Did you know that Luke Russert is the new political It Girl?" From now on, I'm calling him Clara Bow.

Digby explains.

Little Luke:That's what all signs are point to right now. But the interesting thing we can take away from this is a point that NBC producer Ken Strickland made that I think is great. It's that Harry Reid, no matter what happens, he is showing to the liberal base that he has done everything in his power to get a bill with a public option to the floor at least up for debate.

This satisfies the liberals, this satisfies the MoveOn.org crowd, and really, I think it will show him to be the standard bearer of the liberal cause, Andrea.

Andrea Mitchell: Luke Russert, you're in the right place with the best story in town. Thanks so much.

Young Luke is quite the analyst. You can see why he was vaulted to the top of the American news business over the heads of others who have far more training, brains and ability. It's in the blood.

Just in case anyone missed it, Little Luke thinks that actually getting a public option in the bill isn't important to liberals -- the real victory is that the public option got to the floor. Apparently, Villagers think this whole thing was simply a bid for attention and now that the savvy Reid has delivered that, it doesn't matter what the bill has in it, we just love him to death. After all, liberals would certainly would never be so bold as to forget our place and think we might actually win something. How silly.

To the wise and worldly Little Luke, liberals are children to be appeased with gestures and shiny objects. I wonder where he learned that?

The Villagers are covering their asses because they declared the public option dead a long time ago, so now the story is that we're all happy little Cheeto-eaters because Harry Reid got it this far. What morons. And they wonder why blogs are cutting into their world. Maybe Luke is just looking for more college football tips.

Gawker has a little more.

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From This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz get into one of those discussions over this week's breast screening recommendations in which the Republican simply constructs an alternate reality:

BLACKBURN: ... Debbie is right when she says they forgot about people. Indeed, they did. But we have to realize, this group that made this recommendation, this isn't some outside group. This is a part of HHS. And when you look at the...

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It's an independent group. That is not accurate.

BLACKBURN: ... 118 -- when you look at the...

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It is not a part of HHS.

BLACKBURN: No, it is a part of HHS.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, it is not.

BLACKBURN: And when you look at what is going to happen with these 118 new bureaucracies with 62 directives that are given by the health choices commissioner on what insurance can be offered in this country after 2013 and what is going to be paid, you know that this is the bureaucrat in the exam room. This is how it's going to happen.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Marsha...

BLACKBURN: And this is the first step.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Marsha, there's an insurance company bureaucrat in the -- in between the patient and her doctor right now.

BLACKBURN: This is breast cancer. Well, and people don't like that, and we need to get rid of...

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: And your bill -- your -- your alternative...

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKBURN: We need to get rid of all of those insurance bureaucrats.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: ... does nothing to...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm going to have to -- I'm going to have to stop this right now.

Yes, George. Because your job is to provide a showcase. You're not supposed to confront the guests when they make things up.

Joe Lieberman gives us a perfect example why he's a liar in chief.

Water Tiger:

now with an extra serving of tool-ness:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) raised hackles among liberals earlier this week when he claimed that the public option wasn't a part of the 2008 presidential campaign. He repeated that claim to reporters tonight, though acknowledged, when pressed, that then-candidate Barack Obama did in fact include a public option in his campaign health care proposal.

And then there's this: Anyway, I'm opposed to it."

Shorter Lieberfucktard: I don't care what it says: I'm against it. Oooh, LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!!!!

But he's such a serious warmonger that the media loves him.

I'm not feeling incredibly optimistic this morning. Sounds like the most conservative (and most expensive) version of this bill will make up the final version, and I don't see much to celebrate. Is it better to have a crappy bill - or no bill at all?

And why should those be our only options?

The fact is, the Democratic leadership lacks, well, leadership. They think constructing a stage set and acting out a scene that looks like they're leading on the public option is enough to placate the people who so desperately need their help. It isn't. They simply don't get it, and it will cost them:

From the liberal end, Burris repeated a threat made earlier: That if the public option is taken out, he's gone. "I won't vote for it," he said.

"You'll lose people on the left," confirmed Brown.

Reid, aware of the fine line he's walking, told reporters that Landrieu, Schumer and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) are working on a compromise public option, perhaps something that 60 folks could support and save face.

That's what you don't understand, Harry. It's not about "face." But then, it's been so long since you had to worry about paying for your health care, I suppose it's too much to expect.

Yes, this will eventually be good for the country and perhaps our grandchildren - but it won't do much to help the people who need help during these desperate times, and it's certainly going to hurt the Democrats in the midterm elections:

After announcing her intent to support a health care debate this afternoon, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) 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.

"I believe it's going to be very clear at some point very soon that there are not 60 votes for the current provision in the bill, and that the leader and the leadership are going to have to make a decision and I trust that they will figure out how to do that," Landrieu told reporters.

Landrieu has been in negotiations with a number of centrist senators about a compromise that would eliminate the public option, except in states where insurance remains unaffordable. Interestingly, though, Schumer is playing a big role in that process.

"Senator Schumer's working on that. He's sort of been tasked as one of the point people," she told me. "He's been tagged as one of the point people to help negotiate that."

Schumer's involvement as a liaison between liberal and conservative Democrats puts the trigger issue in a new light. When Reid announced that he'd include his opt-out plan in the health care bill in lieu of triggers, many, including trigger-author Olympia Snowe, believed the compromise to be dead. But it now appears to be one of the central points of discussion between leadership and conservative Democrats as they try to find 60 votes for a reform bill.

It's half a victory, and a weak one at that.

John Cole finds Chuck Todd wanking away on Twitter.

Shorter Chuck Todd: It’s only big news if the Democrats fail!

I guess he didn’t pick up on the fact that if they had failed to get the 60 votes, HCR would, for all intents and purposes, be dead in the short run, as the Republicans would filibuster. That is why this is such a big deal- they have overcome the obstructionism of the GOP, and the debate can advance.

Although in fairness to Chuck, he may be more concerned with why Obama didn’t reach out more to President McCain. Not to be too subjective, or anything.

*** Update ***

Can anyone imagine the feeding frenzy for the next two weeks if they had failed to get 60 and advance the debate? Can you imagine the Sunday shows tomorrow? Can you imagine all the headlines speculating if Obama was a lame duck? “Senate fails to advance health care reform. Is Obama’s entire agenda at risk?” and “Obama’s signature legislation killed in Senate. Can he recover?” and “Republicans, spurred by sagging Obama poll numbers and grass roots support from tea party, stop Obama administration in their tracks.”

And Chuck Todd would be leading the goddamned charge with that crap.

Chuck Todd explains in Twitterific form what the Village really thinks. Does he not understand how the legislative process works? Nope. Does he remember that it was a Blue Dog Royal Senator named Max Baucus that helped pass Bush's tax cuts and medicare drug plan:

Some Democrats think Mr. Baucus betrayed the party in 2001 when he supported President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and in 2003 when he was one of two Democrats to help Republicans pass a Medicare prescription drug plan.

If George Bush had failed at getting these through, would Todd be questioning the conservative movement? Nope. They would be telling America that since they elected Bush, the Democrats were traitors to America. But when a Democrat is President all the Villagers look forward to is failure.

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As Jed noted "What would a health care debate be without some good ol' fashioned race-baiting from the G.O.P.?" Stay classy Alexander. So let me get this straight...the Democrats want to steal from grandma to give to the "ghetto"...or did I miss something here?

Alexander: Every other word we hear coming from the other side is that this vote tonight is historic. And I agree it’s historic, but I think my view of why it’s historic is a little different than their view. And I wonder if my colleagues would not agree with me that this bill is historic in its arrogance—in its arrogance that we in Congress are wise enough to take this entire complex health care system that serves 300 million Americans, that is 16% of our economy, and write a, and think that we could write a 2000 page bill and be wise enough to change it all—all at once.

Or arrogant in the, in its dumping of 15 million low income Americans into a Medical Ghetto called Medicaid that none of us, or any of our families would ever want to be a part of for our health care.

Or arrogant in then sending to the states, who are going broke a big chunk of the bill for what we’ve just done. Or arrogant enough to tell Americans that the bill cost $849 billion and think we’re not smart enough to read the print and figure out that it’s actually $2.5 trillion when it actually is implemented. Or to tell us that paying for reimbursement for physicians is not an important part of a health care bill, and so they run over here in the dead of night—run up the deficit another quarter of a trillion dollars.

I can make a long list of reasons this bill is arrogant—arrogant enough to cut and tax grandma’s Medicare that’s going broke according to the trustees in 2015-2017 and then spend it on somebody else other than grandma.

I mean the bill is arrogant in its telling us that it’s going to reduce premiums for most Americans when in fact it increases premiums for most Americans. So people say “Where is the Republican health care bill?’ and my answer to that Mr. President is don’t expect Sen. McConnell to come rollin’ in here with a wheelbarrow with a 2000 page budget busting, debt ridden, arrogant piece of legislation because that’s not what we believe in.

What we need to do as a Congress is re-earn the trust of the American people by setting a clear goal of reducing health care costs, showing some humility and start moving step by step in that direction and I hope during this hour that we have a chance to talk about the specifics steps to reduce health care costs that we Republicans have offered day after day after day to no avail.

Nate Silver on why we shouldn't celebrate just yet:

Needless to say, it would have been very, very bad news for the Democrats if the motion to proceed to debate on their health care plan had failed tonight. But I'm not sure how newsworthy this really is. The potential hold-outs, like Lincoln and Ben Nelson, are going to have much greater leverage later on, when the bill nears its second major procedural hurdle: the cloture motion to proceed to the final vote.

And there's some bad news for Democrats too: Lincoln has joined Senators Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman in making a fairly explicit threat to filibuster a bill that contains a public option. Mary Landrieu, on the other hand, sounds a little bit more open to compromise. But this impromptu Gang of 3 -- Lincoln, Nelson, Lieberman -- could be a tough one for progressives to penetrate.

Yeah, it's going to be ugly by the time they get done dealing away any real hope of competition for the insurance companies. I'm not optimistic about the short-term results here and I have to keep muttering to myself that this will be good for our children and grandchildren - probably.

Taibblog: The country’s first WWE politician — a cartoon combatant who inspires stadiums full of frustrated middle American followers who will cheer for her against whichever villain they trot out.

The Political Carnival: 1,500 uninsured Arkansans line up for free health care clinic...Bill Clinton too chicken sh*t to attend

Alan Colmes' Liberaland: Colorado billboard paints Obama as a Muslim jihadist

The Reality-Based Community: Madison's Revenge

The Aristocrats: Sandy gets a peek at the Palin family 'baby name ' book

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: The Guantanamo Lawyers, Capitol Weekly, Carolina Parrothead, ScoopDaily

Don Henley- Heart of the Matter

These times are so uncertain
There's a yearning undefined
...People filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age
The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us,
Doesn't keep me warm

Remember my little snark to the producers of This Week a few months ago, over yet another booking of John McCain? Well, I had to do it again this week. Not because of McCain, but the bookings are nearly as egregious:

I'm sure that in the effort to have the show ideologically balanced (for, clearly, every issue is reduced to Democrat vs. Republican on This Week), it has completely escaped the producers' notice that they have booked THREE politicos against health care reform (Coburn, Nelson, Blackburn) to ONE in favor (Wasserman-Schultz).

Curious that ABC's idea of "balance" on an issue with OVERWHELMING public support is to tip the scale against health care reform. Does [your Senior Producer] feel he is serving his viewership well with such skewed bookings?

Sadly, This Week's producer doesn't really want to engage in any further tete a tetes on their skewed sense of balance, but taking a look at this week's schedule, certainly, they're not the only ones guilty. Look, for example, at the hacktacular framing on The Chris Matthews Show. Or the inclusion of Joe "Sucking Media Hole" Lieberman on Meet the Press. Personally, I think I'm gonna focus on the CNN foreign policy shows, rather than pollute my brain with any more of the health care nonsense.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.; Reps. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent; and Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Joe Klein, Norah O'Donnell, Anne Kornblut, David Ignatius. Topics: Obama's Lost the Independents -- What Do They Want Him To Do Differently? Are There Signs of Carteresque Weakness in the Obama Presidency? Meter Questions: Will President Obama Sign a Health Care Reform Bill This Year? YES: 5 NO: 7; Will Delays Over Afghanistan and Health Care Hurt Obama's Image Longterm? YES: 5 No: 7.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Carly Fiorina, California Republican who's running for U.S. Senate.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - An exclusive interview with Maziar Bahari, the Newsweek reporter who spent 4 months in an Iranian prison. Plus, the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, gives Fareed his only television interview on his trip to Washington.

CNN's "Amanpour" - New Jewish Lobby: A new Jewish American lobbying group is angling itself as an alternative to the well-known pro-Israel AIPAC group. Could this change the way Washington approaches Israel? Afghan Exclusives: Former Afghan Pres. Cand. Ashraf Ghani calls the Afghan gov. a "looting machine," and calls Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar's Interior Ministry "among the most corrupt in the country".

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Kit Bond, R-Mo., Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

Why on earth is the moustache of understanding-- he who has been profoundly wrong about everything from the nature of the free market-- still haunting my tee vee?

Crossposted with more and bigger.

Open thread below...

I was reminded of this song when a rerun of House MD showed this to be the good doctor's ringtone. If you've a mighty good man in your life, or you are one, this is dedicated to you.

And our sister site Newstalgia presents a full concert on Saturday nights, tonight J. Geils Band, Augusta, Georgia, 1975.

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MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan talks to Rep. Alan Grayson about the amendment passed by the House Financial Services Committee to allow an independent audit of the Federal Reserve. If Alan Greenspan is not happy about it, I take that as a good sign they did the right thing. It only took putting this country on the edge of financial ruin that we're not out of yet for the S.O.B. to ever admit he might be wrong about anything.

Ratigan: Alright first big newsmaker of the Meeting, Democratic Alan Grayson, better known for some of his fiery comments on Republicans and health care, now taking aim at the Federal Reserve along with so many others. He says the Federal Reserve is more secretive than the CIA, and his new amendment co-sponsored by Republican Ron Paul would allow the first ever independent audit of the Federal Reserve. The amendment edged out a competing proposal from North Carolina Congressman Mel Watt who wants to limit those very audits.

Congressman Grayson now joins the Morning Meeting. Your amendment approved by the House Financial Services Committee—a huge step forward. Where do you go from here and what’s your level of confidence Representative that you can continue to addendum behind this piece of legislation?

Grayson: Where we go is to stop the secret bailouts. There have been hints and hints now for more than two years that the Fed’s been conducting huge bailouts on the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars to favor large failed banks. Now we’re going to find out all about it, and we’re going to decide whether it’s good or bad.

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Yes, they're perfectly serious. The film's pitch line: "Liberty's march has a new generation of patriots."

Here's the cast of characters, including:

NATE: Nate, a young black man from Detroit, Michigan, voted for Barack Obama in 2008 from an upbringing that taught him to mistrust America because of the color of his skin. As a Libertarian with a paradigm shift and a newfound understanding of the nation he loves, he is risking the anger of family and friends by joining the march against a President’s policies that would victimize the very people he loves the most.

Translation: Nate, the only relatively sane-seeming black person we could find for the film, whose key role is to help blunt the image of tea parties as an almost purely all-white phenomenon featuring angry white nationalists who have no compunction about carrying racist signs and calling the president a racist.

JACK: Jack is a father of two young children, a little league baseball coach and a health insurance agent. He risks losing his job under current healthcare reform. He is a Democrat turned Constitutionalist and the younger brother of a Vietnam veteran who is marching for his children and the future of the America he believes in.

Translation: Even though Jack has a fairly obvious motive for opposing health-care reform, he was included because the filmmakers couldn't find a health-insurance lobbyist who could convincingly portray himself as a moderately sympathetic figure.

JENNY BETH: In 2008, she and her husband lost a multi-million dollar business, were forced into bankruptcy and home foreclosure. Nine months later, she is working as a national leader in the grassroots tea party movement, organizing events and taking her message to the steps of the National Mall with the company of millions behind her.

Translation: Beth helps provide a portrait of America's most benighted victims of the Bush administration: Whole-hog ideological conservatives who made lots of money relying on conservative values (i.e., the cutthroat pursuit of profits at the expense of everything else) and who suddenly lost everything when Bush popped the housing bubble. The resulting cognitive dissonance -- "OMFG we lost our entire fortune because "conservative values" like a mania for deregulation and cutting taxes for the wealthy caused a near-collapse of the entire economic system! And now we have to rely on a liberal black man to fix the problem!!!!" -- drove them completely insane, so that now of course they think the solution is to go back and embrace the very policies that destroyed their wealth in the first place.

WILLIAM: William is a patriot renaissance man, a pastor, colonial re-enactor, painter, poet, Vietnam veteran, former Pentagon and Secret Service employee and a man of the march. He can be outrageous and funny or somber and reflective, full of antics and unpredictability. He marched for the Vietnam Memorial during the Reagan Era and this time, his journey back to Washington, DC leads him to the front lines of the march down Pennsylvania Avenue on September 12.

Translation: Plain ol' nuts.

Anyway, after the movie gets its only scheduled theatrical appearance at the FreedomWorks-sponsored D.C. debut, it's straight to DVD.

Oh, we can hardly wait.

8:09 EST: Dodd, presiding over the Senate, said the motion passed, smattering of applause. Motion is agreed to. Clerk is now reporting the bill and amendment.

And that's it for the night. Debate will begin after Thanksgiving, plus amendments, then moving on to the final cloture motion and a final vote.

8:04 EST: Cloture passes 60-39. Debate will start after Thanksgiving.

7:57 EST: Voting continuing.

7:56 EST: Clerk reading cloture motion.

The question is: Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the motion to proceed shall be brought to a close. Clerk is calling the roll.

Voting now.

7:55 EST: Vote starting 5 minutes early.

7:54 EST: Absence of a quorum noted by Reid, and the roll is being called. Vote coming soon!

7:44 EST: The American people want us to start over. All it would take is just one on the other side of the aisle to not end the debate, but change the debate.

And he's yielded.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) is up.

My friend, the minority leader, has had since Wednesday to read the bill. Obviously he hasn't done so.

We debate the right to live free of disease and death by giving health care for all. The road has started many times, never been completed. Merged bills have never been done before. We couldn't have got here without the help of many Senators.

As a matter of principle, that I respect, the senior Senator from Arkansas insisted we have time to read the bill. All Senators have now had ample time. That is why we are voting tonight.

I invite Republicans to join the right side of history. Around dining room tables, families are agonizing over what to sacrifice next to afford health care. Employers are wondering whether they can afford to provide health care. Americans need reform.

Debate is constant, but the only place where silence is evened considered is the Senate. Now, finally, we have the opportunity to bring this great deliberation to this body. That and nothing more is what this vote does.

A yes vote says this issue is important and the Senate should at least talk about it.

Some Republicans would like Americans to think voting to debate the bill is voting to pass the bill. Tonight's vote is only the beginning of debate. It's clear Republicans have no problem talking about health care on TV, at town hall meetings, on the radio, yet now that we have the legislation to debate, to amend, to build on, will they refuse to debate?

If we refuse to let the Senate do its job, what are we doing here? What do we fear? And who's voice to you speak for? In who's interest do you vote?

Certainly debating reform can't be more difficult than American deciding to pay their mortgage or medical bills. It can't be more upsetting than having an insurance company take away your coverage when you need it the most.

Kennedy once said let us not be afraid of debate or discussion, let us encourage it.

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Lou Dobbs was interviewed on the Spanish-language network Telemundo yesterday by Maria Celeste (h/t Andrea Nill), and she cut quickly to the point:

Celeste: You mention that this criticism and this perception, misperception of yourself, it's only in the extreme, ah, extreme left, and that might be the case in the Anglo market, but trust me, in the Hispanic world, you are viewed by many, by many people as the No. 1 enemy -- maybe because of the many inflammatory and misleading statements about undocumented immigrants that you've made throughout the years. And let me go with the first one.

The most outrageous one was blaming immigrants for a dramatic rise in leprosy cases in the United States, stating that in three years, the cases of leprosy had suddenly jumped to 7,000, and that this was largely due to the influx of undocumented immigrants. By the way, according to the United States Department of Health [and Human Services], 7,000 cases of leprosy were reported over thirty years, not three, which is a big difference.

But even after that, that was proven wrong, what you had said, you stood behind your reporting, insisting that it was accurate. Why was that?

Dobbs: No no. Let's be very clear. For one, I did not stand behind that reporting. In fact, we corrected that reporting.

And secondly, in fairness to me, if you will, I never said a word about leprosy and undocumented immigrants, as you put it. My correspondent on our broadcast ad-libbed it, and as you are very familiar with the process of an edited report, and at the end of that she referred to a source with whom she had been speaking, and she said at the end of that report -- ad-libbed it, that is, without script or preparation, but simply said it -- that there were thousands of people on the registry for leprosy in the United States and those had shot up dramatically over the course of three years.

Dobbs is just baldfacedly lying. He did indeed defend that reporting, he did not correct it at any time, and Romans' didn't simply say "those had shot up dramatically over the course of three years," she clearly indicated that they had skyrocketed from 900 to 7,000 cases -- a grotesquely false claim.

Let's roll the tape, first back to April 14, 2005, when Dobbs first trotted out the phony leprosy story.

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