Ah, the audacity of playing it safe! Obama clearly doesn't understand how positively this will affect people's lives, or he wouldn't be so lukewarm. The public option is polling well everywhere - including those conservative districts.

In fact, just about the only group not strongly supportive are the big contributors:

President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.

The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama's presidential campaign. The man who ran on the "Audacity of Hope" has now taken a more conservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own party in an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Now tantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up.

"The leadership understands that pushing for a public option is a somewhat risky strategy, but we may be within striking distance. A signal from the president could be enough to put us over the top," said one Senate Democratic leadership aide. Such pleading is exceedingly rare on Capitol Hill and comes only after Senate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage.

"Everybody knows we're close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it because it makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan. "These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."

But with fundamental reform of the health care system in plain sight for the first time in half a century, the president appears to be siding with those who see the Senate and its entrenched culture as too resistant to change. Administration officials say that Obama's preference for the trigger, which is backed by Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, is founded in a fear that Reid's public option couldn't get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. More specifically, aides fear that a handful of conservative Democrats will not support a bill unless it has at least one Republican member's support.

Getting the public option in the Senate bill makes it that much more likely that we'll be able to get it through conference, and not through the reconciliation process.

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(And some still think otherwise)

It's incredible that at this late date there are people still convinced the idea of Global Warming is the thing of hoaxes and myths. Even more incredible to think we had an administration so wrapped around the fingers of the Petroleum Industry that the EPA, an agency brought about for the protection of just plain folks, was gutted to the point of extinction because arrogance had the upper hand and propaganda still pollutes the discussion.

In 2004 BBC Radio 4 ran a series of documentaries on Global Warming where much of the fault was laid at the odoriferous feet of the Bush Administration and the arrogant denial anything could possibly be wrong. And anyone with the audacity to question was sent packing.

Jeremy Simons (former EPA chief under Clinton): “Often in the climate change debate new scientific studies emerge, and there was a new scientific study at the time that was funded in part by the American Petroleum Institute. It’s been very controversial. They wanted that study referenced and they wanted to take out language that had been approved by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences that said climate change was a real and established threat. They wanted to basically sow confusion into the debate on the science . . . there has definitely been a growing rift between the White House and EPA. EPA really is an agency in crisis right now. Because the White House has an agenda, they know what their environmental agenda is – it’s closely aligned with what Industry wants it to pursue, and that doesn’t often match up with what the sciences . . .EPA staff objectives are actually fairly straightforward; it’s to get good information out, and that’s been a conflict with the spin that the White House has wanted to put on environmental measures.”

And five years later . . .

Adam Green finds this gem.

Does this ad from the Chamber of Commerce make you furious?

There are like only 200 views of this hideous ad. I hate to post it, but I think some of you who have donated to our Blanche Lincoln action need to be aware of what you have supported and the conservative forces that stand against us. The Chamber of Commerce supports the squishy Conservadem Blanche Lincoln (who is squatting the with Backus Dogs) with a new ad that actually has the audacity to say she's standing up for working families. If she were, then she'd be on board with the public option.

This is our ad running against it right now in heavy rotation in Lincoln's back yard.

As Howie Klein says: The ads run for another 8 days and they are running on CNN, Fox (minus Glenn Beck) and MSNBC in every part of the state.

This ad is part of our Blue America's Campaign for Health Care Choice.
We need your support and have several more actions on the way.

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When news came that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I looked at my husband and said, "just watch, the wingnuts will lose it over this." And sure enough, I was right. But what threw me for a loop was how nakedly partisan CBS's Chip Reid was in attacking Obama for having the audacity to win the Nobel Prize, something even the great St. Ronnie didn't do:

REID: I mean, most Democrats have praised it, and most Republicans have said, you have got to be kidding me -- Ronald Reagan didn't get one, but Barack Obama, nominated 12 days after he was sworn in, gets a Nobel Peace Prize. And the fear among some, even some Democrats, is that this is going to widen the partisan divide and make things even more difficult to accomplish on every front.

Really? Even more difficult than reflexively fighting *every* *single* Obama agenda item now? How is that possible?

It's touching, isn't it, to hear Chip Reid's concern that this will widen the partisan divide? After all, past winners have included Al Gore and Jimmy Carter...obviously the Nobel committee loves them some Democrats.

But here's the thing that all these insulated Beltway Villagers continually forget: Outside of DC, life is more than Republican vs. Democrat, something that Gibbs gently tries to suggest to Reid:

GIBBS: I'll leave the pundicizing to the pundits. The notion that somehow this is going to more greatly divide America, you know, I think it should be mandatory that pundits spend a certain amount of their days each year outside of the friendly confines of the viewership of the Washington, D.C., media market.

Of course, that goes right over Reid's head. For Reid, this is all about dismissing the Nobel committee -- in Norway, mind you, and not subject to the mind-numbing partisan reduction that Reid seems to breathe as oxygen -- as some liberal organization. He just can't get his head wrapped around the fact the Ronald Reagan -- the man who ended the Cold War! -- was never awarded the Peace Prize. As my friend, Steve Benen says:

A few thoughts here. First, when White House correspondents from major news outlets start sounding like members of Grover Norquist's "We Love Reagan" fan club, it's not a positive development.

Second, the notion that Reagan "helped bring the Cold War to an end" is, at best, a dubious proposition.

Actually, I think Chip Reid is unintentionally letting us into his psyche more than he realizes. He's continually been a go-to guy for Republican talking points for years. He routinely criticizes Democrats for things he lets pass by Republicans and uncritically passes on Republican attacks without context or fact-checking. And here again, he mouths the GOP mentality.

But think about it: if the Nobel Peace Prize only supports liberal causes, isn't Chip Reid admitting that peace is liberal? Then we need never look to conservatives again, because they will never bring peace. Right, Chip?

Transcript below the fold

Continue reading »

Remember how the Iranian elections results made the GOP assume voter fraud and start screaming about election integrity? The world is curiously silent now, isn't it?

In the southern Afghan district of Shorabak, the tribesmen gathered shortly before last month’s presidential election to discuss which candidate they would back. After a debate they chose to endorse Abdullah Abdullah, President Hamid Karzai’s leading opponent.

The tribal leaders prepared to deliver a landslide for Abdullah – but it never happened. They claim Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother and leader of the Kandahar provincial council, detained the local governor and closed all the district’s 46 polling sites on election day.

The ballot boxes were taken back to the district headquarters where, tribal leaders allege, they were stuffed with ballots by local policemen. A total of 23,900 ballots were finally sent off to Kabul, the capital – every one of them a vote for Karzai.

The alleged fraud, which Ahmed Wali Karzai denies, was the most blatant example among hundreds of incidents that have threatened to make a mockery of the election.

The sheer scale and audacity of the cheating, which includes supposedly “state-sponsored” ballot-stuffing, vote burning, intimidation and the closure of polling stations in antigovernment areas, has overwhelmed the country’s fledgling Electoral Complaints Commission.

Its staff are battling with more than 2,600 reports of vote-rigging, including at least 650 deemed serious enough “materially” to influence the result.

“This is a blatant violation of the procedure and I think it is stealing in daylight,” Abdullah said yesterday.

His aides say privately that if Karzai wins the 50.1% of votes needed for victory in the first round, they won’t accept the result. Abdullah said he intended to use all legal means to challenge any Karzai victory; his supporters talked menacingly of “Iran-style protests with Kalashnikovs”.

So this is the test: do we really care about bringing democracy to Afghanistan?

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Apparently, Rip-Van-Winkle-like, Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove simply slept through the 1990s, when Republicans couldn't stop obsessing about the Mighty Clenis and its powers of seduction.

Yesterday on The O'Reilly Factor, they both were mewling piteously about the mean liberals who are having a bit of a heyday with Mark Sanford's Appalachian Trail Adventures:

O'Reilly: Some in the Muslim world believe in stoning people. Apparently, some in the USA believe in stoning as well -- stoning with words.

Because, of course, Bill O'Reilly never attacks people with his words. You Pinhead!

What really got Rove's goat was Paul Begala, having the audacity to point out that he, like a lot of us, have had enough of the GOP's Holier-Than-Thou schtick, which they use with great regularity to beat liberals about the head and neck for their supposed "licentiousness".

Rove: I guess what it comes down to is when you get to socially liberal ideas like abortion, and like gay marriage, the left will seize on any opportunity that they think they have in order to condemn those who are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage. And it's just -- you know, there are people who are maybe moderate in their views on economics, or maybe nationalist on their views on international affairs, but when it comes down to social questions, they're liberal, and it's an instinct, and they cause a lot of people -- you know, like Paul Begala.

O'Reilly: I was just going to say that. Is that unbelievable?

Rove: Unbelievable. I don't recall -- you know, who exactly is accusing him of being a poor father or a poor Christian or not a patriot. But this sort of artificial victimhood -- and again, the purpose of it is, is to say to people --

O'Reilly: But wasn't Begala the guy, that it was just about sex, he and Carville were running around -- that's all they said for two years!

Don't you just love it when the guy who perfected right-wing victimhood as a phony schtick indulges it right there onscreen -- and then accuses the left of it!

And O'Reilly misses his own point: Begala was obviously complaining about Republicans' propensity to condemn all liberals as "immoral" based on a single person's failings (see, e.g., the right-wing claim after Sanford that "liberals are more to licentiousness"). Which is now the position he and Rove are trying to claim -- while accusing Begala of the opposite.

But the real capper was this:

Rove: What we saw last night was the coarseness and ugliness in American politics, carried forward by people who claim not to be political actors, but commentators and observers. And they gave the lie to their so-called neutrality or objectiveness last night.

Quoth the cohort of Lee Atwater and the man who "makes [Charles] Colson look like a novice".

The right's projection strategy is reaching absurd heights these days. But it at least makes for some amusing TV.

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If you happened to see Bill O'Reilly wanking ever onward Monday night in recapping his confrontation with Joan Walsh on Friday, you probably got the same low mordant chuckle out of his self-serving edit of the interview. After all, it gave him a chance to repeat three more times his leading "When did you stop beating your wife?" question.

But as we noted at the time, Walsh at critical junctures of the exchange handed O'Reilly his lunch -- especially when she zeroed in on his irresponsible, violent and often eliminationist rhetoric directed at the objects of his ire, and his refusal to man up to the predictable (and now manifest) consequences of that.

Indeed, O'Reilly (as usual) edited the video to make him look triumphant against the hapless liberal. But in reality, Walsh seriously called him out at key moments and kicked his butt -- especially at the end.

So we decided to offer our own Crooks and Liars Special Edition Video of the showdown. In which Walsh shines triumphant. It's not quite the whole story, but it's a lot closer to what actually happened than O'Reilly's pathetic whinefest.

Speaking of O'Reilly whinefests, I've also compiled a collage of his recent whining about left-wing meanies who have the audacity to call him out for nastiness -- denouncing in particular the "politics of ridicule" and the "demonization" of the opposition that those hateful far-left liberals employ. This includes some footage of one of his ambush crews attacking a woman at her car -- for having simply criticized O'Reilly.

And then it's capped off by a couple of his nastier "Pinhead" segments. Who's demonizing who?

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Bill O'Reilly must really being feeling guilty subconsciously over the death of Dr. Tiller. But he's also looking to blame somebody else for his behavior and that somebody is NBC news. He is one sick person. He has the audacity to use the murder of our military recruiter named Private Long to his own advantage -- as did Malkin -- to try and convince his audience that he did nothing wrong in his vile behavior towards the late Dr. Tiller. The old faux comparison if I ever saw one. Has he no shame?

Last night on The Factor, BillO took up half his show trying to defend himself and used his favorite conservative professor, Brian Russell, to do so, as well as his favorite stooge, Juan Williams.

In his talking points he was upset that NBC was blaming him for Tiller's death so now tried to fake out the audience by saying that since NBC covers torture and the debate over closing Gitmo, they helped drive Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad over the edge to commit this atrocity.

O'Reilly: ..so here's my question. Is NBC complicit in the murder of Private Long? After all, that network has relentlessly branded America a torture nation. A nation run by human rights's violators. Didn't NBC news incite Mr. Muhammad to kill the soldier? The answer is no. The killer is a loon. The media had nothing to do with it. That is the truth. However, Private Long's situation will not be heavily debated on NBC News Because they're not much interested in the truth. Brian Williams is a big problem here. Last night as managing editor of the Nightly News, he allowed a correspondent to highlight me as a villain in the Tiller situation. Williams takes his orders directly from NBC President Jeff Zucker, who is a committed liberal, who has completely ruined the news operation, turning it into the most far left outfit in the history of broadcasting....

Psych out. He didn't mean it. Hey, Bill. NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, MSNBC and most every other legitimate news organizations never called America "Iraqi baby killers", and never called America mass murderers time and time again over the invasion of two Middle Eastern countries, but that's how you portrayed Dr. Tiller. The media in general did almost no reporting on the run-up to the war that was counter to any of the propaganda the Bush Administration put out. They've been covering the news, Bill, even if they've done it badly.

And by the way ... General Petraeus, your hero, believes that America made many, many mistakes, which includes torture, the breaking of the Geneva Convention, and creating an extralegal prison at Guantanamo Bay in his criticism of America's behavior after 9/11. So is he to blame for Mr. Mohammad's actions too?

Billie Boy continued on his anti-choice rant about Dr. Tiller and then said that the government has the goods that GE is doing business with Iran. And he's going to be looking into to it very, very closely. I feel bad for Pvt. Long's family, their grief must run deep, but now they also have to withstand Bill O'Reilly using his death in a crass, cheaply sensational way for his own self-serving justification for the inexcusable.

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Last night Bill O'Reilly unleashed one of his patented Falafel Jihads against the ole-time liberal-hater's favorite, the ACLU, for having had the audacity not only to sue to have those photos of detainee abuse released, but to have actually won in court.

For that, O'Reilly last night flatly accused the ACLU of setting out to harm the nation, and in fact being solely motivated by the desire to hold the country up to humiliation and expose our soldiers to harm. Seriously. Of course, he produces nary a scintilla of evidence to buttress his claims, but then, he's Bill O'Reilly. He doesn't have to.

What's clearly never occurred to O'Reilly is the reality that what he's looking at is one of the very pragmatic and practical reasons American forces have historically eschewed torture: Indulging it not only gives our enemies a rationale to employ it on our own soldiers when captured, but in fact motivates them to capture our soldiers solely for the purpose of retaliatory torture.

That has been one of the little-observed but longstanding and overwhelming ethical reasons to oppose any kind of torture for these prisoners, and has been all along, ever since it was outlawed internationally and nationally: that condoning any kind of abuse provides a pretext for our enemies to do the same, or worse, to American prisoners held abroad.

Moreover, the inevitable Arab anger over the photos further demonstrates know that torturing prisoners makes us less safe -- because, as the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate indicated, these actions provide a profound motivation for radicalizing young Muslims. Another study, as Fox recently reported, found a concrete connection between the Abu Ghraib torture photos and the recruitment of suicide bombers in Iraq.

No one wants to put American soldiers deeper in harm's way. But Bill O'Reilly needs to be confronted with the cold fact that it wasn't the actions of the ACLU that put them in that position -- it was the profoundly unwise policy choices of the Bush administration, and its many, many apologists for instituting a torture regime.

Bill O'Reilly, of course, being among the foremost cheerleaders.