Chachi Becomes An Enemy of The State

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there might be good reasons for why people should threaten Scott Baio. But no matter how unflattering the picture is, it's pretty low on the list compared to, say, Joanie Loves Chachi.

What He Said

I'm just going to defer to Jon Stewart on commenting on Keith Olbermann.

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"I swear in front of an audience of high school students every night."

The Interweb Keeps Teaching Me Stuff I Did Not Know

The latest fact I did not know -- that both Bob Roberts and Office Space started out as SNL sketches. It's also funny that Tim Robbins refused to release the soundtrack for Bob Roberts because he worried listeners would take the conservative songs seriously.

Meanwhile, on behalf of Tim Meadows fans everywhere, I'm highly upset that The Ladies Man didn't merit a mention, if only for the line, "Ya know, when a man works hard his entire life enduring hundreds of ladies, many of whom he does not even remember you'd like to think that at the end of the day he will be given a lot of money, without having had to earn it."

This Week Was Like Christmas All Over Again

As one of my friends noted in an email, this week just keeps getting better and better for folks on the right...

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority apparently agreed.

"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.

However, Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting from the main holding, said, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

As many of my close friends know, I despise McCain-Feingold, and think most campaign finance laws are at best next to useless and at worst clear infringements on the most important form of free speech. But give credit where credit is due -- Justice Stevens dissent ran 90 friggin' pages or so. Of course, I'll probably agree more with Justice Scalia's 9 page concurrence. I also agree with this post by Tim Lee over at Cato...

While I regarded the decision as a victory for free speech, a large number of folks on the left — many of whom support free speech in other contexts — were aghast at the decision, arguing that it would vastly enhance the influence of large corporations in the political process.

Part of my disagreement with these guys is that I’m just a free speech zealot. The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” and I don’t see how that language can be squared with a statute that limits the distribution of a political documentary. The best you can say, I think, is that limiting corporate influence is a “compelling state interest” sufficient to overcome the First Amendment’s ban on speech abridgment, but that’s just another way of saying that you don’t care about free speech very much.

Second, I think it’s important to remember that “corporations” encompass much more than large, for-profit businesses. They also include a wide variety of non-profit and advocacy groups, including the ACLU, the NRA, and NARAL, that are, by any reasonable definition, grassroots organizations advocating the views of large numbers of voters. Indeed, as the ACLU pointed out in its amicus brief, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) prohibited the ACLU from running ads criticizing members of Congress who voted for the awful FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Even if you think it’s appropriate for Congress to regulate the speech of Exxon-Mobil and Pfizer, I think it’s awfully hard to square the First Amendment with a law that limits the ability of NARAL or the NRA to advocate for its members’ views.

But more fundamentally, I don’t buy the idea that limiting corruption is a state interest sufficiently compelling to overcome the First Amendment interest in free speech. I think supporters of BCRA misunderstand how corporations wield influence and dramatically overestimate the power of television advertisements. It’s true, of course, that a corporation prepared to spend $1 million on ads criticizing a particular legislator will get that legislator’s attention. But there’s nothing unique about this. It can also get his attention by hiring a lobbying firm that employs a former staffer. It can get his attention by arranging $100,000 in bundled contributions from executives, clients, and friends of the company. It can get his attention by creating astroturf organizations. And there are probably lots of other mechanisms I haven’t thought of.

The key difference between independent expenditures and the other mechanisms is that independent expenditures are the most open and transparent. To run an effective “issue ad,” a corporation has to make an argument that is persuasive to voters. I don’t want to sugar coat the situation; sometimes independent expenditures finance ads that are sleazy and misleading. But given a choice between corporations spending their money on ads about how Senator Smith hates America or spending their money on K Street, I’ll take the ads, because at least voters still get the final decision.

Lee also makes some smart points about how the tubes of the Interweb and other forms of communication have made traditional ad campaigns less effective. I think he's right on this, and it's one more reason why the Supreme Court opinion makes sense. And as Anthony Kennedy pointed out in his opinion, it's somewhat hard to square limits on speech by corporations, when at the same time traditional news gathering and editorial analysis by media corporations were free from restrictions. Ed Whelan has some more good stuff from the Kennedy opinion...

The law before us is an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations—including nonprofit advocacy corporations—either to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. Thus, the following acts would all be felonies under §441b: The Sierra Club runs an ad, within the crucial phase of 60 days before the general election, that exhorts the public to disapprove of a Congressman who favors logging in national forests; the National Rifle Association publishes a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U. S. Senator supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creates a Web site telling the public to vote for a Presidential candidate in light of that candidate’s defense of free speech. These prohibitions are classic examples of censorship.…

When word concerning the plot of the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reached the circles of Government, some officials sought, by persuasion, to discourage its distribution. Under Austin, though, officials could have done more than discourage its distribution—they could have banned the film. After all, it, like Hillary, was speech funded by a corporation that was critical of Members of Congress. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington may be fiction and caricature; but fiction and caricature can be a powerful force.

Modern day movies, television comedies, or skits onYoutube.com might portray public officials or public policies in unflattering ways. Yet if a covered transmission during the blackout period creates the background for candidate endorsement or opposition, a felony occurs solely because a corporation, other than an exempt media corporation, has made the “purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value” in order to engage in political speech. Speech would be suppressed in the realm where its necessity is most evident: in the public dialogue preceding a real election. Governments are often hostile to speech, but under our law and our tradition it seems stranger than fiction for our Government to make this political speech a crime. Yet this is the statute’s purpose and design.

Now, I know some folks are already trying to cut down the opinion -- Brad Smith mentions a couple of likely unconstitutional bills introduced by Alan Grayson in Congress that would seek to effectively overturn the decision. The President's on board with trying to curtail the impact of the decision, although SCOTUSblog does a pretty good job outlining why Congress is unlikely to pass a bill with real impact, because the Court's opinion (and the First Amendment) will be difficult to navigate. The best option might end up being public financing of campaigns, but we're not sure the public will be on board with that -- and they certainly shouldn't be, since such an idea will probably end up being a huge incumbent-protection device.

At the end of the day, I'm pretty thrilled with any opinion that causes Keith Olbermann to go off the deep end. In fact, that may be a pretty good way of describing stuff from now on. If Olbermann thinks it's mildly upsetting, it's probably good; if he thinks it's the coming of the apocolypse, we should throw a party.

You're Still Here?

I have to be honest -- when I first saw this article, my immediate thought was a sense of surprise that Air America was still around...

Air America Radio, a radio network that was launched in 2004 as a liberal alternative to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators, on Thursday shut down abruptly due to financial woes.

The network once boasted hosts such as Al Franken and Rachel Maddow, but struggled from the outset, including multiple management shake-ups, a bankruptcy in 2006 and sale for $4.25 million the following year.

Air America ceased airing new programs Thursday afternoon and said it will soon file to be liquidated under Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It began broadcasting reruns of programs and would end those as well Monday night.

"The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America's business. This past year has seen a `perfect storm' in the media industry generally," the company said in a statement on its Web site.

The New York-based network said its "painstaking search for new investors" came close to succeeding even this week, "but ultimately fell short."

My guess on the best way to help liberal talk radio succeed? Kill NPR. I'm not sure liberal talk radio will succeed, but this would remove its most effective competition. It would also save some tax dollars. Liberals and conservatives should come together on this.

Well, That's One Idea

John Mayer has some advice for Tiger Woods...

"The phone doesn’t pick up because I’m masturbating. And I have excused myself at the oddest times so as to not make mistakes. If Tiger Woods only knew when to jerk off. It has a true market value, like gold bullion. [The reason is] because I want to take a brain bath. It’s like a hot whirlpool for my brain, in a brain space that is 100 percent agreeable with itself.”

(hat tip: Andrew Sullivan) I don't know that I can say anything here without getting in trouble, but here goes. A high school freshman could give Tiger the same advice, but Tiger's got access to options not available to the normal married male, let alone a high school freshman. I'm guessing Mayer may have the same access to options as Tiger, so maybe Mayer can explain to Tiger why this might be the best option. In the meantime, I'm going to back away from this and say nothing more.

The Health Care Follies Continue

Maybe I won't need to use that title again, at least for awhile...

The leader of the House of Representatives said Thursday she lacks the votes to push the Senate's sweeping health overhaul bill through the House, a potentially devastating blow to President Barack Obama's top domestic priority issue.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the comment to reporters after her House Democrats held a closed-door meeting at which participants said lawmakers vented frustration with the massive version of the legislation.

...Pelosi said, "In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House, adding "I don't see the votes for it at this time."

Pelosi's remarks signaled that advancing health legislation through Congress will likely be a lengthy process — despite Democrats' desire for a quick election-year pivot to address jobs and the economy, which polls show are the American public's top concern.

"We're not in a big rush," Pelosi said. "Pause, reflect."

If this is the end, that quote is perfect. For at least six months, we've been told that it was crucial to get this done NOWNOWNOW. Now that it can't get done, that's when Pelosi decides that it's not a big rush. If I were the President, I'd be considering removing the Speaker from the holiday card list.

Well, At Least It Ended Up In The Right Country

The Stanley Cup gets checked as baggage, but ends up in Toronto rather than Vancouver. And people wonder why everyone stuffs the overhead bins with carry-ons.

The Health Care Follies Continue

Megan McArdle offers good advice to health care reform opponents...

I'm seeing a lot of liberals urging their folks to call their congressmen and create pressure for a "yes" vote on the Senate bill. That's going to be an uphill slog, because of simple math.

...Of course, that calculus may change if progressives are making all the noise while conservatives are still celebrating. If they want to make sure this victory means what they think it means, they'd probably better stop popping champagne corks and start dialing their congressmen.

I suppose the GOP may want the House Dems to pass the Senate bill for tactical political reasons, but that's just stupid. Killing this bill should not be the endpoint for the GOP -- they should and must try to engage the President on a smaller set of solutions.

Tactically, I'm not sure why the Democrats would really want to pass a bill that people on their side aren't happy about, leading to more outrage and galvinazation on the right, and greater unhappiness from independants. But I'm not sure the Democrats, from the top on down, have ever really employed smart tactics in the healthcare debate. Jim Manzi makes an interesting point...

I didn’t believe on his inauguration day that Obama was either a genius or had an FDR-like opportunity, based on objective conditions, to change the public agenda. I don’t believe that he is somehow incompetent now, nor that – holding the presidency and with large Democratic majorities in both houses of congress – he is somehow not in a position to implement policy now. Just like retrospectively analyzing the causes of the outcome of an election, it is easy to talk about what alternatives he might have followed to: (1) his decision to prioritize health care and climate change versus jobs and the economy, and (2) his tactical approach to advancing his policy goals on the topics that he decided to prioritize. But even in retrospect, with the information available to him at the time, his choices seem defensible.

That Senator Kennedy would die, and that Massachusetts would then elect a Republican senator in a special election that happened to occur just as health care reform seemed to be nearing completion, is a true “black swan” event. What is striking to me, however, is that he has allowed himself to get into a position in which the loss of one senate seat threatens his prioritized domestic policy goal.

I have a pretty unromantic view of politicians. I don’t believe that I can see somebody on TV, and understand them very well. I do think, however, that specific previous very large-scale executive experience is the only correlate I could ever find with subsequent Presidential experience . This is correlation, not an empirical demonstration of causality, but strikes me as sensible.

One practical lesson that I believe operational experience teaches people is that you always need a lot more margin for error in any plan than you would rationally believe. In this light, Obama’s decision to push for a health care reform plan that could be threatened by losing one seat in the senate is what is troubling. You couldn’t predict this specific event, but it was always safe to assume that something would go wrong as the legislative process dragged on. It is my theory that his lack of executive experience is showing here, just as it did on cap-and-trade.

If you recall during the campaign, some objections were raised about Obama's lack of executive experience, and the concerns were often addressed by responses referring to how well he managed his campaign for President. And while the campaign did an excellent job (albeit working in pretty favorable conditions most of the time), I think we're seeing that simply running a large political campaign is not enough preparation for being in charge of the biggest executive position around.

There's a good argument to be made that's there no real primer out there for people who want to be President to understand the difficulty of the job (although in an interesting twist, I'm guessing Hillary's experience as the First Lady might give the best firsthand impression), but Obama had none. Not as a Governor, not as a Mayor, not as a businessman, not as a member of the Armed Forces. The lack of experience is not an insurmountable mountain to become a successful chief executive, but the lack of experience becomes a much bigger mountain when the chief executive position in question is POTUS.

Obama's lack of experience as a leader shows in a lot of his decisions, but it shows up even more in terms of the process. Manzi does a good job in outlining the health care process and how thoroughly it's been butchered -- basically, Obama allowed the process to get out of hand and stall his agenda. This tends to happen to all Presidents at some point -- they all get stalled by at least one major problem; I heard Dick Morris, of all people, making a cogent point that it's happened to virtually every POTUS in the last forty-plus years. Johnson had Vietnam, Nixon had Watergate, Carter had the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Bush 41 had the recession, Clinton had impeachment and Bush 43 had Iraq. But the key here is that many of these guys had other minor crisis that could have also stalled their agenda -- Reagan had the brutal '81-82 recession, Clinton had health care -- yet found ways past those points, or used them to their political advantage because they made leadership decisions that kept those other items from derailing their agenda. Sometimes, that might have involved compromising on policy (look at Clinton on welfare reform), but it had the added benefit of getting a contentious problem resolved and chalking up a tangible result. Obama didn't do enough to sell the health care reform package, and failed to recognize that large portions of the public weren't buying it. He could have cut bait and settled for a smaller package (which might have been better than what the Dems end up getting) in September, but instead doubled down. This made the stakes higher, and led to a long, slow crawl toward passage, which imperiled much of the remaining Obama agenda.

Note that another good example of the President allowing the process to capture his agenda occurred with his final decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan. While many people praised the President for taking his time on making the decision, it was effectively portrayed as dithering by the other side. I understand that this was an important decision, but I'm not sure what factors led to it taking so long, and the President's agenda of other items (including health care) made it appear that he had other items that were more important, which helped contribute to the delay.

Manzi also makes the related point about Obama leaving a lack of room to maneuver if an unforseen event (Kennedy's death and Brown's win) took place. The inability to bring any GOP Senator (and only one GOP House member) on board in the initial votes on the packages led directly to this problem -- you can argue that the GOP is playing obstruction, but a failure to get any one of them on board is striking, especially if you found a way (albeit sometimes a corrupt way) to get votes from independants and moderate Democrats like Lieberman and Nelson. But it's not like Kennedy's death/Brown's election was the only possible way for things to go kablooey. Robert Byrd's not in great health; what would have happened if ill health forced him to leave the Senate? What would happen in Lieberman defected? Or if a Democratic Senator was forced from office for a huge unforseen scandal? Yes, these aren't expected events, but these are all contingencies for which they didn't have room to maneuver -- and leaving that lack of room may be another exhibit for the argument about the lack of experience.

This is not saying that President Obama can't recover from this -- it's a great learning tool, and he's definitely getting a full course in executive leadership now. But the experience of watching him do on-the-job training in executive leadership is unsettling enough that it makes me think the electorate's preference for not electing sitting U.S. Senators during the last century or so (only two got the job) might have been a wise one.

And it doesn't mean Obama will fail to pass a health care reform bill, or even the same one the Senate passed. But passing it at a huge political cost (large portions of the public, and likely a majority, oppose the thing, you've lost high profile elections, and your legislative control is likely to disappear this fall) doesn't really seem like much of a victory.

I'm Sure The NBA Is Shaking In Its Sneakers

I'm pretty sure this is a contender for the dumbest idea in the history of sports...

A new professional basketball league boasting rosters made up exclusively of white Americans has its eyes set on Augusta, but the team isn't receiving a warm welcome.

The All-American Basketball Alliance announced in a news release Sunday evening that it intends to start its inaugural season in June and hopes Augusta will be one of 12 cities with a team.

"Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league," the statement said.

I'd like to come up with a closing line, but sometimes you just let stupidity stand alone.

And In Other News

John Edwards finally admits to the paternity of the daughter he fathered with Rielle Hunter. Loyal reader ST sent us this Marc Ambinder post on the story, noting the brilliant headline: Some Guy Admits What We Already Knew.

At this point, it's a non-story, although Edwards is probably sitting in his North Carolina mansion dreaming up ways in which this is the start of his political renaissance. It's nice of the media to cover it after it's no longer a story. I have detailed how I can't stand Edwards in the past, but I tend to think this should just go away, if only for the sake of a little kid who should be able to grow up without being the subject of newstories. It's not her fault her Dad gives a bad name to snake-oil salesmen.

Somewhere, Homer Simpson is Drooling

Seriously, this is one of the greatest food ideas ever...

Momofuku Milk Bar has just rolled out four new soft serve flavors inspired by their wildly popular cereal milk: Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Fruity Pebbles and cereal milk (infused with Corn Flakes). They're also offering the cereals themselves as toppings for each, further enhancing the authenticity with a familiar textural component.

I sampled all four and there is no doubt about the flavor—they are all spot-on tasting like the cereals themselves, the soft serve base adding a richness and creaminess far beyond milk. They are visually evocative as well.

(hat tip: Big Daddy Drew at Deadspin). I could give a rat's tail about this stuff being "visually evocative." But even without trying this, I'm pretty sure cereal-flavored soft serve ice cream is one level up from crack on being addictive.

I Resemble That Remark

To be absolutely clear, the guys at the Onion are right. We Lost fans are annoying as hell when discussing the show.

Final Season Of 'Lost' Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever

Of course, that doesn't mean we will stop. The final season is less than two weeks away.

The Late Night Mess

As much as I think Letterman is a douchebag, he absolutely crushed Leno here by breaking down his "Don't blame Conan" speech.

It Will Work Out In The End

Megan McArdle has a great piece on political perspective...

In 2004, the day after George Bush was re-elected, New York was a sullen place. At lunch, I sat next to one of my favorite New York liberals in brooding silence for a while, and then her sadness and rage suddenly erupted.

"I just didn't realize," she said, "that America hated me."

What do you say to that? America didn't hate her; America didn't know her. America mostly wasn't thinking about her. Yes, I've no doubt that the more tribal political partisans were cackling at the thought of grieving New York liberals (and in 2006, their liberal counterparts were prowling the internet for pleasurable nuggets of schadenfreude--no, don't deny it, I physically watched them do it.) But most people hadn't been thinking about my companion when they voted. They'd been thinking about themselves. They'd been trying to do, in their own hamfisted and probably ignorant way, the best thing for themselves and their country.

...Saying that you "cannot grasp" what motivates others is supposed to indicate their utter moral turpitude, I suppose. And in the case of say, people who rape children, yes, it's true: I cannot grasp it. Can't imagine. Don't want to.

But when you're using it as a dodge to avoid grappling with the opinion of well over half your fellow countrymen, this won't do. Being unable to imagine what the majority of Americans might be thinking doesn't indicate a problem with them. It suggests you kind of need to get out more. Ask around. If there's one thing any American is always happy to share, it's his opinion.

But for the shut-ins, and those who are too busy with their needlepoint, I have a useful little shortcut that you can use to try and understand why this vast, pulsating blob of undifferentiated evildoers might be opposing the Democrats' health care agenda: they think it's a bad idea.

That's not so hard to imagine, is it? You have had ideas, and you have opposed the bad ideas of others. You have experience in the domain, so to speak. Think of it as sort of a visualization device.

The next time you are trying to imagine why the people who disagree with you are actively promoting the destruction of all that is good in the universe, grab a soothing cup of mint tea, put your feet up on a comfy pillow, and then close your eyes and imagine what those people would look like campaigning against something that is a very bad idea. 99 times out of a hundred, you'll find that they look . . . well, exactly like they look when they're campaigning against your idea. And suddenly the whole thing is no longer so inexplicable, isn't it?

I mean, we all know that that's ridiculous, because you have never in your life been wrong about any major question, or had a bad idea of your own, which is why you are so fabulously wealthy and married to the first person you ever dated, who is even now smiling at you in blissful perfection from the arms of your four flawless children. But they don't know that, you see. As I think I've mentioned, they haven't met you. They won't know anything about you until you finally accept that Nobel Peace Prize. So you'll have to content yourself with understanding that while you, personally, may never be in error, other well meaning people sometimes are. And then still other well-meaning people have to get up off the sofa and point this out, lest they lead the entire nation astray.

It's the sort of thing we should all read, from time to time. Look, politics are important, but who controls the government isn't that important, because in the long run, to paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, we're all dead anyway. Most Americans, liberal or conservative, probably get this.

However, this is easier for people on the right than on the left -- the right has less of a vested interest in who controls government, since their general goal is to have the government stay out of the way, while the left's general goal is to have the government do more stuff. Indeed, I remember a day after the 2006 midterm election, when a left-leaning colleague stopped by my office to, as he put it, "check on my well-being." I was in pretty good spirits -- I'd already moved my focus on to the Eagles upcoming tilt with the Redskins. He seemed surprised that I could be so (for lack of a better term) not unhappy.

The point then, and now, is that there's bigger things in life. Yes, the foolish decisions being made in D.C. will likely have a major impact on my life (and that of my child), but I can't fix it right now, and allowing it to keep me down won't change a damn thing. Besides, if Ronald Reagan taught one enduring lesson to Americans, it's to have faith in this country's populace. We may make mistakes, but we'll eventually get it right. You have to fight, but keep your optimism, even when beaten. It's not personal -- it's politics.

Hopefully, liberals find that perspective in considering Martha Coakley's loss. If not, I'm hoping they'll still need to try to find it in November 2010.

Massachusetts Goes From Blue to Brown

Jim Geraghty's article on how Scott Brown's victory is really a political perfect storm is a must-read. Just a snippet...

Martha Coakley might be a nice woman, but she’s doing an exceptional job of hiding it during this campaign. She scoffed when her opponent’s hands shook at Fenway Park in cold weather. She seemed genuinely to think that Catholics with strong religious beliefs ought not to work in emergency rooms. She sent a mailing claiming that Brown wants rape victims turned away from hospitals, an egregious misreading of a conscience clause Brown supports, and ignored the similar language supported by the man who held the seat she aims to win. There’s some evidence, including the ARG poll, that the flyer controversy actually hurt her among women.

Every candidate makes gaffes, usually simple flubs like mixing up budget numbers or saying “income taxes” instead of “payroll taxes.” But Coakley’s mistakes in recent days have been perfect for repeating at the bar or office water cooler. One of her message guys “sent a message” to The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack by shoving him to the ground. She later lamented that she was being “stalked.” One of her anti–Wall Street attack ads used an image of the World Trade Center. She called Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling a Yankee fan when he came out against her. She campaigned, in a rather heavy-handed manner, at a Martin Luther King Day breakfast.

Races turn on more than personal charisma, but it helps. In this race, one candidate is a smiling guy who’s always walking around neighborhoods shaking hands, driving an old truck, and talking proudly about his daughters; the other is a cold fish who keeps approving attack ads.

In the end, David Gergen might have a huge impact on this race. The veteran of many administrations and omnipresent television news commentator — who can always be counted on for the most refreshing and groundbreaking assessment of current events — asked Brown a question that you would never see come from a Jim Lehrer: “Are you willing, under those circumstances, to say, ‘I’m going to sit in Ted Kennedy’s seat, and I’m going to be the person who is going to block [health reform] for another 15 years’?” Brown corrected him: “With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat, and they have a chance to send somebody down who is going to be an independent voter and an independent thinker.”

Calling a Red Sox hero a Yankee fan is, to quote Jon Stewart, like saying John Lennon's favorite Beatle was Mickey Dolenz. Between that type of stupidity, Brown's performance on the trail, and the healthcare mess Congress and Obama have created, we have a whole new ballgame in D.C. Let's see how it plays out.

The Health Care Follies Continue

Evan Bayh says the far left has taken over the Democrats...

If staunch lifelong Democrat and son of a staunch lifelong Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana is doing it, then it must be OK.

He's not yet joined the no-you-didn't-yes-we-did-why-didn't-you-call-for-help-sooner-well-hello-we-did-but-you-weren't-listening-because-of-that-inside-DC-healthcare-dance-Obama-wants-so-badly.

But he is warning that, assuming Coakley the Democrat is electoral toast come balloon-dropping time tonight, Democrats need to learn an important lesson -- and learn it quite quickly. Bayh, who is one of those gutless moderates who just keeps on winning because he listens and stays connected back home, says his party and president have simply abandoned moderation to push a far-left agenda that alienates moderates and, hello, independents, who happen to make up about half of the Massachusetts electorate.

Says Bayh to ABC News: "It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message. They just don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems. That’s something that has to be corrected."

Bayh, once discussed as a VP for the next-door smooth-talking guy from Illinois, predicts fellow Democrats will go into denial tomorrow if state Sen. Brown becomes U.S. Sen. Brown.

"The only we are able to govern successfully in this country," Bayh warns, "is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates. Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country -- that’s not going to work too well.”

Barney Frank says healthcare reform needs to go back to the drawing board...

“I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process.”

Jim Webb pooped in the Democrats' refrigerator with this announcement...

"In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."

And so, the White House solution on health care is... vote the plan through and get more combative. Man, get me whatever it is they're drinking...

The health care backdrop has given the White House a strong incentive to strike a defiant posture, at least rhetorically, in response to what would be an undeniable embarrassment for the president and his party.

There won’t be any grand proclamation that “the era of Big Government is over” — the words President Bill Clinton uttered after Republicans won the Congress in the 1990s and he was forced to trim a once-ambitious agenda.

“The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall,” a presidential adviser said. “The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.’”

To be fair, that was written before Brown won, but still in anticipation of his win. However, maybe things are clearer following the victory. Unfortunately, that's not entirely clear upon reading lefty blogs. Josh Marshall is one example...

I cannot say this enough. The policy front speaks for itself. But the meta-politics is real. It's a big. But it's something Democrats have great difficulty with. For a whole variety of reasons voters clearly have a lot of hesitation about this reform. I think the polls make clear that the public is not against it. But the reticence is real. If Dems decide to run from the whole project in the face of a single reverse, what are voters supposed to draw from that? What conclusion would you draw about an individual in an analogous situation in your own life? Think about it.

"... the polls make clear the public is not against it." I realize that we have polls that say just about everything on this topic, but considering the Democrats just lost a Massachusetts Senate seat, at least in part due to health care reform, you'd think that poll result might matter.

Maybe Marshall is just trying to push what is the likely White House spin on this; Nate Silver did a well-written piece outlining this position earlier this week. I'll note the first couple arguments...

The pitch that the White House and Nancy Pelosi will make to the Democratic members of the House is a difficult one and will need to be extremely well executed, but is likely to consist of one or more of the following arguments:

(1) President Obama can deliver a home-run speech when he needs to and will deliver a home-run speech on January 27th that features a sharp pivot toward more populist economic policies, such as a bank tax, financial regulation, and a jobs bill.

(2) The White House already got the 60th vote that was going to be the most difficult to get: Ben Nelson's to push them past the finish line on health care. On most other issues, they may not have had 59 votes anyway. In other cases still, the White House will be more amenable to using reconciliation, which was designed for precisely the sort of fiscal measures they will be considering in the spring and summer. Scott Brown's vote may not be in play in the immediate term, but could be in the medium term, essentially leaving the Democrats in the same position they were before Arlen Specter defected. And the Democrats' shaky 60-seat supermajority was not doing them much good as far as optics and public perception went.

I'm not sure any of the arguments will work, but Obama's ability to deliver a home run speech seems to be in doubt. He may do it next Wednesday, but I would note that he hasn't done a really good one on domestic policy since... well, beats me. Obama's better tack might be to pivot to dealing with the economy, and hope it recovers over the spring and summer.

If the GOP is smart, they'll have Scott Brown handle the response. The guy looked the part of a superstar last night. Meanwhile, the left may want to read this apt summary from the right by Matt Continetti...

Nationalizing the election helped Brown. It led the Democrats to wage a ridiculously negative campaign that may have hurt Martha Coakley among independents. It turned the race into a referendum on the Obama Democratic agenda in general and health care reform in particular.

After the off-year elections, Democrats could cling to Bill Owens's victory in NY-23 as a shred of evidence that the Tea Party message could hurt Republicans. Scott Brown's victory exposes NY-23 as a fluke. The trend is clear. Independents have moved sharply right over the course of President Obama's first year in office, even in Massachusetts. Attention Democrats: Obama's version of change is not what most of the country believes in.

Evan Bayh, Barney Frank, and Jim Webb appear to be listening. But is President Obama?

"All The Newly Elected Blue Dogs, Leave The Room Now"

Note to frustrated liberals who might think otherwise: just because I post this, it does not mean I'm comparing anyone to Hitler.

But damn, this clip is funnier today than usual (hat tip: Instapundit, as well as New Jersey's own Lord of Truth). "Why does he need every word fed to him through a teleprompter?"

What Annoying Song Is Stuck In My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

Normally, I hate this song with a passion. Not only is it annoying, but at least half of what Alanis Morrisette says is ironic probably doesn't qualify.

But on a morning where the people of Massachusetts voted a Republican into the seat once held by Teddy Kennedy, and in so doing perhaps struck a fatal blow to Kennedy's lifelong dream of national health insurance... well, that qualifies as fodder for a new song. Note to President Obama: There a line in here about "the good advice that you just didn't take..." I'm just saying, it might be relevant.



You're welcome.

Say More Than One Prayer

The scenes from Haiti are downright heartbreaking. While you say a prayer for the folks there, also say a prayer for all the folks responding throughout the world, including our military (President Obama has now called up selected reserves to assist in the relief effort). It's rather difficult to imagine the logistical nightmare of dealing with a relief effort in a society that's utterly devestated, but they are there and I have no doubt they will succeed. Perhaps those are high expectations, but they always meet them.

Meanwhile, I'll side with Jon Stewart in this debate. Rather sad that we're having it, but entirely expected.

More Reasons Al Gore Invented The Interweb

Loyal reader ST sends us the link to this site, which designed the posters linked in this earlier post. A perfect place to go shopping before Valentine's Day, dontya think?