You do not need insider information to know that Hillary Clinton threw a hissy fit at Bibi Netanyahu last Friday morning. And you don’t need that kind of information to know that she was sent out to do this little job by her boss.
Republicans can't seem to stop themselves from revealing their master plan to destroy the Democrats:
You’ve got to hand it to Bristol Palin: The gal is working overtime to turn those lemons into lemonade.
I've just read the transcript of the president's remarks about Haiti, the ones he made on January 15. He noted that, in addition to assistance from the United States, significant aid had also come from "Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, among others." Am I missing another country that truly weighed in with truly consequential assistance? Ah, yes.
At long last our national nightmare is over: Jay Leno is headed back to his spot atop “The Tonight Show,” and Conan O’Brien—more adorably known these days as Coco—has left the building with his gazillion-dollar consolation prize, quite possibly to set up shop at Fox.
Health care reform may not be finished after all. Despite the political reverberations of last week’s special election in Massachusetts, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are still discussing ways of passing a comprehensive reform bill.
But it’s going to take heroic political efforts, given the number of Democrats suddenly skittish about supporting such a bill. And it’s not clear whether the Hill’s strongest reform advocates are getting the kind of political help they say they need from the White House.
According to multiple sources, the preferred option for congressional leadership remains what it was last week: Having the House pass the Senate bill, as it is currently written, and then working with the Senate to fix the bill through the budget reconciliation process.
You know the story: With reconciliation, filibusters can’t block a majority from passing legislation, so the Senate could move a bill even with “only” 59 members in the Democratic caucus. And you know the catch: Rank-in-file Democrats in the House are either spooked by the Massachusetts results, strongly opposed to elements of the Senate bill, or both. Their counterparts in the Senate, meanwhile, don't seem in any great rush to make it easier--by, say, signing a letter promising they'll support in reconciliation the same changes they had been negotiating over the last few weeks.
The White House seems to agree that passing the Senate bill and fixing it with reconciliation would be the best way to proceed. But that doesn’t mean they’re pushing hard for that option. According to the same sources, the Obama administration sent vague, sometimes conflicting signals about its intentions for much of last week--making the task for reform advocates even harder.
If you're the kind of person who reads this blog, you're probably already familiar with the churlish Republican practice of refusing to call the Democratic Party by its true name.
If you’ve been a Democrat for more than two or three years, disappointment with your leaders is something that comes rather naturally. From the 1970s until well into the previous decade, the party produced presidents and presidential candidates like Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry. These men weren’t lovable losers. They were just losers. Even the lone winner among them--Bill Clinton--famously and infamously found ways to disappoint.
But then Barack Obama came along. And for the first time, at least in my memory, Democrats had a leader who consistently outsmarted not just his opponents but his supporters as well. Over and over again in the 2008 campaign, those of us rooting for him would panic over his strategy. Over and over again, Obama proved us wrong. He had an uncanny ability to block out the noise and confound Beltway perceptions, to ignore the ups and downs of the news cycle in order to pursue broader goals. Even for me, somebody who generally resisted the Obama kool-aid, it was something to behold.
I remember the sensation most vividly during the financial crisis of September--when John McCain suspended his campaign and suggested canceling a scheduled debate, in order to return to Washington. Suggesting that a president should be able to campaign and govern simultaneously, Obama rebuffed the proposal--a move for which, I was sure, nervous voters would punish him. Instead, the public rallied to Obama and rejected McCain. They saw a leader who was unflappable, who had his own sense of direction, and who could manage a crisis.
This cool demeanor became his trademark and, eventually, supporters took to emailing around a photoshop image every time political trouble appeared. If you're on a progressive mailing list, chances are you saw it a few dozen times--a picture of Obama giving a speech, with the caption “Everybody Chill the F*** Out. I’ve Got This.”
Anderson Cooper was one of the first reporters to arrive in Haiti after last week’s massive earthquake. According to a Los Angeles Times account, the CNN personality raced to the airport upon hearing the news and caught the last flight out of New York. Unfortunately, the flight he caught deposited him in the Dominican Republic, not Haiti.
Four days before the fall of Kabul in November 2001, Osama bin Laden was still in town. The Al Qaeda leader’s movements before and after September 11 are difficult to trace precisely, but, just prior to the attacks, we know that he appeared in Kandahar and urged his followers to evacuate to safer locations in anticipation of U.S. retaliation. Then, on November 8, he was in Kabul, despite the fact that U.S. forces and their Afghan allies were closing in on the city.
There are any number of ways to read (and, yes, spin) this latest Washington Post/ABC poll on Obama and global warming. Take the headline figure: Americans now only barely approve of the president's handling of climate change, 45 percent to 39 percent, which is down dramatically from his 61-29 approvals back in April. Is that because people genuinely don't want him to deal with the issue?
WASHINGTON -- Here's what Democrats need to ponder: Can they prosper in the absence of George W. Bush?
His presidency was a tonic for Democrats and led to a blossoming of political creativity on the center-left not seen since the 1930s. No tactic, no program, no leader ever did more to catalyze the party than the rage Bush inspired.
The Medicare buy-in now under consideration is a nice idea, but it's not a public option. Or is it? Yesterday on MSNBC Countdown, Ezra Klein made an important point. If premiums for the Medicare buy-in are competitive--and they should be, I think, if it's done right--then a 56-year-old selecting that option is going to see, right away, what a good deal it is. That's going to have precisely the effect that public option proponents always wanted, both on popular perceptions of public versus private insurance and, in the aggregate, on the market for insurance. Private insurers may not covet the 55-64 demographic, given its high health risks. But they also won't want to develop a reputation as inferior.
ABC on Now Zad, a town in Helmand:
One area of town is so heavily mined, Marines refer to it as "no leg alley." Since 2005 several Marines have lost limbs there because of small bombs planted apparently not to kill, but to maim.
It's all over the news today that Oprah Winfrey will end her syndicated talk show in 2011, after 25 seasons.
No need for women--or the book publishing industry--to panic. The assumption is that Oprah will move some version of her gab fest to, or at least make frequent appearance on, her soon-to-be-launched, modestly named cable channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network (aka OWN).
That's the word Palin used in her ABC interview to describe Obama's handling of the economy:
It's a little weird that there hasn't been more alarm surrounding the apparently major Denver-based terror plot busted up by the feds in the past few days. Last night, ABC News reported that authorities believe Najibullah Zazi's may have co-plotters who are still at large.
No, not without cause. But if Israel flies over Iraq to destroy Iranian nuclear installations ... precz z Z'hydani.
Nate Silver sifts through the before-and-after polling:
Even before Ted Kennedy lost his battle with brain cancer late last month, Republicans were suggesting that health care reform had suffered in his absence--not because Kennedy was so devoted to the cause, but because he would have cut a deal with the Republicans. “In every case, he fought as hard as he could . . .
Obama's health care agenda may be staggering in the polls of late, but a new Washington Post-ABC survey finds that 57 percent of Americans still, at least, support Obama's energy policies, with just 29 percent opposed. Even the cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, easily the most contentious part of the House climate bill, gets majority support: 52 percent back it, 43 percent don't.
ABC is reporting that Leon Panetta threatened to quit as CIA director:
