Repubs thought they played the O-Man. Ha, guess again.

"I'm guessing that the Obamamites are being savvy -- taking this fight out of the public eye so that they can handle it in a better way.

I don't understand this. If the provision is a money saver, as Elana Schor's source says, why not put it back in the stimulus package, and explain that. And out of the public eye? I doubt the Reps are going to miss an opportunity to talk about 200 million dollars for condoms.

You don't put it back in the stimulus package because the repugs have gotten people to thinking that it is condoms for poor people and it would make the stimulus package less agreeable to the common citizen. You put it in something else that makes the repugs look even more ridiculous if they complain about it so that the framing of the repugs as a bunch of jerks gets emphasized. Boomaranged, if you will, to quote one of the king jerks.

If the provision is a money saver, as Elana Schor's source says, why not put it back in the stimulus package, and explain that.

Because the stimulus package is on a time blitz, and holding it to spend time explaining something that's less than 1% of the whole isn't worthwhile. If something that small, relative to the whole, needs to be taken out and dealt with in a different package to keep the stimulus bill moving forward, that's the right thing to do.

Column of the day: Paul Krugman in the Times, pointing out that every person, and by extension family, laid off also loses access to health care, and that the United States is the only country in the Western world still subject to this. Obama's failure to act on healthcare reform in a way that divorces healthcare from employment (he had one of the weakest healthcare proposals in the primary contest) compounds the disaster we're facing and, Krugman says, fuels a growing populist fury over fatcat bailouts that, of course, never trickle down while the rest of us are left to go hang. Compared to this failure, family planning, however praiseworthy, doesn't seem like much.

From what I've heard, Obama is taking healthcare seriously. Of course he wants this stimulus bill finished first, but I'm confident that we'll be hearing a lot on healthcare reform in the coming months.
The fact that he put Tom Daschle in charge of this issue reenforces this confidence--I'm hoping that between him and folks like Waxman and Kennedy in Congress, that we'll be seeing some major action in a relatively short time.
Actually, they probably won't have much choice but to move swiftly and decisively because of what Krugman is saying--the already serious crisis will be compounded by the recession.

Family Planning was obviously the lightning rod to draw the GOP's attention. It never "fit" in with the stim bill, and was probably never intended to survive. Now it gets into the next few rounds of appropriations, health care, etc., (where it fits in nicely) until it's implemented.

Man, the GOP's thin leadership bench is really showing. Limbaugh may well be the de facto leader.

Perhaps the family planning provision can include making it illegal for a doctor to implant 8 embryos into a woman who already has 6 children. Unless this woman can prove that she can support 14 children to age 18 and pay the hospital and doctors bills associated with the multiple births with no government assistance.

As for the couple who now have 17 (?) children, one at a time the "natural way", well, I don't know. But I think it's just weird.