all but dead". Michelle Malkin believes that conservative pressure on Nelson is "working."
• Although Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has released his controversial "blanket hold" on 70 Obama nominees, liberal bloggers (Lewison, Wheeler, Benen) are still criticizing him for blocking three Air Force nominees.
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Greenwald, Chris, Benen) are buzzing about yesterday's New York Times article detailing how the financial industry is sending "a message to Democrats" by donating money to the GOP.

OBAMA: Another Summit?

Most liberal bloggers are skeptical of Obama's proposal to host a televised, bipartisan health care summit:

• MyDD's Lemos: "I personally prefer the combative Obama as opposed to the accommodating one so I am not sure what to make of this proposal. It seems that it runs the risk of endlessly extending an already tortuous process."
• Nyhan: "Obama is raising expectations for genuine bipartisanship, but it's not going to happen -- the odds of important policy changes coming out of the meeting are virtually nil. If House Democrats then go ahead and pass the Senate bill plus a reconciliation package on a party-line vote, the press will again surely note the contrast between Obama's rhetoric and the realities of legislating in a highly partisan Congress. Is this stunt really worth a delay of more than two weeks?"
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "Perhaps this nothing more than an elaborate set-up to expose the depth of Republican obstructionism and, as Greg Sargent speculates lay the groundwork for passing the bill through reconciliation by providing them cover. But a more straightforward, and quicker, path would certainly be providing the leadership the Senate seems to be craving and help push the reconciliation fix through."
• TAPPED's Tim Fernholz: "We've had these summits before (for health care, above, and for energy, and for the jobs bill as recently as December), and they haven't moved the debate. [...] What might change that narrative would be if Democrats demonstrated their belief in the quality of their proposals by passing them. Show, don't tell, Dems."
• The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Is [Obama] seriously interested in changing the bill to include more Republican ideas? Seriously? If not then what is he doing? Trying to show the American people how broad-minded he is? I like how Obama has come out over the past week. But I can't escape the feeling that there is no real plan."

That said, a few liberal bloggers like Obama's idea:

• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "The Republicans don't want compromise. They want to destroy the President and the Democratic Party, and don't mind at all destroying the country in the process -- as they've already destroyed the State of California. That's the brilliance behind Obama's challenge to a televised negotiating session. Of course the Republicans aren't going to compromise, but he's going to make them refuse to compromise in public. As President, he has the power to force things onto the agenda, and he's going to use it."
• TAPPED's Paul Waldman: "Obama has put Republicans in a bit of a bind: If they refuse his invitation, they confirm that they're just 'the party of no.' If they accept, on the other hand, they'll probably end up being taken to school by the president the way they were when he came to the House Republicans' meeting a couple of weeks ago. [...] At the end of it, Democrats can say, 'All right -- you've had your say, we've listened to your ideas, such as they are, and now it's time to move forward with the bill.' Perhaps more important than anything, the meeting could give tremulous congressional Democrats the shove they need to finally pass the damn thing."

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers are urging cong. GOPers not to negotiate with Obama:

• Erickson: "The GOP is often referred to as the stupid party. Let's pray they aren't stupid enough to sit down with a President who has for six months dismissed them as having no ideas. Barack Obama says he wants a bipartisan approach to health care now. Well, there is bipartisan support for scrapping the current proposals and starting over. Unless Barack Obama says they should scrap the present plans and start over, the GOP should not entertain his invitation to use a gaggle of Republicans to rehabilitate our socialist President."
• Townhall's Meredith Jessup: "With the swell in public opposition against Obama's health care proposals, the GOP would be remiss to accept the Dems' offer to get involved in helping to pass them. At the most basic level, the GOP needs to make clear the public opposes these measures because they do not want the government involved in making health care decisions. Period. It would be a tragic mistake for moderate Republicans to jump from the conservative ship in an attempt to 'improve' Obama's proposals. There should be no attempts to improve a toxic proposal. [House Min. Leader John] Boehner and [House Min. Whip Eric] Cantor were absolutely correct in dismissing the White House's hallow offer and continue demanding any health care proposal start from scratch."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Snowmageddon

NRO's Jonah Goldberg:

"So over the weekend I got a lot of e-mail from readers mocking me and D.C. residents generally for making a big deal out of 'a little snow', a 'light dusting' and other such terms (volunteered by residents of Utah, Michigan, and across New England). I read the e-mail with great interest -- after my electricity was restored. Now I'm the first to acknowledge that D.C. goes overboard in response to even rumors of snow. And as the proud husband of a native Alaskan (and as a native New Yorker myself), I would never pretend that D.C. is at the tip of the spear in man's eternal war with snow. But let's get some perspective here. Bostonians, for instance, often talk of the Great Blizzard of 1978. Well, that light dusting, dumped 27.1 inches on Beantown. D.C. got over 30 inches.

I went to two supermarkets yesterday. The produce sections in 1982 Kiev were veritable cornucopias by comparison. The trucks haven't been able to make it in to restock the stores. Still, I lucked out. I found a package of brats, so I'm the richest man I know.

Anyway, now we're getting ready for another 10–20 inches in the D.C. area. I haven't checked the stats, but I'd guess we'll have gotten in one week more snow than we've received in the last five winters combined. Yes, you upper peninsula pioneers are made of hardier stock. But come on."

LEST WE FORGET: Family Concerned After Aging TV Show Has Another Terrible Episode

From The Onion:

"ROANOKE, VA -- The Stashwick family of Roanoke was 'alarmed and saddened' to see a beloved-but-aging TV program suffer yet another terrible episode Tuesday night. 'It's devastating to watch it deteriorate like this,' said wife and mother Janice Stashwick, shaking her head at the gradual breakdown of the show, which she claimed used to be 'so smart' and 'with it.' 'Not only does it barely make any sense these days, but most of the time it just tells the same old story over and over again. This has been a really bad year.' Family patriarch and longtime viewer Arnold Stashwick agreed, saying that it's painful to watch the show fall apart like this, and that if it were up to him he would just pull the plug on it."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Kleiman, desmoinesdem, Benen) continue to criticize Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for placing a "blanket hold" on 70+ nominations that Pres. Obama sent to the Senate. Josh Marshall urges Dems to use Shelby's actions against the GOP: "The headline writes itself: Republicans shut down senate so Shelby can get his earmarks."
• Ezra Klein is pleased that Obama invited cong. GOPers to a health care reform summit, but Aravosis complains that Obama is "raising liberal hopes one day, then smashing them the next, over and over again." Meanwhile, conservative blogger Daniel Foster calls the proposed summit "just another whistle-stop on the permanent campaign."
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Jessup, Lane) are mocking IL Dems after IL LG candidate Scott Lee Cohen (D) dropped out of the race following revelations that he had been accused of domestic violence.

PALIN: This Should Put An End To The Teleprompter Jokes

Liberal bloggers are ridiculing Palin for writing talking points on her palm to use during her Q&A session:

• AMERICAblog's Aravosis: "[S]he couldn't remember 3 talking points without writing it on her palm like some kid? What a blithering idiot. Hey Sarah, when Osama comes to blow up a few planes, you don't have time to check your palm."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "The most obvious question is: why would anyone need to write this stuff down? It's not like she's trying to remember the quadratic equation or anything. For someone who swims in the seas that Palin swims in, this is about the equivalent of writing down a note to remember your birthday."
• Oliver Willis: "Yeah, the teleprompter stuff was already dumb (I'd like to see some conservative pols handle an unscripted session like Obama did with the House GOP), but after seeing dear Sarah read off her hand at the teabag convention, that talking point should die. It should be noted that in this speech Palin referred to President Obama as a 'guy with a teleprompter'. Irony."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "[F]or Sarah Palin anything beyond reciting talking points is an near impossibility. It's obvious that she can't think on her feet. Who among us couldn't name three, five or even ten legislative priorities without batting an eyelash? [...] I hate to be so blunt and publicly disparage an individual but she is little more than a talking chimpanzee incapable of critical thinking who wouldn't make it out of the Republican primary which is frankly a pity because if she were to win the Republican nomination it would doom the GOP to the worst electoral landslide in history."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "First, if Palin is going mock the president for using a teleprompter while giving speeches, it's probably not a good idea to act like an unprepared 14-year-old, scribbling answers to easy questions on her hand. It doesn't exactly scream 'presidential material.' Second, that she wrote notes at all suggests Palin was aware of the questions in advance. She obviously couldn't prepare answers unless she knew what she'd be asked. If so, think about what that tells us about her readiness -- Sarah Palin was afraid questions from Tea Party activists might be too difficult. I realize her fans tend to be pretty far gone, but reasonable people should agree that this is at least a little scary."

Balloon Juice's DougJ doesn't see what all the fuss is about: "I guess I don't see this as all that bad, not compared to 'I read all of them' or O'Biden or thinking Africa was a country, let alone resigning mid-term, misusing the office of the governor to pursue a vendetta against Todd Palin's sister's estranged husband, etc."

Conservative blogger Stephen Spruiell pushes back: "[T]he prompter jokes took off because they reinforce the substantive argument that Obama is in over his head, because they indicate that he can't perform the the presidency's basic public-speaking duties without a major safety net. I'm not sure what substantive argument Palin's hand-notes are supposed to underline, and I suspect it's not an argument so much as an attitude. The attitude would be that writing on your hand is dumb and low-class. On the left, where this opinion of Palin already prevails, anything which reinforces it will be picked up and cheerfully passed around. And, to the extent that anyone not on the left notices this giddy snobbery, it will play to Palin's strengths."

Meanwhile, other righty bloggers (Erickson, Hinderaker, Bandes) are discussing the Tea Party convention in its entirety.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Rahm Emmanuel and the Iron Law of Euphemism

The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman:

"What the right wing loves to mock as 'politically correct speech' is simply the application of the principle that groups of people, especially those whose social status is marginal, should not be referred to by demeaning names. Sarah Palin, for example, the mother of a developmentally disabled child, objects to the use of 'retarded' as an insult. (At least, she objects to it when [WH CoS] Rahm Emmanuel does it.) And she's right to do so. [...] The entirely praiseworthy effort to be polite is not without its ironies, all relating to what J.K. Galbraith called the Iron Law of Euphemism. Even a neutral-sounding label will soon become pejorative if attached to an unpleasant reality or a despised group. Recall that the [Herbert] Hoover Administration introduced 'temporary depression of economic activity' as a less-scary substitute for 'crash' or 'panic.'

In the case of developmental disability, the clinical terms 'idiot,' 'moron,' and 'cretin' were introduced in the 19th Century to replace the demeaning ordinary-language 'natural fool' or 'dummy' (which latter served also to label those whose hearing impairment made it hard for them to learn to speak). Later, physicians who didn't want to tell parents that their children were 'idiots' started to tell them that those children were 'slow learners,' or, more formally, 'educationally retarded.' It took some years for 'RE-tard' to gather its insulting potency. If Rahmbo had called an idea 'idiotic' or 'moronic,' (or, for that matter, 'lame' or 'crazy') no one would have thought twice about it.

As my teacher Mark Moore likes to say, a good democratic citizen should be reluctant to give offense and slow to take offense."

LEST WE FORGET: Overachieving Beers

McSweeney's contributor Jimmy Chen:

• Stellar Artois
• Rad Stripe
• Guinness Extra Credit
• Samuel A+dams
• Dos Degrees MDPhD
• India Pale Yale
• Budwiser

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, streiff, Bandes) continue to ridicule CA SEN candidate Carly Fiorina's (R) new web ad, which portrays her rival Tom Campbell (R) as a demonic sheep with glowing red eyes. However, Fiorina's camp tells NRO: "We produced [the ad] with the intent of breaking through the clutter, but it has exceeded our expectations."
• RedState editor Erick Erickson is blasting GA Insurance Commis. John Oxendine (R), declaring that Oxendine "must be defeated" in the GA GOV GOP primary.
• Liberal bloggers (Marshall, Lewison, Willis) continue to urge House Dems to use Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget proposal against House GOPers, as they consider his ideas "radical." Lefty bloggers (Lewison, Benen, Aravosis) are also mocking House Min. Leader John Boehner (R-OH) for distancing the GOP leadership from Ryan's proposal.
• Liberal bloggers (Lemos, Marshall) are criticizing Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for placing a "blanket hold" on 70+ nominations that Pres. Obama sent to the Senate. Other lefty bloggers (McCarter, Benen) are calling on Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to follow through on his threat to use recess appointments to install Obama's nominees.
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Benen, Morrill, Aravosis) are promoting yesterday's Wall Street Journal article detailing how "Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street." Tim Fernholz is frustrated that Dems "can't seem to get any political points off of this."

IL LG: Epic Fail, Dems!

Conservative bloggers are delighted that IL Dems nominated a candidate who has been accused of domestic violence:

• Townhall's Meredith Jessup: "Wow... This guy is just dripping with class. Way to go, Illinois Democrats."
• RedState's Moe Lane: "The Illinois elections are turning nicely symmetrical. Their side has a candidate who knifes women. Our side has a candidate who takes down people who knife women. Adam Kinzinger for IL-11. And Jason Plummer for Lt. Governor. Because neither of them cut women."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Democrats were going to have a tough year anyway, even in Illinois, thanks to the national unpopularity of the Democratic agenda and the debacle of the [ex-Gov.] Rod Blagojevich corruption scandal. His successor, Pat Quinn, is already unpopular in Illinois, and this won't improve matters. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that one of Cohen's rivals for the nomination warned both Quinn and his opponent Dan Hynes about Cohen's past, and neither of them took any action to push Cohen back to the sidelines. Now Democrats have a problem in both races that could undermine the entire ticket in November no matter who gets the Democratic nomination for governor."
• RedState's Richardson: "[T]he extent to which Cohen's scandal will be a drag on Quinn's candidacy cannot be overstated, and is amplified by near-constant reminders from the ILGOP of Blogojevich's expulsion from office."

On the left side of the blogosphere, Daily Kos' Barbara Morrill calls the news "unbelievable."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why Tommy Thompson's Probably Not Running For Senate

NRO's Jim Geraghty:

"If former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson was thinking seriously about running for Senate against Russ Feingold, I don't think he would be signing on as an adviser to a hedge fund. A reader asked about Thompson the other day and my sense is, if you're a big-name Republican who hasn't signed on for a race yet, you're probably not going to jump in. It's not like the signs of a Republican wave appeared overnight. If a big-name Republican is thinking and thinking and thinking some more about running, it suggests he or she doesn't really want to run -- Thompson, [ex-NYC Mayor Rudy] Giuliani, [ex-NY Gov. George] Pataki, etc. Obviously, there are exceptions, but if a guy doesn't want to run, there's not much point in spending a lot of time and energy trying to persuade him to make a bid that his heart just isn't in..."

LEST WE FORGET: Toyota Says Cup Holders Still Working Great

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"TOKYO (The Borowitz Report) -- Embattled automaker Toyota today said that despite problems with accelerators and brakes, the cup holders on its most popular car models were 'perfectly safe to use.'

'Feel free to enjoy the beverage of your choice and know that you can rest it in one of our cup holders with confidence,' said Tokyo spokesman Hiroshi Kyosuke. 'Our cup holders are world-class.'

But Mr. Kyosuke's upbeat comments about Toyota's cup holders were undercut somewhat later in the day by congressional testimony from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

'You should only feel safe to use your cup holder if your Toyota is parked in your driveway,' Mr. LaHood said. 'At 80 miles per hour, the cup holder becomes a rocket launcher.'"

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Allahpundit, Yousefzadeh, Driscoll) and liberal bloggers (McIntyre, Bowers, Lemos, Klein) are ridiculing CA SEN candidate Carly Fiorina's (R) new web ad, which portrays her rival Tom Campbell (R) as a demonic sheep with glowing red eyes.
• Liberal bloggers (Baumann, Dayen) are criticizing Senate Banking Cmte Chair Chris Dodd (D-CT) for suggesting that Obama's proposed banking regulations are too ambitious. digby suspects that Dodd has ulterior motives: "One hates to be cynical about this, but Dodd is leaving. And he's going to need a job."
• Liberal bloggers (Zasloff, Whitney) are chastising the Senate Dem leadership for not doing more to confirm Obama's nominee for NLRB chair, Craig Becker. Meanwhile, conservative blogger Philip Klein is pleased that Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) will soon be seated so that he can help block Becker's nomination.
• Ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) explains to RedState readers why he is challenging Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

IN SEN: Not Everyone Is Crazy For Coats

While some conservative bloggers are excited that Coats is thinking about challenging Bayh, Erickson isn't enthusiastic about Coats' candidacy: "If the best the Republican Party of Indiana can do is retread old horses who put themselves out to the pasture to begin with, we're screwed. It was, after all, Dan Coats who left the Senate and Evan Bayh who won his seat. Had Coats stayed, this wouldn't have happened. The last image most conservatives have of Dan Coats is him standing next to Harriet Myers swearing she was one of us. Don't get me wrong -- he's a good guy. But if we are going to run people against Evan Bayh, how about we not run the guy who gave up his seat to Bayh in the first place? Dan Coats, a good man and a good former Senator, is a recruiting failure by the GOP. I'd gladly support Coats as the nominee. But if the best we can do is pull old politicians out of the pasture, we're in trouble."

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers may not be fans of Bayh, but they've already begun attacking Coats:

• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "So this is a guy who's involved with 'The Family,' helped pick [ex-AK Gov.] Sarah Palin [as GOP VP candidate], lobbied against health care, and tried to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court. In other words, he's emblematic of Republican mediocrity."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I think it's fair to say Coats faces an uphill climb, and not just because Bayh is a relatively popular incumbent with a whole lot of money in the campaign coffers. First, Coats, after returning from Germany, became a corporate lobbyist in D.C., representing, among other clients, Bank of America. Given that neither banks nor lobbyists are held in especially high regard right now, Coats represents a tough-sell to Hoosiers. Second, Coats represented Indiana in Congress for many years, but he doesn't live or own a home in the state. He's not even registered to vote in Indiana, and at present, couldn't even vote for himself. In fact, Coats lives inside the beltway -- as many corporate lobbyists do -- and has voted in Virginia since 2000. [...] Let's also not forget that Coats' congressional career wasn't exactly sterling. He is perhaps best known for criticizing President [Bill] Clinton for his efforts to kill Osama bin Laden in 1998."

IL SEN: Kirk Up By 12?

Several bloggers are discussing Rep. Mark Kirk's (R-IL) internal poll showing him leading Treas. Alexi Giannoulias (D) 47-35%:

• Liberal blogger Chris Bowers: "Now, because this is an internal poll, and was conducted on only one night, many people will be prone to doubt it. However, this is the first poll to be released since the banking scandal around Giannoulias broke, making it entirely possible that the campaign has changed dramtically. Further, Charles Franklin has previous noted that internal polls favor the candidate who purchased them by an average of 5%. Even with that deviation in mind, it would not be surprising in the slightest that Giannoulias has taken a huge hit with the general voting population as a result of the scandal. While we should wait for more polls to draw any conclusions, this seems to suggest the worst fears of those who thought Giannoulias became a severely damaged candidate from the banking scandal were warranted. Now, Illinois is up from grabs, threatening to become a second Massachusetts."
• Conservative blogger Allahpundit: "I'm leery of the fact that the poll finds a 49/42 spread on the question of whom the respondents voted for in 2008; the actual spread between Obama and [John] McCain was 25 points, not seven. But (a) some of the respondents are probably feeling buyer's remorse over Captain Hopenchange and lying about their actual vote, (b) Democratic turnout is much heavier when Obama's at the top of the ticket than when his loser cronies have to run on their own (see, e.g., Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts), (c) Peter Fitzgerald, Obama's predecessor, was a Republican so it's by no means impossible to see a seat in Illinois go red, and of course (d) barring an astounding economic turnaround, the climate will be conservative in November anyway. [...] So ... yeah, this is doable. Doable by 12 points? Eh. By one point? Why not?"

Meanwhile, RedState's Leon H. Wolf addresses Kirk's conservative critics: "There are a couple of points to be made about this race and how it turned out. First, Kirk's win was not the result of some nefarious party or NRSC conspiracy to suppress conservative candidates. Mark Kirk simply was the best representative for GOP primary voters in Illinois, in the considered opinion of those voters. [...] Second, although Kirk can cast some pretty terrible votes, my impression of him is that he has a pretty good set of instincts and is far more loyal to the party than many current sitting GOP Senators. I think -- although I am not sure -- that a pretty significant part of his less-than-perfect voting pattern is due to electioneering. I believe that, at least 4 years out of 6, Mark Kirk will be a pretty good Senator. If not good, far better than many people are expecting, at least, especially for someone who will occupy a seat in Illinois. Giannoulias, on the other hand, is a crook, and a liberal one at that, and moreover is a close and longstanding ally of both Obama and [ex-Gov. Rod] Blagojevich. He will be a horrible, graft-grabbing Senator 6 years out of every 6 he is in office. Even though I can't personally support him, it's facially obvious to me that Kirk winning would be the clear best result in this race, and anyone who tries to tell you there's 'no difference' between Kirk and Giannoulias needs a reality check."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In Defense Of GOP Obstructionism

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait:

"...First, a great deal of Republican opposition stems from simple ideological disagreement. Some of that ideological disagreement is couched in disingenuous language -- i.e., Republicans claim to favor covering the uninsured but oppose any plausible mechanism to achieve it -- but it is ideological disagreement at root. You can't fault a party for obstructing ideas they disagree with. You can fault the ideology that causes the party to disagree, but not the obstructionism that is the natural product of that disagreement. [...] Second, Republicans have opposed some policies they previously favored and, indeed, crusaded for, such as a national debt commission. It's rather galling, and the reply by liberals and even some non-liberals (see this Fred Hiatt op-ed) has been indignant. But it's important to keep in mind the larger point, which is that the system rewards such behavior. If you're in the minority, your surest path to regaining power is for the majority to fail. As long as that's the case, we won't be able to count on some code of chivalry forcing the minority party to act against its interests.

Ezra Klein has put this in the most succinct way: 'The government can function if the minority party has either the incentive to make the majority fail or the power to make the majority fail. It cannot function if it has both.' Pondering the motives of the minority is, ultimately, a distraction."

LEST WE FORGET: And You Thought Your Day Was Bad...

From FMyLife.com:

• Today, my colleague rushed off to the hospital for the birth of his first son. Having met his wife at the Christmas party a couple of years ago, I called to congratulate her. Shame I didn't realize it was his mistress having the baby. Guess who broke the news to the wife? FML.
• Today, I was taking the final exam for one of my classes. The teacher came over to my desk, grabbed my test and ripped it in half. Then he grabbed my hand and read the note I had written on it to remind myself to pay rent. FML.
• Today, whilst at my boyfriend's family get together, his cousin got really drunk and decided to ask my boyfriend when he was planning on proposing to me, loud enough for everyone to hear. An awkward silence was followed by my boyfriend's mother, who clearly said "hopefully never." FML.
• Today, a milkbone commerical came on TV. At the end of the commercial, they whistle and throw a milkbone across the screen, prompting my 100 lb German Shepherd to leap off the couch and pummel my brand new plasma screen TV. FML.
• Today, both of my grandparents died in a car accident. My Mom and Dad thought it would make me feel better to know they were not my real grandparents, because I'm adopted. FML.
• Today, while stepping out of the shower, I slipped and cut my head. I went to the hospital, got 8 stitches and was tested for head trauma. After hours of ignoring my calls and texts, my girlfriend finally responded, very angrily. Why? Today is her birthday, and I "selfishly made it about me." FML.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Rubin, Johnson, Hewitt, Geraghty) are excited that ex-Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) will challenge Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN).
• Liberal bloggers (Ackerman, Benen, Cole) are pleased that Def. Sec. Robert Gates and JCS Chair Mike Mullen called for a repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that prohibits gays from serving in the military. However, some lefty bloggers (Sudbay, Drum, Kleiman, desmoinesdem) are disappointed that Gates and Mullen want to review the policy -- which could take up to a year -- before Congress repeals it. Other lefty bloggers (Cole, Yglesias, Aravosis, Lewison, Black) are criticizing Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for fiercely opposing the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," even though he previously said that he would support the recommendations of the military leadership.
• Liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, DougJ, Drum, Klein, Benen, Eli) are buzzing about a new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll which found that "a large portion of GOP voters think that President Obama is racist, socialist or a non-US citizen."
• Liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Aravosis, Walker) are furious that the DNC gave the NE Dem Party $500K to run an ad defending Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-NE) efforts to extract concessions for his health care reform vote. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas declares: "[DNC Chair] Tim Kaine is worthless. And for the first time ever, I'm looking forward to a primary to Ben Nelson in 2012. He'll never survive a GOP challenge, so I want it to be the Democrats who have the satisfaction of ending his career."
• Although they strongly disagree with Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) ideas, liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Klein) are praising him for putting forward a budget proposal that actually explains how it would reduce the deficit. However, one liberal blogger wants to use Ryan's proposal against House GOPers in the midterms, since it calls for privatizing Medicare and partially privatizing Social Security.

IL SEN: Lame And Lamer?

Conservative bloggers aren't thrilled that Kirk won the GOP nod, as they have concerns about his moderate voting record:

• AmSpec Blog's Brian O'Connell: "Kirk is not the type of Republican that many on the right would have liked to have run."
• Townhall's Jillian Bandes: "Kirk seems to be more a [MA Sen.-elect] Scott Brown than [NY-23 candidate] Dede Scozzafava, in terms of his ability to hold a Republican Party line while maintaining the balance needed in a liberal-leaning state -- without going over the top. My old boss, Morton Kondracke, calls Kirk one of Congress' most effective moderates, and it's undeniable that his brand works in a place like Illinois. I just wonder if it will work on a national level, in a post-tea party GOP."
• Malkin: "After pandering to enviro-nitwits and casting his vote in favor of the largest energy tax increase in American history based on shoddy science and Al Gore-led fear-morning, Rep. Kirk promised Illinois voters he wouldn't pander the same way if held higher office. He's also a squish on the Second Amendment and life issues, a supporter of the massive tobacco tax increases to pay for Obama's SCHIP expansion/Demcare Trojan Horse, and an expedient new critic of earmarks. [...] So: Kirk is Lame. His Democrat opponent Alexi Giannoulias is Lamer."

On the other hand, righty bloggers believe that Giannoulias is a very flawed candidate:

• Commentary's Rubin: "You almost wonder whether [ex-WH adviser] Karl Rove has infiltrated the Democratic Party. How else to explain how the Democrats could nominate to replace [Sen.] Roland Burris, the senator from [ex-Gov. Rod] Blagojevich, the banker for Tony Rezko? [...] The Republicans are obviously delighted to have such a target-rich opponent. I suspect this will be another seat added to the political gurus' 'leans Republican' lists."
• RedState's Moe Lane: "You know, I noticed during the run-up to the Illinois Senatorial primary that more than one Democratic activist expressed worries about a Giannoulias primary win. And why were they worried? Pretty much because of what you're about to see. Welcome to Chicago."

IL SEN II: Oh, Alexi...

Some liberal bloggers are concerned that Giannoulias has electability issues:

• Open Left's Bowers: "[I'm] very worried about Giannoulias making himself, and the party, look bad with his banking ties. He may be the more lefty than Hoffman, but I can't say I was pulling for him tonight. Ties to a banking scandal are just terrible right now."
• MyDD's Nathan Empsall: "Giannoulias was probably not the most electable choice, having won his primary by mid-single digits after initially leading by over 15 points. He will face tough questions in the general about his family's bank's ethics and his ties to developer Tony Rezko. Nevertheless, he did have the backing of most of the Illinois Congressional delegation and leads Kirk in the latest poll (PPP, 1/22-1/25) 42-34. Given the state's history and Kirk's tack to the right, I would call this race a Leans Dem more than I would a true toss-up, though it certainly isn't one to ignore."

On the other hand, AMERICAblog's John Aravosis likes Giannoulias: "I sat down with Giannoulias for an hour over the holidays (or maybe over Thanksgiving, I'm clearly getting old). I like him. He seems quite sincere. And earnest. Which is nice, and different, for a politician."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The "I've Got Mine" Generation

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias:

"One of the oddities of the current political dynamic is that the largest slice of our government's domestic spending goes to programs for old people, but old people have a marked tendency to vote for the party of tax cuts and benefit reductions. [...] Thus when you look at [TX Rep.] Jeb Hensarling's proposal for drastic cuts in Social Security benefits or [WI Rep.] Paul Ryan's plan to pair drastic Social Security cuts with drastic Medicare cuts you'll see that there's a trick -- none of it applies to anyone who's 55 or older today. The basic idea is to take the GOP old white people base and insulate them from cuts. The under 55 crowd will still have to pay the taxes to finance their benefits, but we ourselves won't get the benefits.

As you'll recall from the health reform debate, somewhat paradoxically it's the current beneficiaries of single-payer government-provided health insurance who evince the most opposition to universal health care. Basically, they've got theirs and don't care about extending the benefits of universal health care to younger people. Ryan and Hensarling are proposing to institutionalize this version of the intergenerational bargain -- culturally conservative oldsters still get paid, but the welfare state they enjoy and support will be phased out for Generations X and Y."

LEST WE FORGET: Touché.

From Overheard in New York:

Father: You don't tell me what to do. You're not the boss.
Three-year-old girl: You're not the boss, too!
Father: Then who's the boss?
Three-year-old girl: Obama's the boss!

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• After greeting last year's proposed budget with a torrent of praise, liberal bloggers had a more muted reaction to this year's budget, with Paul Krugman going so far as to call it "depressing." Not surprisingly, conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hinderaker, Carroll) are sharply criticizing it.
• Liberal bloggers (Drum, Yglesias, Black) are shocked that the Obama admin. expects the unemployment rate to be 7.9% at the end of 2012. Duncan Black writes: "My biggest hope is that they got burned with their overly optimistic projections from last year and are now making overly pessimistic ones so they can later claim 'victory.'" Conservative blogger Geraghty predicts: "If unemployment is still around 8 percent in 2012, Obama's a one-termer."
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Lane, Rubin) are excited that the VA state Senate passed measures making it illegal to require individuals to buy health insurance. Glenn Reynolds boasts: "Tea Party 1, Obama 0."
• The liberal blog Firedoglake conducted an interview with PA SEN candidate Joe Sestak (D).

FL SEN: What's Charlie Gonna Do?

Conservative bloggers think Crist will soon drop out of the GOP primary, now that two consecutive polls show him trailing Rubio:

• RedState's Erick Erickson: "Rasmussen has the political earthquake out today. Charlie Crist's team was unavailable for comment as they were in the bathroom collectively unable to contain themselves. [...] Maybe this is why the media is reporting Charlie Crist had beakfast in Miami with [VP] Joe Biden the other day. Perhaps Crist is planning on jumping ship or taking a President appointment to lead up the relief effort to Haiti."
• NRO's Geraghty: "[...Crist] does no better than Rubio in general election matchups, and he's left looking for a new justification for his candidacy, having established himself as a moderate man in a distinctly immoderate year. Choosing to run for reelection as governor would scramble the already-underway race for that office, but Sen. Bill Nelson is up for reelection in 2012, and conservatives might be a little wary of taking on a two-term Democratic senator. Crist could salvage some goodwill from conservatives if he were to withdraw now. He might look squishy and uninspiring next to Rubio, but in the eyes of Florida Republicans, he looks a lot more appealing than six more years of Nelson."

Meanwhile, liberal blogger Moulitsas continues to urge Crist to switch parties: "Everyone I talk to in Florida tells me that Crist is the ultimate political survivor, that he'll do whatever it takes to win. Well, I don't believe, and I won't believe it until he switches to the Democratic Party. Because if he wants to win his state's Senate seat, it's the only way he has a shot at it."

BooMan doesn't like Moulitsas' suggestion: "I'm somewhat mystified by Kos's decision to woo Charlie Crist over to the Democratic Party. Kos keeps insisting that Crist has no chance of winning the Republican nomination to run for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida, and suggesting that Crist switch parties. Now, I am not a huge fan of [Rep.] Kendrick Meek and I don't think he has a great chance of beating Mario Rubio in a head-to-head matchup. But he'd have some chance. And he's a Democrat. Maybe he's kind of a centrist Democrat, but this is Florida. I can live with that. [...] It seems unlikely that Crist could beat Meek or North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns in a closed primary. Why would Democrats vote for him? I know I wouldn't. And that's kind of my point. What good would Crist be as a Democrat if he were elected as one. He's got a decent environmental record for a Republican. And he's not a religious nut (see Terri Schiavo). That's the most I can say for him. Would he be better than Mario Rubio? Sure. He'd be better than most Republicans in Congress. That doesn't mean he should be invited to join the Democratic Party. I can make compromises to keep control of the Senate, but this one seems hackneyed and premature."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Corporations Already Outspend The Parties

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:

"For the first time in recent history, the lobbying, grassroots and advertising budget of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has surpassed the spending of BOTH the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee. This is significant. It means that the Great Transition has already begun. In the days following the decision in Citizens United, campaign finance experts predicted that the decision would open the floodgates of money for trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce. The influx of corporate money, according to some, would weaken the power of the political parties and candidates and lead the political parties to become less important. Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg went so far as to say that the parties would be 'threatened by extinction.' And Ginsberg supports the CU decision!

As it turns out, the surge of contributions into the U.S. Chamber has already caused its budget on lobbying, grassroots and advertising to surpass that of both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee for the first time in recent memory. According to The Center for Responsive Politics, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its national subsidiaries spent $144.5 million in 2009, far more than the RNC and more than double the expenditures by the DNC. The Chamber spent much of its money in 2009 on campaigns that worked -- it scared the Senate away from considering a version of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation, and an argument can be made that its cutting ads on health care (with money taken from some insurance companies) helped to undercut support for the legislation."

LEST WE FORGET: Vikings Stand Behind Brett Favre's Decision To Jerk Team Around For Months

From The Onion:

"EDEN PRAIRIE, MN -- Players, coaches, and front-office personnel are united in their support of Brett Favre's decision to waffle, demur, delay, beat around the bush, and generally yank them around for months on end while they wait for him to make a decision about his retirement. 'He's a living legend and our captain, so we support him if he needs to take some time to fuck with us,' said backup quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, whose future would benefit greatly from a quick decision by Favre and whose life and career are basically in limbo until the future Hall of Famer once again makes up his mind. 'We could only watch in envy as he did exactly this in Green Bay all those years, but to see him jerk around your own team... It's an honor, really.' Favre responded to questions abut retirement by confirming that he was planning to draw out the situation for months and would ultimately do whatever was most annoying for the team."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Beutler, Tim F., Dayen, Benen) are quite pessimistic about health care reform's prospects. Many lefty bloggers (Klein, Chait, digby, Black) are criticizing WH CoS Rahm Emanuel for suggesting that health care reform is no longer a top priority, but others (Krugman, Coates, Zasloff) are pointing out that Emanuel works for Obama, not the other way around.
• Conservative bloggers (Hoft, Erickson, McCain) continue to rally behind IL GOV candidate Adam Andrzejewski (R). Meanwhile, Daily Kos conducted interviews with IL SEN candidates Alexi Giannoulias (D) and David Hoffman (D). Liberal blogger Nate Silver argues that it's not clear whether Giannoulias or Hoffman is more electable.
• Liberal bloggers (bmaz, Serwer, digby) -- along with Andrew Sullivan -- are upset that an upcoming DoJ report has "clear[ed] the Bush administration lawyers who authored the 'torture' memos of professional-misconduct allegations." Conservative blogger John Hinderaker thinks the verdict is "good, I guess," but complains that "it is still an outrage that a lawyer who writes a memorandum arguing a legal position with which a subsequent administration disagrees can be threatened with disbarment."

OBAMA: A Painful Beatdown?

Liberal bloggers loved Obama's performance at the GOP House Issues Conference:

• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "For some reason, the GOP allowed the cameras to roll at their retreat during a question time session with President Obama, and he spent the next hour and a half depantsing them. Pretty funny stuff."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "It's remarkable that Republicans agreed to this. The guy at the mike always has an advantage in these kinds of forums, and in any case Obama is better than most at this kind of thing. For the most part, he's running rings around them. I don't know if this will have any long-term effect, but it's good for Obama and, regardless, a good show."
• Atrios: "I wonder who the idiot is who thought this format -- Republican idiots asking questions of Obama at a podium -- was a good idea. [We] might do well in [the] November elections after all."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "[This] It was sort of like Prime Minister's Questions and it revealed, simply put, that Barack Obama is a lot smarter and better-informed than his antagonists. A lot. He very calmly and coolly dismantled them."
• Sadly, No!'s D. Aristophanes: "I don't want to be as nutty as the MSNBC crew in their praise of Obama's expedition into shitheel territory today, but really, he did very, very well. At they very least, he put the teleprompter joke to rest forever."
• BooMan: "I can honestly say that if as many Americans watched today's Q & A with the Republicans as watched the State of the Union, our political problems would be over. If we had Question Time, we'd have a much easier time winning over public opinion and sustaining support for progressive policies. The Republicans certainly will not want to repeat this extremely painful beat-down."
• The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Headline of the day -- 'Obama goes to GOP Lion's Den -- And Mauls The Lions.' Basically. That was an athletic display -- like watching [Bernard] Hopkins dominate [Felix] Trinidad back in the day. Or [Michael] Jordan drop 63 on the Celtics. (Let's not extend that metaphor too far, though. We know how that ends.) He's an immense, immense fucking talent. Now he needs to use that talent to deliver what he promised."
• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "[W]atching the entire House Republican Conference get taken to school by a guy they've convinced themselves is just an empty suit with a TelePrompter should make you feel sorry for them."
• Balloon Juice's DougJ: "Obama really is good at this stuff. It doesn't come across as staged (like it might have with [Al] Gore or [John] Kerry) or pissy (like it might with Democrats in Congress). It comes across as patient, sane adult talking to crazy children. Which is exactly what it is."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Obama was impressive. He was on the offense and didn't back down. That's the President we need to see. He looked like a leader -- a very smart leader."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "I'd daresay this was Barack Obama's finest hour yet. Let's hope that there is more of this to come."

An exception was digby, who didn't think Obama helped himself with his performance: "I remain concerned that the message is not as clear to the rest of the country as his supporters think it was. ('Don't mess with Obama.') I watched [Bill] Clinton do this type of thing over and over again and it didn't change the dynamic at all. He was personally successful, but liberal ideology was degraded every time he conceded something like 'I think we raised taxes too much' or 'the era of big government is over.' People loved his ability to out talk his accusers (in his case it was a real high wire act) but the agenda suffered greatly from his ceaseless efforts to cajole a psychotically hostile opposition into working with him. It resulted in passage of center right policies and his own impeachment."

OBAMA II: Credit Where Credit's Due

Several conservative bloggers agreed with their liberal counterparts that Obama's performance was impressive:

• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "[This] was, as just about everyone agrees, an impressive performance by Obama, a performance that I think confirms my view that Obama remains very much a force to be reckoned with. Conservatives who think his extraordinary communications skills vanished with the end of the presidential campaign and that he may now be a spent force are deluding themselves, in my opinion."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Like everyone else, I think this event did Obama a great deal of good; it was the antidote to everything that was insufferable about the State of the Union -- the uninterrupted platitudes, the dishonest framing, the aversion to acknowledging alternative views, the endless droning, etc."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "The GOP figured it'd give them a platform to prove that they actually do have policy ideas of their own, but I think the format ended up benefiting Obama more than them. He was on camera the whole time; he did most of the talking; he got to show that he's perfectly capable of extemporaneous debate even with multiple prepared challengers lobbing questions. (Which should have been clear after 20+ debates in 2008, but the TOTUS jokes have taken on a life of their own.) Even conservatives I follow on Twitter were saying that he seemed more appealing in this format than in his thousand speeches last year. Who knows? Maybe that means we'll see more of this."

On the other hand, AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer found Obama exceedingly unlikeable: "This President is an arrogant, thin-Skinned, prevaricator and I could tear him limb from limb (figuratively speaking) in a Q & A give-and-take. I am watching him act like a haughty, angry, self-righteous, self-reverential (insert appropriate noun) in his meeting with House Republicans right now, and he is lecturing them like they are teenagers. What an arrogant so-and-so. [...] His tone was utterly inappropriate, his body language even worse. That was not a polite give-and-take (although Republicans were certainly polite); it was a stern, rhetoric-filled, in-your-face lecture. He acts as if nobody ever has the right to question him seriously -- not only his are they not to question his motives, but his assumpions, his purity, his conclusions, and his own sense of his own exaltedness. This is a man with the soul of an authoritarian. And that is dangerous."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Pure Speculation

Balloon Juice's DougJ:

"It seems worth asking: what would Republicans do if they gained control of the House? Presumably, there would be a lot of absurd, numberless bubble-chart proposals, for sure, but I don't think anyone would pay much attention to them. My guess is that politically, the biggest thing would do is start lots of investigations. What do you think they would investigate? [Ex-WH Comm. Dir.] Anita Dunn and [ex-WH adviser] Van Jones, probably, but what else? Would they delve into Obama's pre-presidential years? Would they hold hearings on his birth certificate? Would they impeach him? Would the press go along with all of this the way they did with Whitewater and Travelgate and Socksgate? My gut feeling is that the answer to the last three questions is 'yes'."

LEST WE FORGET: Best Thing That Ever Happened To Area Man Yelling At Him About Socks

From The Onion:

"MINNEAPOLIS -- Joseph Collins, 38, who is perhaps the luckiest man alive and who certainly doesn't deserve the wonderful woman who showed him what it was like to be happy, was chastised by the love of his life for sock-related reasons Thursday. 'Look at the holes in these toes,' sighed Collins' perfect match, who found him when he was adrift in his late-20s and brought joy and tenderness into his life. 'And these are your good SmartWools. You have to treat your things right, honey. Are you listening to me?' At press time, Shelly Collins' knight in shining armor was spilling cookie crumbs all over the couch she had just cleaned."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Levine, Chris, desmoinesdem) are disappointed that the Senate confirmed Fed Chair Ben Bernanke for a second term. Among conservative bloggers, Michelle Malkin opposes Bernanke's confirmation and Paul Mirengoff supports it.
• Liberal bloggers (Drum, Soltz, Benen) are pleased that Obama declared his intention to work with Congress to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that prohibits gays from serving in the military. Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan blasts Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for defending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
• Glenn Greenwald is criticizing Justice Samuel Alito for mouthing the words "not true" while Obama criticized the Court's campaign finance ruling in his SOTU speech. However, other liberal bloggers (Lemieux, DougJ, Llorens) are defending Alito's gesture, even though they think Obama was right to criticize the ruling (Singer, Marshall). Meanwhile, conservative bloggers (Mirengoff, Liebau, Smith) think Obama was wrong to criticize the ruling.
• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, McCain, Reynolds) are rallying behind IL GOV candidate Adam Andrzejewski (R). Erick Erickson gushes: "Andrzejewski is a [Marco] Rubio -- well spoken, attractive, conservative to his core, and with a zealous band of conservative supporters."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: On Its Last Legs?

Mother Jones' Drum is pessimistic about the prospects for health care reform: "[I]f healthcare is now domestic priority #4, it might as well be domestic priority #100. It might not quite be dead, but no matter what Obama said in his State of the Union address, the grim reaper is starting to hover uncomfortably close by."

The Washington Monthly's Benen is slightly more hopeful: "So, a week after all hope appeared lost, key officials are at least saying good things, and have at least been talking about making progress, but they're nevertheless prepared to put reform on the backburner -- for an undetermined length of time. As much as it's heartening to know the commitment to success is still there, the delays may very well allow reform to die by neglect."

Meanwhile, Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias praises Speaker Nancy Pelosi for making a strong statement in favor of passing health care reform: "Right on. Now she needs the Senate to cooperate. And I think it's telling that in all the skeptical remarks I've heard from Senate Democrats over the past couple of weeks I've heard a lot about reconciliation and a lot about timing and a lot about pauses and a lot about this and a lot about that. What I haven't heard anyone say is 'I think looking back 10 or 20 years from now, the country would be better off if we don't act on health reform.' They're not saying it because it's not true, which is why 60 of them voted for Obama's vision of reform already. Now they need to get the job done. That means agreeing to use the reconciliation process to tweak the legislation they've already passed in order to accommodate some relatively minor concerns from the House."

In related news, liberal bloggers (Dayen, Kleiman, Waldman) are excited that Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced a resolution that could eliminate the filibuster. Other lefty bloggers (Bowers, Klein, Coates) are discussing WH adviser David Axelrod's comments about changing the Senate's procedural rules.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: It's About Persuasion, Not Mobilization

Open Left's Chris Bowers:

"Any coalition based so heavily on younger voters, as is Barack Obama's, will almost inevitably suffer a major setback in midterm elections. Shifting 10% of the electorate (which happened from 2004 to 2006) from the under-45 age group (which Obama won by 16%) to the over-45 age group (which Obama lost by 2%), results in a national popular vote shift of 2% of the popular vote to Republicans. Given that lower turnout is currently costing Democrats about a 3% in the popular vote, almost all of the damage Democrats are taking from lower turnout is consistent with historical trends rather than being specific to the current political environment. The remaining 1% could even be due to rounding, or statistical noise.

Winning in 2010, whether as any type of Democrat or as a Progressive Democrat, is going to require successful voter persuasion much more than it will require successful voter mobilization. Although I lack specific data to back this up right now, the most attractive option for voter persuasion is anti-Wall Street populism, combined with an attack on members (and potential members) of Congress who collude with Wall Street. Without improved economic conditions, Democratic candidates are going to need a villain other than themselves for the current economic woes. Elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia show that just blaming past Republican administrations is not enough. Voters can, and will, turn back to Republicans unless you convince them you are willing to fight what people almost universally recognize as the real villain of our times."

LEST WE FORGET: Can't Argue With That Logic

From Overheard in New York:

Random guy walking into the ferry station: I figured if I took the test high, I'd get high scores.

OBAMA: Nicely Done, As Usual

For the most part, liberal bloggers liked Obama's speech:

• BooMan: "[G]ood speech, nice performance, but I need to see some more fight."
• digby: "[T]hese speeches are always considered clinkers by the gasbags and the people usually love them. So I would think that this will be well received. And the Republicans looked like asses, as usual."
• Oliver Willis: "Well, that speech was better than I thought it would be. Didn't go over people's heads, but made a clear distinction between people fighting for banks and money interest and those fighting for tax breaks for American business and people. This was not a 'no mas' speech."
• Open Left's Adam Bink: "I'm going with a B- for content and A- for delivery. Did the 'I feel your pain' thing well, and talking about determination and America's spirit pushed the right buttons. Complete lack of commitment or plan of action on Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- a punt, basically. Stuff on jobs was good, but not terribly impressed by the overemphasis on tax cuts/credits/breaks as the engine to solve all our problems. Health care language I thought was good on the 'I'm not doing this for my political benefit' stuff and reiterating the good things the bill does, urging Congress not to walk away. Not much impressed by the deficit stuff."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "I thought it was just great. A reminder that Obama is fantastic at delivering formal speeches and has a fantastic speechwriting stuff. The past twelve months are a reminder that giving fantastic setpiece speeches has limits as a political strategy. You drop out of speech mode into the realm of cold, hard vote-counting and I don't think anything's really changed in that regard."

A common theme running through the liberal commentary was that Obama needs to back up his words with actions:

• The Reality-Based Community's Jonathan Zasloff: "[I]t was a good speech, and hit the right notes. And I'm not sure I care. I care what happens over the next few days and weeks. When the likes of [IN Sen. Evan] Bayh, [AR Sen. Blanche] Lincoln, [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson, [LA Sen. Mary] Landrieu, Holy Joe [Lieberman], and [WH CoS] Rahm [Emanuel] start saying, 'let's go slow and not try to do too much,' will the President listen to them? When Congressional leaders ask the President to give them leadership and direction on health care, will he provide it? When they try to hollow out financial regulation, or destroy the bank tax, will the White House go along? When [AK Sen.] Lisa Murkowski tries to attach her egregious rider to an appropriations bill to stop EPA from regulating climate change, will Obama threaten a veto?"
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "All in all, it was a good speech. But it was a good speech because it told the story of a good presidency and an able president. I expect Obama's poll numbers will be up for a few days, but if he wants them to remain there, he needs events to bear out his narrative. And that starts with passing the health-care reform bill."
• Firedoglake's David Dayen: "Nobody's ever said that Obama can't give a good speech. Excise the intellectually dishonest budget stuff and this is decent enough. [...] He needs to pay attention to some of his final words... 'I don't quit.' So don't."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "[The speech] was as assertive as it was persuasive. If he can translate this vision and leadership style into a concrete action, 2010 will be far stronger than 2009."
• TAPPED's Adam Serwer: "[U]ltimately the president understands that the case for an effective government cannot be made by rhetoric. It can only be made by government working. The question of whether the Democratic Party can make government work now lies in the hands of Congress. And in particular, governance is now the responsibility of the Senate, where the preening obstinance and senseless 'centrism' of our politicians has ground the agenda the American people voted for in 2008 to a halt. The question is now, whether the president's speech can help pressure the Senate to act."

An exception was Arianna Huffington, who disliked the speech: "[T]he speech, despite its charm, humor, and occasionally impassioned rhetoric, had the feel of being focus-grouped within an inch of its life. There was a decidedly paint-by-poll-numbers air about it."

OBAMA II: What A Jerk!

Conservative bloggers universally panned Obama's speech:

• Erickson: "After reflection on Barack Obama's State of the Union address, I am left with one overarching conclusion: while boring, preachy, dull, overly serious, then flipping to overly jocular tones while trying to balance pandering to the middle class with holding his base -- Barack Obama's State of the Union address was a declaration of war on the free market. [...] It is more and more clear that Barack Obama does not have an American world view."
• Dan Riehl: "It was a somewhat disingenuous, rambling speech delivered without the dash he became known for on the campaign trail. It provided America no answers, because it tried to answer everything and nothing at the same time. Nothing was etched in stone, nor firmly committed to. What Obama came to the floor with was a lot of wishful ideas and preferences with no visible sign that he has the backbone to support and fight for them. It will have no serious lasting impact on American politics going forward. Obama remains more a politician, than he does a president."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "[I]ndependents will be disappointed if they hoped the president would 'pivot.' Other than his ideas (plausible sounding but empty) on deficit reduction and his pitch for building nuclear power plants and drilling off-shore, there was no substantive centrism in the speech. [...] In terms of tone, I thought Obama got it right for a while, but then drifted into the kind of borderline nastiness, rank hypocricy, and excessive self-references that have started to grate on those who once viewed him as post-partisan."
• Glenn Reynolds: "My sense is that he was trying a bit too hard. Comparing the mood to last year, the Democratic applause and cheering seemed rather forced, too. Plus, I don't think his public scolding of the Supreme Court was very Presidential -- or, for that matter, very smart."

The folks at National Review were particularly incensed by Obama's tone:

• NRO's John Hood: "The president looks like a jerk tonight."
• NRO's Yuval Levin: "[T]his was really an incredibly graceless, self-righteous, and grouchy performance."
• NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "The speech was shrill and defensive and unrepentantly liberal inasmuch as he pushed harder on health care and jobs and the rest."
• NRO's Peter Robinson: "Defensive, hectoring, self-righteous, self-referential, and angry. An astonishing performance."
• NRO's Marc Thiessen: "It was quite possibly the most partisan, condescending State of the Union address ever. Tonight, Obama was unpresidential."
• NRO's Mark Levin: "I have watched many, many State of the Union speeches. This is the most partisan, least presidential of them all. His rhetoric, his glances at the GOP side, and his almost mocking tone at times -- not to mention his over-the-top dissembling about the deficit, among other things -- will not, I predict, improve his position with the public. Nor should it."

Conservative bloggers (Reynolds, Mooney, Jessup, Riehl, Allahpundit) were also disgusted by Obama's criticism of the recent SCOTUS ruling on campaign finance, which prompted Justice Samuel Alito to mouth the words, "Not true."

Meanwhile, righty bloggers (Malkin, Hillyer, Jessup) were very impressed by VA Gov. Bob McDonnell's (R) response to Obama's speech.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Are Democrats Doomed?

The New York Times' Ross Douthat:

"I give you the latest Congressional Budget Office economic outlook, which forecasts an unemployment rate that averages 10 percent throughout 2010, and 9.5 percent throughout 2011. As Peter Suderman notes, the CBO tends to be overly-cautious in their economic predictions, so there's room to hope that the situation isn't quite this dire. But what was already an unprecedentedly dreadful climate for the Democrats is looking darker by the day. If unemployment is still around 10 percent this November, it's difficult to see how they hold the House; if unemployment stays at 9 percent into 2012, it's very difficult to see how Barack Obama wins re-election. I stand by my contention that ideology as well as the woeful economy is dragging the Democrats down, but there does come a point where only the economy matters: Obama could spend the next three years channeling Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and Silent Cal [Coolidge], and he still isn't going to get re-elected if 9 percent of the country is out of work."

LEST WE FORGET: Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet

From The Onion:

"CUPERTINO, CA -- Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple's new tablet computer. 'Come on, Steve, just think -- think, dammit -- you're running out of time,' the exhausted CEO said as he glued nine separate iPhones to the back of a plastic cafeteria tray. 'Okay, yeah, this will work. This will definitely work. Just need to write "tablet" on this little strip of masking tape here and I'm golden. Oh, come on, you piece of shit! Just stick already!' Middle-of-the-night sources reported that Jobs then began work on double-spacing his Keynote presentation and increasing the font size to make it appear longer."

"Ignoring the issue won't make it go away, and not passing this bill will only make the Republicans happy. We've got a solution that has gained significant support and could work, if the political will exists in the Senate to do it."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Dayen, Lewison, Marshall, Black, Sudbay, DougJ, digby) continue to criticize Pres. Obama's proposed three-year spending freeze on selected domestic programs. Lefty bloggers (Greenwald, McCarter, Yglesias, Ackerman) are particularly upset that Obama exempted "security-related programs" from his proposed freeze.
• Liberal bloggers (Krugman, Klein, Bowers) are criticizing Senate Dem leaders for pressuring their colleagues to vote for cloture on Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's nomination even if they intend to ultimately vote against him. McCarter writes: "You want to see a clear reflection of priorities in the Senate? They can't come together to agree to pass healthcare reform by reconciliation, but Bernanke will get a simple majority vote."
• Liberal bloggers (Serwer, DougJ, Singer, Marshall, Coates, Aravosis) are mocking James O'Keefe -- a conservative activist best known for secretly taping embarrassing conversations with ACORN employees -- after he was arrested by the FBI for tampering with Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) office phones. Several lefty bloggers (DarkSyde, Aravosis, Tim F., Benen) are pointing out that 31 House GOPers cosponsored a resolution praising O'Keefe last fall, while others (Serwer, Willis) are buzzing about O'Keefe's ties to conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart. On the right side of the blogosphere, some bloggers (Malkin, Jessup) are chastising O'Keefe for going too far, while others (Breitbart, Hood) are denying that O'Keefe was trying to wiretap Landrieu's phones.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Geraghty, Mirengoff) are disappointed that Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) will not challenge Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), but they believe that ex-Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) could be a competitive candidate. However, Quin Hillyer thinks ex-Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN) would be a stronger candidate than Hostettler.
• Conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Hurtt, Geraghty) are buzzing about a new poll showing ex-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA) leading Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) by 14 pts. among PA LVs. In other SEN news, liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Singer) are urging FL Gov. Charlie Crist (R) to switch parties if he wants to have a chance against ex-FL House Speaker Marco Rubio (R).

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Sorry Guys, But No One Cares What You Think Anymore

Liberal bloggers aren't particularly alarmed that Nelson, Lincoln, and Bayh are refusing to "fix" the Senate bill via reconciliation:

• FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver: "Not to convey any sense of optimism whatsoever about the prospects for meaningful health care reform, but the fact that Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson oppose 'fixing' their own bill via reconciliation is neither surprising nor particularly impactful, as in a 50-vote environment, all are well to the right of the veto point. [...] If you start to see Senators that are closer to the veto point make uncomfortable noises about reconciliation -- someone like [MO Sen.] Claire McCaskill or [Bill] Nelson of Florida or [VA Sen]. Mark Warner -- that's when you'll know that the strategy is doomed."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Now we have two Democratic senators saying explicitly (and a third perhaps implying) they will not support using budget reconciliation for an amending bill to 'fix' the original senate bill and pave the way for passage in the House. They need 50 votes. Needless to say, the magic of the reconciliation process is that you don't need these three and up to seven of their colleagues. Majority rule. What a concept ..."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Nelson's views are irrelevant. The [nat'l insurance] exchange set-up will either be determined by reconciliation or else nothing will be done. Either way, he doesn't matter. And this, incidentally, is the reason why the Democrats are so reluctant to do things with reconciliation or to curb the filibuster. Each of them is more important under a supermajority rule than they would be under a majority rule, even if it renders them collectively impotent."

Still, some lefty bloggers are criticizing Nelson, Lincoln, and Bayh for taking this position, which they perceive as both morally wrong and politically obtuse:

• BooMan: "[The] Mensa Award of the Day goes to Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Evan Bayh. Because the more unpopular you make the president by refusing to pass his legislation, the less vulnerable you become as a senate candidate in a red or purple state."
• Firedoglake's emptywheel: "Thus far today, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, and Blache Lincoln have come out against passing health care reform through sidecar reconciliation. Of course that means they're defending all the corrupt aspects of the Senate bill that proved to be so unpopular in MA, starting with the Cornhusker Kickback (and including the Louisiana Purchase that similarly bought off Mary Landrieu). And they've flip-flopped on their earlier demands that such corrupt deals be removed from the bill."
• Daily Kos' David Waldman: "[T]hough their votes wouldn't by themselves determine the outcome this time, reactionary ConservaDems (and Senators very much on the election bubble, by the way) Bayh and Lincoln join Nelson in opposing the vehicle that would fix some of the Senate bill's most toxic assets -- the so-called Cadillac tax, 'Cornhusker Kickback,' and its close cousin, the 'Louisiana Purchase.' Way to read those Massachusetts tealeaves, geniuses!"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is The GOP Lucky That Specter Switched Parties?

NRO's Jim Geraghty:

"Remember when Arlen Specter switching parties was a sign of doom for Republicans? Nine months later, it looks like one of the luckiest breaks for the GOP in 2009. Had he remained with the party, I suspect Pat Toomey would have beaten him in the primary, but that's not a given. And lot of the GOP establishment would have gotten sucked into defending a wobbly vote in a primary fight that would have made the current Crist-Rubio tussle look like hug therapy. Now Toomey gets a smooth ride through the primary and can harness his resources for the general election.

Instead, the Democrats get to worry about whether Specter will survive the primary -- that, too, looks iffy -- and if he does, they get to spend millions to tell Pennsylvanians that the fossil who's been there forever and who keeps snapping at people is their best possible choice to represent them for the next six years."

LEST WE FORGET: BREAKING: State of the Union Address Leaked

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- In his first State of the Union Address Wednesday night, President Barack Obama will attempt to reach out to middle class voters by stating his opposition to pants on the ground.

In an advance copy of the president's speech obtained by The Borowitz Report, Mr. Obama uses the phrase 'pants on the ground' no fewer than sixteen times.

'My fellow Americans, let's be clear: if you wear your pants on the ground, and your hat to the side, you run the risk of looking like a fool,' Mr. Obama says.

'Let us all work together, as Americans, to lift those pants off the ground,' the president continues in one of the speech's rhetorical flourishes."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Most liberal bloggers (Kleiman, Tim F., Drum, Waldman, McCarter) see only one possible path for health care reform: (1.) House Dems must pass the Senate bill, and (2.) Senate Dems must return the favor by passing House-friendly amendments using the reconciliation process. Andrew Sullivan (1, 2, 3, 4) is also aggressively pushing House Dems to pass the Senate bill. However, Firedoglake continues to lobby House Dems against the Senate bill -- to the dismay of others on the left.
• Several liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, DougJ, Cole, BooMan, Drum) are having a meta discussion about the frayed relationship between Obama and his base.
• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas continues to urge AR LG Bill Halter (D) to challenge Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), since he believes that Lincoln has no chance at beating a GOPer in the fall. Meanwhile, MyDD's Jerome Armstrong wants Dems to field a solid candidate in AZ, since "if [ex-Rep.] J.D. Hayworth defeats [Sen.] John McCain, this seat is up for a toss-up in the GE -- if Dems have a good candidate."
• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Morrissey, Geraghty, Bandes) are excited about the new Quinnipiac Univ. poll showing ex-state House Speaker Marco Rubio (R) surging ahead of Gov. Charlie Crist (R) in the FL SEN GOP primary.

OBAMA: Kicking His Base In The Teeth

Liberal bloggers are blasting Obama's proposed three-year spending freeze:

• Atrios: "We are ruled by idiots."
• Open Left's Rosenberg: "It's official: Obama is an idiot. [...] It's time to seriously start talking about primarying Obama in 2012. He's now officially the most conservative Democratic President since Grover Cleveland. And the dumbest one since James Buchanan."
• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "Please tell me our president is smarter than this. [...] It's as if he wants Democrats to stay home this November."
• The Reality-Based Community's Jonathan Zasloff: "I'm trying to think of what could possibly be a worse plan. Let's see: we might be entering a double-dip recession and unemployment is in double-digits, and you are going to freeze spending? What in God's name are they thinking? [...] Why exactly did I give money and make calls for this guy in 2008?"
• The New York Times' Krugman: "A spending freeze? That's the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback? It's appalling on every level. It's bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. [...] It's bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead. And it's a betrayal of everything Obama's supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view -- and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008."
• Open Left's David Sirota: "This is actually worse -- way worse -- than John McCain's campaign proposal for across-the-board cuts, as across-the-board cuts would have hit the massive and bloated Pentagon budget. Instead, the Obama administration is specifically and exclusively targeting social safety-net spending for a budget freeze (read: cut in real, inflation-adjusted dollars)."
• digby: "It's been my biggest complaint about Obama from the beginning. They always do this 'one from column A and one from column B' thinking they can please everyone. But to sound tough on bankers and then enact a spending freeze (on 'non-security' spending, natch) is too clever by half. Combined with the deficit fetishism, it will tie his hands at the time he needs the most flexibility on jobs --- and further destroy liberalism in the process."
• Firedoglake's David Dayen: "Obama is basically saying that the stimulus fixed the economy, that there will be no further government support measures and that he'll govern like a hybrid of John McCain and Herbert Hoover for the rest of his term to curry favor with the deficit maniacs. And of course, the truly unbelievable thing about this is how it's framed as non-security discretionary spending, as if spending on the military is magic and somehow doesn't affect budgets."

OBAMA II: A Stupid, Pointless Move

Even liberal bloggers who perceive Obama's three-year spending freeze as a gimmick rather than a serious proposal are disgusted by the move:

• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "[T]he proposed freeze is narrower in scope than I had feared, so it probably won't be a disaster for the economy. But in the sense that the freeze apparently won't be much of a freeze, it seems that the plan may end looking like a major political gimmick."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "[T]his feels like a gimmick to me. It's a gimmick that won't please key constituencies or the base. It sure won't endear Obama to Republicans."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "The policy problem with the Obama Administration's silly political gimmick -- the spending freeze -- is that it basically accepts the idea that there is an immediate need to cut government spending when in fact there still remains an urgent need to increase government spending to spur our stagnant economy. If we were to treat the proposal seriously, and the Village will, then the Obama administration has completely undermined the chances for effective policy to address our economic woes."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "So, if the proposal isn't really going to change much, why is this disappointing? Because it fully embraces the conservative narrative, instead of using the power of the bully pulpit to explain why conservatives have it wrong. It may be even worse as a policy matter -- we just don't have enough details to say -- but that's distressing enough."
• TAPPED's Tim Fernholz: "Given the low likelihood that all of these cuts get passed in Congress or that Republicans even sign on to this plan, and the fact that it really isn't a 'freeze,' the problem is less in policy and more in the incredibly pernicious political argument: Obama is accepting the conservative budget framing that progressives fought against during his campaign by focusing deficit reduction on the most underfunded chunk of the budget, exempting the Defense Department from responsibility, and leaving revenue off the table (it's no coincidence, however, that 2011 is when some of the Bush tax cuts will roll back). It's exactly what progressive budget experts said not to do."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "The liberal base now has yet another reason to be disgusted with Obama, so the obvious hope is that independents are going to lap this up. And who knows? Maybe they will. But what I wonder is this: hasn't Obama's pivot happened too quickly to seem like anything other than what it increasingly is: a panicky and transparent attempt to recover from the Massachusetts tsunami? Given that, is anyone going to buy it? Or is it just going to come across as a thinly veiled and poll approved effort to 'connect' with voter angst without really doing anything substantive?"
• FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver: "First reactions aren't always the best ones, but my first reaction to tonight's news is that it's a mistake on par with John McCain's 'suspending my campaign' gaffe. [...] I'll let the economists talk about the wisdom of curtailing government spending in the middle of a massive consumption deficit, but what concerns me more is the politics. Specifically, the sort of cognitive dissonance that is going to be created in the mind of the average voter when the White House is promising to freeze spending on the one hand (or, more accurately, this will be the media caricature of their gambit), and on the other, trying to defend its stimulus and its health care reform package, trying to excuse the bailout package as a necessary evil, and perhaps trying to champion new programs."

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Suffice it to say that I'm very skeptical of this approach. I'm attempting not to freak out because (a) I don't have details and (b) I suspect this initiative was deliberately leaked to progressive bloggers in an effort to get denounced by the left and I don't want to give them the satisfaction."

OBAMA III: Everyone Chill Out!

A few liberal bloggers think their colleagues of making too big of a deal about Obama's proposed spending freeze:

• BooMan: "This stupid spending freeze is peanuts that won't mean anything in the larger picture. Congress probably won't go along with it anyway. [...] The best I can say for this bit of triangulation is that it polls well and it doesn't mean anything. The fiscal problems in Washington are endemic and unsolvable in our present system, and pretending the amount of money we're talking about here is even a drop in the bucket is just silly."
• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "A spending freeze is a stupid idea. Fortunately, as far as I can tell, Barack Obama does not in tend to propose one. He's proposing an overall budget cap on discretionary non-security spending, but intends to move money around within that cap. If he'd called it 'cut and invest,' there wouldn't be quite such howls of outrage. I'm still not happy; the notion that 'security' is a different, sacrosanct budget makes no sense, and I'd like to see the federal government doing more in lots of discretionary non-security areas, starting with a bigger NSF budget. But there's less here than meets the eye. And it's hard to see how Obama could have convincingly gone after some sacred cows without announcing a hard budget constraint. We'll know more when we see the actual budget, but right now I see no reason for despair. Who knows? We might see some cuts in farm subsidies and NASA."

Oliver Willis is particularly critical of his netroots colleagues: "One of the problems I've always feared is that should we elect a Democratic president in this country, he or she might face a domestic handicap among that most unlikely of sources: liberals. Sadly, I'm turning out to be right, and today's collective pants-wetting on both liberal blogs and on Twitter has been a sight to behold."

OBAMA IV: All Hat And No Cattle

Most conservative bloggers are portraying Obama's proposed spending freeze as a superficial gesture:

• Glenn Reynolds: "[This is] like swearing off the bottle when you're hung over."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "This freeze is nothing more than a political shell game. Democrats increased spending by $900 billion over three years, and now they plan to freeze 13% of a budget while leaving massive loopholes for more social engineering that has utterly failed in 2009, while taking credit for being fiscally responsible. It's laughably transparent, but not in the good sense."
• RedState's bs: "To propose a spending freeze of any sort is good political theater for Obama, but it will have virtually no impact on the financial standing of the United States of America."
• NRO's Denis Boyles: "[This is] a great example of a 'solution' that solves nothing, something European politicians have refined to an art."
• Michelle Malkin: "The ballyhooed budget spending freeze that will be a feature of the State of the Union address tomorrow doesn't cover behemoth entitlement programs. It doesn't cover a second stimulus. It is limited to an electorally-timed three-year period. The White House is already promising that favored left-wing programs in education and the environment would get a pass."

Many righty bloggers (Reynolds, Jessup, Foster) are pointing out that Obama criticized McCain's advocacy of spending freezes during the WH '08 campaign.

OBAMA V: Score One For The Right

A few conservative bloggers are giving Obama mild plaudits for the move, even though they doubt it will have much of an effect on the deficit:

• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Granted, this is a cynical political move that he almost certainly wouldn't have made if not for his collapsing support among independents, but even a cosmetic gesture deserves a golf clap, no?"
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "My position is, yes, this is mainly a symbolic gesture -- after all, the White House claims it would save $250 billion -- less than a third of the cost of the economic stimulus bill alone. It's only a temporary, three-year freeze that follows years of unprecedented spending and it comes as he's pitching a jobs bill, which is essentially a second stimulus. [...] But with that said, I think this is a good issue for conservatives -- and also Republicans -- to get behind rather than just reflexively oppose. Point out why it's mainly cosmetic and doesn't go far enough, say 'I see you, and I raise you,' but still jump on any chance to reduce the growth in federal spending, however marginal."

Meanwhile, NRO's Geraghty thinks Obama is making "a huge rhetorical concession": "[W]e've gotten a man who campaigned on expanding government to concede that his vision is not affordable. This is an enormous opportunity for those who want to see a smaller, more focused government. For starters, any Democrat who opposes the spending freeze can now be justifiably painted as reckless, out of control, unserious about budget matters, and a threat to the nation's long-term economic future. 'Even President Obama says we have to freeze spending now. Why is Congressman So-and-so calling for even more spending that we can't afford?' There is enormous potential to drive a deep wedge between Obama and a large part of the Democratic caucus. Second, by making this proposal, Obama is conceding a large portion of the terms of the debate. For all extents and purposes, spending increases are now off the table."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Death Of Liberalism?

Geraghty analyzes the left's angry reaction to Obama's proposed spending freeze:

"If Obama can be forced into becoming a rhetorical deficit hawk, and if the fundamental message of his second year in office is 'less spending good, more spending bad,' we may see the spirit of modern liberalism broken. They've already seen that even with 60 votes in the Senate and about 257 in the House, the public option isn't going to happen and now it's not clear that health reform will happen at all. Now Barack Obama -- their messiah, their ideal, their embodiment of hope and change -- is sending more troops to Afghanistan and calling for a spending freeze.

Liberals will never get a better opportunity to enact their agenda than they are getting in 2009 and 2010, and so far they've gotten the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and a reduction to a mere 107,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

If liberals come to November 2010 and realize that very little has changed, and that all of their efforts in the past few years have been for naught, then a not-insignificant number may decide that all of this is a waste of time, that the American political system is unfixable, and they'll find some other way to occupy their time."

LEST WE FORGET: Man Who Enjoys Thing Informed He Is Wrong

From The Onion:

"LOS ANGELES -- George Himmelsbaugh, 32, was informed Tuesday that he was incorrect in enjoying a thing he had been deriving pleasure from for many years. Authorities in the field informed Himmelsbaugh that, although he believes his appreciation of the thing to be a matter of subjective personal taste, any positive feelings or satisfaction taken from this are by definition erroneous. Furthermore, sources reported, Himmelsbaugh does not in fact enjoy the thing, but has merely been convinced that he does by the influence of others who also claim to enjoy the thing but who must be insane or developmentally disabled if they actually do. Himmelsbaugh has responded to the information by endeavoring to enjoy the correct things in the future."

"[Sen. Ted] Kaufman was appointed specifically to be a placeholder so Beau Biden could run after returning from Iraq. Now Biden's not willing to work for this seat. [...] It would have been better to name Delaware Lieutenant Governor John Carney to this seat."

In other news, conservative bloggers are discussing the news that ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) plans to challenge Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). While some righty bloggers clearly favor Hayworth, most aren't taking sides (yet). However, one blogger thinks that "the biggest loser from this may well be [ex-AK Gov.] Sarah Palin," who angered the rightroots with her decision to campaign for McCain.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Most liberal bloggers (D. Aristophanes, Yglesias, Drum, Tim F.) are urging House Dems to pass the Senate health care reform bill as it stands, with the understanding that Senate Dems will later "fix it" by passing House-friendly amendments using the reconciliation process. However, some lefty bloggers (McCarter, Brigham) are insisting that Senate Dems act first. Meanwhile, Firedoglake continues to urge House Dems to vote against the Senate bill.
• Most liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Black, Sirota, Scarecrow, BooMan, Chris) oppose Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's renomination. However, some lefty bloggers (Drum, Klein) are worried about the consequences of dumping Bernanke at this juncture.
• Liberal bloggers (Blue Texan, Yglesias, Black) are criticizing Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) for calling for a freeze in discretionary spending.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Stevens, Klein, Jessup) are hammering CA SEN candidate Carly Fiorina (R) after someone recorded her "speaking warmly of [Rev.] Jesse Jackson and saying democracy won't be 'truly representative' until 'at least' half of elected officials are women."
• TX Gov. Rick Perry (R) hosted a group of conservative bloggers at a "Blogger Summit" in Austin, TX.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Ace, Riehl, Patterico) are buzzing about reports that someone named Ellie Light "has published virtually identical 'Letters to the Editor' in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers." Righty bloggers are suggesting that these letters are part of a deliberate astroturfing campaign organized by the WH.

DE SEN: Beau Bows Out

Conservative bloggers believe that Beau Biden's decision not to run for SEN means that the GOP will capture another seat:

• RedState's Moe Lane: "[T]hank you for DE-SEN, Democrats. [...] Beau Biden looked at the calendar, looked at the actuarial tables, and decided to wait until 2014."
• Ace of Spades' DrewM.: "How great would it be if the Republicans pick up both Obama's and Biden's old seats this year?"

Ed Morrissey doesn't buy Biden's stated rationale for his decision, declaring: "If Beau thought he could win, he would run." Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin suspects that Biden chose not to run because "a bruising Senate campaign in the Era of the Tea Party -- and in the wake of the Massachusetts miracle -- would bring uncomfortable light to bear on Biden family cronyism."

Liberal bloggers are disappointed by Biden's decision:

• Daily Kos' Steve Singiser: "This puts a Democratic Senate seat in serious jeopardy, despite the Democratic lean of the state and the deep Democratic bench found in Delaware."
• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "So disappointing. [...] Kaufman was appointed specifically to be a placeholder so Beau Biden could run after returning from Iraq. Now Biden's not willing to work for this seat. [...] Now former Republican Governor Mike Castle is going to be heavily favored to win the seat in Delaware, although we should have a fighting chance in a D+7 state. It would have been better to name Delaware Lieutenant Governor John Carney to this seat."

AZ SEN: J.D. Vs. Johnny Mac

Conservative bloggers are also reacting to the news that Hayworth plans to challenge McCain.

RedState's Brian Faughnan makes it clear which candidate he prefers in this primary: "This move comes just a few days after Cindy McCain suggested that millions of American supporters of traditional marriage are motivated by hate. In his 12 years in Congress, Hayworth compiled a lifetime rating of 98% from the ACU. The comparable rating for John McCain is 81%."

NRO's Jim Geraghty thinks Hayworth will benefit from running even if he loses: "Hayworth has an uphill climb, and [ex-AK Gov.] Sarah Palin's backing will probably help McCain with Arizona conservatives who might be tempted to look at other options. But at some point, John McCain's seat is going to open up, and a strong showing this year would probably make Hayworth the odds-on favorite GOP candidate in some future run."

Meanwhile, Morrissey writes: "The biggest loser from this may well be Sarah Palin. Under normal circumstances, grassroots activists would expect Palin to either stay out of the race or support the more conservative, grass-roots candidate against the entrenched Republican establishment. [...] Her cachet comes entirely from positioning herself as an outsider, and now she's rallying to the defense of one of Washington's insiders. If that was in the general election, everyone would hail that as an example of realpolitik, but in a primary, she's going to get some valid criticism for this choice."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Perils Of A Famous Name

Geraghty:

"The Kennedy Mystique can't get a Democrat elected in Massachusetts, Beau Biden decides not to run for Senate in Delaware, and Chris Dodd calls it quits in Connecticut.

And now, in Indiana, Evan Bayh trails Rep. Mike Pence in a hypothetical match-up, by three percentage points. What's more, Bayh is only ahead by 3 against former Republican congressman, John Hostettler.

This may be the first cycle in a long time where you don't want your father to have been a political legend."

LEST WE FORGET: Bin Laden Claims Responsibility For Balloon Boy Hoax

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- One day after claiming responsibility for the Christmas Day underpants bomber, Osama bin Laden appeared in a new terror tape today in which he claimed responsibility for the Balloon Boy hoax that held the nation spellbound last year.

'The so-called Balloon Boy claimed that he "did it for the show,"' a stern-faced bin Laden says on the tape, which surfaced Sunday morning. 'In point of fact, he did it for jihad!'

In the somewhat rambling tape, Mr. bin Laden spends 45 minutes claiming responsibility for other things, including the massive Tylenol recall, John Edwards' illegitimate baby, and the Detroit Lions' NFL season."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Kleiman, DougJ, Lemieux, Smith, Singer, digby, Drum, BooMan) are decrying the 5-4 SCOTUS decision which ruled "that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections." One blogger calls the decision "terrifying" while another warns: "Your government is going to the highest bidder."
• Conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Malkin, Lane, Jessup, Jacobson) were delighted when Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House cannot pass the Senate health care reform bill unless changes are made. Most righty bloggers believe that health care reform is essentially dead.
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, Klein, Willis, digby, Black, Benen, Sirota) are praising Pres. Obama for calling for tighter banking regulations. Lefty bloggers (Lange, Cole, Chris, Taibbi) are pleased that Obama made the announcement alongside adviser/ex-Fed Chair Paul Volcker, whom they trust a lot more than Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner and WH economic adviser Larry Summers. In somewhat related news, lefty bloggers (Bowers, digby, Black) are pleased that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's nomination to serve a second term "appears to be in peril".
• Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas declares that Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) is "still unelectable" after a new poll found that she has only a 34% favorability rating. Moulitsas: "It's time for Lt. Gov. Bill Halter to rescue the Democrats from their apparent insistence on sticking with Blanche Lincoln and losing her Arkansas Senate seat."
• Conservative bloggers (Jessup, Morrissey) are excited about reports that ex-WI Gov./ex-HHS Sec. Tommy Thompson (R) is considering challenging Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI).

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Most liberal bloggers are cajoling, urging, and threatening House Dems to swallow their objections to the Senate bill and pass it anyway:

• Open Left's Mike Lux: "Democrats have an absolutely clear path to passing a strong health care reform bill quickly that will re-establish their image for being able to deliver real change, begin to rebuild their bond with their base, and allow them to move on to dealing with jobs and the economy. To fail to take this path will lead to a worse meltdown and beat-down than the 1994 or 1980 elections. [...] The path, which has been suggested by many other people as well as me, is to simply pass the full Senate bill, and then immediately pass a clean-up bill through the reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes in the Senate. [...] Doing this kind of double bill approach would allow all the good insurance regulations and other provisions in both the Senate and House versions of the bill that can't be passed through the reconciliation process because of Senate rules to still get done, while making the bill far more politically popular with voters and healing the rifts caused with the base because of all the bad compromises forced by [CT Sen. Joe] Lieberman and other Democratic conservatives in the Senate."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I do know that the House has already passed one reform bill. It just needs one more vote -- the debate would be done; the bill would be law; the landmark breakthrough would be complete; Dems would have demonstrated their ability to deliver; and policymakers could finally move on to other issues. Allowing this to fail now is insane. Pass. The. Damn. Bill."

Lefty bloggers are warning cong. Dems that they'll get crushed in the midterms if they fail to pass health care reform:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Shorter Congressional Dems: Rather than hang together, let's hang separately."
• TAPPED's Adam Serwer: "The Democrats are waving a white flag three feet from the finish line in the hopes that they might keep their seats. [...] This is an unconscionable act of selfish political cowardice -- it's disgusting, and it won't help them one bit when the base stays home in November because Democrats are too scared to legislate even when they have the largest Senate majority since the 1970s."
• Benen: "Maybe Dems are weighing a variety of options right now -- including the foolish notion of passing reform piecemeal -- because they just wanted to get a sense of their choices. If so, it shouldn't take too long to realize there really is no choice: either the House passes the Senate bill and works on improvements through reconciliation, or this becomes the generation's biggest debacle and Democrats lose everything."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "Not one dollar. Not one ounce of effort. Not one word of support. The Democratic Party gets nothing until they pass health care. And if they don't pass it -- if they are too cravenly and cowardly and pathetic to move the ball one more inch across the goal line -- they get nothing from me. [...] This is unacceptable. And the Dems deserve zero support -- and aggressive primary challenges -- unless and until they finish the job."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Where The Heck Is Obama?

Several liberal bloggers are also criticizing Obama for not sending cong. Dems a clear message with regard to health care reform:

• Lux: "The President needs to settle down and stop having a failure of nerves, and sending negative signals to Congress."
• Marshall: "I've been very hard on the House in this Health Care train wreck. But what we're learning now is that the White House does not seem to be lifting a finger to move things. From what we can tell, nothing. [WH Comm. Dir.] Robert Gibbs' statement at the briefing today seems to embody the White House's stance at a much deeper level than I'd imagined. They just don't seem to even want to hear about it."
• BooMan: "The Democrats are making quite the spectacle of themselves, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. If they want to find their heads, they should look up their asses. President Obama needs to get control over this situation, and he needs to do it before this weekend is over. Settle on a plan, announce it, and implement it. Get health care reform done, and stop letting a piddling minority dick you around. This is just embarrassing."

Conservative blogger Philip Klein also criticizes Obama: "The prospect that [Sen.-elect Scott] Brown [R-MA] could win the Senate election and change the political calculus in Washington was evident at least a week and a half before it actually happened. That's why it's incredible that the White House had absolutely no plan in place to manage the aftermath, allowing chaos to reign among Democrats, and all sorts of mixed messages to be spread. This is, I think, a good example of what happens when you elect somebody without executive experience."

HEALTH CARE REFORM III: In Defense Of House Dems

Other liberal bloggers are praising House Dems for being unwilling to pass the Senate bill as it currently stands:

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "[T]he Senate health care bill in its current form threatens to decimate the Democratic party."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "Pelosi quite honestly can not get 218 votes, as some of us have been saying for weeks, because there's too much in the Senate bill that are poison pills. No amount of bludgeoning them over this is likely to change that when they've got a very powerful ally, in the form of a strong labor coalition who will remove their support -- both for the bill and quite likely in November -- without fixes."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "Paul Krugman urges House Dems to commit political suicide and pass a health bill without an excise tax fix. Krugman seems oblivious to the political realities. Now more than ever, after the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision (which also abolished limits on union spending on elections), having the unions firmly on the side of Democratic candidates is critical for avoiding an utter rout in November."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "One of the unexpected results of the [Martha] Coakley defeat is, I think, a remarkable amount of spine suddenly arising from congressional liberals (i.e., refusing to accept the Senate HCR bill, and now, refusing to support Fed chair Bernanke's re-confirmation). [...] Democrats in Congress want to keep their jobs more than they want to keep the White House happy. It took Coakley for them to understand that clearly, but now they seem to."

Meanwhile, McCarter proposes a different approach to passing health care reform: "The dual-track reform approach -- pass the Senate bill in the House in conjunction with the necessary fixes in a reconciliation package -- continues to gain some steam, with even Finance Chair Max Baucus saying that 'Reconciliation, I'm guessing at this point, will be part of the solution,' [sub req]. It's a potentially complicated approach, but apparently the White House, House, and Senate are still assessing the way forward. [...] In some ways, [MI Rep. Bart Stupak's threats] makes the [AZ Rep. Raul] Grijalva pass-it-in-pieces approach more attractive. Let Stupak put his amendment on the floor as a stand-alone and see if it passes. There's a great deal that's politically attractive to this approach -- forcing the Blue Dogs, ConservaDems, and even so-called moderate Republicans to actually have to vote on stand alone insurance reforms."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Objective Political Pressure

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias:

"What's been missing from Obama's approach is what, for lack of a pithy name, I'll call 'objective political pressure.' One of the striking things about the Obama presidency is that throughout his time in office not a single Republican Senator has been in serious fear that he or she is going to lose her seat in 2010. That was true even when Obama's approval ratings were in the high-sixties. And it's true even though Obama won a number of seats represented by Republicans.

This is the big contrast with [George W.] Bush's first term. Democrats were less-than-resolute in their opposition to Bush's ideas in large part because many of them correctly perceived themselves to be in electoral peril. Generating electoral peril is often equated with 'outside game' -- speechmaking -- but there's much more to it than that. Indeed, 'mobilizing public opinion' is probably the least important part of it. It comes down to a lot of political nitty-gritty. Recruiting top-tier challengers. Raising funds. Getting the oppo done. Making sure the party committees are committed to electing new members and not just defending incumbents. Dispatching surrogates.

The Obama/Baucus theory of writing a bipartisan health care bill seemed to basically amount to 'have a lot of meetings with [IA Sen.] Chuck Grassley.' A different theory would be 'have [Ag Sec./ex-IA Gov.] Tom Vilsack run against Chuck Grassley with a nice war chest so Grassley feels it's in his interests to strike a deal.'"

LEST WE FORGET: Man Stuck In No-Man's Land Between Two Domino's Delivery Areas

From The Onion:

"AUBURN, WA -- James Stallard, 29, experienced feelings of profound loneliness and alienation Monday upon discovering that his home lay just outside the delivery zones of two nearby Domino's Pizza franchises. 'I am invisible, a nonexistent entity in the eyes of Domino's,' Stallard uttered while staring blankly out his third-story window. 'There is life in this apartment, hunger even, and yet...I cannot have a large pepperoni pizza, with chicken kickers, and a liter of Coke delivered to my home.' At press time, Stallard reached up and touched his own face, just to make sure that he was in fact still there."

"It's time for House liberals, labor unions, lefty activists, Blue Dogs, Democratic pro-lifers, and fence-sitting centrists to all face reality: the only way to pass healthcare reform of any kind is for the House to pass the Senate bill as is and then work to improve it later during the budget reconciliation process. It's not perfect, but it will work. Nothing else will."

That said, not all lefty bloggers are on the same page. Jane Hamsher continues to lobby House progressives to vote against any bill that doesn't include a public option. Meanwhile, McCarter urges Senate Dems to "improve the bill...by drafting a reconciliation bill that the House can agree to, and passing it and the Senate bill both."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Malkin, Hayward, Bandow) are celebrating the SCOTUS ruling allowing corporations to "spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress." Liberal bloggers (Benen, bmaz, Kurtz) are bemoaning the decision.
• Conservative bloggers (Reynolds, Hawkins, Finn) continue to discuss the implications of Brown's victory. Michael Medved is already envisioning Brown on a future WH ticket.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Morrissey) are excited about the possibility of Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) challenging Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN).
• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Malkin, Morrissey, Geraghty) are mocking ex-Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) after he admitted his paternity of his mistress's child.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Pass The Damn Bill!

Most liberal bloggers are urging House Dems to swallow their pride and pass the Senate bill as is, with the understanding that Senate Dems will later pass House-friendly amendments using the reconciliation process:

• The Huffington Post's Bob Cesca: "Here's the only real way to pass a serious, stable health care reform bill at this point. You've probably heard this discussed today already, but Senate leadership and the White House ought to cut a deal with House leadership to pass the Senate bill as-is, then guarantee that House-friendly amendments reflecting the 'conference' negotiations -- and maybe a public option -- will be passed via reconciliation and signed immediately following. This way, the core legislation won't sunset or be shredded during a reconciliation proceeding."
• Balloon Juice's Tim F.: "The House has one conceivable win scenario: pass the Senate bill. By tomorrow Congressmen will decide whether or not to abandon HCR (however they try to describe it, that is the only alternative), and all that you can do then is complain about it. Yeah, the bill has some crappy provisions. The important parts are still the most comprehensive improvement to health care in America since FDR was President. Babies and bathwater, noses and faces. Check your gut and decide whether you will regret that vote for Nader sitting on your hands about this."
• The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn: "For all of the panic in Democratic ranks right now, the reality of the situation is stunningly simple. In the span of twenty-four hours, the House of Representatives -- the House in which Democrats command a huge majority, in which liberals actually have some sway, and in which leadership actually has power -- could put health care reform on the president's desk for signing. One lousy vote. One lousy, stinking roll call vote. That's the only hurdle in the way of health care reform. Are Democrats really willing to give up now?"
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "The House could pass the Senate bill by the weekend, and then take up improvements negotiated over last week through reconciliation. The debate would be done; the bill would be law; the landmark breakthrough would be complete; Dems would have demonstrated their ability to deliver; and policymakers could finally move on to other issues."
• The Reality-Based Community's Jonathan Zasloff: "Call your Member of Congress. Tell him or her that you voted for them to pass health care reform, not to turn into jello. Tell them this especially if your Congressmember is [MA Rep.] Barney Frank or [NY Rep.] Anthony Weiner. Any Democrat who does not vote for the Senate bill should be subject to a primary challenge."
• The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates: "If you have the numbers to pass arguably the singular liberal issue of our time, and then refuse to do it, then why are we here?"
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "[T]he best course of action for the Democrats to pass healthcare reform -- and fast -- then move on. There is simply no political upside in getting nothing done."

Lefty bloggers believe that House Dems have no excuse for letting health care reform fail:

• The New Republic's Jonathan Chait: "If [Dems] fail to pull themselves together, future generations will look back at them, note that Congress had passed comprehensive reform in both chambers, had the backing of an eager Democratic president, and could finish the deal by getting 218 of their 256 Democratic members to sign on, and somehow refused. I still find the idea that they'll allow this to happen unfathomable. If they do succumb, it will be because some deep and recurrent character flaw rose to the surface at the worst time, once again."
• Drum: "Sure, the Senate bill isn't perfect. Nothing ever is. But the political situation has changed and it's now the only game in town. It's beyond belief that we could get this close to a century-old goal of liberalism -- we are, literally, just a hair's breadth from the finish line -- and then allow the most significant social legislation of the past 40 years to slip from our grasp just because we're tired and pissed. All we need is one roll call vote in the House. That's how close we are to passing this genuinely historic bill. One vote. Then the next day we can start in on the next 20 years work of improving and finishing what we've begun. We can't allow this to fail now. We can't let the Fox/Drudge/Rush axis win."

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Two weeks ago health reform looked to be completely on track. Today the only impediment to it passing is that House Democrats who already voted in favor of health reform need to vote in favor of health reform a second time. Had [AG] Martha Coakley won the election in Massachusetts, House Democrats who already voted in favor of health reform would need to vote in favor of it a second time. What's more, given that House Democrats have already voted in favor of health reform it's already inevitable that they will be attacked for having voted in favor of health reform. It makes no sense substantively and no sense politically for anyone who was prepared to vote for health reform two weeks ago to not vote for it now."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: There's A Better Way

Not every liberal blogger wants the House to pass the Senate bill as it currently stands, however. Some lefty bloggers are complaining that the "establishment bloggers" quoted above are ignoring "the concerns of these House Dems who actually have to run on this bill." Instead of asking House Dems to pass the Senate bill as is, these bloggers are urging Senate Dems to use the reconciliation process to pass a new bill that House Dems could support:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "Don't kill the bill, improve the bill. There is still the opportunity to fix it, both in terms of policy and politics, by drafting a reconciliation bill that the House can agree to, and passing it and the Senate bill both."
• Daily Kos' Jed Lewison: "[P]assing the Senate bill and fixing it by reconciliation does appear to be the best solution to the current mess. Although there are serious problems with the Senate bill, as DK's David Waldman and TNR's Jeff Davis explain, those problems can be fixed by reconciliation. Under such a process, we'd end up with the most comprehensive reform currently possible."

Liberal bloggers (desmoinesdem, Lewison, digby) are also expressing tentative support for Klein's alternative proposal to "scrap the legislation" and use the Senate budget reconciliation process to pass a "Medicare buy-in between 50 and 65."

Meanwhile, Firedoglake's Hamsher is urging House progressives to vote against any bill that doesn't include a public option.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Reunited

Hot Air's Allahpundit reacts to the news that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will campaign for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ):

"It's obvious what he gets out of this. What does she get out of it? Two things, I think: (a) The moral high ground, rushing to his aid after Steve Schmidt et al. have spent months tearing her down, and (b) an inroad into the media narrative that she's itching to lead some sort of 'wingnut apocalypse' or whatever that'll devour all moderate Republicans in its path. Truth be told, if she was inclined that way, there'd be no bolder statement she could make than by taking on her former running mate, particularly by backing some sort of independent tea-party candidate. Instead she's being a good soldier, just like she was a good soldier in staying out of the Massachusetts race until it was over, when she called to congratulate Brown. Take this as further proof that she meant what she said to Rush [Limbaugh] (and to [Glenn] Beck) about working within the party, not outside of it -- even if it is a bit odd that Maverick somehow doesn't qualify as one of those Republicans who'd best be replaced by a more conservative party member."

LEST WE FORGET: "My Roommate's Apparent Step-By-Step Method For Turning Off My Alarm Clock When I'm Out Of Town"

McSweeney's contributor Jason Mustian:

1. Turn up volume
2. Change radio station
3. Switch from FM to AM
4. Switch from radio to buzzer
5. Unplug

Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, are mostly blaming Coakley, accusing her of being "a horrible and lazy candidate" with "a terribly run campaign". That said, some lefty bloggers are defending Coakley and blaming her loss on nat'l issues. Jane Hamsher describes the election results as "a referendum on the health care bill, the bailouts and the corporatism of the administration."

Speaking of the health care bill, it remains a hot topic in the blogosophere, with liberals pleading with cong. Dems to "finish the job" and conservatives boasting that the bill is "dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Michelle Malkin thinks Brown is the "obvious" choice to deliver the GOP response to Obama's 1/27 SOTU address, but Morrissey warns that doing so "would undermine the sense of independence that he carefully cultivated during his short campaign." In another disagreement between the two bloggers, Morrissey praises the NRSC for quietly supporting Brown's campaign, while Malkin slams the NRSC for "exploiting" Brown's victory.
• Liberal bloggers (Greenwald, Cole) are still buzzing about Scott Horton's report that three alleged "suicides" at Guantánamo weren't actually suicides. Lefty bloggers (BooMan, Willis, Serwer, Black) are also buzzing about yesterday's Washington Post article reporting that the FBI conducted 2,000 illegal phone record searches between '02 and '06.

MA SEN: Suck It, Obama!

Not surprisingly, conservative bloggers are portraying the MA SEN results as a referendum on Obama's agenda -- especially health care reform:

• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "There's no way for the Democrats to spin this one. On Sunday, the President himself made the election a referendum on his and the Democrats' agenda. Congratulations, Senator-elect Brown."
• NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "If you had any doubt that Barack Obama is not the political savior, it was clear tonight. A year in, he is clearly just another politician, and America sent him a message, via Massachusetts."
• The Weekly Standard's Barnes: "Obama's agenda, chiefly health care, took a beating in Massachusetts. In fact, it was the chief cause of Coakley's defeat. Without the intrusion of national politics, she would have defeated Brown. But Obama and Democrats in Washington have created a hostile environment for Democratic candidates even in liberal and Democrat-dominated Massachusetts."
• Hot Air's Morrissey: "It's not just that Obama can't help Democrats -- he's killing their political prospects. His own approval ratings are plunging, and his agenda is so toxic that Democrats can't run on it in Massachusetts and win. And if that agenda can no longer play in the bluest of blue states, where can Democrats feel safe by sticking to it? Certainly not in Indiana, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, or even California."
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "As Barack Obama completes his first year in office, observers may wonder how his hope and change thing is working out. Tonight, Massachusetts voters provided the answer. Americans are hoping for change, alright, but the change they desire is change from the leading policies of the Obama administration."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "Scott Brown is dropping the bomb on socialized medicine -- which should remind people that it was the pivotal issue of the campaign and even in Massachusetts, health care is a huge loser despite the fact that Dems across the country have been using [ex-Sen.] Ted Kennedy's death to sell it."

AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "[I]n a sense, the midterms came early for Obama. On the one-year anniversary of his presidency, he'll have to decide whether he'll continue on his current course, which will cause further erosion of support among independents and subject his party to further losses. Or, like President Clinton, decide to scale back his liberal agenda and attempt to govern as the moderate many Americans though they were electing."

RedState's Moe Lane warns other vulnerable Dems that they're next: "If the President, the DSCC, the DCCC, the DNC, the SEIU, ACORN, and the netroots couldn't manage a win in Massachusetts... what do you think that they can do for you?"

MA SEN II: Terrible Candidate, Or Worst Candidate Ever?

Most liberal bloggers think Coakley deserves most of the blame for her defeat:

• BooMan: "[Coakley] was a complacent candidate and it cost Obama and the Democrats dearly."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "[T]his was a terribly run campaign. Not just that, an irresponsibly run campaign. Yes, it's the national climate. It's a lot of stuff that's going on today. But I don't have much question that another Democratic nominee would have come out with a much better result. I really believe that."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "It's old-fashioned thinking, I know, but winning a primary and then dropping out of sight -- while your opponent is working hard to reach out to voters -- tends to be a bad idea. [...] 19 events in 40 days is evidence of a Senate candidate who was taking victory for granted -- and in the process, throwing victory away."
• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Teddy never took his voters for granted, no matter how big an icon he was in the state. Brown didn't take them for granted either. He was aggressive, engaged, effective, and ... lucky as all shit. It's not every day you get to go up against a candidate who takes everything for granted, neglects to negatively define you, and heads out for vacation while the race is still on. There's several messages to learn from this fiasco, but chief among them -- if you decide to run for office, then respect the freakin' voters and work your ass off for their vote."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "This is not the fault of the adminstration and Barack Obama, because if Coakley had Obama's numbers in Mass., she would be the next Senator. This is about an arrogant state party, a horrible and lazy candidate who was unprepared and unmotivated, out of touch with the voters, incapable or unwilling to put in the work and shake the hands and massage the egos and put in the hours, and they got their asses handed to them. I'm sure the exit polling will give us more information, but right now it looks to me that this was about the fundamentals of running a good campaign. Coakley and company didn't adhere to them."
• Daily Kos' Laura Clawson: "Coakley was beyond complacent, she made little effort to connect with voters, she seems to have quit raising money after the primary, and her campaign took all of her complacency and magnified it with disorganization and incompetence. While Scott Brown campaigned, she disappeared, doing just 19 campaign stops to his 66 between the primary and Sunday. Her online team did virtually nothing -- less than you would expect from a second-tier House race."

An exception is Firedoglake's Hamsher, who argues that nat'l issues are to blame for Coakley's defeat: "Whether people believe Coakley's defeat is a good thing or a bad thing (and I understand there are strong feelings on that front), this is a referendum on the health care bill, the bailouts and the corporatism of the administration. The scapegoating of Coakley is an attempt by the Dems to get out from underneath that, but it's undeniably true."

Hamsher's colleagues at Firedoglake (Walker, Eli) are also defending Coakley and arguing that she was hurt by nat'l issues. Meanwhile, Ian Welsh agrees with Hamsher that MA voters elected Brown in order to voice their opposition to the Senate health care bill.

Open Left's Chris Bowers has a different take: "What does this mean for Democrats? It means that the situation in the country sucks, and Democrats are in charge. Unless Democrats pass legislation that will make the situation less sucky, they will get creamed in November. If you think this is about bad messaging, or abstract ideological disagreement with how Democrats have governed, then you are just wrong. [...] If you are not facing scandals, and times are good, then you will be popular no matter what you pass into law. This is about being in power when times are bad."

Meanwhile, Moulitsas isn't too upset: "Yeah, it sucks that we lost our 60th vote, but really, what did 60 get us last year? It empowered [CT Sen.] Joe Lieberman, gave cover to [AR Sen.] Blanche Lincoln, provided excuses to [Senate Maj. Leader] Harry Reid, and gave a free pass to [MT Sen.] Max Baucus. Now we don't have 60. And like the Republican Senate of the 2000s, if Democrats want to get anything done, they'll have to do it via reconciliation. Given last year's track record in the Senate, it certainly can't make the Senate any less effective."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Stay The Course, Dems!

Several liberal bloggers are cautioning cong. Dems not to give up on health care reform in the wake of Brown's victory:

• Benen: "If Dems think the midterms will be difficult, they should try to imagine how much worse it will be if they spend a year working on health care reform, get a bill passed by both chambers, and then run for re-election on the heels of failure."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "There's nothing about Scott Brown's victory that needs to derail health-care reform in particular, or the rest of Obama's 2010 agenda in general. But if Democrats decide to cower and hide, they can end Obama's presidency on Brown's behalf. That said, I really wonder what the Democratic Caucus thinks will happen if they let health-care reform slip away and walk into 2010 having wasted a year of the country's time amidst a terrible recession. It won't be pretty, I imagine. If health-care reform passes, the two sides can argue over whether it was a success. If it fails, there's no argument."
• Marshall: "People don't like politicians who are weak and don't know what they believe. If the bill was worth passing yesterday, it's just as worth passing tomorrow. [...] For a whole variety of reasons voters clearly have a lot of hesitation about this reform. I think the polls make clear that the public is not against it. But the reticence is real. If Dems decide to run from the whole project in the face of a single reverse, what are voters supposed to draw from that? What conclusion would you draw about an individual in an analogous situation in your own life? Think about it."

In a separate post, Marshall writes: "'If it's the end of health care, it's the end of the Democratic majority.' That's Paul Begala from a few moments ago on CNN when asked whether a Brown win meant the end of health care reform. So true. It really is nothing to fear but fear itself. The Dems have no choice but to finish the job. No choice. And I strongly suspect that means the House has to pass the senate bill."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Deader Than A Doornail

Conservative bloggers are portraying health care reform as effectively finished:

• Barnes: "The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection. Brown ran to be the 41st vote for filibuster and now he is just that. Democrats have talked up clever strategies to pass the bill in the Senate despite Brown, but they won't fly. It's one thing for ObamaCare to be rejected by the American public in poll after poll. But it becomes a matter of considerably greater political magnitude when ObamaCare causes the loss of a Senate race in the blue state of Massachusetts."
• Klein: "As a journalist, I feel the need to avoid declaring the health care bill dead until it in fact is dead. But at the same time, it's hard to think of a viable option for Democrats to get it passed."
• Reason's Peter Suderman: "[G]iven the number of Democratic legislators who've already said they're not too interested, I'd say that chances are that Democrats will to have to call off their health care reform efforts shortly -- perhaps even by the end of the day tomorrow. As they say, predictions are hard, especially about the future. But I don't see any plausible options for reform supporters. [...] For Democrats, it's fourth down, 99 yards to go, they need three touchdowns, and a home run too, but all they have on the field are ping-pong players."

However, Power Line's Paul Mirengoff isn't so sure that health care reform is finished: "To my knowledge, you can't 'buy' [ME Sens. Olympia] Snowe and [Susan] Collins as you can some of the so-called moderate Democrats. But neither have they been 'tough sells' when it comes to cooperating with the liberal Dems. For me right now, the five words I dread are 'Obama to meet with Snowe.'"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Try To Get Some Perspective, Guys

The Atlantic's Megan McArdle:

"Please, will the liberals stop complaining -- and the conservatives crowing -- that this is effectively the end of Obama's presidency? I seem to remember a fellow named Bill Clinton who suffered a crushing defeat on health care and a stunning electoral reversal in 1994, and yet still managed to have a very successful presidency, as these things go. He won't be FDR II. But that was never very likely to begin with."

LEST WE FORGET: "The Choakley"

WAG assesses the pain that Dems are suffering today:

"Bill Simmons' ingenious 'Levels of Losing', which ranks the myriad ways a sports fan can have his heart broken by a crushing loss, captures a universality of emotion with which any fan or political junkie can immediately empathize. Watching Martha Coakley surrender Ted Kennedy's seat to a Republican, I couldn't help but wonder where Coakley's epic fail would fall in the levels of losing. [...]

Is there a sports analogy? A star player who'd led his team through the playoffs, only to meet with a tragic accident and have to watch from the sidelines (or heaven) as his hapless replacement choked away the chance for greatness? Texas's Colt McCoy comes to mind, the winningest quarterback in NCAA history who had to sit out the 2010 BCS national championship game after pinching a nerve five plays into it. McCoy was replaced by a true freshman, who showed his inexperience by throwing a crucial interception that was returned for a touchdown with less than 20 seconds left in the first half. But even that analogy only goes so far. The freshman at least grew up quickly, and gave Texas two second-half touchdowns. That's more than can be said of Martha Coakley's choke-job.

So it looks like we have no choice but to create a whole new level of losing based on recent events: 'The Choakley.' Definition: When a team's star player is injured in the final game of his career, either (A) in a championship game in which the player's team has a big lead, or (B) after a long playoff run but before the championship game, in which that player's team is heavily favored... and that player's replacement proceeds to throw away the game through sheer ineptitude."