Happy Hour Roundup
* Brian Beutler offers a useful rundown of the 13 Dem Senators holding out on the public option. Key storyline to watch.
* Last note to Stephen Hayes: If the 2004 CIA I.G.’s report proves Cheney’s claim that torture worked, please explain why the author of that same report said that “you could not in good conscience reach a definitive conclusion” about whether “the enhanced techniques in the aggregate really worked.” And with that, I’m done.
* Obama hits 50%, his lowest point, in Gallup’s daily tracking.
* David Waldman suggests naming the public option, not the bill, after Ted Kennedy.
* Senator Chuck Grassley raises the bar yet again on what he can support as bipartisan health care reform. Is there a pattern developing here?
* Joe Klein, whose flaying of the Republican leadership has been merciless of late, says Grassley is “making a first-class fool of himself these days.”
* Centrist Dem Senator Mark Warner confirms for the first time that he’d support a health care bill with a public option.
* Uh oh. Still more CIA documents on the way.
* Dave Weigel obtains the whole RNC flyer that claims health care reform could lead to discriminatory withholding of health care from Republicans.
* And conservative bloggers are loving the way Dem Rep. Pete Stark said that moderate Dems are “brain dead.” Finally, something left and right blogostan might both cheer!
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The Kennedy Option. I like it.
Man, I can’t wait until Chuck Grassley’s opinion doesn’t matter anymore. Oh, that’s right. It shouldn’t. Pull the plug, Baucus!
“I don’t think that Bush or Cheney did anything illegal. I’m perfectly consistent. You aren’t”
I’d almost forgotten about the famous rolling goal posts.
jzap – I like that idea about the Kennedy Option, too. I think that would have made Ted Kennedy happier than almost anything.
WooooooooHooooooooooooooooo!
” Centrist Dem Senator Mark Warner confirms for the first time that he’d support a health care bill with a public option.”
Notice how one by one they are turning our way?
“And with that, I’m done.”
Thanks, Greg!
@tena: What does that goalposts thing mean?
This PWNING of Stephen Hayes is So. Frikkin, Awesome.
It doesn’t pay to be a wingnut sock puppet anymore. Somebody should forward him that memo.
Res ipsa loquitor, sbj.
loquitur.
Still don’t get it.
“Natalie Portman Loves Obscene Hip Hop,”
Well, we have this in common.
Watching the public viewing of Senator Kennedy’s body. Much of the family, including Ted Kennedy’s wife Vicky, is still there, and are greeting the public mourners as they come in. They are even going so far as to give the mourners hugs if they ask.
For all wealth and prestige, that family stays classy when it comes to public service.
I’m puzzled why so many people seem to be ignoring the stories about Obama and Netanyahu talking about a peace agreement.
It sure seems to me that Obama’s accomplishments in a short amount of time get short shrift. He gets hammered for the economy = except it’s doing better. He gets hammered for not moving health care reform faster – when presidents have failed at this for 60 years.
It’s damned odd. If Bush and Netanyahu had been close to an agreement, every news outlet in the country would have been all over it.
Loquitur. Oh, snap. I could spend all day here correcting spelling and grammar (including my own) on comment threads.
The Kennedy Option is catchy. I think it will become part of the vernacular. Did I spell that right?
Great news about Warner. I’ve been hammering his office every chance I get. Hopefully I helped letting him know Virginia is behind him. Plus, he’s a God here in VA. He could vote for legalizing pot and still get voted back in next time around.
@Tena
I agree, we’re all so consumed with health care reform and torture memos we’re missing the big picture. Just last week I read a post about Obama appearing too weak to Netanyahu, giving him the upper hand, and yet, here we are already further along in peace talks than the last 8 years or more.
Over at FDL everyone seems to like TediCare or TeddyCare. Naturally with the teddy bear. All I can say is if they use his name it better be a good bill.
mike from Arlington – thanks for hammering on Warner. It is very good news.
I can’t recall which Blue Dog it was now, but yesterday or the day before one came out and said that he’d be willing to pass a bill with just the Democrats. Progress…it’s happening.
And this is yet another reason not to open war crimes trials up right now –
Obama has worked on getting the Muslim world to trust us a bit better again and apparently it’s getting somewhere.
One way to blow that sky-high would be the evidence in a war crimes trial. Maybe.
I still think it’s way too soon to know what is ultimately going to happen there.
Tena
Over just the last week, there’s been mixed news/leaks re Mitchell’s progress with Netanyahu. Nothing looks finalized at this point and there has been, as we know, other ’stories’ up front. I noticed today that Merkel is pushing on a settlement freeze (which Netanyahu doesn’t want, of course). It’s still an in progress matter and when something more solid comes up, it will be pushed forward.
An interesting corner of this problem is Netanyahu’s unhappiness with Obama’s initiatives. He’d much prefer another president like Bush who just delivered the millions in US tax dollars. Whether, or to what degree he might act in coordination with the American right to stymie Obama seems an open question.
“An interesting corner of this problem is Netanyahu’s unhappiness with Obama’s initiatives. ”
I agree, which is why I found the stories of their approaching an agreement so interesting.
For those of you who might be interested:
What Ted Kennedy did to save same *** marriage in Massachusetts.
(s*e*x)
ARRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
One way to blow that sky-high would be the evidence in a war crimes trial.
On the other hand, since it’s already no secret that the previous administration tortured maybe airing it, investigating it, and prosecuting it would have a beneficial effect.
I had heard the 10 year outlook on the budget was adjusted but I hadn’t caught that continuing on the tract we are on now would lead to 11 trillion and what Obama is suggesting would lead to only 9 trillion.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2901
Key quote:
“The President’s proposals would produce significantly lower deficits over the next ten years than continuing current policies.”
“On the other hand, since it’s already no secret that the previous administration tortured maybe airing it, investigating it, and prosecuting it would have a beneficial effect.”
I considered that – that’s why I said “maybe.”
Since we don’t know the evidence, but it apparently is pretty bad from the reactions of the those who have, that’s a very tough call.
“I demand to see Obama’s placenta!!”
(the afterbirthers) … http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/afterbirthers_demand_to_see?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
“WASHINGTON — With the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate detainee abuses, long-simmering conflicts between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department burst into plain view this week, threatening relations between two critical players on President Obama’s national security team.
The tension between the agencies complicates how the administration handles delicate national security issues, particularly the tracking and capturing of suspected terrorists overseas. It also may distract Mr. Obama, who is trying to move beyond the battles of the Bush years to focus on an ambitious domestic agenda, most notably health care legislation”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/us/politics/28intel.html?_r=1
See, some on the left refuse to get this, but you have to be careful what you wish for.
We can’t do it all at once. It’s not as if we didn’t hand Obama a Herculean task with just the pieces left after Bush got finished. On top of that there is constant insistence from different parts of the left to do everything else right this second, too. And most of it is controversial and difficult to manage.
I can’t really believe the amount of this **** that is being pitched at Obama from the people who elected him – who apparently have forgotten just how very bad it was for 8 years, and how very much better it is now.
Sometimes I think the internet is not such a great thing after all.
Teddycare – nice.
Just checked out Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. Don’t follow my example. Any remaining faith you might have in universal education will be seriously jeopardized.
Universal education? Paid for by taxpayers? And compulsory, to boot???
WTF? Sounds highly socialist to me.
Tena
Im sorry but that’s a bunch of bullshit. Wasn’t it President Obama himself who said on the campaign trail that he could walk and chew bubble gum? I couldn’t give a flying f*ck about whose feelings are hurt at the CIA, if you break the law your @ss should have to pay the price, period. And truly this kind of moral relativism about not investigating crimes because its not politically convenient is something I would much rather leave for Republicans. If they didn’t want the job, they shouldn’t have signed up for it.
One more thing worth considering. Just think of what everyone who is now concern trolling about an investigation into torture would be saying right now had John McCain won the election and refused to look into torture because it was “politically inconvenient”. Would you be giving him a pass? And if you wouldn’t why are you willing to give one to President Obama?
It is what it is.