Congratulations to the Phillies for giving it a great try as defending champs and to my Philly blogger friends like Chris Bowers, d-day, Will Bunch and C&L's own Susie Madrak who were good sports with me as we all watched the World Series.

Jeter, Posada and Pettitte were on David Letterman Thursday night to celebrate #27. Matsui, who made all of Japan proud by winning the MVP came on, holding the trophy. The only one missing from the Core Four was Mariano Rivera, the greatest reliever of all time. He'll be 40 this month and no one has ever done it better. These guys play the game the right way and do not act like fools doing it as so many pro athletes do these days.

And the Yankees do really well with a Democratic President:

Since winning the 1958 World Series when Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, all nine of the Yankees’ titles have come under Democratic administrations — 1961, 1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009. This bodes well for the Yankees for at least the next three seasons.

You may have wondered why I stopped posting about the series after my first one. Well, I'm kind of a superstitious sports fan (OK, I'm just a little bit obsessed) and when the Yanks lost Game One after I live-blogged it, I immediately gave that up.

It was a jinx, you see.

When in doubt, I turn to Chris Bowers. He didn't disappoint me - he had ready a step-by-step explanation of what needs to happen to get the public option in the bill sent to the Senate floor:

The bad news is that we learned today that the Senate Finance Committee will not report a public option in its version of health care reform. The good news is that we also learned today that there are 51 votes in favor of Schumer's public option. Here is how we get to 51:

1. Take the 47 "yes" votes from the Washington Independent public option scorecard.
2. Add Bill Nelson and Tom Carper, who both voted for Schumer's public option today;
3. Add Claire McCaskill (who voted for Kennedy's HELP public option back in May);
4. Add Joe Biden

Arguably, proving that there are 51 votes in favor of Schumer's public option is the bigger news. This is because everyone knew the public option would be defeated in committee, but claims that there were 51 votes in favor of a trigger-less public option were pretty much all based on a post I wrote two weeks ago.

Because Democrats are not going to pursue reconciliation for the public option (see why here), the next step in the process does not actually involve Kent Conrad's Budget Committee, as I had previously reported. Instead, a source on the Hill confirms to me that the Senate HELP and Senate Finance committees will be merged by an informal, behind the scenes process involving the four major players in the Senate: Tom Harkin (Chair of HELP), Max Baucus (Chair of Finance), Harry Reid (Majority Leader), and the White House. Together, these four will meet and decide what sort of bill to send to the Senate floor.

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As much as they try to put on a happy face, their interest in having an active roll in politics is limited to attacking brown people. Case in point. The NRCC started a YouTube contest five weeks ago:

(T)he NRCC launched a project to get supporters to create their own campaign videos attacking Democrats. If successful, this project would defy a pattern where Republican grassroots activists never take action into their own hands.

The NRCC also said:

After the judging panel views the videos, the top five videos will be hosted on NRCC.org and voted on by the general public.

They only got "FIVE" submissions...Chris Bowers votes for...

I'm not a fan of the circular firing squad and usually avoid commenting on things like that, but I cannot pass this one up.

Huffington Post's Tom Edsall did a round up of popular Democratic pundits, asking if Democratic presidential contender John Edwards is really emblematic of the populism that the Democratic party claims they stand for.

Not to take anything away from Edwards, who I agree is a good candidate as far as populist ideals are concerned (and that doesn't mean that there aren't others--stay with me here), but look at this list of pundits interviewed:

The Huffington Post sought comment on this question from a number of political writers, activists and scholars, including (David) Sirota; Al From, CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC); Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future; Larry Bartels; Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI); Time's Joe Klein; Paul Krugman of the New York Times; Chris Bowers of Open Left; Harold Meyerson, executive editor, American Prospect; John B. Judis, senior editor, the New Republic; Kevin Drum, contributing writer, Washington Monthly, and blogger Political Animal; Ruy Teixeira, fellow, Center for American Progress (CAP) and The Century Foundation; Michael Kazin, professor of history, Georgetown University; Andy Stern, President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU); and Matthew Yglesias, Atlantic.com.

Notice anything? Do you think it would be perhaps instructive to ask that question of...oh, I don't know, maybe a woman or a minority? I mean, c'mon...Tom Edsall asks Joe Klein (!!!) but can't ask a single woman or person of color their opinion? Shameful. It's almost as if they assume that the female and minority votes are locked up by other candidates.

Taylor Marsh has more...

If you feel as strongly as we do then please sign the petition that will be sent to Harry Reid that asks him to stand behind Chris Dodd's hold against any retrocative immunity against the mult-million dollar Telecoms that spied on us..

We believe that any bill coming before the Senate that includes provisions for so-called 'amnesty' for large companies involved in illegally spying on Americans should be opposed, and have authored a letter to this effect addressed to Majority Leader Reid. You can co-sign it below. The letter will also be sent to Senate Democratic leadership and the Senate Judiciary Committee members. You can read the full text of the letter here.

So please co-sign the letter to Harry Reid with us (you can view the entire letter here).

Here's the list of the other sites that are co-sponsoring this petition:

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It looks like our emails are having an effect:

Reporter John Carroll quoted MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong as writing that he was actually the person behind several online pseudonyms, including Scott Shields. Armstrong’s comments were satirical, a fact that was not evident to Carroll as he read the posting. Carroll believed he was quoting Armstrong accurately. Many people have written to tell us that with a little checking we could have determined that the individuals referred to by Armstrong are actual bloggers. We should have checked those facts, and we regret not doing so.

We will run a correction on tonight’s program (Dec. 11), and discuss the story on Friday’s “Beat The Press.”

I think he also needs to go to a few comedy clubs because it seems he's lost his sense of humor. Chris Bowers writes that he does actually exist after all. I will say that I'm the only John Amato who created C&L and blogs here, but there is another John Amato on the internet that is not me. Although---he does play the sax too...hehe

I'm still recovering from my trip and Nicole is picking up the slack today so far, but I wanted to throw my two cents in if I may. There's a lot of takes going around about who is trying to take credit for our stunning defeat of the GOP on Tuesday. I want to start out by saying that Ned Lamont's campaign was one that took a shot at an entrenched Bush/War loving Democrat and said--we're not gonna take it any more. The outcome? Lamont forced Holy Joe to run as an Independent. That was truly amazing and started the anti-war drum beat going throughout the party which resulted in an incredible trouncing for Rove and Bush. Thank you Ned. The Bullshit Moose really has no clue.

I'm always labeled a Blue Dog Democrat on those funky online political tests that I take for fun. Do I remotely stand for anything like the Heath Shuler's of the wolrd? The Blue Dog Democrat meme is false as well.

We have some power now and the Democrats need to use it wisely and I think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid understand that. Soto has some ideas. Agree or disagree.

This piece by The Nation's Ari Melber is utter nonsense. How could people say they understand the netroots and write something as patently false as this? It boggles the mind. David Sirota responds too. The bottom line is that we all played a part in it, plain and simple. We all stepped up and helped out and that is a "We" moment, not a " let's screw Howard Dean" one. Digby responds.

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Powerline uses a chopped up video to attack Dingel falsely. The right wingers had a field day with it. TP has it also

See this before? As the desperation gets worse because of their uncertainty over the '06 election, this will happen more and more.

Chris Bowers has more about "selective quotations"

Corrected: Swing State Project has the story.

No wonder he had the nerve to attack Joe Sestak's four-year-old, cancer-stricken daughter.

Chris Bowers: "After repeatedly denying it ever happened, Curt Weldon finally admitted that he attended, spoke and organized an event that declared Sun Myung Moon to be "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."

Captain Ed makes a ridiculous argument trying to defend Malkin for publishing the students telephone numbers. Notice Ed uses language like, "The Fever Swamp Strikes again" and "idiots" while Michelle calls us "moonbats, unhinged and the kings of hate, " just for asking her to be accountable for her actions. In my post-I didn't resort to inflammatory language. I just said she crossed the line of decency. Capt Ed's own readers don't by his flimsy arguments:

Oh come on!!!!
They did not post the press release on the internet. It was supposed to go to media organizations who might be interested in contacting them. Yes, they messed up and put their home phone #'s on there, but that's no excuse to post them up on her blog... That's wrong...

If she was really being innocent about it, why did she keep them up after they asked her to take them down? Its indefensible. "But what I keep coming back to is her refusal to take it down after they asked her to. Considering the death threats, I think it would only be prudent for her to have respected their wishes the first time around...

Ed, I know you support MIchele in this. And there's no defense for the pathetic emails she's getting, which I saw at Flopping Aces. But we also shouldn't reinvent conventions around Press Releases. I've written hundreds in my career. The contact information is not for publication.

I hate alienating fellow conservative bloggers. But changing the rules of the game mid-stream isn't a defense of somehting, it's a tactic I'd prefer to see relegated to the Left.

Get the point Ed? What she did was wrong and your fans know it. I do have the email that they sent Michelle. One of her favorite tactics is to print nasty emails about herself to deflect the criticisms. We all get emails like that, but she wallows in them. I frown upon that type of rhetoric myself as you know. All Ed had to do was watch the video I posted from "FOX & Friends" and he'd know what the truth is.

Georgia10 nails it. So does Duncan

UPDATE:

Don Suber delinked Malkin's blog and I say good for him.

"So they listed their contact numbers after the "For Immediate Release" line? This is not law. This is not science. This is journalism. Only a mean person would be so crass as to put that information in mass circulation. When people stoop that low, I as a reader realize that is all they have. They have lost the argument. It is like when a political candidate goes negative. Malkin went negative. She lost the argument. She lost a reader. "So has "Ace in the Hole."

Chris Bowers has more.