Cheney heckled in Tenn.

Dick Cheney was speaking at the University of Tenn. for the groundbreaking of the Howard Baker Center, when people started heckling. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it didn't stop the VP for continuing. Was anyone waiting for him to do a "Pat Leahey" on the crowd?

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I'm sure that if there is an error in this story, I will turn here for guidance.

(Update):-Susan from BoomanTribune contacted the city editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel...

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President Obama walked into the lion's den -- aka the House Republican caucus -- today for a blunt conversation about how to proceed with bipartisanship. Responding to a question from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., he lashed into them for the nutty and outrageous rhetoric so many of them have indulged in the past year:

Obama: Let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the health care package that we've presented ... But at its core, if you look at the basic proposal that we put forward, that has an exchange so that businesses and the self-employed can buy into a pool, and can get bargaining power the same way that big companies do, the insurance reforms that I've already discussed, making sure that there's choice in competition for those that don't have health insurance -- the component parts of this thing are pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year. Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch.

But if you were to listen to the debate -- and frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot! No, I mean, that's how you guys, that's how you guys presented it. And so I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, how is it that a plan that is pretty centrist' -- no, look, I'm just sayin', I know you guys disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans -- it's similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care.

So all I'm saying is, we've got to close the gap between the rhetoric and the reality. I'm not suggesting that we're going to agree on everything, whether it's on health care or energy or what have you. But if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your home base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion, because what you've been telling your constituents is. 'This guy's doin' all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America!'

No doubt he was thinking of, among others, Blackburn herself. Her question to Obama was fairly straightforward and non-nutty, but when she's been out in the public, this is a woman who has defended the notion that the health-care bill contained "death panels," claimed the bill was "sacrificing our children's future," and joined the Tea Partiers in demanding "we want our country back."

But it's not just House Republicans who need to hear this. Some media folks need to be getting this message too.

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Cokie Roberts and her husband just penned an article that attacks liberals who have gone after the Ben Nelson's of the Democratic Party that are sabotaging health care reform. Steve and Cokie Roberts: Blessed are the majority makers. You see in Villagese, it's the few Ben Nelson's that has given President Obama the majority in Congress and not the other 257 House members and 59 Senators that actually give him the majority. To Cokie, the public option is nothing more than a gift to liberals that has no inherent significant in it that will impact health care reform. Sitting from her desk on the set of ABC, Cokie says she can craft the perfect health care bill without blinking an eye. Isn't she special?

STEPHANOPOULOS: it'll force him to go slower, which is probably a good thing, but the problem he may have is actually managing his liberal base.

ROBERTS: Absolutely, I think that is going to be the problem because look....you could sit here right now, even though it's complicated we can sit at this table and write a bill...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Insurance reforms, some costs control...

ROBERTS: And, but no public option and it's a bill that's actually been there for a very long time. You can take the Wyden-Bennett, it is a bipartisan bill. And Howard Baker and Bob Dole have a bill, you know there are bills out there that are doable. And if I had to guess in the end I think that's probably what is going to happen is something much more watered down ...

STEPHANOPOULOS:...But will the Howard Dean wing of the party go along?

ROBERTS: No, they are going to be absolutely furious and that is the problem that he's got right now. He's already got the liberals

NOONAN: Maybe it would be good for the president if he got absolutely furious about something.

ROBERTS: Well, I think that's the middle advantage. (Cokie's last words were tough to hear)

NOONAN: I understand what's going on, we got a little middle stuff going on around here, we got some centrism. That ain't so bad.

Peggy Noonan is so cute talking about centrism. That's a word she would never use if Reagan and Bush were in charge. Cokie is insufferable with her rant because it makes no sense, but that's a Villager for you. See, any elitist gasbag can craft sweeping health care reforms in an hour. I'm shocked that ABC didn't devote a ten minute segment so that Cokie could lead the round table to write the exact legislation that Congress should vote on and President Obama would sign into law. It would have saved the country so much time and energy. Why didn't she think of that? That Cokie is so brilliant.

In Cokie's world, we're the problem. It's not the obstructionist Republicans and all the health care establishment groups that have fought to block health care reform since 1948. Naw, it's OK for them to destroy it just like ABC's first guest---Newt Gingrich did. What Gingrich does is perfectly acceptable to the beltway weenies because that's the way she likes it. It's those dirty f*&king hippies that want true health care reform that are the problem. We actually have a voice at the table now and that's too much for her. How dare we ask for a good bill and not some watered down piece of crap that Roberts has a hankering for? The serious people in Washington think that Obama should trash his base while Bush should embrace his. Typical 1988 conventional wisdom. Conservative opposition to everything Democratic is the way the world turns under Cokie and the DC insiders. Oh, and what type of health care does she enjoy today? Conservative opposition to everything Democratic is the way the world turns under Cokie. Oh, and what type of health care does she enjoy?