MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* As of this afternoon, the gunman believed to be responsible for shooting four uniformed police officers in Tacoma, Washington, remains at large. (Because the suspect, Maurice Clemmons, had his sentence commuted by Mike Huckabee, there's a political angle to the story.)

* In a brazen attempt to antagonize the world, Iran announced its intentions to build 10 new sites to enrich uranium, dramatically expanding the same nuclear program that has helped isolate the regime.

* Not encouraging: "President Asif Ali Zardari has ceded his position in Pakistan's nuclear command structure to his prime minister, in a sudden political maneuver widely seen as a fresh sign of turmoil on the eve of President Obama's strategy announcement for the region."

* Expect President Obama to lay out "a time frame for winding down the American involvement in the war in Afghanistan" tomorrow night.

* The status quo needs improvement: "The administration said Monday that it would increase the pressure on banks to help troubled homeowners receive permanently lower mortgage payments. The Treasury Department said that mortgage servicers would be required to submit plans on how they would decide whether a loan would be permanently modified. Bank that fall short of the guidelines of their agreement could face fines or sanctions, the Treasury said."

* Oh my: "With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children."

* Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo, of the traditional National Party, appears to have won Honduras' presidential election.

* The Senate should expect to work quite a few weekends in December.

* A war tax is "probably not" going to happen.

* The White House press corps' interest in the "party crashers" story seems more than a little excessive.

* The elite community college.

* Another potential domestic terrorist is caught with a bomb-making lab in his Ohio home.

* Smart piece from Marc Ambinder on the success of Obama's Asia trip.

* Interesting: "Jeff Sharlet, who burst onto the scene with his book about The Family, the shadowy fundamentalist organization that has infested American politics like a nest of rabid termites, has leveled another revolting accusation at the group. His research and investigation into the group, which involved infiltrating them and living with them, reveals that U.S. lawmakers who are members of The Family are behind the atrocious, hateful Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009 that is likely to become law in Uganda."

* The Palin "bus" tour has apparently included some private-jet travel.

* I haven't felt the need to write about the ridiculous "Climategate" nonsense, but Kevin's post strikes all the right notes.

* There's something deeply wrong with the right: "By a wide margin, Americans consider Rush Limbaugh the nation's most influential conservative voice. Those are the results of a poll conducted by '60 Minutes' and Vanity Fair magazine and issued Sunday. The radio host was picked by 26 percent of those who responded, followed by Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck at 11 percent. Actual politicians -- former Vice President Dick Cheney and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- were the choice of 10 percent each."

* A list to help motivate the liberal base a bit.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

THE LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE STIMULUS.... Republican lawmakers were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the economic recovery package that rescued the economy from the abyss. But instead of feeling embarrassed about the latest in a series of dramatic economic misjudgments, GOP officials continue to rail against the economic life-preserver.

Well, that's actually only part of the problem. While they shake their fist at the stimulus with one hand, they're reaching out for more stimulus aide with their other hand. Lee Fang has this report about Rep. Bill Shuster (R) of Pennsylvania, who loves the recovery package when he's not trashing it.

* Last week, Shuster attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a sewage treatment plant for the Blairsville Municipal Authority. Republican State Senator Don White noted that the project was only possible because of the stimulus, which allowed the state Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST) to provide a $10.4 million grant and a $3 million low interest loan for construction.

* On November 4, Shuster asked Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) to use some of the state's stimulus money to reopen the Scotland School for Veterans' Children. Shuster noted that using the Recovery Act money for the school would save 134 full-time jobs.

* In July, Shuster joined 14 Pennsylvania lawmakers -- including fellow stimulus-opponents Reps. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), Charlie Dent (R-PA), Jim Gerlach (R-PA), and Todd Platts (R-PA) -- in writing a letter asking that stimulus money be used towards public universities.

* In June, Shuster hailed the stimulus-funded initiative to build a high-speed rail line between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The Post-Gazette quoted Shuster praising the project: "I believe we are about to experience a new era in passenger rail in this country. I want Western Pennsylvania to participate in this new era and to enjoy the benefits of increased and expanded passenger rail service."

This comes a week after a Virginia jobs fair in House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's (R) district, where he repeatedly condemned the stimulus effort -- neglecting to mention that the job fair wouldn't have existed were it not for the stimulus effort.

And let's not forget, this isn't exactly an unusual occurrence. Bobby Jindal, Mitch McConnell, Saxby Chambliss, Johnny Isakson, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry all have two things in common -- they (1) railed against recovery efforts, rejecting the very idea of government spending improving the economy; and (2) later discovered they liked stimulus spending after all, and felt it was important to help the economy in their state.

Shuster, in other words, is in good company.

Of course, the phrase these guys are looking for, but can't bring themselves to say, is "Thank you, Mr. President, for rescuing the economy from the recession we helped create."

The sooner they concede they were wrong (again), the sooner we can all move on. I'm confident the White House has no interest in rubbing it in.

AFGHANISTAN.... On the eve of his national address at West Point, President Obama issued an order to the Pentagon to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The president has spent much of the day discussing his decision with foreign leaders, after communicating his instructions to the brass on Sunday afternoon.

A lot of the relevant details have not yet been released, and one assumes we'll know a great deal more about the future of the U.S. policy after the president's remarks tomorrow.

Slate's Fred Kaplan ran a good piece today, articulating "mixed feelings" that I can relate to.

So here's what it comes down to: This option might be a good idea if it worked, but the chances of its working are slim (though not zero); all the other options seem to be bad ideas, but they might cost less money and get fewer American soldiers killed (though not necessarily).

Which road is less unappetizing? I don't know. That's why I'm ambivalent.

My guess is that President Obama held so many meetings with his national-security advisers on this topic -- nine, plus a 10th on Sunday night to get their orders and talking points straight -- because he wanted to break through his own ambivalences; because he needed to come up with a reason (not just a rationalization) for doing whatever it is that he's decided to do, some assurance that it really does make sense, that it has a chance of working, so he can defend it to Congress, the nation, and the world with conviction. Let's hope he found something. A columnist can be ambivalent; a president can't be.

MARK KIRK'S DESCENT CONTINUES.... It's tempting to think Rep. Mark Kirk (R), running for the Senate in a traditionally "blue" state, would be careful about shifting too far to the right. Sure, he has a primary, but Kirk is expected to win the Republican nomination fairly easily.

Alas, Kirk's descent continues unabated. In the latest example, the congressman suggests, in writing, that women may be denied mammograms if health care reform becomes law. In a new mailing, Kirk writes:

This month, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended eliminating mammograms for women ages 40-49. The panel concluded that while thousands of women's lives would be saved by continuing the test, "the net benefit is small" for the population as a whole.

Currently, this is only an advisory recommendation. But under the health care bill moving through the Senate, this recommendation could become law.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK: Should women between the ages of 40 and 49 be denied access to life-saving mammograms?

Kirk has to know how ridiculous this is. "This recommendation could become law"? According to whom? In Grown-Up Land, this recommendation has no chance of becoming law.

In a statement, DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan called the mailing "a lie," adding, "This is just another pathetic example of a Republican party that offers the American people nothing but fear and lies when what they desperately need is leadership and solutions."

A recent New York Times editorial explained Kirk actually has the story backwards: "There is virtually no chance that any insurers, either public or private, will deny coverage to anyone based on these recommendations. Government and industry officials have said that explicitly and, in fact, every state but Utah requires private insurers to pay for mammograms for women starting in their 40s.... The only part of the reform bills that could affect mammography would only make them more accessible. Under the legislation, the secretary of health and human services might be given authority to waive Medicare co-payments for prevention services that rank highly in the opinion of this task force. Since the task force gave a low grade to screening women in their 40s, the secretary could not waive cost-sharing for them."

It's a genuine shame to see what some Republicans are willing to do to get a win a primary.

WORTH FIGHTING FOR OR NOT?.... When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) included a public option in the Senate version of health care reform, there was a sense of relief among proponents of the idea. When the motion to proceed passed (barely) with the public option intact, reform advocates were again pleased.

But as attention turned to the end game, and the public option emerged as arguably the biggest hurdle to overcoming Republican obstructionism, I've noticed a new argument among some public-option supporters: the current version of the public option may not be worth fighting for.

If you've followed the debate, you know the public option that's survived is a shell of its original self. We're talking about a plan that a fairly small percentage of the population will be eligible to participate in, which features negotiated rates, and which states can opt out of.

A week ago, Josh Marshall was among the first to argue that this incarnation may not be worth the effort, calling what's left of the public option "measly," and not worth delaying the larger reform effort over. He added that the proposed plan would likely become "a dumping ground for what health care policy types call 'creaming' -- health insurers wanting to maintain pools of the young and the healthy and dump responsibility for the aged and chronically ill on to public programs or on to nothing at all." Soon after, Tim F. added, "[W]ithout some major changes the public option is going to suck."

It now seems like I'm seeing the same argument pop up all over the place. Paul Starr wrote in the NYT yesterday:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, [the current version of the public option] would enroll less than 2 percent of the population and probably have higher premiums than private plans. For progressives to say they will block reform without a public option is not just foolish, but potentially tragic if it results in legislative deadlock. [...]

Liberals should be prepared to give up what is now a mere symbol for changes in the bill that would deliver affordable insurance more effectively and quickly to the millions of Americans who desperately need it.

A USA Today editorial, which supports of the idea of competing public and private plans, added this morning that the provision has been "weakened" and "diluted." The piece added, "As things stand, it's a wonder that so many people are fighting so much over something so toothless."

Matt Yglesias didn't go quite so far as to say the provision is no longer worth pursuing, but he concluded that the remaining public option has been "defined down to something that's much less significant."

If this approach catches on among lawmakers, we can probably guess what's going to happen to the provision. There are several Democratic senators who've been pushing hard for a public option since the beginning, but if they come to believe that what's left of the measure is hardly worth fighting for, and reform proponents fear that the remaining public option won't be effective, they'll invest their energies elsewhere.

MONEY IN YOUR POCKET.... Following up on earlier item, there's growing reason to believe health care reform will produce lower premiums for consumers. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber's analysis reached this conclusion, and the Congressional Budget Office released a report today that will almost certainly be misconstrued, but which is actually a positive development.

According to CBO, average premiums in the individual market would increase 10 to 13 percent because of provisions in the Senate health care bill, but, crucially, most people (about 57 percent) would actually find themselves paying significantly less money for insurance, thanks to federal subsidies for low- and middle-class consumers.

Those are two separate findings, but it seems likely that Republicans will use the former finding to attack reform, claiming it will raise people's premiums, and leave people confused about the second finding, which is actually the one that impacts people's pocket books.

This can get a little confusing, which conservatives will no doubt want to exploit, so let's set the record straight before the lying begins in earnest. The CBO looked at premiums for consumers getting insurance as individuals, through small-group coverage, and large-group coverage. Both group markets, which serve a large majority of Americans under 65, are expected to see premiums decrease as a result of reform. That means more money in the pockets of tens of millions of consumers.

And what about the individual market? Premiums are expected to increase by about 10% by 2016. As Ezra Klein explained, however, what matters is why.

The CBO sees the changes coming from three different sources. First, "the average insurance policy in this market would cover a substantially larger share of enrollees' costs for health care (on average) and a slightly wider range of benefits." This accounts for all of the increase in premiums. In fact, it accounts for much more than the projected increase: The improvement in the insurance obtained on the individual market would, on its own, raise prices by up to 30 percent.

But the increase is moderated by two other policy changes. First, the new rules governing the insurance market are expected to make the market more efficient, lowering prices by 7 to 10 percent. Second, the individual mandate, alongside the subsidies and the increased ease of purchasing insurance, is expected to bring in healthier folks, which should save another 7 to 10 percent. Add it all together and we're looking at a 10 to 12 percent increase in premiums for insurance that's about 30 percent better than what people are getting now. It's a steal. And all this is before we get to subsidies.

The CBO estimates that 57 percent of people in the individual market will receive subsidies to help them purchase health-care insurance (folks on the individual market tend to be much lower-income, with much less stable employment). Those subsidies will reduce premium costs by between 56 to 59 percent for the average beneficiary. So in the final analysis, the effect of reform on your typical individual market purchasers is to give them insurance that's about 30 percent better but only 10 to 12 percent more expensive, and then assure them subsidies that will lower their payments by more than 50 percent.

The Congressional Budget Office, in other words, has offered another encouraging report on the benefits of health care reform. With the debate poised to begin in the Senate, the timing is helpful.

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM.... The lead Politico piece of the day highlights "7 stories Barack Obama doesn't want told." The idea, apparently, is to identify seven media narratives that have the potential to catch on -- especially if they're picked up and repeatedly tirelessly by outlets like Politico -- and undermine President Obama's standing.

It's not an especially enlightening list, and most of the seven are pretty predictable -- the president needs more fiscal discipline; he's too thoughtful and appreciative of nuance; his White House is too mean ("the Chicago Way"); his White House isn't mean enough ("pushover"); he's elevated Speaker Pelosi too much; and he's arrogant.

Of particular interest, though, was John Harris' observation about the president may not be enough of an "American exceptionalist."

Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country -- because of its power and/or the hand of Providence -- should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world.

On this score, the reviews of Obama's recent Asia trip were harsh.

His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications.

I don't doubt that a variety of pundits find all of this very compelling. It's not.

For one thing, the bow wasn't especially "peculiar," and no one outside beltway newsrooms seems to care. For another, the "reviews" of the Asia trip may have been "harsh," but the reality of the trip was far more encouraging. Just as important, the bulk of the Obama agenda seems focused on helping the United States regain its influence and position as the global leader -- which is the opposite of being "comfortable with a relative decline."

As Greg Sargent explained, Harris' assumptions about exceptionalism seem especially off-base.

There's been a general unwillingness [among some political reporters] to acknowledge how vastly the landscape of national security politics has shifted in the wake of Bush's catastrophic foreign policy experiments and the electorate's resounding rejection from 2006 onward of his vision of swaggering unilateralism. Multiple polls have shown that majorities support Obama's engagement of hostile foreign leaders.... The electorate even supported Obama's decision to journey to Berlin and promise a new era of engagement, which was widely ridiculed as an "apology."

Harris notes that Obama should fear a narrative holding that he is "comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence," but this formulation, too, is revealing. Obama in 2008 explicitly rejected the notion that pragmatic global engagement, and the willingness to compromise with other countries in order to tackle common challenges, is tantamount to risking a "decline in U.S. influence." He won resoundingly. Indeed, he was elected after insisting that it's in America's interests to carve out a new type of global leadership role built on a rejection of that world view.

Quite right. In fact, in April, the president was specifically asked about whether he subscribes "to the school of 'American exceptionalism' that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world." Obama offered what struck me as the perfect response: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I'm enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world.... I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can't solve these problems alone."

It's not how the right perceives American exceptionalism, and it's not how the wired-for-Republicans media perceives American exceptionalism, but it's a thoughtful, nuanced, mature approach to the issue.

That this might be a problematic "narrative" is absurd.

MONDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* The proposed RNC "purity test" is struggling to pick up support from party leaders. Yesterday, former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie told CBS it would not be "in the best interest of the party."

* In a surprise move, the Boston Globe endorsed community service leader Alan Khazei in Massachusetts' Senate Democratic primary. Recent polls show Khazei struggling to get to double digits. The primary election is Dec. 8 -- a week from tomorrow.

* On a related note, former Massachusetts governor and presidential nominee Michael Dukakis (D) threw his support to Rep. Mike Capuano's (D) Senate campaign. State Attorney General Martha Coakley remains the Democratic frontrunner, but there's some evidence to suggest Capuano is closing the gap.

* In Wisconsin, the latest survey from Public Policy Polling shows Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) leading next year's gubernatorial race, but by a narrow margin. Barrett leads former Rep. Mark Neumann (R) by two (41% to 39%); leads former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) by five (46% to 41%), and is tied 40% each against Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker (R).

* In Michigan, a new Mitchell Research & Communications poll shows state Attorney General Mike Cox leading Rep. Pete Hoekstra in a Republican gubernatorial primary, 27% to 24%.

* Republicans have been eyeing Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) as a vulnerable incumbent, but the leading GOP challenger will apparently skip the race next year.

* Ralph Nader is still thinking about running for the Senate in Connecticut next year.

* And in a bit of surprise, Mike Huckabee said he is "less than likely" to run for president in 2012. I find that pretty hard to believe.

ENCOURAGING DICK.... As you may have heard, Newsweek's Jon Meacham has a provocative item in the new issue, encouraging Dick Cheney to run for president because it would be "good for the Republicans and good for the country." There are more than few problems with the argument, but the part that stood out for me is the notion that we need a "referendum on competing visions" of government.

One of the problems with governance since the election of Bill Clinton has been the resolute refusal of the opposition party (the GOP from 1993 to 2001, the Democrats from 2001 to 2009, and now the GOP again in the Obama years) to concede that the president, by virtue of his victory, has a mandate to take the country in a given direction. A Cheney victory would mean that America preferred a vigorous unilateralism to President Obama's unapologetic multilateralism, and vice versa. [...]

A campaign would ... give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.

I seem to recall a lengthy process -- I believe it was called "the presidential election of 2008" -- where Americans were given a choice between a continuation of Bush/Cheney policies and a more progressive, Democratic approach. I also seem to recall the outcome -- a one-sided victory for the Dem.

It's true that the defeated and humiliated Republican Party maintains that the president did not earn a mandate, but why would an Obama victory over Cheney change the GOP's mind? 365 electoral votes weren't enough?

For that matter, is the jury still out on the Bush presidency? Meacham sees the need for additional adjudication "in a direct way." I'm not sure what more evidence anyone would need that Bush failed in spectacular and historic ways, in practically every area of public policy. It will take many, many years to address the fiascos of the last eight years.

Meacham sees these catastrophes and thinks, "What we really need is the failed president's vice president to seek national office." There's no reason to think that's a good idea.

The Newsweek editor added, "No one foresaw Cheney's reemergence as a force in the politics of the 21st century until it happened." Did it? Sure, the mainstream media loves to follow Dick Cheney's attack of the day, but when, exactly, did the unpopular and discredited former vice president "reemerge as a force in the politics of the 21st century"? I don't remember that happening.

Indeed, rank-and-file Republicans were asked in a new poll about who best reflects the party's principles. Just one chose Dick Cheney -- not 1 percent, I mean one individual person.

LACKING DIRECTION.... The Washington Post released a poll today on what Republican voters are thinking, and how satisfied they are with their party. The results were all over the place.

The Republican rank and file is largely in sync with GOP lawmakers in their staunch opposition to efforts by President Obama and Democrats to enact major health-care legislation, but a new Washington Post poll also reveals deep dissatisfaction among GOP voters with the party's leadership as well as ideological and generational differences that may prove big obstacles to the party's plans for reclaiming power.

What's tricky about all of this is trying to get a sense of direction. Rank-and-file Republicans aren't happy, but it's not altogether clear what they're looking for, either.

In 2005, 76% of Republicans were satisfied with the direction set by the party's leadership; now that number is 49%. About a third believes GOP leaders do not stand up for the party's "core values."

The next question, of course, is what Republican leaders should do in response, and that's where the poll offers few clues. It's one thing to learn that the party is off-track; it's another to know what to do about it.

It's not like there's a clamoring for an even more right-wing party -- 58% of Republicans want to see the party work with Democrats, and 69% said they approve of GOP candidates who take moderate positions on some issues.

There's also no real sense of what the party's priorities ought to be. About a third of Republicans believe the GOP should spend more time opposing gay marriage, but nearly as many believe the party should do the opposite. About a third of Republicans want to see more focus on abortion, and nearly as many prefer less. GOP voters expressed concern about taxes, spending, and the economy, but that's pretty much what the party leadership focuses on already.

This is not entirely unexpected -- when the party has a small congressional minority, no clear leadership, and no policy agenda to speak of, it stands to reason that rank-and-file attitudes would be all over the place. But the poll isn't much of a roadmap for what party supporters expect their representatives to do.

THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE PROXIES.... The White House would love nothing more than to see the larger health care reform debate come down to a battle of proxies. Among those endorsing reform are the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the AARP, and the American Cancer Society. Among those opposing reform are insurance companies and assorted right-wing activist groups.

For the mainstream, one side appears to have the edge.

With that in mind, as the debate in the Senate gets underway again, the White House is highlighting this division. This morning, this video from Vice President Biden was posted online, asking a good question: "When it comes to explaining what health care reform means to you, who do you trust?" He's not talking about the president or members of Congress; he's talking about doctors and nurses.

For those of you who can't watch video clips from your work computers, the video features Biden, along with remarks from Dr. Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and Rebecca Patton, president of the American Nurses Association.

Biden asks, "Do you trust the defenders of the status quo, the people who say you'd be better off if you left things just the way they are? Or would you rather hear from the folks who actually know something about what's happening in our healthcare system because they work in it every day, doctors and nurses?"

He added. "When it comes to something as important as your health, listen to the people you trust."

LOWERING PREMIUMS.... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would have us believe that reform will mean "higher premiums." MIT economist Jonathan Gruber published an important item over the Thanksgiving break, suggesting that McConnell has it backwards.

A new analysis by a leading MIT economist provides new ammunition for Democrats as the Senate begins formally debating the historic health-reform bill being pushed by President Barack Obama.

The report concludes that under the Senate's health-reform bill, Americans buying individual coverage will pay less than they do for today's typical individual market coverage, and would be protected from high out-of-pocket costs.

So Democrats will argue that under the Senate bill, Americans would pay less for more.

Gruber, a Treasury Department official in the Clinton administration, relied on CBO data and found that consumers buying individual insurance in an exchange would save $200 (singles) to $500 (families) a year. (Jonathan Cohn reminds us, "Of course, that won't actually happen until the new insurance exchanges are operating -- something not scheduled for a few years, under both the House and Senate bills.")

The White House seized on Gruber's analysis, and it's likely to be widely circulated on the Hill this week.

Also note, however, that Gruber's piece won't be the final word on the subject. The Congressional Budget Office is also expected to publish a report this week on reform's expected impact on premiums.

GEARING UP FOR ROUND TWO.... After a three-day debate over whether to debate health care reform two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was relieved -- to a point. He got the bill to the floor, but realized he's still pushing uphill.

"We can see the finish line, but we're not there," Reid said after the Nov. 21 cloture vote. "The road is a long stretch."

The first step on that road will begin in about six hours, when the debate over health care reform gets underway on the Senate floor for the first time ever. Reid's plan is pretty straightforward -- pass a bill before Christmas and send it to conference. The Republicans' plan is equally clear-cut -- delay as long as possible, obstruct as much as possible, and bring up as many embarrassing amendments as possible.

Republicans will seek to stop some of the Democrats' proposed Medicare changes, including cuts to privately run Medicare Advantage plans that provide enhanced benefits mostly at higher cost.

Republicans are likely to try to eliminate or sharply reduce some of the Democrats' proposed new taxes, including an increase in the Medicare payroll tax for high earners.

There will also be amendments on the politically volatile topics of abortion and immigration. Most of the Republican amendments will fail because the Democrats have the votes to set them aside.

And Republicans will face the challenge of explaining why they need to offer so many amendments when their party leaders have made clear that they simply want to kill the measure.

Ordinarily, amendments are proposed to improve the bill. It's what makes the Republican amendments pointless -- even if their measures pass, they'll still oppose reform. But the GOP caucus is nevertheless lining up hundreds of possible proposals. They're also strategizing about having amendments read word for word to slow the process down even further.

Among Dems, as expected, the most contentious point continues to be the public option, which will continue to be the subject of intense behind-the-scenes debate. The search for another compromise on the matter is ongoing, but satisfying the various contingents won't be easy. Snowe's "trigger" is still very much in play, as is the notion of a trigger coupled with an option for states to create their own public plans faster.

What's more, a Politico item noted this morning, "There is one idea that supporters hope could rally the centrists: Call it the nonpublic 'public option.' It's an idea from Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) for a national insurance program that is neither run nor financed by the government. It could win over moderates because it wouldn't be a direct government expansion, but it would also satisfy liberals because it would be a national health insurance program designed to compete with private insurers from Day One."

Something to keep an eye on.

NEXT STEP ON JOBS.... In recent weeks, we've learned that the House is planning to move forward on a new jobs bill by Christmas; the Senate is putting together a plan of its own to be passed early in the new year; and while the White House's plans are less clear, President Obama is hosting a "summit" on jobs later this week.

But, while there's a much-needed focus on job creation among leading policymakers, not everyone is on the same page.

As Democrats renew their push to create jobs, they are at odds over the timing, cost and scope of additional measures, with the White House's concern about high budget deficits pitted against the eagerness of many in Congress to spur hiring before next year's elections.

After months in which his focus has been on a health care overhaul and foreign policy issues, President Obama will pivot later this week to the economy, convening a White House forum on Thursday to discuss ideas for job creation and then traveling to Allentown, Pa., for his first stop on a "Main Street Tour."

Congressional Democrats return from a holiday break intent on packaging new proposals for tax incentives and construction projects to promote employment, with the House, where every member is up for re-election next year, on a much faster track than the Senate or the White House.

Lawmakers seem intent on doing something, though there's disagreement on how much investment, how it would be paid for, and whether it should be paid for. And with the White House apparently shifting its attention to deficit reduction -- a mistake, to be sure -- the task becomes that much more difficult.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) added, "There's sort of an anomaly here -- people want us to do stuff on jobs but they don't want to see a lot of government spending."

You don't say. The public's demands may frequently be contradictory, but that's all the more reason to focus on doing what works -- folks may say they want less spending and more deficit reduction, but when push comes to shove, they want a job more.

With that in mind, here's hoping Paul Krugman's latest piece gets circulated far and wide among policymakers.

If you're looking for a job right now, your prospects are terrible. There are six times as many Americans seeking work as there are job openings, and the average duration of unemployment — the time the average job-seeker has spent looking for work — is more than six months, the highest level since the 1930s.

You might think, then, that doing something about the employment situation would be a top policy priority. But now that total financial collapse has been averted, all the urgency seems to have vanished from policy discussion, replaced by a strange passivity. There's a pervasive sense in Washington that nothing more can or should be done, that we should just wait for the economic recovery to trickle down to workers. [...]

So it's time for an emergency jobs program.... All of this would cost money, probably several hundred billion dollars, and raise the budget deficit in the short run. But this has to be weighed against the high cost of inaction in the face of a social and economic emergency.

TEN MONTHS IN.... President Obama's detractors on the right believe the president has racked up some accomplishments, all of them awful. The more widespread impression among news outlets and many who voted for the president is that Obama hasn't accomplished much at all.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg has a contrarian piece this weekend, arguing that the opposite is actually true. If health care reform is completed by mid-January, Weisberg argues, the president will deliver a State of the Union address in a couple of months "having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency."

We are so submerged in the details of [the health care] debate -- whether the bill will include a "public option," limit coverage for abortion, or tax Botox -- that it's easy to lose sight of the magnitude of the impending change. For the federal government to take responsibility for health coverage will be a transformation of the American social contract and the single biggest change in government's role since the New Deal. If Obama governs for four or eight years and accomplishes nothing else, he may be judged the most consequential domestic president since LBJ. He will also undermine the view that Ronald Reagan permanently reversed a 50-year tide of American liberalism.

Obama's claim to a fertile first year doesn't rest on health care alone. There's mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February -- combined with the bank bailout package -- prevented an economic depression. Should the stimulus have been larger? Should it have been more weighted to short-term spending, as opposed to long-term tax cuts? Would a second round be a good idea? Pundits and policymakers will argue these questions for years to come. But few mainstream economists seriously dispute that Obama's decisive action prevented a much deeper downturn and restored economic growth in the third quarter. The New York Times recently quoted Mark Zandi, who was one of candidate John McCain's economic advisers, on this point: "The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do -- it is contributing to ending the recession," he said. "In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent."

When it comes to foreign policy, Obama's accomplishment has been less tangible but hardly less significant: He has put America on a new footing with the rest of the world. In a series of foreign trips and speeches, which critics deride as trips and speeches, he replaced George W. Bush's unilateral, moralistic militarism with an approach that is multilateral, pragmatic, and conciliatory. Obama has already significantly reoriented policy toward Iran, China, Russia, Iraq, Israel, and the Islamic world. Next week, after a much-disparaged period of review, he will announce a new strategy in Afghanistan. No, the results do not yet merit his Nobel Peace Prize. But not since Reagan has a new president so swiftly and determinedly remodeled America's global role.

Ranking presidents by first-year accomplishments is kind of tricky, but Weisberg's case is hardly dismissible. President Obama, faced with inherited challenges no U.S. leader has seen in generations, and restricted by the first Senate in American history to abandon majority rule altogether, is probably fairly pleased with his first 10 months.

The success of his first year will be largely dependent on the outcome of the health care debate, but Obama may soon be able to point to his first 12 months in office and say he rescued the economy from a depression, passed the health care reform bill Americans have been waiting decades for, approved most progressive budget bill in a generation, got a Supreme Court nominee confirmed, lifted the ban on stem-cell research, passed a national service bill, passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, passed new regulations of the credit card industry, passed new regulation of the tobacco industry, achieved some key counter-terrorism successes, and helped improve the nation's standing on the world stage.

There have been plenty of painful missed opportunities, but as first years go, this isn't bad. Imagine what Obama's record would be like if Republicans hadn't gone mad and if supermajorities weren't needed on every vote in the Senate. (Or better yet, imagine what Obama's record would be like if he entered office in 2001, with a strong economy and massive surplus.)

Obviously, icebergs loom. If the economy continues to struggle, the Democratic base remains frustrated, and lawmakers decide they'd rather duck the big issues in an election year, 2010 may yet prove to be a disaster. If Democrats lose their majority in either chamber, Obama's agenda is finished.

But in the meantime, Weisberg's piece may be contrarian, but it's a perspective the White House will be endorsing heartily in mid-January.

INHOFE UNIMPRESSED BY STARS AND SCIENCE.... A growing number of officials recognize the national security implications of global climate change. The NYT recently ran a report noting the ways in which a warming planet "will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics.... Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions."

The Central Intelligence Agency even intends to develop a new division that would focus on intelligence gathering related to national security, unstable governments, and climate change.

And given the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's efforts to pass a climate bill in this Congress, the panel recently heard from a variety of retired U.S. military leaders, all of whom agreed that it's time to change America's energy policy.

The NYT asked Sen. James Inhofe, a right-wing Oklahoma Republican and the Senate's most ardent global warming denier, about the "threat to national security by destabilizing developing countries." He replied by questioning the integrity of the military leaders who accept the evidence and are concerned about the consequences of climate change.

"That's the most ludicrous thing. They looked around and they found, I think, five generals to testify before the committee. Well, that's 5 generals out of 4,000 retired generals that say that. There are a lot of generals who don't like to be out of the limelight. They'd like to get back in."

Generally, in congressional circles, a certain respect for decorated generals and admirals is expected. Except in Inhofe's case, if they accept science he chooses to ignore, they deserve to be trashed publicly.

Inhofe's developed a reputation for being America's Worst Senator. It's well deserved.

RNC PURITY TEST = SUICIDE PACT?.... Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has been encouraged of late by what she sees as good signs for Republicans. She sees the leading political issues of the day -- health care, KSM trial, and global warming -- as "unpopular Democratic ideas," which in turn gives the GOP hope.

But that was before the "purity test" for the Republican National Committee came up. Parker sees it as a "suicide pact" to help "weed out undesirables from their ever-shrinking party."

In fact, the 10-point checklist proffered by Bopp and others is the antithesis of conservatism. As Kirk wrote in his own "Ten Conservative Principles," conservatism "possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata . . . conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order."

Each of Bopp's bullets is so overly broad and general that no thoughtful person could endorse it in good conscience. Some are so simplistic as to be meaningless. As just one example: "We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges." What does that mean? Do we support all troop surges no matter what other considerations might be taken into account? Do we take nothing else into account? Does disagreement mean one doesn't support victory?

Whatever the intent of the authors, the message is clear: Thinking people need not apply. The formerly elite party of nuanced conservatism might do well to revisit its nonideological roots.

Noting what a departure the proposed litmus test is from intellectual seriousness, Parker added, "When did thinking go out of style?"

I don't share Parker's policy preferences, but I would love to see prominent Republican leaders ponder why thinking is discouraged in contemporary conservative circles.

PRIORITIZING THE PUBLIC OPTION.... That Americans approve of the idea of a public option is no longer in doubt. After months of polling, we've consistently seen a majority of Americans say they like the idea of a public plan competing against private insurers. The results have bolstered proponents of the idea, on and off the Hill.

What's been less clear is the prioritizing. Most Americans approve of a public option, but are they demanding its inclusion in the reform bill? How dissatisfied will they be if reform passes without the public option? The results here aren't as encouraging for ambitious reform advocates.

Surveys show that a majority of the public supports [the public option]. But those supporters value other objectives of a health care overhaul, like lowering costs, even more. A deeper look at the polls suggests a disconnect between Washington and the public over the public option. It has become magnified as a political issue beyond its immediate effect on the health insurance system, although both sides say its power, for good or ill, would become evident over time.

To begin with, a public option would attract only a few million people, the Congressional Budget Office predicts. Those people would probably be sicker than the general population. For that reason, and because their numbers would be relatively small, their premiums would be higher than for private insurance.

The public remains deeply divided about the overall health care bills, suggesting that for many, their support for the public option is not strong enough to outweigh their doubts about other parts of the bills.

Even those who identify themselves as Democrats are not that wedded to a public option. In a November survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, released last week, they ranked it seventh in importance, far behind "affordability" and "accessibility" of medical care.

Two weeks ago, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asked respondents the main reason they either supported or opposed the health care bills. Among supporters, only 2 percent cited the public option. Among opponents, only 3 percent did so.

About a month ago, policymakers woke up to find a front-page, above-the-fold headline in the Washington Post that read, "Public option gains support; Clear majority now backs plan." The article reported on the latest poll that found, even after months of attacks from the right, 57% of the country endorsed the public option -- a number that had gone up since August. The news stiffened spines among lawmakers pushing for the policy -- if most Americans still want a public option, even after fierce criticism, proponents felt more encouraged to fight for it.

This newer data, then, showing public flexibility on the issue, may have the opposite effect. If the politicians become convinced that the idea isn't really a priority for most of the country, and the provision is seen as a stumbling block to finishing the debate, then they're less likely to fight as hard as they otherwise would.

EVEN IN SKI STATES.... Given the potential catastrophic international consequences of global warming, it's hard to put "future of ski resorts" right up there with droughts, pandemics, and rising sea levels.

But as a political matter, you'd think conservative Republicans in ski states would be a little more sensible. (thanks to reader T.D. for the heads-up)

Ski resorts across the country are using the Thanksgiving weekend to jump start their winter seasons, but with every passing year comes a frightening realization: If global temperatures continue to rise, fewer and fewer resorts will be able to open for the traditional beginning of ski season.

Warmer temperatures at night are making it more difficult to make snow and the snow that falls naturally is melting earlier in the spring.

In few places is this a bigger concern than the American West, where skiing is one of the most lucrative segments of the tourism industry and often the only reason many people visit cash-strapped states like Utah during winter.

But even as world leaders descend on Copenhagen next month to figure out a way to reduce carbon emissions blamed in global warming, the industry is still grappling with leaders in some of their own ski-crazy states who refuse to concede that humans have any impact on climate change.

Take Utah, for example, which has an economy that relies on tourism revenue, but which wouldn't draw a lot of visitors were it not for the state's skiing industry.

And yet Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) don't trust the evidence and think "the jury is out" on whether human activity is related to warming temperatures.

In other words, by embracing the far-right line, Utah's leaders are willing to gamble their state's future on the notion that scientific evidence should be rejected.

''That's just kind of raging ignorance,'' said Auden Schendler, executive director of sustainability for Aspen (Colo.) Skiing Co. ''We're not environmentalists, we're business people. We have studied the hell out of the climate science. To have a neighboring governor not believe it ... It's absurd.''

POWDR Corp., which owns several ski resorts, is part of a coalition hoping to educate public officials in ski states.

Brent Giles, POWDR Corp.'s director of environmental affairs, says regardless of what anyone believes about global warming, it makes good business sense for everyone to become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

''All you can do is give them what science you've got and show how easy it is to make some of these changes and tell them they're going to save money,'' Giles said. ''Why can't we just do it because it makes sense?''

It's a good question.

TORA BORA.... Towards the end of the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry tried to raise public awareness of an issue Americans hadn't heard much about. In December 2001, the U.S. had pinned down Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora, but the Bush administration decided not to send additional troops.

George W. Bush, just two weeks before Election Day, was incensed by the criticism, and tried to characterize this as attacks on the military. "Now my opponent is throwing out the wild claim that he knows where bin Laden was in the fall of 2001 -- and that our military had a chance to get him in Tora Bora," the then-president said. "This is an unjustified and harsh criticism of our military commanders in the field."

It was an odd thing to say. Far from being a "wild claim," the Bush administration itself came to the same conclusion Kerry did -- two years beforehand.

Five years later, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Kerry now chairs, has completed a thorough analysis of the national security failure, documenting for history exactly what transpired.

The report, based in part on a little-noticed 2007 history of the Tora Bora episode by the military's Special Operations Command, asserts that the consequences of not sending American troops in 2001 to block Mr. bin Laden's escape into Pakistan are still being felt.

The report blames the lapse for "laying the foundation for today's protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan." [...]

The showdown at Tora Bora, a mountainous area dotted with caves in eastern Afghanistan, pitted a modest force of American Special Operations and C.I.A. officers, along with allied Afghan fighters, against a force of about 1,000 Qaeda fighters led by Mr. bin Laden. [...]

The new report suggests that a larger troop commitment to Afghanistan might have resulted in the demise not only of Mr. bin Laden and his deputy but also of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban. Mullah Omar, who also fled to Pakistan in 2001, has overseen the resurgence of the Taliban.

Like several previous accounts, the committee's report blames Gen. Tommy R. Franks, then the top American commander, and Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, for not putting a large number of American troops there lest they fuel resentment among Afghans.

This is not to say that success at Tora Bora would have eliminated the threat posed by al Qaeda, but the fiasco allowed the terrorist network's top leaders to escape and continue with their efforts.

The events at Tora Bora was largely ignored by major media outlets -- perhaps because they were too embarrassing to the administration soon after 9/11 -- but for the record, Kerry was right, and Bush was wrong.

GIVE VOTERS A REASON.... The latest Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos included the usual question on the generic congressional ballot, with Dems still enjoying a modest edge over Republicans, 37% to 32%, with 31% unsure. Democratic numbers were strongest in the Northeast (53% Dems, 7% GOP), and Republican numbers were strongest in the South (51% GOP, 21% Dems).

But this poll added a new question to the mix to measure voter enthusiasm: "In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?" The overall results aren't nearly as interesting as the partisan breakdown.

Among self-identified Republican voters, 81% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 14% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

Among self-identified Independent voters, 65% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 23% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

And among self-identified Democratic voters, 56% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 40% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

Markos, who called the results "shocking," explained:

Two in five Democratic voters either consider themselves unlikely to vote at this point in time, or have already made the firm decision to remove themselves from the 2010 electorate pool. Indeed, Democrats were three times more likely to say that they will "definitely not vote" in 2010 than are Republicans.

This enormous enthusiasm gap ... seems to make passing legitimate health care reform an absolute political necessity for Democrats. This polling data certainly should be something for Congressional leadership to consider, as they move along the legislative path.

The notion of an enthusiasm gap this year is not exactly new, but we haven't seen numbers quite this stark until now.

The results aren't a total surprise. President Obama, working with a Democratic Congress, generated high hopes. As the year progressed, the GOP base was worked into a frenzy, based on little but rage, ignorance, and confusion, while the Democratic base grew frustrated and impatient. They did their part on Election Day, and there's a sense that Democratic leaders aren't doing their part now. Policymakers have gone the better part of nine months without any major legislative accomplishments. That, coupled with a still-struggling economy, is not a recipe for widespread satisfaction.

To be sure, there are some explanations for the political paralysis. For the last six months, policymakers tackled the toughest policy challenge of them all -- health care reform -- which left little room for anything else. Plus, now that the Senate no longer operates on majority rule, passing anything even mildly noteworthy has become harder than at any point in American history. But these explanations, while true, don't change the larger dynamic -- the motivated right is still convinced the president is Hitler, and the listless left is still waiting for progress.

It's obviously not too late, and a great deal can happen over the next 10 or so months. What's more, the solution isn't exactly a mystery -- if Dems do what they were elected to do, they'll be pleased with the results. I keep thinking about something Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) said earlier this month: "We must deliver. I need to give Democrats something to be excited about."

Finish health care. Pass a jobs bill. Finish the climate bill. Re-regulate the financial industry. Finish the education bill. Pick up immigration reform. Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It's ambitious, but a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president can prove to the country that they know how to tackle the issues that matter and know how to get things done.

The R2K/Daily Kos poll shouldn't cause panic among Democratic leaders; it should serve as a wake-up call.

EVEN CONDOLENCES CAN BE POLITICIZED.... A Russian train derailed, en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg last night, killing at least 26 people and injuring nearly 100 more. Some of the early reports indicate that Russian officials believe a bomb on the tracks may have been the cause of the crash, which, if true, would make it Russia's deadliest terrorist attack in years.

The White House, which has been cultivating closer ties to Russia, issued a statement with some fairly routine language -- saying that U.S. officials are "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of life," "our hearts go out," etc.

Andrew Malcolm, the LA Times' political blogger and former Laura Bush press secretary, has decided that he disapproves of the White House's condolences.

Perhaps it's just to show the world that, even on a slow-news U.S. post-holiday day, the Obama crowd is on the job. [...]

We'll have to watch and see what criteria the 10-month-old Obama administration uses to issue such regular comments -- what type disaster merits comment, how many dead to warrant a White House message, and in what country.

If it's every multiple-death incident in every country, they're going to be pretty busy in the press office. But at least they have jobs.

Malcolm added that the White House's statement extending condolences was "not presidential."

Now, there may be a kernel of an interesting point in there somewhere. The White House probably isn't going to issue a press statement in response to every deadly incident around the world.

But it's Malcolm's larger observation that reinforces questions about his reflexive partisanship. Russia may have just seen its deadliest terrorist incident in years; the White House issues a statement; and the LA Times' blogger whines that it's "not presidential"? C'mon.

OBAMA OUTREACH IN ASIA KEEPS PAYING OFF.... Threats of sanctions against Iran have rarely been effective, in large part because Iran assumed, correctly, that Russia and China would oppose punitive measures.

President Obama and his foreign policy team have invested considerable energy in changing this equation. There's ample evidence their efforts are paying off.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog demanded Friday that Iran immediately freeze operations at a once secret uranium enrichment plant, a sharp rebuke that bore added weight because it was endorsed by Russia and China.

The governing body of the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, meeting in Vienna, also expressed "serious concern" about potential military aspects of Iran's nuclear program.

Administration officials held up the statement as a victory for President Obama's diplomatic efforts to coax both Russia and China to increase the pressure on Iran. They said that they had begun working on a sanctions package, which would be brought before the United Nations Security Council if Iran did not meet the year-end deadline imposed by Mr. Obama to make progress on the issue.

Now, yesterday's vote was largely symbolic, and did not come with any actual punishment for Iran. Nevertheless, the vote, the toughest against Iran in nearly four years, signaled intense international pressure on Tehran. This was also a vote Obama and his team knew was coming up, and knew that Russia and China would be inclined to oppose. U.S. officials, including the president, worked diligently to persuade Moscow and Beijing, and the encouraging result suggests having grown-ups running the executive branch again is a good idea.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said China's support on Iran and its decision to set a climate change goal on Thursday showed that Mr. Obama's trip to Beijing was producing results despite criticism of the visit. "This is the product of engagement," Mr. Emanuel said, adding that it was "a direct result" of the trip.

In other words, U.S. political reporters have spent two weeks berating the White House for an unproductive Asian trip lacking in "deliverables." Those reporters' criticism seems increasingly misguided with each passing day.

James Fallows, who's been deeply critical of the domestic media's coverage of the president's week-long trip to Asia, added yesterday, "Will wait to see if this weekend's talk shows or opinion sections offer any 'hey, wait a minute' reconsideration of their unanimous judgment last week about the way the Obama team was manhandled and stonewalled by the Chinese. I'll wait, but I won't hold my breath.... Seriously, when does an official part of the chattering class -- one of the weekend talkers, someone from the leading newspapers -- look back on these past two weeks in journalism's effort to represent reality and ask how the dominant narrative could have been so wrong, and wrong in a way that was easily noticeable at the time? Just curious."

PARTY CRASHERS.... When I saw reports that a couple of aspiring reality-show participants finagled their way into the White House's State Dinner, I thought, "Well, I guess security will be tighter next time," and moved on.

It never occurred to me this would become literally front-page news and the subject of obsessive media speculation. Sure, the political news has been a little slow, but we're talking about some odd, publicity-craving couple who showed up at a party without an invitation. I'm not entirely sure why we're supposed to care.

John Cole's reaction struck me as the right one.

Some days I've about had it with this country. The absurd over-reaction to the WH dinner crashers was way too much the last few days, but I just saw a ten minute piece on CNN that treated this like it was an enormous deal, and I can't take much more of this kind of idiocy.

In a sane society, the reaction to this sort of thing would be for people to say to themselves "Wow, the cheeky bastards" and move on with life while the Secret Service quietly performed an internal investigation. But we are not a sane society....

Yesterday, we reached the point at which at least one member of the House, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), requested a full congressional probe into the incident. Seriously. Congressional Republicans couldn't bring themselves to lift a finger to investigate Bush-era scandals, but wannabe Bravo stars crash a soiree and all of a sudden, it's hearing time.

I can appreciate the fact that threats against the president and his family are up considerably this year, as right-wing radicals contemplate violence. Obviously, security for the First Family has to be taken seriously, and after an incident like this one, it stands to reason that the Secret Service would take steps to prevent the error from happening again.

But if there's a good reason for this intense media interest about an inconsequential stunt, someone's going to have to explain it to me.

FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Dubai World, a government investment company, seems to be out of money. Global markets did not respond well to the news.

* More on the Iran news tomorrow: "The United Nations nuclear watchdog's governing board voted overwhelmingly Friday to censure Iran for its defiant nuclear policies, and demanded an immediate halt to work on an uranium-enrichment plant built in secret in mountain tunnels south of the Iranian capital."

* Some political progress in Baghdad: "Iraqi politicians pushed ahead Friday with a compromise over a contested election law, awaiting approval from Kurdish officials on a deal that would increase the number of seats in parliament as a way to mute criticism and allow a vote crucial to U.S. plans in the country to go forward."

* In Afghanistan, much of the Taliban's control rests in the southern part of the country. More recently, however, it's power is growing in the north, threatening, among other things, a NATO supply line.

* Need a refresher on what the controversy surrounding the PMA Group is all about? Here's a good primer.

* Helpful report from Robert Schlesinger on "The Staggering Rise of the Filibuster."

* I realize the Tea Party crowd is pretty extreme, but what kind of people publicly heckle a grieving family?

* Mike Wooten speaks, and he's calling Sarah Palin's book "a pack of lies." It's not an uncommon assessment.

* Since when does student-loan debt interfere with becoming an attorney?

* So, how did Tareq and Michaele Salahi get into the White House's state dinner this week? And will they face charges as a result?

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

ROVE'S INTEREST IN AN 'HONEST APPRAISAL'.... When Karl Rove helped run the White House, he accepted certain beliefs as truths. He believed, for example, turning massive surpluses into massive deficits was entirely reasonable. He believed reckless tax cuts for the already rich were an example of responsible governing. He believed expanding the size of government, adding to entitlements, increasing the federal role in education, and putting it all on future generations' tab, was perfectly sensible. He believed fiscal responsibility was a punch-line.

And now that Karl Rove is outside the White House, he believes he's entitled to complain about deficits from his perch in the media establishment.

What seems to concern the president is not the problem runaway spending poses for taxpayers and the economy. Rather, what bothers him is the political problem it poses for Democrats.

Last year, Mr. Obama made fiscal restraint a constant theme of his presidential campaign. "Washington will have to tighten its belt and put off spending," he said back then, while pledging to "go through the federal budget, line by line, ending programs that we don't need." Voters found this fiscal conservatism reassuring.

However, since taking office Mr. Obama pushed through a $787 billion stimulus, a $33 billion expansion of the child health program known as S-chip, a $410 billion omnibus appropriations spending bill, and an $80 billion car company bailout. He also pushed a $821 billion cap-and-trade bill through the House and is now urging Congress to pass a nearly $1 trillion health-care bill.

Rove wants to see an "honest appraisal" of where we are. Good idea. The stimulus was necessary because Rove's old boss left the president an economy on the verge of wholesale collapse. S-CHIP expansion was necessary because Rove's old boss rejected a bipartisan measure to help low-income children go to the doctor. Rescuing the auto industry was necessary because it was a continuation of Rove's old boss' policy and the nation couldn't afford to cut off American manufacturing at the knees at the height of the recession. Cap and trade, Rove neglected to mention, wouldn't add to the deficit, and is necessary because Rove's old boss ignored the climate crisis for eight years. The health care reform bill would cut the deficit significantly, and is necessary because Rove's old boss fiddled while the dysfunctional health care system got worse.

That's an "honest appraisal."

Rove added, "When Mr. Obama was sworn into office the federal deficit for this year stood at $422 billion. At the end of October, it stood at $1.42 trillion."

Rove may not be smart enough to understand this, so I'll try to make the explanation simple for him.

The bulk of the $1.42 trillion deficit has nothing to do with the Obama administration's policies. The Center for American Progress' Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden recently explained, "The policies of the Bush administration, which included tax cuts during a time of war and a floundering economy, are clearly the primary source of the current deficits." Specifically, 40% of the fiscal deterioration we're seeing -- the single largest contributing factor -- can be attributed to Bush policies. Another 12% comes from Bush's financial rescues, while 20% are the result of the economic crisis Bush handed off to his successor. What's President Obama's share? Just 16% of the total, most of which is the result of new spending that was necessary to prevent a depression.

There are some pretty sleazy pundits in the media, but when it comes to combining dishonesty, ignorance, hypocrisy, and misguided chutzpah, few are quite as offensive as the man George W. Bush used to call "Turd Blossom."

Andrew Sullivan added earlier:

I remember very vividly a heated argument with Karl Rove over eight years ago in which I worried about spending and deficits. "Deficits don't matter!" Rove kept repeating in that nasal world-weary tone he has. After a bit, I said, "What do you mean, deficits don't matter? Don't you remember the 1990s?" "No, no, no, no, Andrew," he replied. "What I mean is that people don't vote on deficits. That's why they don't matter."

I learned then that nothing beyond short term politics motivates Rove. Nothing. And I also learned: this fathomless cynicism is not just repulsive, it's invariably wrong. People sure did vote on deficits in 1992. And one small reason Obama won in 2008 is because many Independents and Republicans couldn't trust the GOP to stop spending and borrowing us into oblivion in an era of economic growth.

Now, Rove -- whose shamelessness is only matched by his incompetence -- is writing a deficit hawk column for the WSJ.... What Rove requires is what Palin requires: total amnesia of what they just said or did.

Update: Joe Klein added: "It's not surprising that the blinkered extremists of the Wall Street Journal editorial page would print this drivel -- any other mainstream op-ed page would require Rove to acknowledge, in passing, at least, his complicity in the current mess -- but it remains a scandal, nonetheless, and the sheer craven audacity of it needs to be pointed out, from time to time."

EVOLVING PUBLIC OPTION CHOICES.... If the policy choices boil down to a public option in the health care reform bill or a "triggered" public option, I think the choice is pretty obvious. As we've talked about before, the underlying assumption behind the trigger is that public option would help lower costs, expand access, and use competition to improve efficiency. But these improvements should be put off, the argument goes, as we wait to see if maybe private insurers can achieve these goals on their own.

Of course, as is often the case when debating health care, the details matter. It's not just the public option vs. the trigger -- we're looking at a landscape in which watered-down versions of a public option are being considered alongside competing kinds of triggers.

On the spectrum of choices, I still think triggers are towards the "useless" end of the scale. That said, I can imagine a carefully-structured trigger that could work fairly well. Nearly all of the trigger ideas that have been floated thus far aren't close, but that's not to say it's impossible.

With that in mind, the Urban Institute has a constructive idea to offer.

Democrats searching for a compromise on health care reform may find a little Thanksgiving light in a new policy paper out Wednesday: Skip a "weak" public option now in favor of a much stronger one that would kick in automatically if the health industry doesn't meet its promises to slow the growth in medical costs.

The paper, from the Washington-based Urban Institute, offers a fresh look at the whole public option debate, casting the issue as "one of fiscal conservatism" -- more about containing health costs than extending benefits to the uninsured.

Its authors accept the likelihood of a trigger as proposed by Republican moderates but suggest it be tied to proven government data on national health expenditures rather than some new index to measure the affordability of coverage. And, in effect, the health industry would be given a three- to four-year test period to show its ability to slow the growth in costs.

Failure would trigger a more powerful public insurance competitor than either the House or the Senate has yet embraced -- one that challenges not just the market power of insurers but also providers, especially hospitals.

"A strong version is necessary because there is little else in health reform that can be counted on to contribute significantly to cost containment in the short term," the authors write. A trigger means delay, but "even the threat of such a plan being triggered offers the potential to affect market dynamics between insurers and providers."

By comparison, if only a watered-down public option survives and costs continue to rise unchecked, both insurers and providers face the prospect of even greater government regulation of private-sector prices, the authors warn. "Indeed, a strong public option competing on a level playing field with private plans paradoxically might be the best 'last chance' for competition to work."

I maintain that Harry Reid deserves a lot of credit for sticking with the public option, and including it in the Senate bill that's headed to the floor. But the remaining public option is not well positioned to deliver on the underlying promise of the idea. As Tim F. put it, "I hope that the rest of the health care bill is freaking awesome. I really do. Because without some major changes the public option is going to suck. What will stop insurers from dumping expensive undesirables into a public ghetto? A guilty conscience?"

Igor Volsky fleshed this out in additional detail, pointing to some of the shortcomings that have become more apparent as the public option has been watered down.

What's more, Josh Marshall wrote earlier this week that what's left of the public option is "measly," and not worth delaying the larger reform effort over, because of very limited eligibility, and the likelihood that it would become "a dumping ground for what health care policy types call 'creaming' -- health insurers wanting to maintain pools of the young and the healthy and dump responsibility for the aged and chronically ill on to public programs or on to nothing at all."

Which brings us back to the question of what kind of trigger we're talking about here. If Snowe and Nelson are thinking about triggering in state-based co-ops in 2018, then this is a rather pointless endeavor. But if there's a possibility that trigger advocates are serious about crafting a meaningful policy -- by no means a given -- there's an avenue that reform advocates might find appealing.

FRIDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* James Bopp Jr. is defending his "purity test" for Republican candidates seeking RNC support in the 2010 elections. He called it an "effective way to regain trust with conservative voters that has been undermined" by G.O.P. financial support for "liberal Republican ticket-switchers."

* Now that Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman appears to be done conceding and unconceding, he's made it clear that he will seek a re-match in New York's 23rd next year.

* Another poll shows Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (D) looking very strong against incumbent Gov. Jan Brewer (R) in a hypothetical match-up, 47% to 28%.

* After his surprisingly strong showing in the city's recent mayoral race, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. (D) is weighing a variety of possible races next year, including a possible primary campaign against appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

* Nevada's gubernatorial race remains rather unpredictable at this point. If Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman runs as an independent, a Nevada News Bureau poll shows Bush-appointed federal judge Brian Sandoval (R) leading a three-way contest.

* "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" got to work today. Good luck with that.

* A right-wing group called Tea Party Nation will host the "First National Tea Party Convention" in Nashville in early February. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) will be a featured speaker, and Sarah Palin will serve as keynote speaker.

* Palin has raised the notion of running on a national ticket with Glenn Beck. The Fox News personality suggested he wouldn't be interested, because the half-term governor would always be "yapping" from "the kitchen."

A DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR-TIME SACRIFICE.... Lincoln raised taxes to pay for the Civil War. McKinley raised taxes to finance the Spanish-American War. Wilson raised the top income tax rate to 77% to afford WWI. Taxes were raised, multiple times, to help the nation pay for WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Even the first President Bush raised taxes after the first war with Iraq to keep the deficit from spiraling out of control. It was simply understood -- responsible leaders from both parties realized that wars were expensive, and had to be paid for.

What we saw from George W. Bush and Republican lawmakers during his two terms was without precedent in American history -- policymakers cut taxes during a war, ran huge deficits, and effectively asked future generations to pay for our current national security agenda. The two ongoing conflicts have cost, by some estimates, $1 trillion and counting.

Attention now turns to how President Obama will respond to the same dilemma. If the administration sends an additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, it would cost about $30 billion per year over existing spending on the war. Some savings are gained as we withdraw from Iraq, but the costs are quickly absorbed by the war in Afghanistan.

Bruce Bartlett reflects today on the growing interest in returning to the historical norm.

The White House has given no indication of how it plans to pay for expanding the war in Afghanistan. More than likely, it will follow the Bush precedent and just put it all on the national credit card. But at least some members of Congress believe that the time has come to start paying for war. On Nov. 19, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., introduced H.R. 4130, the "Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010." It would establish a 1% surtax on everyone's federal income tax liability plus an additional percentage on those with a liability over $22,600 (for couples filing jointly), such that revenue from the surtax would pay for the additional cost of fighting the war in Afghanistan.

It's doubtful that this legislation will be enacted. But that's not Obey's purpose. He will probably offer it as an amendment at some point just to have a vote. Republicans in particular will be forced to choose between continuing to fight a war that they started and still strongly support, or raising taxes, which every Republican in Congress would rather drink arsenic than do. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see those who rant daily about Obama's deficits explain why they oppose fiscal responsibility when it comes to supporting our troops.

Obey makes no secret of his motives. He knows that deficits need to be reduced at some point and this will put pressure on spending programs he supports. "If we don't address the cost of this war, we will continue shoving billions of dollars in taxes off on future generations and will devour money that could be used to rebuild our economy," Obey explained in a press statement.

It's also a test for the public. Support for escalation in Afghanistan appears, by some measures, to be growing. The question then becomes fairly straightforward -- do Americans expect future generations to pick up the tab, or do they support higher taxes now to pay for the conflict?

THE EFFICACY OF GUN DATA.... We've learned in recent weeks that Nidal Hasan's communications with a radical cleric had come to the attention of the FBI, which had begun investigating the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood massacre. Federal officials did not, however, know about Hasan's purchase of a handgun -- a move that would likely have brought greater scrutiny before the shootings.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean (R) write this morning that the FBI couldn't have known about Hasan's firearms purchase because of a shift in the law, approved several years ago. The curb on gun data, they argue, can and should be fixed.

During the Clinton administration, the FBI had access to records of gun background checks for up to 180 days. But in 2003, Congress began requiring that the records be destroyed within 24 hours. This requirement, one of the many restrictions on gun data sponsored by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), meant that Hasan's investigators were blocked from searching records to determine whether he or other terrorist suspects had purchased guns. When Hasan walked out of Guns Galore in Killeen, Tex., the FBI had only 24 hours to recognize and flag the record -- and then it was gone, forever.

As former FBI agent Brad Garrett has said, "The piece of information about the gun could have been critical. One of the problems is that the law sometimes restricts you in what you can do."

The Tiahrt amendments passed by Congress interfere with preserving, sharing and investigating data on gun purchases by terrorist suspects. If that weren't bad enough, Congress has also failed to close a gap in federal law that prevents the FBI from blocking a sale to an individual under investigation for terrorist activity.

To put this in a slightly larger perspective, if the FBI is investigating someone who may have terrorist ties, that person will be put on a no-fly list. That same person, however, is free to purchase firearms, and the FBI will likely not know. In other words, those suspected of terrorist activity can't buy a plane ticket, but they can buy a semi-automatic.

The fatal lesson we learned on Sept. 11 was that, if we are going to protect innocent Americans from terrorists, we must break down the walls standing between federal agencies and effective investigative practices. The attack at Fort Hood was a tragic reminder that such walls still exist. Until Congress shows the political courage to tear them down, there will be more catastrophic breaches of national security and more tragic loss of life.

The Bush administration sought a change in the law, but Congress, listening to the gun lobby, ignored the request. The Obama administration wants the same change -- Attorney General Eric Holder reminded lawmakers about this last week -- though there's a limited political appetite for closing the existing gun-data gap.

Here's hoping the Fort Hood tragedy changes the equation.

LONG OVERDUE.... In 1987, the Reagan administration and then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) imposed a travel and immigration ban more than two decades ago on those who are HIV-positive. The result has included separated families, avoided medical tests, and highly-skilled workers taking their expertise elsewhere.

About a month ago, President Obama announced that he's ending the ban, calling it a decision "rooted in fear rather than fact." This week, the L.A. Times reported on the timeline and the people who'll benefit.

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive.

Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold.

But that soon may change.

This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green cards, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades. [...]

The new rules, including the elimination of HIV testing for green-card applicants, take effect Jan. 4.

"To finally be in a position where I can tell people that they can come to the United States to visit their family or that they can get a green card and stay here with their partner is just incredible," said Victoria Neilson, legal director for Immigration Equality, a national organization that advocated for lifting the ban.

It's about time.

PALIN AND THE OTHER MEDICARE.... Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R) was asked a question the other day about Canada's Medicare system. The question wasn't especially serious -- it came from a satirical television show -- but the answer was pretty interesting.

At a recent stop on her "Going Rogue" book tour, Sarah Palin told Canadian comedian Mary Walsh that Canada should get rid of its public health care system.

Walsh is the co-creator and star of This Hour Has 22 Minutes -- a nightly news parody show in the same vein as The Daily Show -- and she arrived in character, as the conservative Marg Delahunty, to the Borders where Palin (the "Alaskan Aphrodite") was signing books.

"I just wanted to ask you if you have any words of encouragement for Canadian conservatives who have worked so hard to try to diminish the kind of socialized medicine we have up there." Walsh shouted to Palin as she approached the table.

Palin's handlers tried to help her by ushering Walsh out of the Borders, but Palin could not be deterred. When Palin left the signing, Walsh caught up with her in the parking lot, where Palin suggested that Canada should get rid of its public health care system. "Keep the faith," Palin said, "because common sense conservatism can be plugged in there in Canada too. In fact, Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed."

A few things to consider here. First, as Igor Volsky explained, Palin's confused about the role of the private sector in the Canadian system.

Second, Palin may be convinced that Canada "needs to reform its health care system," but Canadians strongly disagree. (Indeed, the last thing most of the industrialized world wants is a health care system more like ours.)

And third, if Palin thinks Canada's Medicare system should be at least partially privatized, does she also believe America's Medicare system, which is very similar, should also be partially privatized? Indeed, would destroying Medicare as we know it be part of what she considers "common-sense conservatism"?

SEEING THE ASIA TRIP IN A NEW LIGHT.... During and after President Obama's week-long trip to Asia, major U.S. media outlets were dismissive and derisive about the effort. Political reporters insisted the administration hadn't actually gained anything, and by coming home empty-handed, the president had wasted his time.

White House officials have been frustrated by the media's spin, insisting that the trip would pay dividends. The Atlantic's James Fallows has been a leading critic of American outlets' coverage of the diplomatic efforts.

Yesterday, Fallows followed up, noting more "evidence of failure" in the wake of the president's excursion.

Today in the NYT: "China Joins U.S. in Pledge of Hard Targets on Emissions"

Today in the Washington Post: "China's backing on Iran followed dire predictions; Before Obama's visit, NSC warned leaders of Mideast turmoil"

Today in the (state run) China Daily: "Mainland may pull some missiles.... Beijing might consider removing a portion of its missile arsenal in South China, a long-held precondition by Taiwan for peaceful cross-Straits ties, a mainland expert said Wednesday."

Today also in the China Daily: "DPRK top leader meets visiting Chinese defense minister"

Along with the failure indicated yesterday, also in the China Daily: "RMB rate fine-tuning is possible"

If we're lucky, the Obama administration will have plenty more "failures" like these in the coming years.

A NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS.... Nearly all of this work is done below the radar, but dozens of government agencies hear from hundreds of official advisory committees, featuring tens of thousands of unpaid members. In general, the panels are made up of people with a certain expertise in obscure areas of public policy, representing companies, trade groups, or advocacy organizations.

It's a fairly standard practice for these advisory committees to include plenty of lobbyists. It's a practice the Obama administration is changing.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street's influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts.

The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts. [...]

Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections and thousands of other government policies.

Norm Eisen, the White House ethics counsel, recently explained, "Some folks have developed a comfortable Beltway perch sitting on these boards while at the same time working as lobbyists to influence the government. That is just the kind of special interest access that the president objects to."

As one might imagine, this isn't going over well on K Street, but good-government advocates seem pleased. Common Cause' Mary Boyle added, "You may lose a lot of expertise, but these people are also paid to have a point of view; they have an agenda. We support what the administration is doing to get deep-seated special interests out of the business of running our government, so this seems like a step in the right direction."

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.... Just a quick housekeeping note for readers checking in today. I'll be around, and will check in if something important comes up, but I don't expect to have much in the way of content today. I'll be back tomorrow morning.

Also, in light of the holiday, I thought I'd take a moment to share my thanks to all of you. I appreciate your interest, support, and encouragement, and wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

As for the news of the day, the White House issued President Obama's weekly address this morning, pointing to what will hopefully be a better year ahead.

WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Iraq: "At least 10 people were reported killed Wednesday in Iraq, including four who perished in twin bombings near a revered Shiite shrine in Karbala. The other six were members of a family whose home north of Baghdad was raided overnight by suspected insurgents, according to Iraqi authorities."

* Good news on the economic front: "[T]he number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell below 500,000 last week for the first time since January.... The number of people filing first-time claims for jobless aid fell by 35,000 to 466,000, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That was the fewest since September of last year. And it was far better than the 500,000 economists had expected."

* More good news on the economic front: "Consumer spending ticked upward in October, the Commerce Department estimated today, a marked reversal from the month before."

* When President Obama unveils the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, he'll do so in a speech at West Point.

* Soon after the president's remarks, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear directly from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

* In a bit of a surprise, support for additional troops in Afghanistan is growing, not shrinking.

* Israeli officials today approved a 10-month settlement freeze, but the exceptions to the policy make it controversial.

* The U.S. delegation to Copenhagen next month will include Al Gore.

* More lists from the White House visitor logs.

* The media gave Sarah Palin all kinds of attention last week -- more than most Americans were interested in.

* Phillip Carter resigned this week from the Defense Department after just seven months on the job. He cited "personal reasons," which by all accounts, is the truth.

* Alex Koppelman and Mike Madden have a nice overview on why the Senate leadership aren't anxious to approve health care legislation through the reconciliation process.

* One step closer to impeachment proceedings against South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R).

* If John McCain wants to talk about "viciousness" and "personalization" in political attacks, we can oblige.

* Over time, policymakers shifted their focus away from class size in K-12. The same shift is underway in higher ed.

* Of the 10 longest pieces of congressional legislation considered over the last decade, five of the bills were written by Republicans. (If the GOP were willing to consider ending the whining about the length of the health care bill, now would be a very good time.)

* For Dana Perino, maybe Bush's first term doesn't count.

* And finally, as presidential pardons for Thanksgiving turkeys go, today's was pretty amusing.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

EMPIRICISM ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE POLITICIZED.... Back during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama offered a spirited defense of empiricism. "The thing I think people should feel confident in is that I'm going to make these judgments not based on some fierce ideological pre-disposition but based on what makes sense," the candidate said. "I'm a big believer in evidence. I'm a big believer in fact."

After years of an administration that boasted of its ability to create its "own reality," Obama's approach -- then and now -- comes as something of a relief.

It's why I was struck by this Victor Davis Hanson column for National Review, which argues that the president has gone to "war against reason." Given that reality suggests the opposite is true, this seemed like an odd argument for a conservative to make.

But to bolster his case, Hanson notes that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has determined the unemployment rate for decades. The problem, as he sees it, is that the White House is now also releasing information on jobs "created or saved" since economic recovery efforts got underway. And that's bad, apparently, because while the job landscape has worsened as a result of the recession Obama inherited, the administration is now also reporting data on jobs that would have been cut were it not for the stimulus.

And how is this evidence of undermining empiricism? I haven't the foggiest idea. Jon Chait tries to make sense of the argument.

Ok. Hanson doesn't say that the Obama administration has suppressed or altered the BLS's calculation of unemployment. He charges it with creating another website that attempts to calculate how many jobs were saved by the stimulus -- a premise that is shared by the major macroeconomic forecasting firms. Hanson seems to further believe that this figure is intended as a substitute for the unemployment level, betraying an inability to grasp the distinction between the current unemployment rate and how many jobs were saved as a result of the stimulus.

How can anybody not understand the difference between these two things? His chain of reasoning is just so wildly illogical you can't even refute it.

If I had a nickel for every time I had that thought after reading something at National Review, I could retire.

On a related note, Jon didn't mention it, but whenever I think of politics and empiricism, I'm reminded of a terrific piece he wrote nearly five years ago on this very subject.

We're accustomed to thinking of liberalism and conservatism as parallel ideologies, with conservatives preferring less government and liberals preferring more. The equivalency breaks down, though, when you consider that liberals never claim that increasing the size of government is an end in itself. Liberals only support larger government if they have some reason to believe that it will lead to material improvement in people's lives. Conservatives also want material improvement in people's lives, of course, but proving that their policies can produce such an outcome is a luxury, not a necessity.

The contrast between economic liberalism and economic conservatism, then, ultimately lies not only in different values or preferences but in different epistemologies. Liberalism is a more deeply pragmatic governing philosophy -- more open to change, more receptive to empiricism, and ultimately better at producing policies that improve the human condition -- than conservatism.

Now, liberalism's pragmatic superiority wouldn't matter to a true ideological conservative any more than news about the medical benefits of pork (to pick an imaginary example) would cause a strictly observant Jew to begin eating ham sandwiches. But, if you have no particular a priori preference about the size of government and care only about tangible outcomes, then liberalism's aversion to dogma makes it superior as a practical governing philosophy.

If there's a "war against reason" underway, Victor Davis Hanson is looking at the wrong culprits.

Stepping back, however, it's more than a little distressing that we've reached the point at which the left and right now have competing understandings of the basic meaning of empiricism. It's not a healthy development.

IT DIDN'T USED TO BE THIS WAY.... We've heard "it takes 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate" so many times over the last several years, much of the political world has more or less internalized the argument. Requiring supermajorities on everything has slowly become routine, and it rarely occurs to the establishment and those who cover it to question the dramatic shift.

"[I]f all our supporters are present and voting," Manatos noted, "we would win by a vote of 55 to 45."

Imagine that. An important piece of legislation could be approved by the Senate if "only" 55 senators out of 100 supported it. In 1965, a 55-vote majority in the Senate meant a victory. In 2009, a 56-vote majority in the Senate means a defeat. Or, more accurately, a 56-vote majority can't even get a bill brought to the floor for a vote in the first place.

Ezra added, "The filibuster of yesteryear, in other words, was not a supermajority requirement. It was closer to a tantrum. That's not to say it was never used to prevent a vote: Southerners did exactly that to block the Civil Rights Act, and Johnson was forced to find 67 votes to break their effort. But such measures were left for extraordinary moments, not built into the everyday workings of the body. The use of the filibuster has changed, and with it, so too has the Senate."

This is unsustainable. The Senate wasn't design to function this way, it didn't use to function this way, and the sooner majority-rule is brought back, the sooner the institution can help govern again.

ONE CLOTURE VOTE AFTER ANOTHER.... Reader R.H. emails this afternoon with an important procedural question. It's a subject that comes up from time to time, which leads me to think a lot of people may be interested in this. With R.H.'s permission, I'm republishing the note:

...We currently have one health care reform bill passed. That's the House's. It provides for a public option.

The strong likelihood is that the Senate bill will not provide a public option. So for argument's sake, let's say it's passed and has no public option.

These bills will have to be resolved in conference. That means it will either need to take from the House bill and provide a public option or take from the Senate bill and not provide a public option.

Again for argument's sake, let's say we take from the House bill and provide a public option in the final legislation. Ah, but this needs to pass the Senate again, right?

But I believe that the final vote on the conference bill is not subject to cloture votes, meaning that the final conference resolution only needs to pass by a simple majority. And if it were just a matter of a simple majority, the Senate bill WOULD have a public option. So... wouldn't the final conference resolution providing a public option then pass the Senate by a simple majority and proceed onto the President's desk?

I wish this were the case, but it's not. The final, post-conference bill will return to the Senate where it will face the last in a series of filibusters.

And what a series it is. It took a supermajority to bring the bill to the floor for a debate; it will take another supermajority to let the Senate vote on the bill and send it to conference; and it will take another supermajority to let the Senate vote on the final, once-and-for-all bill.

The vision presented by R.H. would certainly expedite matters. The leadership could approve a more modest bill, in line with the demands of Nelson, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Lincoln, and send it conference. The White House could send back a much stronger bill, in line with the House approach, and there'd be nothing center-right Dems could do about it.

Alas, that's not the case. In fact, after the grueling task of getting the Senate bill to a point at which it can garner 60 votes, I suspect those center-right hold-outs will make a fairly explicit threat to the president and the House negotiators: "You change one letter of this thing and we'll filibuster it when the bill gets back from conference."

So, to make a short story long, post-conference bill are filibusterable. Something to keep in mind as the process continues to unfold.

UNDERSTANDING LIEBERMAN'S MOTIVATIONS.... Whenever Joe Lieberman's name pops up, the now-tired cliche -- he's with Democrats on "everything but foreign policy" -- still pops up. Usually, it's intended as sarcasm, emphasizing the fact that Lieberman is at odds with his former party on a variety of issues that have nothing to do with his neo-conservative worldview on international affairs.

But the reason the cliche came into existence in the first place is that, on domestic policy, Lieberman has actually maintained some pretty progressive ideas. On issues like gay rights and the environment, Lieberman has occasionally even been downright liberal.

When it comes to health care policy, the Connecticut senator wasn't nearly as conservative as he is now. So what happened? Peter Beinart's explanation sounds pretty compelling.

For close to a decade, he got nearly perfect scores from the American Public Health Association, which backs a single-payer health-care system, and in lieu of that, the "public option." Now, all of a sudden, he's so outraged by a public option that he's threatening to filibuster any bill that contains it. [...]

So why is he doing this? Because he's bitter. According to former staffers and associates, he was upset by his dismal showing in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary. And he was enraged by the tepid support he got from many party leaders in 2006, when he lost the Democratic primary to an anti-war activist and won reelection as an independent. Gradually, this personal alienation has eaten away at his liberal domestic views. His staff has grown markedly more conservative in recent years, and his closest friends in Congress are now Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham. For Lieberman, the personal has become political, and it has pushed him further to the right.

The irony is that when Lieberman was officially a Democrat, he was ideologically independent -- a living manifestation of the Humphrey-Jackson tradition. Now that he's technically an independent, he's becoming a standard-issue conservative. For people who believe -- as Lieberman himself once did -- in progressive health-care reform, it's a tragic shift.

This would explain a few things. For example, Lieberman has been making arguments that don't make any sense, as if he's confused about the policy basics on an issue he's studied for years. Why would that happen? Because, by this reasoning, he's letting his emotions override his judgment -- Democrats hurt his feelings, so he'll teach them a lesson. It's small and petty, and would undermine the interests of millions of struggling Americans, but in a contest between Lieberman's ego and the public benefits associated with increased competition in the health care marketplace, it's apparently not even close.

Of course, Beinart may be mistaken. Tim Fernholz noted that Lieberman may simply be "in hock to insurance companies," some of which are located in Connecticut.

That isn't much of a choice, I'm afraid. Lieberman is either putting his hurt feelings over the needs of the nation, or he's putting the insurance industry's profits over the needs of the nation. Either way, Lieberman is so far from the man he used to be, the two bear no resemblance.

CHARTS THAT PROVE THE POINT.... The New York Times had a terrific report the other day, explaining that the stimulus package is "working," polls and Republican talking points notwithstanding.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com and an occasional adviser to lawmakers from both parties, said, "[T]he stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do -- it is contributing to ending the recession." Zandi added that without the recovery bill, the "G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus."

What I didn't realize is that the piece included some very helpful charts, featuring projections of key economic indicators from three companies that specialize in macroeconomic forecasting. (via Matt Yglesias). You'll notice, of course, the black line and the gray line -- the black representing progress with the recovery plan, the gray representing what would have happened without it.

There are several angles to keep in mind here. First, opponents of the stimulus would have us believe the recovery plan has failed. Those are, oddly enough, the same people who got us into this economic mess in the first place. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now.

Second, as Brad DeLong explained, the people providing the data for the NYT charts are economists "who sell their forecasts to paying clients." In other words, these aren't political players who have an incentive to skew the data -- to stay in business, they have to get these trends right. And when it comes to the stimulus, they're unanimous in their beliefs that the Recovery Act helped the economy considerably, and will continue to do so next year.

Third, my only complaint about the charts is that there isn't a third line -- one for the economy with the stimulus, one for the economy with no intervention, and one with what we would have seen if we'd taken the Republicans' advice. It was, after all, 95% of congressional Republicans who, at the height of the crisis, voted for a truly insane five-year spending freeze.

How they feel justified complaining now, rather than thanking president for preventing an economic catastrophe, is a point of ongoing concern.

There's no mystery here. The debate is over. The economy is obviously still struggling, but the stimulus did what it was supposed to do, and has made a real, positive difference.

Conservatives were wrong about Reagan's tax increases. They were wrong about Clinton's tax increases. They were wrong about Bush's tax cuts. And they're wrong again now.

That Republicans still manage to talk about economic policy at all demonstrates a remarkable amount of chutzpah.

RNC PURITY TEST MAY TRIP UP SEVERAL CANDIDATES.... The proposed "purity test" for GOP candidates seems to have already made an impact, before even being considered. To review, a significant faction within the Republican National Committee is reportedly pushing a test, which GOP candidates expecting party support would have to pass. It includes a 10-point platform, and if you're deemed insufficiently conservative on three or more issues, no party backing for you.

My initial take is that the test was so conservative, prominent Republican leaders from George W. Bush to Ronald Reagan would all come up far short. Probably more important, though, is the practical effect on current GOP candidates.

The New York Times, for example, noted that Rep. Mike Castle, a relatively moderate Republican, is running for the Senate in Delaware next year, and is likely to face a fierce fight against state Attorney General Beau Biden (D). Castle will no doubt need plenty of support from the national party -- which he won't get if the purity-test resolution is approved by the RNC.

Lee Fang went a little further still, and included House lawmakers likely to seek re-election.

ThinkProgress has conducted an analysis that finds at least 40 current Republican members of Congress have violated at least one principle of the purity test.

This is all pretty entertaining, but in my heart of hearts, I suspect this initiative will go about as well as the last big push from Jim Bopp -- which is to say, cooler heads will realize this is ridiculous, and pass a watered down resolution that doesn't actually mean anything.

But I have a hunch the DNC is hoping the measure has far greater success.

WEDNESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* It's been hard to keep track of the status of Doug Hoffman's unsuccessful congressional election in New York's 23rd -- he's conceded and unconceded a couple of times -- but as of yesterday, he's officially done. Maybe Hoffman will stick to this one.

* With two weeks to go until the primaries in Massachusetts' special election to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, a Rasmussen poll shows the Democratic race tightening a little. State Attorney General Martha Coakley still enjoys a big lead over Rep. Michael Capuano, 36% to 21%, but the margin appears to be shrinking a bit.

* Speaking of Massachusetts, Rasmussen shows Gov. Deval Patrick (D) with small leads over his rivals in next year's re-election fight. Patrick's edge comes by way of a three-way contest, with State Treasurer Tim Cahill running as an independent.

* In New York, former mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) hasn't said whether he'll run for the Senate next year against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), but Rasmussen and Zogby both have new polls showing him leading the appointed incumbent.

* The crowded GOP Senate primary in Connecticut is starting to thin out, with former Ambassador Tom Foley (R) shifting his attention from the Senate race to the gubernatorial race.

* California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) announced to Jay Leno last night that Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado is his choice to be the new lieutenant governor. Whether the legislature will approve the nomination is unclear.

* Former Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Jon Runyan intends to run as a Republican against Rep. John Adler (D) in New Jersey next year, but he's rejoining the NFL first, to play for the San Diego Chargers.

* Might former Rep. J.D. Hayworth take on Sen. John McCain in a Republican primary in Arizona next year? Hayworth seems to be thinking about it.

* And annoying speculation shifts from Lou Dobbs' interest in running for president to Lou Dobbs' interest in running for the Senate.

PERINO'S POOR PERSPICACITY.... It's best not to expect much from Dana Perino's appearances on Fox News. The former Bush White House press secretary tends to make largely forgettable comments, representing a generic and uninteresting partisan Republican perspective.

But Perino's appearance last night with Sean Hannity was more noteworthy than most. The topic was the shootings at Fort Hood, and Perino, playing her usual role, criticized the White House for not having labeled the massacre as "terrorism." She emphasized that the rhetorical description of the violence "matters," though she didn't say why.

More important, though, is what Perino went on to argue: "We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term. I hope they're not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is."

It wouldn't be the first time Perino said something puzzling, but in this case, it's not even clear what she was going for.

George W. Bush served for eight years, and during his tenure the United States suffered its most devastating terrorist attack ever. Soon after, there were the anthrax attacks against Americans. Depending on how one chooses to define the word "terrorism," it's also worth remembering the countless attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term." Someone's going to have to explain this one to me.

PERIPATETIC PRESIDENT TO PRESS FOR PROGRESS.... To demonstrate the U.S. commitment to combating global warming, many, here and around the world, hoped President Obama would personally travel to Copenhagen next month for the United Nations meeting on climate change. They got their wish.

Mr. Obama, who had previously not committed to making an appearance at the summit, will deliver a speech on Dec. 9 en route to Oslo, Norway, where he will accept the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10.

Mr. Obama had been under considerable pressure from other world leaders and environmental advocates to make the trip as a statement of American commitment to the climate change negotiations. The talks, involving more than 190 nations, are expected to produce a wide-ranging interim political declaration but stop short of proposing a binding international treaty.

Delegates are expected to commit to completing the treaty next year.

Mr. Obama has said recently that he would attend the session if his presence could help lead to a successful outcome. It is significant that he will appear at the beginning rather than at the end of the 12-day meeting. Most major decisions at such environmental forums come at the very end of the process.

Mr. Obama will tell the delegates to the climate conference that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions "in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020," according to a White House official.

In a statement this morning, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who's helping lead the Senate fight on a climate bill, said of the president's travel plans, "This could be one hell of a global game changer with big reverberations here at home. For the first time, an American Administration has proposed an emissions reduction target and when President Obama lands in Copenhagen it will emphasize that the United States is in it to win it. This announcement matches words with action. The Obama Administration is now undeniably mustering bona fide leadership on climate change, not merely departing from Bush Administration intransigence and ideology."

Now, as we talked about last week, the larger plans for the Copenhagen meeting have already been scaled back a bit, with leaders eyeing a two-step process -- incremental progress this year, and a commitment to renew the next stage of efforts next year.

But Obama's in-person lobbying efforts will give the talks a boost, and signal to the world that the United States intends to lead.

THE LATEST SHOT AT HEALTH CARE REFORM.... Nearly every other far-right constituency has manufactured odd reasons to oppose health care reform, so it stands to reason that the gun crowd would get in on the fun.

About a week ago, Gun Owners of America told its 300,000 members that the reform bill pending in the Senate "would mandate that doctors provide 'gun-related health data' to 'a government database,' including information on mental-health issues detected in patients, which could jeopardize their ability to obtain a firearms license." Not done there, the alert added that "nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that 'no guns' is somehow healthier."

It's not an abortion bill, but the debate managed to turn to abortion. It's not a gun bill, but the debate has managed to turn to guns. It's funny how the culture-war issues manage to sneak their way into everything.

Hoping to knock the bogus argument down before it becomes too common, the White House's Dan Pfeiffer published a fact-check item yesterday, setting the record straight.

NOTHING IN THE SENATE BILL WOULD RESULT IN "GUN-RELATED HEALTH DATA" BEING SUBMITTED TO THE GOVERNMENT. There is no mention of "gun-related health data" anywhere in the Senate's health reform bill and there is nothing in the bill that would result in any such data being reported to the government. The bill does provide guidelines for reporting of anonymous statistical information to help with research, but none of this would lead to gun ownership or "gun related health data" being included in reporting to the government.

NOTHING IN THE SENATE HEALTH REFORM BILL WOULD LEAD TO HIGHER PREMIUMS FOR GUN OWNERS OR A "DECREE" THAT GUN OWNERS ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN OTHERS. Section 2717 section creates guidelines for insurers to report on initiatives that improve quality of care and health outcomes, and it specifically lists what types of programs would be involved - such as smoking cessation, physical fitness, nutrition, heart disease prevention. There is no mention of guns, and there is no language that could result in higher premiums for gun owners or lower premiums for people who do not own guns. Section 2705 of the bill does permit employers to provide premium discounts for employee participation in health promotion and disease prevention programs, and it prohibits insurers from discriminating against individuals for specific reasons such as health status, medical history, and genetic information. It allows the Secretary to add other "health status-related" factors to the list. But again, there is no mention of guns, or any possibility that owning or not owning guns would ever be considered a "health status-related" issue.

For those who may be inclined to believe the accusations, these pesky, accurate details may be deemed irrelevant. But for those swayed by reality, it's always nice to have the White House offer a reality check.

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY.... Most modern democracies would never let their own citizens go bankrupt because they got sick. The phrase "medical bankruptcies" is an outlandish concept in most of the industrialized world. There's simply no reason for the United States to tolerate this.

Some of the debtors sitting forlornly in [Nashville's] old stone bankruptcy court have lost a job or gotten divorced. Others have been summoned to face their creditors because they spent mindlessly beyond their means. But all too often these days, they are there merely because they, or their children, got sick.

Wes and Katie Covington, from Smyrna, Tenn., were already in debt from a round of fertility treatments when complications with her pregnancy and surgery on his knee left them with unmanageable bills. For Christine L. Phillips of Nashville, it was a $10,000 trip to the emergency room after a car wreck, on the heels of costly operations to remove a cyst and repair a damaged nerve.

Jodie and Charlie Mullins of Dickson, Tenn., were making ends meet on his patrolman's salary until she developed debilitating back pain that required spinal surgery and forced her to quit nursing school. As with many medical bankruptcies, they had health insurance but their policy had a $3,000 deductible and, to their surprise, covered only 80 percent of their costs.

"I always promised myself that if I ever got in trouble, I'd work two jobs to get out of it," said Mr. Mullins, a 16-year veteran of the Dickson police force. "But it gets to the point where two or three or four jobs wouldn't take care of it. The bills just were out of sight."

Although statistics are elusive, there is a general sense among bankruptcy lawyers and court officials, in Nashville as elsewhere, that the share of personal bankruptcies caused by illness is growing.

We're not talking about families that took unnecessary risks or who are looking for a handout. These are just folks, most of them middle-class, who played by the rules, needed medical attention, and slipped into financial ruin because they couldn't pay their medical bills.

If policymakers pass health care reform, it wouldn't entirely fix the problem, at least not right away, but it would make a significant difference: "Bills in both houses would expand eligibility for Medicaid and provide health insurance subsidies for those making up to four times the federal poverty level. Insurers would be prohibited from denying coverage to those with pre-existing health conditions. Out-of-pocket medical costs would be capped annually."

Just one more reason to get this done.

COMPETING VERSIONS OF REALITY.... The good news is, most Americans acknowledge the reality of climate change; accept that it's a serious problem; and support efforts, such as cap and trade, to address the crisis.

The bad news is, like practically everything else of late, it's become a partisan issue in which the American mainstream has one set of beliefs, and Republicans have an entirely different reality.

The percentage of Americans who believe global warming is happening has dipped from 80 to 72 percent in the past year, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, even as a majority still support a national cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

The poll's findings -- which also show that 55 percent of respondents think the United States should curb its carbon output even if major developing nations such as China and India do less -- suggest increasing political polarization around the issue, just as the Obama administration and congressional Democrats are intensifying efforts to pass climate legislation and broker an international global warming pact.

The increase in climate skepticism is driven largely by a shift within the GOP. Since its peak 3 1/2 years ago, belief that climate change is happening is down sharply among Republicans -- 76 to 54 percent -- and independents -- 86 to 71 percent. It dipped more modestly among Democrats, from 92 to 86 percent.

That there was any drop at all is discouraging. The problem grows more severe with each passing year, and policymakers are more inclined to take necessary actions if they feel like they're responding to public demand. The more people reject reality, the more likely politicians will put off hard work.

In this case, the discouraging results are compounded by the simplicity of the poll question itself. As Kevin noted, "[T]his isn't a drop in conservatives who think that global warming is manmade. It's not a drop in the number who think it will continue in the future. It's not a drop in the number who think it's too expensive to do anything about it. The question ABC asked was whether or not temperatures had increased over the past hundred years. It's a simple factual question like asking if the Allies won World War I. But only a bare majority of conservatives believe it. It's Jim Inhofe's party now."

As this relates to legislation pending in Congress, there was one encouraging result -- a 53% majority supports a cap-and-trade proposal. The results on this question have improved ever so slightly over the last several months.

On a related note, Thomas Friedman had a good column on all of this last week, explaining why even the most reason-resistant conservatives should take energy policy seriously: "[Y[ou don't believe in global warming? You're wrong, but I'll let you enjoy it until your beach house gets washed away. But if you also don't believe the world is getting more crowded with more aspiring Americans -- and that ignoring that will play to the strength of our worst enemies, while responding to it with clean energy will play to the strength of our best technologies -- then you're willfully blind, and you're hurting America's future to boot."

SHAMELESS.... The struggle continues -- is the wiser course of action ignoring Sarah Palin because she's a foolish clown undeserving of attention, or shining a light on her offensive antics to help demonstrate the misguided inanities of the larger right-wing movement?

I generally lean towards the former, but some of the former half-term governor's misdeeds are too odious to overlook. Like this one, for example.

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.

"There's been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country," Palin said during an interview with Fox News's Greta Van Susteren. "I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women -- our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters -- are providing this country to keep us safe."

"They're making sacrifices," said Palin, who visited the Army base at Fort Bragg on Monday as part of her ongoing book tour. "They're putting so much on hold right now so that the homeland can be safe and they can fight for democratic ideals around our world. I want to see more acknowledgment and more respect given to them."

Asked specifically what she'd like to see more of from Obama, Palin said, "I want to see them equipped. I want to see them given everything that they need, including strategies -- a surge strategy in Afghanistan, for one -- so that they know that they're there for victory, they're not there just biding their time as lives are being lost."

Even for Palin, this is vile. "There's been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country"? I'm not entirely sure she's trying to say here, or what it is she thinks the president has failed to "acknowledge."

But in Grown-Up Land, the Commander in Chief has honored the service and sacrifices of servicemen and women repeatedly. He did so at Dover Air Force Base last month; just as he did at Fort Hood and on Veterans' Day this month. Obama, in just the past few weeks, has met with U.S. troops in Florida, Alaska, Texas, and in South Korea.

Also note, Palin, who has never demonstrated any meaningful understanding of foreign policy at any level -- look, Sarah, there's Putin flying over your house -- can't criticize the administration's efforts on a substantive level, so she complains for no reason about her misguided sense of "strategies."

In other words, we can add this to the very long list of subjects on which Sarah Palin pops off without having a clue what she's talking about.

John Cole added, "What a detestable human being.... I'm seriously so sick and tired of these people. Visit the troops and you are accused of using them as a photo op. Spend one day not genuflecting to the troops, you are accused of ignoring them."

TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Brutal massacres in the Philippines: "A police official says 11 more bodies have been unearthed from a mass grave in the southern Philippines, bringing the death toll from a massacre of political supporters and journalists to 46." Blue Girl has more.

* Third quarter growth was revised downward, from 3.5% to 2.8%.

* President Obama intends to "finish the job" in Afghanistan.

* He's also reaffirming U.S. ties to India: "The relationship between the United States and India will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century," Obama said -- twice.

* Nearly one in four U.S. mortgages is under water (owner owes more than the home's value). That's astounding.

* The Senate leadership thinks the reconciliation process is far more trouble than it's worth.

* Census worker Bill Sparkman's death has been ruled a suicide by Kentucky state police. Officials believe Sparkman hoped to make his death look like a murder to help his family with the insurance money.

* There's growing support among House Democrats for a "pay as you fight" measure, which would raise taxes to pay for the war in Afghanistan.

* Rep. Mark Kirk's (R-Ill.) opposition to Gitmo transfers gets a little less rigid.

* Bill O'Reilly is delusional if he thinks Bill Moyers' retirement was motivated by a Fox News ambush.

* Dick Cheney is delusional if he thinks he can speak for Americans in uniform.

* Is the right still worked up about those stolen CRU emails?

* Early decision still important to colleges.

* Opponents of health care reform have spent $75 million in advertising to convince the public it's a bad idea. Proponents have spent $73.5 million.

* And finally, Sarah Palin has plenty of right-wing fans. They're just not sure why they like her. Since I can't understand it either, their confusion is oddly comforting.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

THE PHRASE CANTOR IS LOOKING FOR IS, 'THANK YOU'.... Listening to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) talk about economic policy is a terribly frustrating experience. The poor guy is not the brightest light in the harbor, if you know what I mean, and his uninterrupted record -- Cantor has been wrong about every major economic question over the course of his career -- is more than a little humiliating.

This week, Cantor hosted a job fair, during which he trashed the economic recovery efforts as an "utter failure." It's one of those attacks that's idiotic for a variety reasons -- we know the stimulus rescued the economy from the abyss; we know Cantor's alternative proposal (five-year spending freeze at the height of the crisis) was hopelessly insane and would have made things much worse; and we know the stimulus was needed to fix a crisis Cantor and his cohorts were responsible for creating in the first place.

But in this specific case, there's another problem with Cantor's nonsense, and it's an ironic one.

Nearly half of the 30 organizations participating in a job fair Cantor is holding Monday in Culpeper were recipients of the stimulus.

The list includes a slew of government agencies and schools that have directly benefited from the package and may be using stimulus money to hire people (as the money was originally designed to do), including the Orange County public schools, the Transportation Security Administration and Virginia Department of Labor, and some companies that may have indirectly benefited such as Comcast and Terremark.

In other words, the job fair at which Cantor trashed the stimulus wouldn't have been possible were it not for the stimulus.

If this seems vaguely familiar, it's because Cantor has run into this problem before. In April, the Minority Whip heralded a high-speed rail project in his district, made possible by the stimulus package. Just two months prior, Cantor fought tooth and nail to prevent that project from existing, and specifically mocked government funding on high-speed rail.

"The continuing hypocrisy from Republican leaders, like Eric Cantor, who try to block solutions in Washington and then take credit for them back home, is reaching epidemic proportions,'' the DCCC's Jesse Ferguson said. "If Representative Cantor's 'Party of No' policies were in effect, this event would have been an unemployment fair not a jobs fair."

The truth is, Cantor's nonsense is just unnecessary. Cantor was wrong, again, and it's obvious to anyone who's paid any attention. I'm sure the White House has no interest in rubbing it in. Ideally, Cantor would simply acknowledge that President Obama rescued the economy, and it was the White House that took steps to help recovery efforts in Cantor's district. The phrase Cantor is looking for isn't "utter failure"; it's "Thank you, Mr. President."

There are a handful of lawmakers who've developed an unearned reputation for intelligence, despite evidence of striking confusion and ignorance. Eric Cantor is at the top of the list.

THE ORPHANED BAILOUT.... There seems to be a pattern -- as the economic crisis was unfolding, conservatives accepted the financial industry bailout as painful but necessary. A year later, with the bailout wildly unpopular, the same conservatives hope Google isn't working so we won't be able to check their previous position.

Take Carly Fiorina, for example. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO was an awkward McCain campaign surrogate last year, and she's decided to parlay her failure into a Republican Senate campaign in California. Yesterday, she spoke at an American Spectator Newsmaker Breakfast.

Fiorina said that she was opposed to bailouts and President Obama's economic stimulus package.

Of course she did. If Fiorina had defended the bailout, she'd lose her Republican primary. As Matt Corley noted, the problem is that Fiorina argued last fall that the bailout was entirely "necessary," because something "had to be done."

Fiorina's in good company. Sarah Palin endorsed the bailout; now she doesn't like it anymore. Mitt Romney endorsed the bailout; now he's railing against it. Glenn Beck not only endorsed the bailout, he said at the time that it ought to be bigger. Now he's convinced it's evil.

I realize that when it comes to right-wing populism, last year's financial industry bailout holds a unique place in the panoply of conservative complaints. But these far-right characters can only run so far from their records of a year ago.

They have a few choices. They can a) hold their ground and defend the bailout; b) explain why they were mistaken; or c) admit that they're shamelessly pandering, hoping to score a few cheap points with the Teabagging crowd by telling them what they want to hear.

Pretending that recent history didn't happen isn't one of the choices.

CUTTING COSTS.... Just a few days after David Broder argued the Democratic health care reform plan may not cut costs enough, David Brooks makes a similar case. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the NYT columnist argues, "Instead of reducing costs, the bills in Congress would probably raise them." Brooks concedes that Dems "have tried to foster efficiencies," but he doesn't expect them to succeed in "fundamentally bend[ing] the cost curve."

Perhaps the Davids should take the time to read this Ron Brownstein piece, published over the weekend, on the ways in which the reform plan would cut costs. The White House has been circulating Brownstein's item, and for good reason -- it's an important piece.

When I reached Jonathan Gruber on Thursday, he was working his way, page by laborious page, through the mammoth health care bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had unveiled just a few hours earlier. Gruber is a leading health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is consulted by politicians in both parties. He was one of almost two dozen top economists who sent President Obama a letter earlier this month insisting that reform won't succeed unless it "bends the curve" in the long-term growth of health care costs. And, on that front, Gruber likes what he sees in the Reid proposal. Actually he likes it a lot.

"I'm sort of a known skeptic on this stuff," Gruber told me. "My summary is it's really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can't think of a thing to try that they didn't try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here....I can't think of anything I'd do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn't have done better than they are doing."

Gruber may be especially effusive. But the Senate blueprint, which faces its first votes tonight, also is winning praise from other leading health reformers like Mark McClellan, the former director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under George W. Bush and Len Nichols, health policy director at the centrist New America Foundation. "The bottom line," Nichols says, "is the legislation is sending a signal that business as usual [in the medical system] is going to end."

If we're going to be intellectually honest about this, the truth is, reining health care costs is extremely tricky. No one can say with any confidence exactly what might to work and what might not. Brownstein gets into some wonky details about the competing provisions, which are worth reading to appreciate the larger policy fight.

The point, however, is Democratic leaders are pursuing all kinds of measures intended to bend the cost curve. Chances are, some will work well, some won't. But the key is what Gruber told Brownstein: "I can't think of a thing to try that they didn't try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made."

The idea is to put the best ideas in the legislation, make a genuine effort to get costs under control, and see what's effective.

The funny part of this, in a way, is that Republicans should be applauding these efforts. This is their signature concern, right? Cutting costs? Saving money? Fiscally responsible policymaking? It's likely one of the reasons so many Republicans who aren't in office have already expressed support for the effort.

As Ezra Klein explained the other day, "If this piece of the bill was passed on its own, it would be the most important cost control bill ever considered by the United States Congress."

Also, Kevin Drum noted that the Senate bill is the most "ambitious" attempt to "rein in both Medicare costs, and healthcare costs generally, than anything ever done. Nothing else even comes close." He added that Reid's measure may be the "best prospects for healthcare cost control we've ever seen."

That's clearly, demonstrably true. If the public understood this, and there was a broader recognition that Republicans were needlessly attacking the most ambitious cost-savings package in American history, perhaps the debate would be less ridiculous.

THIS IS CNN?.... Trevor Francis, the communications director at the Republican National Committee, was forced out yesterday. A couple of hours later, the party announced that Alex Castellanos, a notorious Republican media consultant and CNN contributor, will take over as a senior communications adviser to RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

The news prompted Atrios to note, "I'm sure CNN will keep his seat warm." I assumed the same thing, but as it turns out, that won't be necessary -- Castellanos will still be sitting in the same seat.

Longtime Republican media strategist Alex Castellanos will continue to serve as an on-air personality for CNN despite recently taking on a consulting role for the Republican National Committee, the network confirms.

On Monday, it was reported that Castellanos, who has served as a media consultant for many Republican presidential candidates as well as an advisor for the private health insurance industry, will play an expanded role at the RNC after the committee parted ways with its communications director, Trevor Francis.

Apparently, Castellanos makes enough money doing media work for private health insurance companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that he'll be unpaid for his work as the RNC's senior communications adviser. And since Castellanos won't literally be on the Republican National Committee's payroll, CNN is entirely comfortable paying him to offer "political analysis" on the air.

And here I thought the ethical/professional lines had already been blurred too much. Now, CNN -- you know, the network that has positioned itself as above the fray -- will feature regular on-air commentary from the Republican National Committee's new message/strategy guy.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT JOE.... Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), refusing to allow a vote on any health care bill that subjects private insurers to any competition at all, told the WSJ yesterday, "I'm going to be stubborn on this."

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

Probe for a catch or caveat in that opposition, and none is visible. Can he support a public option if states could opt out of the plan, as the current bill provides? "The answer is no," he says in an interview from his Senate office. "I feel very strongly about this." How about a trigger, a mechanism for including a public option along with a provision saying it won't be used unless private insurance plans aren't spreading coverage far and fast enough? No again.

So any version of a public option will compel Mr. Lieberman to vote against bringing a bill to a final vote? "Correct," he says.

This isn't exactly new ground, but I think this was Lieberman's most explicit declaration in opposition to public-option "triggers." The bottom line is straightforward enough: if even one consumer is given a choice between a private plan and a public plan, Joe Lieberman will work with Republicans to kill health care reform, no matter the consequences for the millions who are counting on this bill to pass.

There's no reason to believe Lieberman is playing some kind of leverage game; all evidence suggests he's entirely sincere. The senator is so offended by the notion of public-private competition, he'll betray anyone and everyone to prevent it -- even if Lieberman doesn't seem to understand the basics of the policy he's so vehemently against.

With that in mind, should the "trigger" compromise become the focus of negotiations with the center-right, it suggests the road to 60 votes will go through Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) office, not Joe Lieberman's. Indeed, if Lieberman isn't willing to listen to reason, evidence, or pleas for compromise, it may very well be time to shift the nature of the talks -- I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Senate Dems simply stopped engaging Lieberman, and went back to figuring out how to make Snowe happy again. When the votes are cast, 60 is 60; whether the final vote comes from Snowe or Lieberman doesn't matter. (Maybe if Lieberman's phone stopped ringing, and he no longer felt important, he'd be more willing to engage in good-faith talks.)

It's also worth watching to see if there's any talk about consequences for the former Democrat. A few weeks ago, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) sounded open to punishing Lieberman for his deeds: "Let's see what happens. I don't think anybody should be filibustering -- nobody should be filibustering health care. Either vote it up or vote it down." I've heard very little talk since.

Obviously, we've been through this before, and we all know the score -- if the party were to strip Lieberman of his committee chairmanship, for example, he'd likely to start caucusing with the Republican minority. If he switched, the Democratic caucus would go from 60 to 59 seats, and the Senate that already seems paralyzed would be even more dysfunctional. Party leaders are just as anxious to avoid this fate now as they were when they handed Lieberman his gavel a year ago.

But would the equation change at all if/when Lieberman betrays his colleagues on the most important domestic policy vote in a generation? Shouldn't it?

PELOSI GETS IT.... If more policymakers embraced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's approach to economic recovery, we'd all be better off. Here's the Speaker this morning, during a conference call:

"We're never going to decrease the deficit until we create jobs, bring revenue into the Treasury, stimulate the economy so we have growth. We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we'd be labeled not sensitive to the deficit. … The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they're not getting anything for it.... So if somebody has the idea that the percentage of GDP of what or national debt is will go up a bit, but they will now -- and their neighbors and their children -- will have jobs, I think they could absorb that.... If we pull our punch, as they did in the mid-30's, we shouldn't be surprised if history repeats itself."

By "history," Pelosi was no doubt referring to the 1937 effort on the part of FDR's administration to move away from stimulating the economy and towards deficit reduction. The shift was a mistake -- when policymakers should have kept spending, they instead started bringing down the deficit. Economic conditions quickly deteriorated again, after several years of progress.

And now, we're poised to see this happen again. Recovery efforts rescued an economy on the brink, leading to widespread talk within the establishment to shift away from job creation and economic growth, and towards spending cuts and deficit reduction. The talk has already convinced far too much of the public to believe nonsense, which in turn has rattled anxiety-ridden political leaders.

Pelosi's assertion couldn't be more accurate: "The debate between deficit reduction and job creation is not a real choice, because we'll never have deficit reduction unless we have job creation. Of course we have to be sensitive to how this is paid for, but that doesn't mean we don't do it."

Given the ongoing economic difficulties, there's no reason in the world for so many in the political establishment to want to take their foot off the gas. For politicians, this should be an especially easy call -- voters tend to be happier when the economy and job market are stronger.

This ain't rocket science, folks.

THE PURPOSE OF THE RNC'S 'PURITY TEST'.... A significant faction within the Republican National Committee is reportedly pushing a purity test, which GOP candidates expecting party support would have to pass. It includes a 10-point platform, and if you're deemed inadequate on three or more issues, no party backing for you.

Part of the problem, of course, is that a whole lot of Republican leaders would come up short on this litmus test. Everyone from John McCain to George W. Bush to Ronald Reagan would likely be deemed insufficiently right-wing for today's Republican National Committee.

But Ralph Hallow reports today that some RNC members believe the test may be necessary anyway.

Members of the conservative group within the RNC tell The Washington Times that, besides aiming to make the GOP more consistently and reliably conservative by promoting lower taxes, keeping spending levels in check and focusing on national security, they want to head off an already emerging third party inspired by the anti-spending tea-party movement.

Honestly, if the already far-right Republican Party needs purity tests to prevent even-further-right Republicans from breaking off and forming their own party, Republicans are in even deeper trouble than they realize.

And yet, the effort continues.

To a very real extent, this only serves to reinforce Democratic arguments about the GOP no longer welcoming moderates. The DNC is no doubt hoping that the RNC embraces the strategy with both arms.

TUESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* The conventional wisdom insists President Obama is losing independents (an ambiguous word to begin with). Charles Franklin takes a closer look at the evidence and finds steady independent support for the president since August.

* Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) is trying to get off the ropes as his Senate campaign loses GOP support to primary rival Marco Rubio. Crist argued yesterday that it would be "hard to be more conservative than I am on [the] issues." No one seriously believes that, but I guess he's not considering a party switch.

* In Arizona, the latest Rasmussen poll shows state Attorney General Terry Goddard (D) as the leading contender for next year's gubernatorial campaign, with modest leads over the likely GOP candidates. The exception: controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his scandalous approach to immigration policy, who enjoyed majority support in the poll. Arpaio has not, however, said whether he's eyeing the race.

* Former Ambassador Tom Schieffer (D) has ended his gubernatorial campaign in Texas. His departure makes it that much more likely that Houston Mayor Bill White (D) will get in the race.

* Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) is facing some primary competition next year, despite his conservative voting record, because the base is convinced he's not right-wing enough. Inglis has been a long-time mentor to Sen. Jim DeMint (R), but the far-right senator will apparently not endorse his old friend.

* In California, Carly Fiorina (R) still hopes to generate conservative support for her Senate campaign. Yesterday, when asked whether she might get an endorsement from Sarah Palin, Fiorina told reporters, "I have no idea. You'll have to ask Sarah Palin. She's on a mega book tour right now -- that's exciting to see. I share Sarah Palin's values."

* Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) is reportedly mulling over whether to take on Sen. Russ Feingold (D) next year. A new survey from Public Policy Polling shows Feingold with a comfortable lead over Thompson, 50% to 41%, in a hypothetical match-up.

* I'm already officially tired of hearing about Lou Dobbs' possible interest in a presidential campaign.

* And speaking of misguided national ambitions, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) will be testing the presidential waters in South Carolina next month.

MANUFACTURED STORY OF THE DAY.... With an Indian delegation, led by Prime Minister Singh, at the White House today, President Obama will host his first State Dinner this evening. The conservative media machine has already decided on its preferred angle.

The far-right Washington Times, with its few remaining staffers and editors, published a report this morning with this headline: "Top Republican lawmakers not invited to State Dinner." (The print edition said, "Obama's big tent leaves out GOP bigwigs.") Drudge, naturally, took the bait, telling readers, "Not invited: Republican lawmakers..." Fox News, not surprisingly, soon followed, republishing the Times piece.

All of this might be more compelling if it weren't for the leading Republicans who were, in fact, invited.

Let's run through the list of Republicans the Times names in its story, despite its headline:

House Minority Leader John Boehner: He certainly counts as a "top Republican lawmaker." Curl and Mosk write that "Boehner won't be there; he's on Thanksgiving break and home in Ohio." Left out of their story? That Boehner was reportedly invited.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: Also a "top Republican" who "received an invitation" but "decided to skip the dinner."

Louisiana Rep. Bobby Jindal: He was invited, according to the Times, because he is a "prominent Indian-American." You could make a pretty solid argument that Jindal rose quickly in the GOP's ranks after they chose him to give a rebuttal to Obama's first address to Congress. At the time, the Times even decided that Jindal sounded pretty presidential.

Sen. John McCain: Not invited. The Times writes that this is despite the fact that "Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency."

I realize the political conditions are such that every event is an opportunity for an attack. The president's hosting a state dinner, so Republicans and their media outlets have to think of something to say to undermine the White House.

But the best they could come up with is an invitation list that only included some prominent Republican leaders? And that turned into a headline that read, "Top Republican lawmakers not invited to State Dinner"?

Rumor has it the Washington Times won't be around much longer. It won't be missed.

TELEGRAPHING THEIR PUNCHES.... The strategy for congressional Republicans isn't exactly a secret.

Even if a [health care reform] bill ultimately passes, Republicans hope to delay that moment until well into 2010 -- when all seats in the House and one-third of those in the Senate will be contested -- then make the case to voters that Democrats took their focus off the economy and an unemployment rate above 10%.

Got that? Congressional Republicans are desperate to delay progress on health care reform, while congressional Democrats want to complete work on health care and move onto a jobs bill. If GOP tactics are successful, Democratic efforts on jobs will be delayed.

At which point, Republicans will say, "Why haven't Democrats done more to address unemployment?"

The offense has told the defense exactly what play it's about to call, daring them to stop it. If Democrats want to stop the play, it's within their power to do so.

LIGHT READING.... Of all the many Republican arguments against health care reform, the incessant whining about the literal, physical size of the legislation is comically foolish. And yet, rather than a grown-up debate about policy, the congressional majority remains obsessed with page-number totals.

We talked a few months ago about why the claims themselves are so misleading. If you've ever seen the physical page of a bill in Congress, you know that it doesn't look like a traditional printed page in, say, a book. They have huge margins, with a large font, and every line is numbered and double-spaced.

But the child-like complaints -- if a bill is "long," it must be "bad" -- continue unabated. In recent weeks, congressional Republicans have become especially fond of Tolstoy. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah said the health care reform bill is "larger than the novel 'War and Peace.'" Rep. Roy Blunt (R) of Missouri said proposals are "exceeding even 'War and Peace' in length." Rep. Joe Barton (R) of Texas added, "'War and Peace' -- some people consider it the greatest book ever written, but most people recognize the novel because at 1,284 pages its length is often the butt of jokes. Now imagine trying to read something that long overnight."

Fox News kept up a Tolstoy fixation for quite a while, too.

The Associated Press, to its credit, looked into this.

The bill passed by the House is 319,145 words. The Senate bill is 318,512 words, shorter than the House version despite consuming more paper. Various versions of Tolstoy's novel are 560,000 to 670,000 words. Bush's education act tallied more than 280,000 words.

By now, the full draft of Reid's bill that had circulated in the corridors and landed so prominently on Republican desks has been published in the Congressional Record in the official and conventional manner.

The type is small and tight. No hernias will be caused by moving this rendering of the bill around. Unfurling it on the Capitol steps would not be much of a spectacle.

It's 209 pages.

In other words, the health care bill -- the one that Republicans say is too burdensome to actually read -- is shorter than Sarah Palin's 413-page book.

Can the GOP move on to new talking points now?

AFGHAN ANNOUNCEMENT A WEEK FROM TODAY.... After a lengthy review process, President Obama reportedly has all the information he needs to craft a new U.S. policy towards Afghanistan. We'll hear all about it in a televised address to the nation a week from tonight.

For two hours on Monday evening, Mr. Obama held his ninth meeting in the Situation Room with his war council.... The president's military and national security advisers came back to the president with answers he had requested during previous meetings, most of which focusing on these questions: Where are the off-ramps for the military? And what is the exit strategy?

The conversation settled around sending about 30,000 more American troops, two officials said, the first of whom would deploy early next year to be in place in southern or eastern Afghanistan by the spring. The troop reinforcements would likely be sent in waves, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss war strategy. [...]

While the president is expected by several of his advisers to announce sending more than 20,000 new troops - perhaps closer to the 40,000, as recommended by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal - the White House is working to make the announcement more than simply a number of troops. It will include an outline of an exit strategy, officials said.

That last part is obviously key. The decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan will not be popular with many of the president's own supporters, many of whom believe the longest war in American history should come to an end. But if the White House has not only decided on the size of an escalation, but also a larger, revamped strategy that features a light at the end of the tunnel, the administration's new policy may address at least one underlying concern.

In terms of what to expect, leaked reports have varied considerably over the last several weeks, but McClatchy reports that the administration will approve 34,000 additional troops. In terms of the politics, Republicans are likely to attack, not because of the escalation, but because they'll think the escalation is a brigade or two short. But this will be rather silly. As Spencer Ackerman recently noted, "[L]et's say that McClatchy is right and Obama goes with 34,000 new troops. Is the Republican Party really going to say that 6,000 troops -- basically one to two Army combat brigades -- are the difference between success and failure? That's, well ... that just doesn't make sense."

The public's reaction to such a decision is hard to gauge. The latest CNN poll, released this morning, offers a muddled look at public opinion -- 45% of Americans said they support the war, while 52% oppose it. The same poll, however, found that 50% support sending additional troops, while 49% do not. So, some who oppose the war nevertheless want to see an escalation?

Nevertheless, we're likely to see a fairly big push on this. After the president's prime-time address on Tuesday (12/1), Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry will both likely testify before lawmakers on the new U.S. policy. Expect quite a bit of congressional skepticism.

EDUCATE TO INNOVATE.... Earlier this year, President Obama was showing so much enthusiasm and interest in science and scientific integrity that one observer characterized him as "almost strident" on the issue. The description put a negative spin on what I consider to be one of the president's most endearing qualities -- I can't think of a modern president who speaks as often and as enthusiastically about science as Obama.

This was especially true yesterday, when the president hosted a White House event to unveil a new "Educate to Innovate" initiative, intended to improve the science and math scores of American students. A variety of scientists and inventors were on hand for the event -- including Adam and Jaime from "Mythbusters," who the president called out by name -- and Obama not only talked up administration efforts, he emphasized the importance of changing public attitudes.

I was especially pleased to hear that, starting in 2010, there will be an annual White House Science Fair. The president explained, "Today, I'm announcing that we're going to have an annual science fair at the White House with the winners of national competitions in science and technology. If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you're a young person and you've produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too. Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House we're going to lead by example. We're going to show young people how cool science can be."

But the part of Obama's remarks that had me thinking long after I'd finished watching was the section on educational efforts overseas.

The president said:

"You know, I was in Asia, I think many of you are aware, for a week, and I was having lunch with the President of South Korea, President Lee. And I was interested in education policy -- they've grown enormously over the last 40 years. And I asked him, what are the biggest challenges in your education policy? He said, 'The biggest challenge that I have is that my parents are too demanding.' (Laughter.) He said, 'Even if somebody is dirt poor, they are insisting that their kids are getting the best education.' He said, 'I've had to import thousands of foreign teachers because they're all insisting that Korean children have to learn English in elementary school.' That was the biggest education challenge that he had, was an insistence, a demand from parents for excellence in the schools.

"And the same thing was true when I went to China. I was talking to the mayor of Shanghai, and I asked him about how he was doing recruiting teachers, given that they've got 25 million people in this one city. He said, 'We don't have problems recruiting teachers because teaching is so revered and the pay scales for teachers are actually comparable to doctors and other professions. '

"That gives you a sense of what's happening around the world. There is a hunger for knowledge, an insistence on excellence, a reverence for science and math and technology and learning. That used to be what we were about. That's what we're going to be about again."

I hope that's true, because our future depends on it.

This also helps set up a helpful juxtaposition. At this point, the nation's leading Democrat is a dynamic president who values science, innovation, and learning. One of the nation's leading Republicans is a half-term governor who rejects evolutionary biology and who disdains elites with "Ivy League educations."

Whether the United States is able to maintain its role as the global leader will depend on which side of this divide wins.

HACKS AND FLACKS.... Interesting shake-up at the RNC late yesterday afternoon.

Trevor Francis, the communications director at the Republican National Committee, is leaving his post, an odd mid-cycle departure that suggests some level of turmoil within the GOP's chief campaign committee. [...]

His hiring by the national committee surprised some observers as Francis had never worked with Steele previously. Steele is something of a free agent when it comes to his dealings with the press -- often serving as his own press secretary with mixed results.

Steele's tendency to freelance makes him difficult to manage from a press perspective and, according to sources familiar with Francis's departure, that tension was part of the reason he decided to step aside.

Francis didn't quite last a year on the job -- he started in March, before abruptly resigning yesterday.

The reasoning behind the shift is still a little murky, though Jonathan Martin reported that GOP insiders believe Steele pushed Francis out the door because the party chairman "didn't feel he was getting enough credit for the GOP's electoral success earlier this month."

Just as interesting was who the RNC tapped as its new communications director: Republican media consultant and CNN analyst Alex Castellanos.

I suppose this isn't a huge shock. As recently as July, Michael Steele hosted a press conference to trash the idea of health care reform, and read several parts of a Castellanos strategy memo word for word. It stands to reason that the RNC would seek a message/media flack who's already been writing Steele's script.

But it's still a hire that signals the RNC's misguided direction. Castellanos is, after all, the Republican media strategist responsible for buying ads for private health insurers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, reinforcing the obvious impression that the RNC principally represents the interests of big business.

He's also the far-right strategist responsible for the notorious "White Hands" ad in support of Jesse Helms' 1990 Senate campaign, generally considered one of the most racist campaign ads of the modern political era.

In other words, if you've been shaking your head in response to RNC messaging this year, realize that it's poised to get a little more offensive going forward.

MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Afghanistan: "Bombings and shootings killed 12 people across Afghanistan, including four American troops and three children, as President Barack Obama convened his war council again Monday to fine-tune a strategy to respond to the intransigent violence."

* Encouraging real estate news: "Home sales surged for the second month in a row in October, climbing to the highest level in 2 1/2 years as first-time buyers rushed to take advantage of an expiring tax credit. Home sales nationwide are now up nearly 37 percent from their bottom in January."

* HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius unveiled state-by-state details on how health care reform would help nationwide.

* Is reconciliation still on the table? Maybe, but there are plenty of reasons the Senate leadership hopes to avoid it.

* Iraq elections in January? Don't count on it.

* South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) faces 37 charges of ethics violations.

* Bill Moyers' presence on television will be sorely missed.

* If policymakers are looking for areas for infrastructure investment, sewage treatment plants are definitely worth the money.

* The job market, four-year degrees, and the two-year degrees.

* The inner-workings of the Washington Times.

* Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) not only won't appear on NSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," his office refuses to return calls from Maddow staffers. Sounds pretty cowardly.

* I'm starting to get the impression that the LA Times' Andrew Malcolm is using his platform for partisan purposes. Call it a hunch.

* Speaking of shameless partisan hacks, Dick Cheney is now whining about President Obama bowing to the emperor of Japan. Fun fact: Cheney worked for Nixon and H.W. Bush, both of whom bowed to the emperor of Japan.

* It's a little under the radar right now, but Sen. John Ensign's (R-Nev.) sex scandal continues to get uglier.

* Ari Fleischer will be representing the BCS. Figures.

* Interesting item from Mark Kleiman: "Your high-school civics teacher no doubt told you that you should 'vote for the person, not the party.' Madison and Hamilton, who hated what they called 'faction,' would have agreed. All three of them were wrong. Party is the only mechanism by which voters can influence actual outcomes."

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

AT LEAST THEY KNOW THEIR AUDIENCE.... Ross Douthat has an interesting column today, primarily on Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, both of whom, Douthat argues, have made the same mistake with regards to their futures.

As the columnist sees it, Palin and Huckabee "owed their appeal more to personality than to substance," and would have been wise to "take their newfound eminence seriously" and start hitting the books. Instead, they chose to "cash in on their celebrity," leaving them no better off when it comes to gaining credibility and/or positioning themselves for national office.

There's something to this. Both Huckabee, a two-term governor, and Palin, a half-term governor, have presidential ambitions, but both are burdened with a weak understanding of public policy and a general indifference to serious work. With no day jobs, Palin and Huckabee could have begun learning things en route to building a national platform. Neither chose wisely.

But this was probably an either/or situation for the former governors. The column notes, "It's possible to be a celebrity and a serious politician at the same time: Barack Obama's career proves as much."

Yes, except Obama is dealing with an audience that seeks out and honors serious politicians. As Isaac Chotiner explained, Palin and Huckabee aren't.

The first problem with this argument is that ... Palin is unlikely to become a policy wonk because she is not very smart. What's more, Douthat's argument is tautological. Sure, it would be nice for the GOP if Palin and Huckabee were interested in policy. But if they were interested in policy, then they would not be so appealing to the GOP base.

In other words, the problem is that a large part of the right has no interest in a policy wonk, and sneers at intellectuals and elites and the types of people Douthat would like to see running the party. A candidate who was interested in learning the ins and outs of the welfare state and health care policy is unlikely to ever achieve Palin/Huckabee levels of popularity with the grassroots.

Quite right. The two competing bases find different qualities appealing. The GOP base is enthralled by "leaders" who boast about their apathy for intellectualism, elites, and book learnin'. The Democratic base tends to find this kind of dumbing down of politics insulting.

Palin and Huckabee see value in maintaining popularity in advance of likely national campaigns. No part of that scenario includes showing the slightest interest in public policy details.

FOX NEWS PONDERS 'QUALITY CONTROL'.... Over the last few weeks, Fox News has suffered some embarrassments that left even the partisan network feeling ill at ease. An incident occurred when Fox News combined footage of events to make it seem as if more people attended a right-wing event on health care than showed up in reality.

Soon after, the same network did the same thing, showing a Palin audience from last year when reporting on a Palin event last week.

Chastened, Fox News management has issued a memo on "quality control," making clear that these errors won't be tolerated in the future. The memo argues that the network has to improve its performance "in terms of ensuring error-free broadcasts." It added:

Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the "mistake chain," and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews.

So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to "zero base" our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today's meeting: "It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on." We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not [sic] stress that enough.

This makes sense. Fox News' "on-screen errors" have been ridiculous for years, from deceptive footage, to absurd on-screen text, to chyron mistakes (such as identifying former Rep. Mark Foley as "D-Fla." at the height of his sex scandal).

As it happens, nearly all of these "on-screen errors" serve to benefit Republican goals and preconceived narratives. Must be a coincidence.

But now Fox News is going to address this. Good for them. At the risk of sounding picky, though, when might the network take a "zero-tolerance" approach to the accuracy of the rest of its broadcasts? "On-screen errors" have clearly been a problem, but it's not as if the rest of on-air reporting has been accurate.

THE RNC'S PURITY TEST.... After the party's unpleasant experience in New York's 23rd, Republicans hope to exclude moderates from their upcoming slate of candidates. But the commitment leads to an awkward question: who gets to decide which candidates meet the party's ideological standards?

Don't worry; some Republican National Committee members have a plan. It's called the "Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates," and it's being circulated among RNC members in the hopes of generating party support. The litmus test was reportedly written by attorney Jim Bopp, Jr., a prominent attorney opposed to abortion rights, perhaps best known for pushing an RNC resolution that would have relabeled the Democratic Party the "Democrat Socialist Party." (The effort failed earlier this year.)

Bopp's purity test for Republican candidates hits most of the predictable highlights.

(1) Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill

(2) Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) Workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check

(5) Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat

(8) Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

And what does this have to do with Reagan? "President Ronald Reagan believed ... that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent," the resolution states. With that in mind, if a candidate strayed from the list on three more issues, the RNC resolution, if approved, would block him/her from receiving financial support and/or official endorsements.

Complicating matters, the resolution also says that the RNC will decide whether a candidate actually agrees with eight out of 10 -- merely promising to go along isn't enough if the party doesn't like your voting record.

It occurs to me, looking over the list, that George W. Bush would have been deemed ineligible for support from the Republican National Committee. He did, after all, increase the size of government, run enormous deficits, endorsed cap and trade, allowed North Korea and Iran to become more serious security threats, and rejected the right's line on immigration.

For that matter, I'm not sure if Ronald Reagan would have gotten RNC support, either. Reagan, you'll recall, voted for several tax increases, began the modern era of massive federal debt, ran huge deficits, and approved an immigration measure the far-right still resents.*

And it's not just the past, either -- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) of Maine would easily fail this test, and be made ineligible for support from her own party.

I can't wait to see how the purity test turns out for the RNC. They're a clever bunch, aren't they?

* Update: Reader S.T. also reminds that Reagan would have failed the RNC Purity Test after withdrawing Marines from Lebanon in 1983 in the wake of the barracks bombing. Dick Cheney bashed the decision years later.

IF SENATORS ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE POLLS.... Ideally, it'd be preferable if senators took the same attitude as Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and put the public's needs above possible political considerations. But that's not how the game is usually played -- in the health care fight, policymakers are keeping an eye on the polls.

With that in mind, here's an interesting one for lawmakers to review.

A new national survey from Public Policy Polling (D) finds that health care has put the Democrats in a tricky situation -- passing a bill with a public option doesn't offer a clear political benefit, but not passing anything would cause an even greater problem.

The Democrats lead on an initial generic Congressional ballot by 46%-38%. If they pass a health care with a public option, the gap becomes 46%-41%. If they don't pass a health care bill at all, though, it becomes a 40%-40% tie -- reminiscent of the loss in Democratic support in 1994, after they failed to pass a health care bill.

"Clearly Democrats need to pass a health care bill if they want to do well at the polls next year," said PPP president Dean Debnam, in the polling memo. "But they don't need to take an all or nothing approach. Allowing the status quo to remain rather than accepting a bill without a public option would be a poor decision politically."

Those aren't entirely the expected results. Given the general popularity of the public option, I would have liked to see the generic ballot numbers improve for Democrats in the scenario in which reform passes with a public option.

Nevertheless, Dems have to realize that failure would be devastating, not only to the tens of millions of Americans counting on reform becoming law, but electorally for the party that promised to deliver on its top domestic priority. The public is largely split on the merits of the initiative, but if the whole effort implodes, Dems lose with everyone.

This seems especially true for "red"-state Democrats who are worried about re-election. If Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), for example, thinks she's likely to face headwinds next year, she should imagine those same conditions after having killed health care reform.

The surest way for Democrats to improve their political standing is to pass a good reform bill.

LIES AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM.... Over the weekend, Roll Call ran an online item, explaining, "With the Senate preparing to vote Saturday on whether to consider a $848 billion health care overhaul bill, national Democrats on Friday launched a rapid response system aimed at blunting each GOP criticism of the bill."

I have to say, the DNC's rapid-response fact-checking was pretty damn impressive. I lost count of how many alerts hit my inbox during the debate, but just about every time a Republican senator would make an appearance -- on the Senate floor or on one of the cable networks -- another alert went out, pointing to his/her demonstrable falsehoods. Late yesterday, the DNC posted the entire package of fact-checking items, which serves as a timeline of sorts, chronicling each bogus claim as it was made.

But let's not miss the forest for the trees here. Looking over the rapid-response list, the efficiency of the DNC operation is impressive, but the key takeaway is more important: Good lord, Republicans sure do lie a lot about health care.

I mean, GOP lawmakers weren't even close to the truth. Watching the debate as it unfolded, one got the sense that reform's opponents either know literally nothing about the issue at hand, prefer almost pathological levels of dishonesty, or perhaps both.

Over the weekend, Josh Marshall noted in passing that the congressional GOP lied quite a bit during the 1994 reform debate, but Republicans are now "upping their game ... lying even more shamelessly than in round 1."

I'm reminded of Ruth Marcus' reaction to the House debate a few weeks ago, when she marveled at the "appalling amount of misinformation being peddled" by Republicans.

I don't mean the usual hyperbole about "a children-bankrupting, health-care-rationing, freedom-crushing, $1 trillion government takeover of our health-care system," as Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling put it. Or the tired canards about taxpayer-funded abortion or insurance subsidies for illegal immigrants. Or the extraneous claims about alleged Democratic excesses....

I mean the flood of sheer factual misstatements about the health-care bill.... You have to wonder: Are the Republican arguments against the bill so weak that they have to resort to these misrepresentations and distortions?

Their Senate colleagues were just as offensive, shamelessly pretending as if reality had no meaning whatsoever.

John McCain, for example, said in a written statement that the reform bill would add "more than a trillion dollars to our country's deficit," would put medical decisions "in the hands of government bureaucrats," and amount to a "government takeover of our health care system." He's obviously lying. None of this is even remotely true.

But McCain and his cohorts have a strong incentive to be as blatantly dishonest as they can be. For one thing, it keeps the rabid GOP base worked up. For another, it might confuse the American mainstream, who won't know who's telling the truth and who isn't.

Ordinarily, the media would help sort this out. So much for that idea: "The media is basically letting all opponents of health care say whatever the hell they want about health care reform with little pushback. I don't know why I continue to be surprised when this happens, but I do..."

Without political consequences for dishonesty, this is only going to get worse.

OVERCOMING GOVERNMENTAL PARALYSIS.... Fred Hiatt's latest column ponders the question of whether American democracy is "in paralysis." I don't agree with every word of the piece -- in fact, some elements strike me as wildly off-base -- but his conclusion resonated with me.

[M]ost of us would welcome common-sense improvements in health-care delivery and insurance -- but the system feeds on and exacerbates our differences. The advent of the 60-vote rule in the Senate has magnified the already formidable checks and balances built into the Constitution, with the disproportionate blocking power it awards small and rural states. Cable television and the Internet have empowered those with the greatest intensity of feeling. The self-serving redistricting habits of the political elite, designed to protect incumbents, have left most legislators vulnerable only to primary challenges from the extremes of their respective parties.

Whichever explanation appeals to you -- and no doubt they all contain some truth -- the perception of paralysis increases the urgency of passing health-care reform. Failure would damage the Obama presidency, and it would also deepen the fear, here and abroad, that America is stuck.

Paradoxically, though, it also increases the urgency of doing health-care reform right. If Congress and the administration manage only to extend expensive new benefits, without improving the health-care system or controlling rising costs, it will be an achievement -- but not one that will long reassure anyone concerned about the U.S. ability to get things done.

This sounds about right. There's a growing fear that our political system simply can't function in a problem-solving capacity anymore. Given the enormity of the challenges the country faces, paralysis is a devastating condition to find ourselves in.

Looking back, there have been situations in which policymakers simply lack the wherewithal to identify the problems that surround them. That's not where we find ourselves. There have been other situations in which policymakers can identify the problems, but have no idea how to fix them. That's not where we find ourselves, either.

Instead, we know exactly what the challenges are, and have a pretty strong sense of what needs to be done, but are burdened by a process that can't approve the necessary solutions.

There are a variety of underlying changes that have exacerbated the paralysis, including, but not limited to, the abandonment of majority rule in the Senate; the descent of a major political party into right-wing madness; and the tribulations of American political journalism.

But the result is the same: a dysfunctional system that struggles mightily to adopt solutions to huge challenges, even when one party controls the levers of power.

Passing an imperfect-but-meaningful health care reform bill would demonstrate that our institutions can still take on a task and achieve a desired goal. To be sure, it would be a welcome development for the broken health care system, but it might also inspire some confidence in a political system that needs to get un-stuck.

MONDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* In a disappointment for the DCCC, which hopes to keep retirements to a minimum, Rep. Dennis Moore (D) of Kansas announced this morning that he'll retire at the end of this term. Republicans immediately declared it a major pick-up opportunity, but it's probably best described as a swing district -- Bush carried it easily in 2000 and 2004, but President Obama narrowly won Kansas' 3rd last year.

* With two weeks to go before the Senate primary in Massachusetts, a Boston Globe poll shows state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) with a big lead over Rep. Michael Capuano (D), 43% to 22%."Things could change, but it would have to go really sour for [Coakley] over the next few weeks,'' said pollster Andrew E. Smith.

* On the other hand, Capuano is still picking up support. Late last week, Diane Patrick, Gov. Deval Patrick's (D) wife, threw her support to the congressman.

* New York Gov. David Paterson (D) recently launched a television ad campaign to boost his standing, but so far, the efforts have not paid dividends. The latest Marist poll found that a majority of New Yorkers have seen at least one of the commercials, but it didn't matter -- nearly two-thirds of those who saw one of the ads still hope Paterson doesn't seek another term next year. Oddly enough, the governor fared slightly better among those who didn't see any of the ads.

* Next year's gubernatorial race in Michigan is still wide open. A new Denno-Noor poll shows Lt. Gov. John Cherry (D) leading the Democratic field, but he only has 20% support and most Michigan Dems are undecided. Likewise, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R) leads the GOP field with 21%.

* Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has had some trouble winning over some of the more progressive members of the New York delegation, but her efforts are beginning to pay off. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), one of Congress' most progressive leaders, will reportedly endorse Gillibrand today.

* It's unclear if North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven (R) intends to take on Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) next year, but if he does, a Zogby poll shows Hoeven easily defeating the incumbent senator.

* Would demagogic television personality Lou Dobbs run for president in 2012? Dobbs said the idea is not "crazy." There may be some disagreement on the subject.

A SHOW WITH A TINY AUDIENCE.... The right has plenty of talking points used to attack the decision to bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York for a criminal trial, some more reasonable than others. One of the more common criticisms, however, is one of the worst: KSM might exploit the trial to put on an offensive show.

The concern comes with some variation. I've heard conservatives raise the specter of a "show trial," with KSM making a mockery of the proceedings and the bloodshed of 9/11. Others fear KSM using the courtroom as a platform to spew hate and vile nonsense.

In general, federal judges run a pretty tight ship, and there are mechanisms in place to prevent a circus atmosphere, especially when the charges at hand involve mass murder. But Adam Serwer reminds us of a point that I'd hoped was obvious, but which seems to go largely overlooked.

What the articles on the subject all seem to omit is that there will be no TV cameras in the courtroom for this trial. Khalid Sheik Mohammed's rants will be available only by transcript. Americans, to the extent they aren't bored to tears, will get to experience KSM's pontificating on the evening news through the age-old craft of voice-overs placed over tastefully edited court drawings made mildly more exciting by creative use of keyframes.

Right. If Khalid Sheik Mohammed throws tantrums and goes on insane rants about whatever is on his mind, the only people who'll see/hear any of this will be those who are literally, physically in the courtroom.

Indeed, when Bush's Justice Department tried Zacarias Moussaoui in a civilian courtroom not far from the Pentagon, he was not exactly a model of decorum. Remember how embarrassing it was for the United States and our system of justice when the world got to see video of his antics? Probably not -- there is no such video, because there are no cameras in federal courts. His rants were easily ignored.

As conservative fears go, this is pretty weak tea.

WHEN AND WHY DID LINCOLN CHANGE HER MIND?.... Back in July, we talked about an op-ed Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) of Arkansas wrote for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It wasn't perfect, but the center-right senator struck some encouraging notes:

Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan. [...]

Unfortunately, opponents of reform, who have no real plan for improving health care, are already using the tired arguments of the past. They say that Congress is trying to create "more government" or a "Washington takeover" of health care, which will raise your taxes, get between you and your doctor, and eliminate private insurance. It's a strategy that spreads misinformation and generates fear to preserve the status quo. Arkansans should not be misled by those who oppose real reform.

Of course, that was several months ago, before Teabaggers went berserk in August. But as Igor Volsky noted, as recently as yesterday, Lincoln's own website argued, "Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals of a public plan."

That was the senator's official position a day after Lincoln stood on the floor of the Senate, "promising" to join a Republican filibuster of health care reform "as long as a government-run public option is included" in the bill.

After Volsky's post, Lincoln's office changed the senator's official position, scrubbing the page of any references to allowing consumers to choose among competing plans.

But given that the reasoning behind Lincoln's conservative position on reform has gone largely overlooked, perhaps, the next time the senator is addressing reporters, someone can ask her, "So, why were you for giving consumers the choice of a public option before you were against it?"

LEVERAGE.... Jonathan Cohn wrote a good lay-of-the-land piece last night on the state of the health care reform fight, noting, among other things, the "unambiguous." "unyielding," and "obstinate" efforts of center-right Democrats undermine the Senate bill.

But Cohn's point about reform's champions is the one I keep mulling over.

To be sure, Liberals can flex their muscle, too. Bernie Sanders made very clear, in his own statements over the weekend, that he wasn't guaranteeing to give his vote -- particularly if conservative Democrats (and former Democrats) extract even more concessions.

Sanders is right to play hardball like this, but, at the end of the day, it's hard to imagine he'd cast the vote to kill health care reform. He simply cares too much about the people even a weakened bill would help. The same goes for Sherrod Brown, who's emerging as a leading voice for progressives. Their interest in helping their fellow man is, in strategic terms, a great weakness.

I not only think this is right, I think it's a dynamic that will inevitably shape the debate over the next month (or more). We're dealing with a series of upcoming negotiations in which conservative Dems' indifference gives them leverage. In other words, Lieberman, Nelson, & Co. don't much care if this once-in-a-generation opportunity implodes, while reform advocates care very much. These rather obvious bargaining positions create a playing field that is anything but level.

Put it this way: imagine there's a big meeting with every member of the Democratic caucus in both chambers. You stand at the front of the room and make a presentation: "If health care reform falls apart after having come this far, tens of millions of Americans will suffer; costs will continue to soar; the public will perceive Democrats as too weak and incompetent to act on their own agenda; the party will lose a lot of seats in the midterms and possible forfeit its majority; and President Obama will have suffered a devastating defeat that will severely limit his presidency going forward. No one will even try to fix the dysfunctional system again for decades, and the existing problems will only get worse."

For progressive Democrats, the response would be, "That's an unacceptable outcome, which we have to avoid."

For conservative Democrats, the response would be, "We can live with failure."

This necessarily affects negotiations. One contingent wants to avoid failure; the other contingent considers failure a satisfactory outcome. Both sides know what the other side is thinking.

Yes, progressive Democrats can force the issue, keep the bill intact, and force Nelson, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Lincoln to kill the legislation, in the process making clear exactly who was responsible for the debacle. But that's cold comfort -- the goal isn't to position center-right Dems to take the blame for failure; the goal ostensibly is to pass a bill that will do a lot of good for a lot of people.

The push for more "compromise" isn't going to be pretty.

PRIORITIES STRAIGHT.... It's always encouraging when a lawmaker in a precarious position has his/her priorities straight.

"If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform and every piece of evidence tells you if you support the bill you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?" CNN's John King asked Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado on Sunday's State of the Union.

"Yes," Bennet bluntly and simply replied.

Bennet was appointed by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter to replace Sen. Ken Salazar, who stepped down from the Senate to serve as President Obama's Interior Secretary. Bennet, who was superintendent of the Denver public school system prior to his appointment, will have to seek election to the seat for the first time in 2010.

Now, I wasn't especially impressed with the question. We haven't seen King pressing his Republican guests on the price they may pay as a result of opposing health care reform. Indeed, the question for Bennet is premised on the notion that supporting health care reform is somehow a risky, politically dangerous thing to do. The framing of the question has a decidedly GOP-friendly spin.

Regardless, Bennet's response sent the right signal -- lawmakers who care more about keeping power than using it are looking at their responsibilities the wrong way. Good for him.

MAKING REFORM PERSONAL FOR LAWMAKERS.... It's pretty common to see Republican lawmakers appear on Fox News and repeat a key talking point -- if Democratic health care reform proposals are so great, why are members of Congress exempt from the new rules?

The claim is apparently part of a right-wing email chain, and it's been debunked. But Time's Joe Klein raised a related point yesterday that turns the talking point on its head.

My favorite provision requires that all members of Congress give up their federally-funded health care benefits and join the health care exchanges that will be set up by this bill. This is brilliant politics, addressing the tide of populist anger and fears of incipient socialism. But it also makes an important substantive point.

The future of health care reform in this country will depend on how effectively the exchanges -- health insurance super-stores -- are working. If members of Congress have to participate in this system, you can bet they'll insist on an array of choices, similar to the system they currently use, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan.

In all candor, Klein's item is the first I've heard of this. If he's right, this strikes me as both good policy and good politics.

The idea of requiring lawmakers to join exchanges is good policy because it all but guarantees they'll make sure consumers have good options to choose from. After all, they'll want those options for themselves.

And it's obviously good politics because it demonstrates confidence in a reformed system, and signals to the public that members of Congress are willing to put their coverage where their votes are.

There might even be a campaign upside -- it's the kind of thing that lends itself well to attack ads. "Sen. Schmoe voted against a reform plan that would have forced members of Congress to have the same health care choices as millions of regular Americans. Does Sen. Schmoe think he's too important to get the same options as the rest of us? Call Sen. Schmoe and tell him...."

If Klein's wrong, and this isn't in the bill, here's hoping some Dem sees fit to push the measure in an amendment.

Update: Interesting background on how this provision got into the bill.

FORGET THE MAINE?.... How concerned are Democratic leaders about keeping the 60-vote Senate caucus together on health care reform? They're already making contingency plans, hoping to replace defectors with the Maine Moderates.

Anxious that Saturday's party-line Senate vote to open debate on a health care overhaul gives them little maneuvering room, Obama administration officials and their Congressional allies are stepping up overtures to select Senate Republicans in hopes of winning their ultimate support.

The two moderate Republican senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, say Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, reached out to them after he unveiled the Senate measure, encouraging them to bring forward their ideas and concerns.

Ms. Collins also received a personal visit from a high-level Obama emissary, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former senator who worked closely with her on various issues as part of a bipartisan coalition.

Now, at first blush, this seems pointless. Probably second blush, too. Snowe and Collins not only oppose the Democratic proposal, they both just voted to filibuster a motion to have a debate on the bill. Collins said yesterday that she'd like to find a way to "rewrite the bill in a way that would cause it to have greater support." The two may be slightly less conservative than their GOP colleagues, but they don't exactly sound like prime targets for across-the-aisle outreach.

On the other hand, there are four members of the Democratic caucus -- Nelson, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Lincoln -- who are being just as obstinate as Snowe and Collins, if not more so. Indeed, all things being equal, it's probably fair to characterize Snowe as being to Lieberman's left on health care reform (Lieberman thinks even a trigger would be going too far in generating competition for private insurers).

With this in mind, the outreach to the Maine senators seems to have less to do with asking, "How can we make this vote bipartisan?" and more to do with asking, "What can we do if Lieberman decides to betray us?"

Of course, it's not just Lieberman. His center-right Democratic cohorts will all make painful demands to undermine the bill. The fact that Snowe and Collins are still on the radar screen, though, signals that the leadership is keeping its options open.

ANOTHER MONTH, ANOTHER EXCUSE.... That Joe Lieberman would rather kill health care reform than let some consumer choose between competing public and private plans isn't exactly new. I continue to find it fascinating, though, to see his evolving explanations.

In June, Lieberman said, "I don't favor a public option because I think there's plenty of competition in the private insurance market." That didn't make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.

In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public is going to end up paying for it." No one could figure out exactly what that meant, and the senator moved onto other arguments.

In August, he said we'd have to wait "until the economy's out of recession," which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn't kick in for quite a while.

In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public doesn't support it." A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.

In October, Lieberman said the public option would mean "trouble ... for the national debt," by creating "a whole new government entitlement program." Soon after, Jon Chait explained that this "literally makes no sense whatsoever."

Well, it's November. And guess what? We're onto the sixth rationale in six months. I actually like the new one.

"This is a radical departure from the way we've responded to the market in America in the past," Lieberman said Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press." "We rely first on competition in our market economy. When the competition fails then what do we do? We regulate or we litigate.... We have never before said, in a given business, we don't trust the companies in it, so we're going to have the government go into that business.."

What a pleasant change of pace. Lieberman is moving away from practical and policy arguments -- that's a good move, since he's totally wrong on the merits -- and shifting towards opposition based on traditions.

That's at least creative. We haven't set up public plans to compete with dysfunctional private models before, therefore we shouldn't in the future. The first half of the equation may very well be true, but the second half is more of an observation than an argument.

In a nutshell, reform advocates are saying, "Giving people the choice of a public option is likely to help consumers by cutting costs and promoting competition." Lieberman is effectively responding, "We haven't done things that way in the past."

To which I respond, "So?"

The goal here is not to preserve ideologically-based traditions; the goal is to help consumers get the care they need at a price they can afford.

But don't worry, December is almost here. Lieberman will have a new line soon enough.

BIG DIFFERENCE IN LITTLE ROCK.... In October, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann helped raise $1.2 million for the National Association of Free Clinics, which in turn led to events in Little Rock, Kansas City, and New Orleans where the uninsured could get medical attention.

The Arkansas clinic was yesterday. Seeing what transpired should effectively end the debate on the need for health care reform.

More than 1,000 uninsured Arkansans with a broad range of medical ailments, including at least seven who required immediate emergency care, sought care Saturday at a free clinic at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

Patients with heart failure and chest pain were among those rushed to emergency rooms.

"One with heart failure had just been in the hospital three weeks ago," said Dr. Kimberly Garner, the clinic's medical director and medical director of geriatric evaluation and management at Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.

"It was recommended he see a cardiologist, but he doesn't have health insurance so he wasn't able to go in for a follow-up."

Lee Fang posted some video from the event, including one attendee who explained it's been years since his last doctor's visit, despite having diabetes, because he can't find a job that offers insurance.

Of course, all of those who sought care at the free clinic had to deal with rationing and long wait times -- which, incidentally, is what conservative opponents of reform are constantly warning against.

These clinics don't happen nearly often enough, but when they do, we see similar patterns. In August, there was a free clinic near Los Angeles, where thousands sought services, and hundreds of people were turned away. Families in need of assistance slept outside an arena, hoping for the chance to see a physician. In September, there was a clinic in Houston, where more than 2,000 people showed up seeking medical treatment.

In July, Bill Moyers sat down with Wendell Potter, a former executive at a major health insurance company, who's become a whistleblower, explaining the way the industry "put profits before patients" and is doing everything possible to block health care reform now.

Asked what prompted his change of heart, Potter said he visited a health care expedition in Wise, Virginia, in July 2007. "I just assumed that it would be, you know, like booths set up and people just getting their blood pressure checked and things like that," he said. "But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. Or they'd erected tents, to care for people.... I've got some pictures of people being treated on gurneys, on rain-soaked pavement. And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care."

Potter added that families were there from "all over the region" because people had heard, "from word of mouth," about the possibility of being able to see a doctor without insurance. He asked himself, "What country am I in? It just didn't seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States."

And yet, this is the norm. Despite this, we still have conservative politicians threatening to kill reform if some people are given a choice between competing public and private plans. Worse, in some far-right circles, there's still a belief that health care reform isn't necessary. Last month, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) even boasted, "There are no Americans who don't have healthcare. Everybody in this country has access to healthcare."

If only that were true.

REFRESHING LIEBERMAN'S MEMORY.... When it comes to the larger health care reform debate, the public option is a pretty new idea. As recently as the 2004 campaign, the leading Democratic candidates (Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Clark) all had health plans, but none of them proposed a government insurance option to compete alongside private insurers.

And while it's a welcome addition to the debate, it's not that new. Joe Lieberman said this week, "It's classic politics of our time that if you look at the campaign last year, presidential, you can't find a mention of public option. It was added after the election."

I can understand why Lieberman made the argument -- he may want to deny the notion of a mandate. If President Obama easily won a presidential election, but didn't promise a public option, it's more plausible to argue that lawmakers shouldn't endorse after-the-fact add-ons.

Which is why it's all the more important to note that Lieberman doesn't know what he's talking about. The Obama plan always featured a public option, since the day he unveiled his proposal in May 2007. In fairness, the measure didn't generate a lot of attention -- Republicans were too wrapped up in talking about preachers and flag pins -- but it was there the whole time.

Brian Beutler followed up with Lieberman on the Hill yesterday, and the Connecticut senator repeated the claim that was debunked days ago.

"This is a kind of 11th hour addition to a debate that's gone on for decades," Lieberman told reporters tonight. "Nobody's ever talked about a public option before. Not even in the presidential campaign last year."

I asked in response, "How do you reconcile your contention that the public option wasn't part of the presidential campaign given that all three of the [leading Democratic] candidates had something along the lines of the public option in their white papers?'

"Not really, not from what I've seen. There was a little -- there was a line about the possibility of it in an Obama health care policy paper," Lieberman said.

When reminded that Obama embraced the idea, as well as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, during the campaign, Lieberman replied, "...Clinton, Obama, McCain -- I don't see it. Anyway, I'm opposed to it."

He's quite a senator, isn't he?

THE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION.... I frequently get emails from readers warning me not to underestimate Sarah Palin. She has a rabid fan base, I'm reminded, who care little for reason, and are outwardly hostile towards reality. The right-wing enthusiasm surrounding Palin, the argument goes, is cause for genuine concern.

Perhaps. Time will tell whether the popularity of idiocy can endure and grow, but in the meantime, I think grown-ups should at least be able to agree that the half-term governor has the intelligence of a wilted salad.

O'REILLY: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have -- I believe the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fat resume that's based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are -- could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.

Ladies and gentlemen, the one national political figure that can make George W. Bush look like Socrates.

Palin thinks she's qualified to lead, not in spite of her inexperience and ignorance, but because of her inexperience and ignorance. I can see the bumper stickers now: "Vote Palin '12: She Won't Bother You With A Bunch Of Highfalutin Thought And Seriousness."

To be sure, it's not easy to spin two years as a scandal-plagued governor of a state with a small population and socialized oil revenue into a right-wing platform for national office. I get that. But the way to overcome a background like this is to demonstrate extraordinary judgment, clarity of thought, maturity, and a capacity for innovative policy solutions.

"I believe the values that are reflective of so many other American values" doesn't quite cut it.

Or, who knows, maybe it does. I tend to value book learnin' and credible ideas, which no doubt puts me in the "elitism" camp.

A DERANGED HUCKSTER HAS SOME PRODUCTS FOR YOU.... Glenn Beck doesn't want a microphone; he wants a cult that will keep buying his wares.

Glenn Beck, the popular and outspoken Fox News host, says he wants to go beyond broadcasting his opinions and start rallying his political base -- formerly known as his audience -- to take action.

To do so, Mr. Beck is styling himself as a political organizer. In an interview, he said he would promote voter registration drives and sponsor a series of seven conventions across the country featuring what he described as libertarian speakers.

On Saturday he held a festive campaign-style rally in The Villages in Florida, north of Orlando, in which he promoted his recently released book, "Arguing With Idiots," and announced another book to come next August filled with right-leaning policy proposals gathered from the conventions.

For those keeping score at home, Beck released a book in June, and then another in September, with plans for yet another in August. That's three books in 14 months. That doesn't include the Christmas book released last year, which will get an update with a photo companion book this year. It also doesn't include the "An Inconvenient Book" that was published in May, or "America's March to Socialism," an audio book released around the same time.

For a guy who seems to read a third-grade level -- remember, he thinks the word "OLIGARH" is missing a "y" -- Beck seems awfully prolific in creating new products for his minions to purchase.

Indeed, Steve M. gets this just right: "So now we see what Glenn Beck really is: He's basically a televangelist. A huckster. A late-night pitchman selling seminars and book/DVD/audio combo packages that will allegedly help you get rich through flipping real estate. A human-potential-movement cult leader who promises life breakthroughs in exchange for participation in costly 'religious' or 'therapy' programs."

Beck's conventions will apparently be seminars, in which suckers God-loving patriots will learn all about the voices in Beck's head Beck's vision for a better future.

And when I say "future," I mean future -- Beck claims to be working on a "100 year plan."

I've heard of long cons, but this is ridiculous.

Update: Beck's pre-election gathering will be a rally at the Lincoln Memorial, scheduled for August 28, 2010 -- the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It's literally nauseating.

TACKLING BRODER'S SKEPTICISM.... David Broder isn't sure if health care reform will cut the deficit, and as such, isn't sure if he likes the bill pending in the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was delighted to see the column, and called the writer a "distinguished senior columnist" with important "reservations as a citizen."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) replied, "To focus on a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while is not where we should be."

Technically, Broder never exactly retired, and continues to churn out fairly predictable content (next week's column: politicians should be more moderate). But in his latest item, Broder doubts that the Senate's reform plan will achieve the promised deficit reductions. The columnist is aware of the CBO report, but reads it in such a way as to conclude that "the promised budget savings may not materialize."

Broder's Washington Post colleague Ezra Klein seems to think Broder should have taken a closer look at the details.

The net increase of $160 billion in the first 10 years is part of CBO's analysis, not a caveat to it. It doesn't mean the bill doesn't cut the deficit, it just means that overall spending is larger before you add revenues into the equation. Moreover, the CBO continues: "during the decade following the 10-year budget window, the increases and decreases in the federal budgetary commitment to health care stemming from this legislation would roughly balance out."

In other words, the revenue and the savings grow more quickly than the costs. Extend that line out further and, yes, federal spending on health care falls as a result of this bill. In other words, the bill satisfies Broder's conditions. But he doesn't come out and say that.

Instead, he pivots to the now-traditional argument that Congress won't be able to stick to the savings and revenue measures in this bill. That, however, is another way of saying that Congress can't cut health-care costs and the American government will go bankrupt. For one thing, that's not a very good reason not to at least try and avert that outcome. But if Broder's position is that we face certain fiscal collapse, then the only real question is whether we would prefer that 30 million Americans had insurance in the meantime, or went uninsured over that period.

Reading Broder's column reminds me of listening to center-right Democrats complain about the bill for no apparent reason. Harry Reid crafted a modest, affordable bill that would significantly reduce the deficit, cut systemic costs, and steer clear of massive tax increases. This is what the center-right says it wants. And yet, they're reluctant to take "yes" for an answer.

Broder's argument seems to be, "Well, maybe policymakers won't follow through and do what the legislation explicitly mandates they do." By any reasonable measure, that's simply not an argument.

A LIST OR A RANSOM NOTE?.... Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has a few thoughts about the kind of changes he'd like to see on the health care reform bill. In fact, he has two pages of ideas, which he's already delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

"There is not a lot of explanation there. These are just items," Nelson said.

What's on it? Public option, abortion, and CLASS Act, among other things.

"There will be a lot of discussion back and forth about what might get enough votes," Nelson said after the vote. "There will have to be fairly significant changes for others as well, not just me.... Nuance will not be enough."

I haven't seen the actual list, but at this point, I'm not altogether sure what any of this means. Nelson hasn't included "a lot of explanation" with his demands? Wouldn't "a lot of explanation" be helpful under the circumstances?

He isn't exactly a rookie. If Nelson has some specific ideas about policy improvements, he should, you know, craft legislative language, put together proposed amendments, start seeking co-sponsors, etc. Handing Reid a list of "just items" doesn't sound especially constructive.

For that matter, it'd be helpful to know if this is a list or a ransom note. Does Nelson intend to join a Republican filibuster if only some of his list is addressed to his satisfaction?

As the process moves forward, keep in mind that Nelson appears to have a hierarchy of concerns in mind. Just a few days ago, the conservative Democrat said he doesn't like the existing restrictions on abortion funding, but added, "If there's no public option, perhaps some of the [abortion] problem goes away."

In other words, Nelson has a list, but his top target is the public option. I suspect the other center-right members of the caucus are thinking along the same lines.

THREADING A VERY SMALL NEEDLE.... There's been plenty of talk about a public option compromise for months. And every time is seems a negotiated deal will satisfy various contingents, conservatives insist they'll need a little more.

Brian Beutler reported last night that another round of talks is poised to get underway.

In light of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement tonight -- that he welcomes negotiations on a public option compromise -- Sen. Chuck Schumer's spokesman Brian Fallon emails a statement to TPMDC. He says discussions with centrists, such as they are, are in the earliest stages.

"Leading up to tonight's vote, some senators expressed a desire to discuss the public option currently in the Senate bill. Of course, Senator Schumer did not rule that out. But no such talks have yet taken place, and there is not any compromise at hand beyond what Leader Reid has already inserted into the bill. Senator Schumer remains a strong proponent of the opt-out, level playing field public option."

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told TPMDC earlier today that Schumer had been tasked as the point man in negotiations between senators who support a public option, and those who prefer a "trigger" compromise.

I haven't the foggiest idea how this is going to work out, and I don't envy Schumer. Liberal Democrats have said they can't go any further than they've already gone; conservative Democrats have said they'd rather join a Republican filibuster than allow the existing public option to even get an up-or-down vote on the floor.

Keep in mind, when progressive Dems argue that they've already compromised, they have a very compelling case to make. They started with a desire for Medicare for all. That was negotiated down to a national public option. That, in turn, was negotiated down to a national public option with limited eligibility. That was negotiated down again to a national public option with limited eligibility tied to negotiated reimbursement rates, instead of Medicare rates. In time, that was negotiated down once again, leaving a public option with limited eligibility tied to negotiated reimbursement rates, which any state could choose not to participate in.

And for Republicans and several center-right Dems, this is not only still too high a burden on insurance companies, it's also worth killing health care reform over. If that strikes you as a rather extreme position to take -- we are, after all, just talking about giving consumers a choice between competing plans -- we're on the same page.

If you go with a "trigger," you lose the center-left and health care reform dies. If you keep the existing compromise, you lose the center-right and health care reform dies. The debate, at that point, becomes a fight over who gets the blame.

There seems to be an assumption that policymakers will "figure something out." We've come this far, and most seem to agree that there will be some kind of deal that helps drag the bill across the finish line. I'm just not sure what that deal would, or could, look like.

WHERE THINGS STAND.... At this point, every step forward has a certain historic significance. The Senate voted 60 to 39 last night to bring a health care reform bill to the floor for the first time ever, marking the latest in a series of milestones. But that there was any drama at all surrounding last night's vote underscores the silliness of the process -- there was a lengthy, overwrought debate yesterday about whether to have an even longer, more overwrought debate in December.

Or put another way, yesterday's vote (supermajority on the motion to proceed) makes it possible to have other votes (supermajority on amendments), which will make it possible to have another vote (supermajority on cloture), which will hopefully lead to another vote (final passage).

And while last night's vote was far more difficult than it should have been -- every Republican in the Senate opposed even talking about health care reform -- it was the easiest hurdle to clear.

Two reluctant Democratic senators, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, warned that their support for a motion to open debate did not guarantee that they would ultimately vote for the bill. Their remarks echoed previous comments by several other senators, including Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.

Those comments made clear that more horse-trading lies ahead and that major changes might be required if the bill is to be approved. And it suggested that the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, who relied only on members aligned with his party to bring the bill to the floor, may yet have to sway one or more Republicans to his side to get the bill adopted.

If the Senate leadership had 59 votes lined up for cloture, finagling one lone holdout would be tricky enough. But as the bill currently stands, there are four holdouts who are all prepared to vote with Republicans to kill health care reform. Indeed, two of the four -- Lieberman and Lincoln -- were pretty emphatic about their intentions yesterday, leaving themselves no meaningful wiggle room.

Much of the debate will focus on the public option, of course, but votes on abortion, immigrants, subsidy rates, and medical malpractice will be nearly as contentious.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said late yesterday, "The battle has just begun." It was the only accurate remark he made all day.

Last night was another achievement that keeps the ball rolling. Regrettably, it's still rolling uphill.

The debate is expected to resume a week from tomorrow and extend through December. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) still intends to pass a bill by Christmas.

MOTIONING TO PROCEED.... Going into today, Senate Democrats had lined up 58 votes in support of bringing health care reform to the floor for debate. Every Republican in the chamber hoped to kill the initiative before the discussion could even begin, and two center-right Southern Dems remained on the fence.

This afternoon, one of the two made the right call...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's hopes of pushing ahead with a sweeping health reform plan got a boost Saturday when Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said she will vote to start debate.

"My vote today to move forward on this important debate should in no way to be construed as ... an indication of how I might vote as this debate comes to an end," she warned in comments on the Senate floor. "It is a vote to move forward.... But much more work needs to be done."

...and about two hours later, the other followed suit.

Senate Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas said Saturday she will support bringing the Senate health care reform bill to the floor for debate, giving Democrats the 60 votes they need to prevent a Republican filibuster.

"Although I don't agree with everything in this bill, I believe it is important to begin this debate," she said. "This issue is very complex. There is no easy fix," she said in making her announcement on the Senate floor, just hours before Saturday night's 8 p.m. procedural vote.

Barring any extraordinary surprises, there are now 60 votes to bring health care reform to the floor for a debate, at which point plenty of amendments will be considered. It's the first key procedural hurdle -- the vote is still scheduled for 8 p.m. -- and senators will begin the next phase of the process a week from Monday.

Pay particular attention to the talk about public option "triggers," which lingers despite opposition from the left and right. Brian Beutler reports this afternoon that Landrieu told reporters "she thinks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will soon have to choose between a triggered public option and no health care bill. She also says Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) -- the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate one of its most fierce and vocal public option advocates -- has been tasked as a point man on the issue."

A variety of conversations have been underway this week, most of them surrounding Sen. Tom Carper (D) of Delaware, who's been working on various public-option compromises for months. Carper has been talking to Landrieu, Schumer, and even Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) about some kind of deal. Given the nature of the discussions, it's safe to assume the deal will include a public option provision that's even weaker than the one currently in the Senate plan.

With that in mind, we'll likely run into the same dilemma that's been apparent for quite a while -- keep the public option and the reform bill will likely die because center-right Dems won't accept it; compromise even more on the public option and the reform bill will likely die because center-left Dems won't accept it.

Expect plenty of arm-twisting, deal-making, needle-threading, and legal bribery in the near future*.

* updated

HOW STIMULATING.... Republican critics of the economic recovery efforts, when they're not taking credit for the money that's benefiting their state/district, take it as a given that the stimulus "failed." For the right, it's a foregone conclusion, hardly worth discussing anymore.

The New York Times reminds us today that "dispassionate analysts" agree that a fair look at the stimulus package shows that it may be "messy" but it's also "working."

The legislation, a variety of economists say, is helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow again and shed fewer jobs than it otherwise would. Mr. Obama's promise to "save or create" about 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 is roughly on track, though far more jobs are being saved than created, especially among states and cities using their money to avoid cutting teachers, police officers and other workers.

"It was worth doing -- it's made a difference," said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, a financial forecasting and analysis group based in Lexington, Mass.

Mr. Gault added: "I don't think it's right to look at it by saying, 'Well, the economy is still doing extremely badly, therefore the stimulus didn't work.' I'm afraid the answer is, yes, we did badly but we would have done even worse without the stimulus."

In interviews, a broad range of economists said the White House and Congress were right to structure the package as a mix of tax cuts and spending, rather than just tax cuts as Republicans prefer or just spending as many Democrats do. And it is fortuitous, many say, that the money gets doled out over two years -- longer for major construction -- considering the probable length of the "jobless recovery" under way as wary employers hold off on new hiring.

Obviously, a bigger investment would have meant a bigger return. The $787 billion package would have been more ambitious if the Senate operated on majority rule, and even White House economists have conceded that the stimulus bill should have been larger to accommodate the size of the hole in the economy. That aid to states had to be curtailed to bring on GOP votes continues to undermine the effectiveness of the strategy.

But on the whole, we're talking about a recovery package that saved us from a wholesale economic collapse. Conservative Republicans -- who've been wrong about every major economic challenge of the last generation -- who whine bitterly about the stimulus are, as is usually the case, misguided.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com and an occasional adviser to lawmakers from both parties, added, "[T]he stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do -- it is contributing to ending the recession." Zandi added that without the recovery bill, the "G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus."

Left unsaid is what the economic consequences would have been if we'd listened to congressional Republicans -- 95% of whom voted for a truly insane five-year spending freeze at the height of the downturn.

Politically, however, the stimulus has proven problematic -- much of the public is convinced it didn't work, since the economy is still struggling. The more effort the White House invests in explaining reality, the better.

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week is a push among conservative political activists on something called "imprecatory" prayers, which are basically appeals to God to hurt, or possibly kill, a specific target.

It's become an offensive political development, because a growing number of right-wing outlets are praying for something bad to happen to President Obama. Rabbi Brad Hirschfield had this report on BeliefNet this week. (thanks to reader K.P. for the heads-up)

Any time the citizens of a state, particularly a democracy, invoke their faith to pray for the demise of those they oppose politically, we should be concerned. When the call for such prayers becomes one of the most popular Google searches in the country, we should shake, especially those of us who believe in God, prayer and the Bible. Psalm 109, verse 8, went viral this morning in just that way.

Among the world's top Google searches today are phrases that contain the words "Psalms 109 8", and "Psalm 109 8 prayer for Obama". For those of you who may not know that particular verse, it reads "May his days be few, may another take over his position." And before anyone excuses this toxic use of scripture as nothing more than the wish that President Obama not be re-elected to a second term of office, the next verse in the psalm reads, "May his children be orphans and his wife a widow".

In fact, the entire chapter is about the prayer for death of an evil person. Not to mention that anyone who knows enough Bible to have thought about this verse in particular, surely knows the entire chapter and appreciates its message. Pretty scary stuff.

All this is especially upsetting in light of the last weeks' events at Fort Hood. Exactly how long is it going to take us to figure out the danger of linking faith claims and violent fantasies?

A few too many on the right have begun taking this very seriously, putting "Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8" -- prayers, in other words, for something awful to happen to the president -- onto t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, and even teddy bears. It's a bit of a dog whistle -- the typical person who sees it might think it's simply a prayer in support of the president, but a closer look makes the malicious intent clear.

Frank Schaeffer told Rachel Maddow this week that the right-wing activists embracing this lurid nonsense are dangerous, threatening, and "genuinely frightening."

The more people in faith communities speak out against this nauseating hatred, the better.

Also from the God Machine this week: A large group of evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Christian leaders have teamed up to promote something called the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience." As the NYT reported, the signers of the document agree that "they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples."

The "Manhattan Declaration" is intended, at least in part, to signal the relevance of the religious right movement, and declare that those involved with the project will be unyielding on issues like gay marriage, abortion rights, and stem-cell research.

A friend of mine was on hand for the D.C. event unveiling the Declaration, and asked a good question: "The divorce rate is 50 percent. Earlier, Mr. [Chuck] Colson indicated that fatherlessness impacts the prison population. Is anyone here willing to state, for the record, that divorce is a bigger threat to the American family than same-sex marriage?"

The speakers didn't want to touch it. Imagine that.

OBAMA IN ASIA.... All week, administration officials have expressed a great deal of satisfaction with President Obama's trip to Asia. And all week, U.S. reporters have told the country that the trip has been unproductive and unsuccessful. It's probably worth taking a moment to note who's right.

For its part, the White House seems genuinely pleased. In the president's weekly address, Obama touted the importance of the trip, and explained why his efforts in Asia will pay dividends domestically. "I traveled to Asia to open a new era of American engagement," the president said, before pointing to progress on national security, climate change, human rights, trade, and economic development.

Likewise, U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, the former Republican governor of Utah, explained yesterday that there's been an important disconnect between U.S. media reports on the trip and reality. "I attended all those meetings that President Obama had with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao," Huntsman said, referring to the Chinese president and premier. "I've got to say some of the reporting I saw afterward was off the mark. I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren't talked about, when they were discussed in great detail in the meetings."

James Fallows noted this morning:

Two colleagues with different perspectives -- from each other's, and sometimes from my own -- marvel at how badly the mainstream American press distorted the picture of what happened during Barack Obama's just-ended tour of Asia. [...]

We're all familiar with one "crisis of the press," the business collapse. This is a different kind of crisis, though it makes the business crisis worse: the distortion of reality by compressing every complex issue into the narrative of the DC-based "horse race."

Fallows quoted one journalist, with extensive experience covering foreign policy, saying, "Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the U.S. media did."

But just think of how many fascinating reports there were this week on Obama bowing!

Please.

As far as I can tell, U.S. political reporters covering the trip looked at this as if it were a campaign. The notion that the president may have been laying the diplomatic groundwork for future progress was completely lost, and incremental progress was ignored.

This was an important week for the administration. It's a shame we don't have a media establishment equipped to report on it.

ALL HE IS SAYING, IS GIVE ESCALATION A CHANCE.... I'll take, "People whose opinions should no longer matter" for $100, Alex. (via Atrios)

US Senator John McCain predicted an allied win in Afghanistan in one year to 18 months if sufficient troops are sent, as the White House mulls sending tens of thousands of reinforcements. [...]

"I am absolutely convinced and totally confident that with sufficient resources we can turn the situation around," McCain told reporters at an international defense summit in easternmost Canada.

"I even am bold enough to predict that in a year to 18 months you will see success if the effort is sufficiently resourced and there is a commitment to get the job done before setting a date to leave the region," he said.

McCain didn't get around to explaining why his perspective on this should have any salience at all, which is a shame. I'd love to hear why anyone should take him seriously on the subject.

Keep in mind, as recently as a year ago, McCain rejected talk of sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. He later changed his mind, and then changed it back. The seriousness with which McCain took U.S. policy in Afghanistan became clear when the senator endorsed the notorious "muddle through" strategy.

But of particular interest right now, it'll be great to hear McCain flesh out this position in more detail. In 12 to 18 months, he says, the U.S. will "see success" in Afghanistan, but only if an additional 40,000 troops are on the ground. But what does "success" mean? Gen. McChrystal has said largely the opposite -- that the mission may very well fail even with an escalation.

McCain has long loved bumper-sticker-style slogans as a substitute for actual thinking about foreign policy. But that's all the more reason to press further. What does "get the job done" mean? What can 108,000 soldiers do that 68,000 soldiers have not? If escalation is the key to success, why has McCain resisted troop increases in the past?

Inquiring minds want to know.

IF THEY'VE ALREADY MADE UP THEIR MINDS.... On Fox News yesterday, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) explained, in no uncertain terms, that "every single Republican" in the Senate "will oppose" health care reform. Kyl conceded that the reform bill may change before a final floor vote, but every Republican already realizes that the legislation "will only get worse."

Since it's his job to keep track of such things, Kyl's declaration is probably accurate. Indeed, it's not the least bit surprising -- the far-right Minority Whip has made similar declarations before.

But Kyl's affirmation led Sam Stein to raise a good point. If the entire Senate Republican caucus has already decided to oppose the bill, no matter what changes might be made, then why should anyone care that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants six weeks of debate?

...Kyl's prophecy of across-the-board opposition does seem to undercut that other GOP tactic. Why do Senate Republicans need six weeks to debate and consider the legislation if they're already determined to vote against it?

"We know it's been in Harry Reid's office for six weeks and the other 99 senators haven't seen it," McConnell told "Fox News Sunday" last week. "I think we ought to at least have as much time for the other 99 senators and all of the American people to take a look at this bill as Majority Leader Reid has had."

And why, for that matter, are Senate Republicans complaining about a limited three-day window to read the legislation if they have already come to a final verdict on its contents?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that GOP demands for six weeks of debate has very little to do with genuine interest in good-faith deliberations, and everything to do with pointless delay tactics. Call it a hunch.

Here's hoping Senate Democratic leaders ignore Republican pleas for more time to attack a bill the minority has already decided to oppose en masse.

AS IF STANDISH HASN'T SUFFERED ENOUGH.... Few communities have been as hard hit by the recession as Standish, Michigan. With an unemployment rate for nearly 25%, Standish's economy has been kept above water, barely, by the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility. The prison generates one-fourth of the revenue for the town's budget and is easily the largest employer.

In June, the state announced it would have to close Standish Max, and the struggling town realized things were poised to go from dreadful to abysmal. In August, however, there was a glimmer of hope -- the Obama administration was considering the prison as a location for Gitmo detainees. Most locals were thrilled at the prospect of a lifeline, and area politicians, from both parties, hoped desperately that Standish would be selected.

But then the right-wing politicians decided to intervene. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R), who's inexplicably running for governor next year, decided he'd fight to prevent the White House from "bringing terrorists to Michigan." This week, Liz Cheney's new political operation kept the demagoguery going.

Cheney's group, Keep America Safe, has released a short documentary starring several residents of little Standish, Michigan, slamming the Obama administration over a proposal to transfer some Guantanamo detainees to the town's maximum security facility, one of several facilities being discussed.

The vid ... ominously warns that unnamed "politicians" want Gitmo detainees placed in their "small farm town," without saying who the politicians are or whether they're Federal or local. A resident says those politicians "aren't listening to us little people in Standish."

But Standish's City Manager tells us that local leaders and residents want the facility, and dismissed Cheney's efforts as "fearmongering."

Cheney is "certainly not representing the views of our community," the City Manager, Michael Moran, told our reporter, Amanda Erickson.

Standish's city council recently approved a resolution encouraging the transfer of Gitmo detainees to the prison. The vote was unanimous. It's almost as if local officials think they understand what their community needs better than Liz Cheney does. The nerve.

For more on this, Chris Bodenner had a terrific item on the Standish issue last month. It noted that, thanks to Republican efforts, the community will probably not be chosen by the administration. The community will suffer terribly, but Hoekstra will no doubt claim "victory" for taking away the struggling town's last hope.

HARDHEADED ON HARDBALL.... During last year's presidential campaign, MSNBC's Chris Matthews had some annoying habits. Particularly when it came to sizing up Barack Obama, the "Hardball" host repeatedly questioned whether the candidate was disconnected from regular ol' America.

For example, Obama ordered orange juice in a Pennsylvania diner, and Matthews complained ad nauseum -- real Americans order coffee at a diner, not o.j. When Obama demonstrated poor bowling skills, Matthews whined incessantly about Obama's alleged difficulties in making a "regular connection."

By April, Matthews argued on the air that Obama's appeal may be limited to "people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees," but not with "regular people." It was an observation that was offensive on multiple levels.

And yesterday, the MSNBC host re-embraced the talk that made "Hardball" largely unwatchable for most of the campaign. "President Obama has his chin out on just about every hot issue out there," Matthews told viewers, adding, "Health care. Terror trials. Job losses.... Is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egghead? Why did he bow to that Japanese emperor? Why did he pick Tim Geithner to be his economic front-man? Why all this dithering over Afghanistan? And who thought it was a wonderful idea to bring the killers of 9/11 to New York City, the media capital of the world, so they could tell their story?"

Remember, when conservatives attack MSNBC as in the tank for the administration, they count Matthews as a liberal partisan.

It's a challenge to respond to this nonsense quickly; Matthews said a lot of dumb things in a short period of time. But it's worth noting that Obama isn't "leading with his chin"; he's tackling the issues in front of him. That's what presidents do. Obama bowed to the Japanese emperor as a matter of protocol, and no one cares except the media establishment. Obama isn't "dithering" -- though it's good to know Chris Matthews is willing to read directly from Dick Cheney's script -- he's crafting a forward-thinking U.S. policy, which is what Bush/Cheney should have done a long time ago.

And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed isn't being invited to NYC for story-telling -- he'll be on trial for mass murder.

As for the general nonsense about "eggheads," anti-intellectualism, alas, remains alive and well.

FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Still no word from Sens. Landrieu and Lincoln as to whether they'd rather kill health care reform than let the Senate debate the bill. Landrieu said she'd end the suspense in the morning.

* Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) gets a provision he was looking for: "Senate Democratic leaders have amended their newly released health reform bill to include a contentious provision allowing some workers to receive cash vouchers toward exchange coverage in lieu of enrolling in employer-based plans."

* It's encouraging to see Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith, two top ranking officials from the Bush Justice Department, defend the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four accused co-conspirators in an NYC criminal court.

* The House passed the "Doc Fix" last night, on a 243 to 183 vote. House Republicans were for it before they were against it.

* A slap on the wrist: "The Senate ethics committee on Friday issued a sternly worded rebuke to Senator Roland Burris of Illinois, saying he had made misleading and inaccurate statements about the circumstances surrounding his appointment by disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich. But it made no recommendation for punishment."

* Did Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) knowingly violate Senate ethics rules? Probably.

* The University of California probably didn't intend to be one of the most expensive in the country, and yet, here we are.

* Systemic change doesn't happen over night: "Narratives will always be with us, but it would be nice if they could at least be tenuously based on reality.... [T]he 'silver tongued orator' narrative has really been plucked out of nowhere. Yes, Obama is a good speaker, but there's zero evidence that his administration or his governing style is based on this in any significant way. Just the opposite, in fact. So knock it off, folks."

* Impeachment is still a possibility for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R).

* I argued yesterday that it takes a lot of nerve for Karl Rove to criticize the White House for releasing bad news on Friday afternoons. Media Matters fleshes the point out in more detail.

* If Dick Armey goes around saying "read the bill," mantra like, he should probably take the time to read the bills he criticizing.

* Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), still not very bright.

* Stephen Colbert and David Letterman seem mildly concerned that President Obama is cooler than they are.

* And in Utah, state Sen. Chris Buttars (R), one of the nation's more notorious homophobic bigots, explained a little bit about his worldview this week. "I meet with the gays here and there," Buttars said. "They were in my house two weeks ago. I don't mind gays. But I don't want 'em stuffing it down my throat all the time."

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

PLAYING A GAME WITH ELLIPSES.... Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.), who is considered a vulnerable House incumbent next year, voted against health care reform two weeks ago. She'd been under fire from the National Republican Congressional Committee, and when push came to shove, Kosmas sided with the GOP on the bill.

Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell wrote a column recently about how Kosmas' vote didn't stop the Republican attacks.

Democrat Suzanne Kosmas may have irritated her liberal base when she voted against Nancy Pelosi's health-care bill. But she also backed the National Republican Congressional Committee into a corner ... at least she would have if the party hacks had any shame or integrity.

For months, the NRCC had been sending out releases, asking whether Kosmas had the courage to do the right thing (in its mind anyway) and stand up to "Pelosi's health-care takeover."

Well, she did. She voted against it.

This apparently confused the simpletons at the NRCC, who don't know how to do anything but gripe. So now, they are continuing to bash her on the topic, saying: OK, she may have done what they wanted -- but not for the reasons they wanted. So they still hate her.

Why anyone pays attention to these petulant partisans who couldn't care less about Central Florida issues is beyond me. In fact, I'm hearing from more and more Republicans -- including respected ones contemplating congressional campaigns -- that the NRCC's incessant whining makes the whole party look like amateur hour.

Jason Linkins, however, noted what the National Republican Campaign Committee did with the column, when the NRCC embraced it as their own. The Republicans' press release read:

Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell notes that Rep. Suzanne Kosmas --far from covering her political bases with a 'NO' vote on Pelosi's healthcare bill -- continues to get hit from both sides:

"Democrat Suzanne Kosmas may have irritated her liberal base when she voted against Nancy Pelosi's health-care bill...[and Republicans] are continuing to bash her on the topic, saying: OK, she may have done what they wanted -- but not for the reasons they wanted."

Got that? Maxwell blasted Republicans for being "party hacks" and "simpletons," with no "shame or integrity," who engage in such "petulant" partisanship "incessant whining" that the "the whole party look like amateur hour." And the National Republican Congressional Committee nevertheless thought this column was good for them, and eliminated the pesky criticism with some creatively placed ellipses.

The moral of the story: don't trust NRCC press releases.

NORAH O'DONNELL'S REASONABLE QUESTION.... A clip made the rounds this week of MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell appearing live in Michigan, at a bookstore where Sarah Palin fans had lined up to get their copy of "Going Rogue" signed. The video seems to have become a little more interesting as the week went on.

If you haven't seen it, O'Donnell starts interviewing random folks waiting in line, eventually coming across a young woman with a t-shirt that slams the financial industry bailout from last year. O'Donnell asks the young woman, named Jackie, whether she realizes that Sarah Palin actually endorsed the bailout. "Where'd you hear that?" the Palin fan asked.

In the same exchange, asked specifically what she likes about the former governor, the fan said something about Palin's approach to the Constitution (the response was eerily reminiscent of an item in The Onion this week).

Now, I know this made for some easy mockery, but I'm inclined to cut the young woman a fair amount of slack. It's easy to get flustered during a national television interview, especially if you're not prepared. She's just 17, and anyone can appear foolish in such a situation.

But since the segment aired, conservative activists have lashed out at O'Donnell for asking Palin fans if they know anything substantive about Palin. Worse, Jackie personally decided to blast "the liberal media and their crafty schemes." She called O'Donnell a "buffoon" who asked "a gotcha question."

Nothing erases sympathy faster than cheap nonsense. Jackie wore an anti-bailout t-shirt to a Palin event, and got asked a question about Palin and the bailout. This is hardly the result of a "crafty scheme." It's not O'Donnell's fault the young woman has a limited understanding of her hero's record.

And that record is unambiguous. As Dave Weigel noted earlier, Palin really did endorse the bailout at the time, and did so again in "Going Rogue" (page 270).

It's hardly beyond the pale to ask Palin's anti-bailout supporters about this. So what's with all the whining?

TRENT FRANKS' SHORT MEMORY.... Six years ago this month, the floor of the U.S. House was the scene to one of the more embarrassing moments in the history of the institution. It was when the Republican majority brought Medicare Part D up for a vote.

GOP lawmakers saw Medicare's long-term finances as a problem, and decided to make matters worse with a new drug benefit. Every penny of the program -- which costs hundreds of billions of dollars -- was simply thrown onto the deficit, and Republicans were deliberately lied to about the cost (the Bush administration literally threatened officials who considered telling Congress the true price tag).

When the vote was scheduled, the bill was defeated -- so GOP leaders kept the vote open for hours, bribing members to change their minds. Humiliated, Republicans demanded that the C-SPAN cameras be turned off, so Americans couldn't watch the soul-crushing antics.

Bruce Bartlett reflects on this today, calling it "one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history." Of particular interest is Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, one of just three Republicans who were convinced to switch their votes, from Nay to Aye.

Like all Republicans, [Franks] has vowed to fight [health care reform] with every ounce of strength he has, citing the increase in debt as his principal concern. "I would remind my Democratic colleagues that their children, and every generation thereafter, will bear the burden caused by this bill. They will be the ones asked to pay off the incredible debt," Franks declared on Nov. 7.

Just to be clear, the Medicare drug benefit was a pure giveaway with a gross cost greater than either the House or Senate health reform bills how being considered. Together the new bills would cost roughly $900 billion over the next 10 years, while Medicare Part D will cost $1 trillion.

Moreover, there is a critical distinction -- the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers; 100% of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit, whereas the health reform measures now being debated will be paid for with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, adding nothing to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Maybe Franks isn't the worst hypocrite I've ever come across in Washington, but he's got to be in the top 10 because he apparently thinks the unfunded drug benefit, which added $15.5 trillion (in present value terms) to our nation's indebtedness, according to Medicare's trustees, was worth sacrificing his integrity to enact into law. But legislation expanding health coverage to the uninsured -- which is deficit-neutral -- somehow or other adds an unacceptable debt burden to future generations. We truly live in a world only George Orwell could comprehend when our elected representatives so easily conflate one with the other.

It's easy to forget -- some of us would like to block the memories from our minds -- but the Republican majority in Congress from 2003 through 2006 was so comically awful, it made many reasonable observers question whether the American experiment was really a good idea. The vote on Part D was a genuine embarrassment to the institution.

With that in mind, seeing Franks whine now, after having switched his vote six years ago, is a reminder of the ridiculous amount of chutzpah some of these members have. Just shameless.

COBURN'S CRAVENNESS.... Sen. Tom Coburn, a right-wing Republican from Oklahoma, is apparently not above callous opportunism. He saw headlines about mammogram screening, headlines about a proposed tax on elective cosmetic surgery, and in his drive to kill health care reform, decided to combine some disparate talking points.

[Yesterday], Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who is a physician and staunchly opposed to this legislation, suggested on the Senate floor that a woman would be taxed if she had breast reconstruction surgery following cancer.

"In this bill is a 5% tax on cosmetic surgery," Coburn said. "Just yesterday -- the day before yesterday, U.S. preventive task forces, services, recommended because it's not cost effective that women under 50 not get mammograms unless they have risk factors. Well, you tell that to the thousands of women who were diagnosed with breast cancer lat last -- last year under 50 with a mammogram. You tell them it's not cost effective. Also in this bill is a 5% tax on the breast reconstruction surgery after they had a mastectomy. They're going to tax having your breast rebuilt after your breast is taken off because it is elective plastic surgery. It is elective cosmetic surgery. We're going to have a tax on it because we've taxed elective cosmetic surgery. We're in trouble as a nation because we've taken our eye off the ball."

As Republican lies on health care go, this one's pretty despicable.

For one thing, Coburn doesn't understand what the Preventive Services Task Force said -- the mammogram recommendation had to do with research-based standards, not cost.

More important, though, the legislation's provision on a 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery clearly excludes procedures for those with congenital abnormalities, disfiguring diseases, or traumatic injuries. Anyone requiring reconstructive surgery resulting from accidents or diseases would be exempt.

There is no "5% tax on the breast reconstruction surgery after they had a mastectomy." Coburn's making it up, hoping no one notices how offensive his lying really is.

Ruth Marcus asked the other day, "You have to wonder: Are the Republican arguments against the bill so weak that they have to resort to these misrepresentations and distortions?"

It's a question that will be coming up again and again.

CLOTURE WATCH.... Senate Democrats need 60 votes to bring health care reform to the floor for a debate. As of this morning, three Dems -- Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.), and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) -- had not yet committed to letting the Senate consider the legislation.

As of this afternoon, one of the three made the right call: Nelson will vote with the majority. In a statement, the conservative Democrat concluded:

"In my first reading, I support parts of the bill and oppose others I will work to fix. If that's not possible, I will oppose the second cloture motion -- needing 60 votes -- to end debate, and oppose the final bill.

"But I won't slam the doors of the Senate in the face of Nebraskans now. They want the health care system fixed. The Senate owes them a full and open debate to try to do so."

Nelson may, in other words, slam the doors of the Senate in the face of Nebraskans some other time, just not tomorrow night.

Landrieu hasn't made any official announcements, but she made some comments that suggest she's already looking ahead to the next stage of the debate. "I have leverage now, I'm using it to the best of my ability, I'm going to use it on the Senate floor," Landrieu said. If the senator doesn't think the bill is going to the Senate floor, she probably wouldn't say this.

Lincoln continues to be the most cryptic of the group. Earlier today, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters that Lincoln had told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) how she intends to vote. Lincoln's office quickly said that wasn't the case, and that the senator was still reviewing the bill.

Truth be told, especially after Nelson's statement, it's hard to imagine a lone Democratic senator siding with Republicans to block a debate on health care reform, effectively strangling reform in the crib. But when center-right Dems feel panicky, they become unpredictable.

THE DANGERS OF ILLITERACY.... OK, so most Americans have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to the deficit. How are they when it comes to understanding stimulus efforts? Arguably, on this, they're even worse.

Rasmussen has a new poll showing a 51% majority believes cancelling the economic recovery efforts would "create more jobs." Derek Thompson, flabbergasted, characterized these beliefs as "insane."

It's one thing to say that canceling the rest of the stimulus money would help our deficit. That's arguable, even if I think it's dead wrong, since the best way to help our deficit is to put people back to work when demand is nonexistent so that they (1) receive taxable income and (2) spend that taxable income on products to help other people's taxable income. [...]

The idea that canceling the stimulus would create more jobs implies that passing the stimulus has actually killed more jobs than it's created, which is bonkers. Let's say you don't want to consider infrastructure spending or green technology spending or a single job that might have been created in the private sector. If nothing else, the tens of billions we've sent to state budgets have, without question, saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, like teachers, that are supported by state taxes. It's just a very basic fact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31stimulus.html

So this is a crazy statistic, but I think it's important to ask why Americans think the stimulus is actually hurting job-creation.

It's a good question, and your guess is as good as mine. Chances are, it's not just one thing. Part of the confusion is likely the result of an electorate that doesn't quite understand the basics, and is therefore easily misled by the same people who got us in this mess. Part of it comes from a media that hasn't made much of an effort to explain the basics. And part of the problem has to be politicians -- one party believes Hoover was right about the Great Depression, and the other party is afraid to talk about how government spending and intervention prevented a wholesale economic collapse.

Regardless of the cause, the consequences of widespread confusion and ignorance can be, and may turn out to be, devastating. If most Americans believe government spending undermines job creation, and are convinced that short-term deficit reduction is more important than economic growth, they're more likely to vote for arsonists to put out the fire.

The surest way to make things even worse is to reward those who created the problem in the first place.

JUKEBOX JOHN PLAYS A NEW TUNE.... Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman -- a tri-partisan group -- have been crafting a climate change bill that can generate broad support in the Senate. All three are personal friends with Sen. John McCain, and all three would love to get the Arizona Republican's support on this issue that he's historically cared about.

So, how's that going?

"Their start has been horrendous," McCain said Thursday. "Obviously, they're going nowhere."

McCain has emerged as a vocal opponent of the climate bill -- a major reversal for the self-proclaimed maverick who once made defying his party on global warming a signature issue of his career.

Now the Arizona Republican is more likely to repeat GOP talking points on cap and trade than to help usher the bill through the thorny politics of the Senate.

McCain refers to the bill as "cap and tax," calls the climate legislation that passed the House in June "a 1,400-page monstrosity" and dismisses a cap-and-trade proposal included in the White House budget as "a government slush fund."

Former aides are mystified by what they see as a retreat on the issue, given McCain's long history of leadership on climate legislation.

No one should be mystified. John McCain's core beliefs don't appear to exist.

McCain co-sponsored climate-change legislation three in three separate Congresses during the Bush era, and endorsed cap and trade as a sound policy. In 2008, however, McCain decided to oppose the same ideas he'd already endorsed, and he's sticking with this far-right persona.

Asked for an explanation, McCain spokesperson Brooke Buchanan said, "This really hasn't been done in a bipartisan fashion."

I see. The climate bill is being pushed by a Dem (Kerry), a Republican (Graham), and an Independent (Lieberman), but the problem is that the effort is too partisan. Follow-up question for Brooke Buchanan: "Huh?"

Best of all, now that