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First, read this:

TRINITY — The call came at 1:28 p.m. Friday, the caller ID cryptically reading, "U.S. Government — Honolulu."

Larry Dalla Betta, just getting home from a youth football game, answered in the kitchen.

"Is this Larry?" an operator asked. Dalla Betta said yes. Then he heard another voice, speaking from half a world away, sudden, strained:

"Dad, I've been hit. I've lost both my legs."

"Where are you?" Dalla Betta asked. "Where are you?"

"I'm in Afghanistan," his son said. "I can't talk. They're taking me to Germany. I can contact you in 24 hours."

Dalla Betta began to talk. The line went dead.

He screamed. "Justin! Justin!" He started to cry. Justin's siblings Larry Jr., 11, and Nicole, 5, started to cry, too.

Now read this, and tell me what you think:

Ed Rendell, the media-friendly governor of Pennsylvania, has a surprisingly stark quote in USA Today this morning questioning President Obama's decision to continue the war in Afghanistan:

"I question the value of us being there at all," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview. "I have a great deal of faith in President Obama and in (Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton and I want to believe that their strategy is the right one for the country. But I'm not sure 10 years from now and with all that money invested, things are going to be measurably better."

He argues war funding would be better used to build schools, roads and bridges at home.

President Obama, how do you ask a man to lose both legs for a mistake?

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Jake Tapper on This Week interviews Haley Barbour and Ed Rendell about how the health care law will affect their respective states:

TAPPER: Governor Barbour, I don't want to pick on Mississippi, but I should point out that studies indicate Mississippi is last in the nation when it comes to health care, when it comes to access, quality, costs and outcomes.

Your state ranks worst in the country for obesity, hypertension, diabetes, adult physical inactivity, low weight birth babies. It has one of the highest rates of infant mortality.

You've been governor for six years. I'm wondering, what's your response to critics who say that this is probably -- this lawsuit is probably not the best use of your time when it comes to health care for your citizens?

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I think this is hysterical. I mean, progressive Pennsylvania Democrats were pretty pissed off when the Beltway pols made the deal that put the anti-choice, radical centrist Bob Casey in the Senate, and over Ed Rendell promising Specter he wouldn't face a Democratic primary challenge. These backroom deals are how a state with a large liberal voting bloc keeps ending up with conservative representation:

Senior Senate Democrats are objecting to the deal Majority Leader Harry Reid made with Sen. Arlen Specter, saying they will vote against letting the former Republican shoot to the top of powerful committees after he switches parties.

Several Democrats are furious with Sen. Reid (D-Nev.) for agreeing to let Specter (Pa.) keep his seniority, accrued over more than 28 years as a GOP senator. That agreement would allow Specter to leap past senior Democrats on powerful panels — including the Appropriations and Judiciary committees.

“I won’t be happy if I don’t get to chair something because of Arlen Specter,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who sits on the Appropriations Committee with Specter and is fifth in seniority among Democrats, behind Chairman Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) and Sens. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Tom Harkin (Iowa). “I’m happy with the Democratic order, but I don’t want to be displaced because of Arlen Specter,” she said.

Specter’s first full day in Washington after turning the Capitol upside down with his decision to switch parties suggested a lonely future awaits in the upper chamber.

While he received a formal welcome Wednesday to the Democratic Party at the White House from President Obama and Vice President Biden, senior Senate Democrats exchanged phone calls to voice their objections to Reid’s gambit and one lawmaker said Specter should be happy with a committee seat at the “end of the dais.” Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and two other members of the Senate Republican leadership asked Specter to refund campaign donations.

One senior Democratic lawmaker told The Hill that the Democratic Conference will vote against giving the longtime Pennsylvania Republican seniority over lawmakers like Harkin, Mikulski and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) when they hold their organizational meeting after the 2010 election.

Under his deal with Reid, Specter would jump ahead of all but a few Democrats when it comes time to dole out committee chairmanships and assignments.

“That’s his deal and not the caucus’s,” the senior lawmaker said of Reid’s agreement with Specter.

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Yesterday on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell -- a longtime advocate of gun-control laws -- offered a straightforward assessment of the prospects for passing any new restrictions or reforms anytime soon.

The upshot:

-- No one is going to be tackling this issue for the foreseeable future -- not until we fix the economy, the health-care system, and our energy problems.

-- Eventually there will be a conversation about this, somewhere down the road.

-- It would be nice to have a rational conversation about this.

Well, fat chance of that. But there's no doubt Rendell's proposals make a lot of common sense -- especially when, as Rendell notes, our police are outgunned by drug-running thugs using AK-47s. They're limited in scope (no confiscations, for example) and targeted to sensible approaches to real problems.

But try telling that to the Richard Poplawskis of the world.

E.J. Dionne has some further thoughts.