The GOP has been making great hay out of the length and size and weight and page count of the House Health Care Reform bill. Apparently intimidated by its length, this has put them in this weird oppositional position where they have been insisting that the bill be read while simultaneously attesting to the impossibility of the task. To be sure, the bill looks difficult to tote around -- though Betsy McCaughey's been managing just fine!

Well, as it turns out, the physical bulk of the printed bill conceals an inconvenient truth: it's really not that long a read. The good people at Computational Legal Studies have analyzed the bill, and their findings tend to demonstrate that the GOP is vastly overselling the daunting nature of the task:

Those versed in the typesetting practices of the United States Congress know that the printed version of a bill contains a significant amount of whitespace including non-trivial space between lines, large headers and margins, an embedded table of contents, and large font. For example, consider page 12 of the printed version of H.R. 3962. This page contains fewer than 150 substantive words.

We believe a simple page count vastly overstates the actual length of bill. Rather than use page counts, we counted the number of words contained in the bill and compared these counts to the number of words in the existing United States Code. In addition, we consider the number of text blocks in the bill- where a text block is a unit of text under a section, subsection, clause, or sub-clause.

According to their basic findings, the total number of words in the House Health Reform Bill are 363,086. That includes the words found in titles, tables of contents and the like. The number of "words affecting in H.R. 3962 impacting substantive law" total out to be 234,812.

To be sure, that's a long bill! The 2007 Energy Bill had only 157,835 words, and the 2010 Defense Authorization Act is a trim 119,960 words. But as Computational Legal Studies points out, the total word count of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is 257,000 words. Granted, it's a more exciting read, but the task of reading that book is something that even small children have proven themselves capable of mastering.

Maybe if we just renamed the bill Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Pre-Existing Conditions, everyone could just get on with it, and stop bitching about how hard legislating is.

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Your "This Day In Government Contractor Abuses" comes via Spencer Ackerman, who flags this release from the U.S. Department of Justice:

The United States has filed a lawsuit against Kaman Dayron Inc., alleging that the Orlando, Fla., defense contractor violated the False Claims Act by knowingly substituting non-conforming parts in fuzes (sophisticated ignition devices incorporating mechanical and/or electronic components) supplied to the military for use in "bunker buster" bombs, the Justice Department announced today. The suit was filed today in U.S. District Court in Orlando.

The allegations relate to FMU-143 fuzes for use in hard target penetration warheads, colloquially referred to as "bunker buster" bombs. The government alleges that Kaman Dayron knowingly substituted non-conforming bellows motors for the specified parts in three lots of fuzes supplied to the military, and that the non-conforming parts could cause the fuzes to fire prematurely, creating a hazard for military personnel and causing misfires of the warheads. The military discovered the parts substitution and has quarantined the defective fuzes.

It's a good thing that the Department of Justice is taking this matter seriously, given the extreme limitations of a Congress that only tends to give themselves broad oversight power over contractors by accident. Of course, the real bad news is that because these defective fuses weren't developed by the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, the media is likely to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the matter.

RELATED:
What Kind Of Psychopath Sells Faulty Fuses To The Military? [Attackerman]

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On yesterday's Meet The Press, Rachel Maddow made an interesting point about the way the Democrats ought to govern that I think is worth another mention.

At issue was the high unemployment rate, and whether the current stimulus plan will solve the unemployment problem as it unfolds, or whether additional moves -- sure to be met with conventional political opposition -- are required. David Gregory, sizing up the current state of play, asked Maddow, "What went wrong?" To which she replied:

MADDOW: Obviously, job numbers are the holy grail for the next election, as the governors who were just on previously [Haley Barbour and Tim Kaine] were articulating. I think...whatever Democrats do, they are going to be accused of overspending. No matter what they do. If they don't spend another dime. Between now and 2010 they are going to be accused of it. And so, if they're getting shy about the second stimulus, it's not going to make conservatives back off and say, "Oh, the Democrats are the party of fiscal moderation." They're going to get slammed as overspenders anyway, and their choice is whether they are going to do it with intractable double-digit unemployment, and the appearance that they are not doing enough to stop it, or whether they are going to be aggressive, and they need to not be shy about a second stimulus.

I think that's a "real talk" take, frankly. During yesterday's liveblog, I bottom-lined this by saying, "If you are going to get damned no matter what you do, don't get damned having done nothing. Go big!" Obviously, the political risk, here, is that if further attempts to stimulate the economy fail, there's a political price to pay for it. But if Democrats have deeply-held convictions on how to act to bolster the economy and stem the downward trend in unemployment, they ought to act on them and put some real leadership behind the effort.

If you fail and are swept from office, so be it. But if their best plan at this point is to act in the hope that maybe if you're cautious and well-behaved the GOP will stop saying mean things about you, then you're going to get booted from office anyway. Because, as far as I can tell, the health of an economy isn't tied to playing an inter-party food fight to a stalemate. Fortune -- and independent voters -- favor the bold.

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Good morning. This is your weekly liveblog of the events soon to be transpiring on your teevees, while you, hopefully live your lives. My name is Jason. Ever get the feeling that an overheated sense of super deep-fried significance tends to get attached to everything, until we're all practically dying of glucose-induced, candy-flavored ball-lightning shocks of the brainstem? Because earlier this week was election day. Hardly any elections were held, at all! And the significance of said elections was pounded into my face by mallet wielding on-air sea lions barking over and over again about WOO GAMECHANGERZ 2010 MAYBE 2012 DOESN'T THIS HIT YOU MIND LIKE A DAISYCUTTER.

Well, no! In fact, at the end of the week, even buffeted by the latest fad of Tea Partying, the House went right out and did what they were going to do all along -- ALL YEAR LONG, REALLY -- and pass their health care bill. And even then, that was a story told with RAW EMOTION AND INTENSE ECTSTACY as the MOST IMPORTANT PROCEDURAL VOTE OF ALL TIME went down exactly as everyone predicted it would (with an added cushion of votes gained from those elections on Tuesday that were supposed to be read as the TOTAL PULVERISATION OF HEALTH CARE REFORM IN OUR LIFETIMES!

Where were you when the House did this? Me, I was girding myself, with liquor, in advance of the moment when that saggy and unloved sack of malted bile, Joe Lieberman, ruins everything. GOOD TIMES, AMERICA.

Anyway, yeah, I've been looking forward to the toxic shock of this Sunday for a few days now. As always, you should feel invited, but not required, to do any of the following: leave a comment, drop us an email, or follow me, as some do, on the Twittering. Et maintenant...

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

Chris Van Hollen, Mike Pence, Joe Lieberman, and Bob McDonnell? I could get hypoglycemic on all the charisma I'm about to be dosed with.

Well, hey, health care passed by five votes, but there was a contentious vote over an abortion measure offered by Bart Stupak. For more on that, hie thee to Ezra Klein. Then, the GOP mainly recited the same talking points again and again, except for John Shadegg, who dragged a baby onstage with him in an effort to get written about on Wonkette, for being preposterous. I think he was successful.

Anyway, la: Van Hollen and Pence. Van Hollen says the message of last night's vote is that "it's time to begin to fix a broken health care system." Also, some more pleasant sounding boilerplate. Pense says the message is that the Democrats weren't listening to the yelly, Hitler-mustache drawing children at town halls OR the election day results in the two races where the GOP fared well. Also: TEH LIBRUL ESTABLISHMENT! WHY DO THEY ACT LIKE PEOPLE VOTED FOR THEM TO DO THINGS. Also, some more angry sounding boilerplate.

Van Hollen suggests that the 2008 elections are relevant, and that in 2009, the Dems got two YES votes from John Garamendi and Bill Owens. On health care, last night's vote was "one very big step on a long journey." The "public option" by the way, seems to be being rebranded as the "voluntrary option."

Pence is like, NO YOU DIDN'T GET THE MESSAGE. He thinks that people should be impressed that a "third party conservative" almost beat the Democrat in the NY 23rd race. That would be impressive if it weren't for the fact that no Democrat has actually won that seat since Amerigo Vespucci first scrawled his name on a map.

Meanwhile, unemployment: Van Hollen says that the outgoing administration ate killed the world, remember! We just sort of haven't succeeded in arresting that free fall, and hey, along the way, we conducted some bank stress tests predicated on the notion that everything was going to be a lot better. Mike Pence says, "the first thing you do in a hole is stop digging," which is like, his favorite cliche. I'm sure that there are dry cleaners in his district that give out free collar starch whenever he says it. Anyway, from Pence, we get LOLZ SPENDING FREEZE PLEASE? Pence would like a strong no-growth, pro-cyclical set of policies to exacewrbate the downturn forever.

Anyway, the Nidal Hasan shooting. "For answers, we turn to Joe Lieberman." Lieberman says that Fox is going to have tamp down their anti-Muslim fervor, it's too early, it's premature, but, you know what? MAYBE IT WAS THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE TERRORIST ACT TO BE COMMITTED SINCE 9/11!! OKAY? DID I MAKE SOME NEWS TODAY!?

Wallace asks Lieberman a bunch of questions about warning signs, and I'm like, "Shouldn't we wait for investigators to tell us what's going on here?" Lieberman's read reports and stuff that makes his all a'scurred! He'll hold some hearings with Susan Collins. That's because he chairs the Senate committee that deals with Homeland Security. Lieberman says that he will vote against the public option by not allowing the bill to come to a final vote, and if he does so, he shouldn't chair that committee anymore.

I'll let Chris Blakeley get mad at Joe Lieberman, because why not?

Every time Joe Lieberman, self-serving, opportunist of the first order, opens his mouth to take care of himself, I am reminded that he was Al Gore's choice for Vice President of the United States. Although I still see Sarah Palin as the worst VP choice ever, I now must admit that Joe Lieberman has moved ahead of Dan Quayle on that list. While I am thinking there is nothing self-serving Joe could do to supplant Palin, his performance this morning on FOX News Sunday has made me less sure of this.

It is no wonder the Democrats are so ineffective when they reward self-serving Joe's active support of the Republican candidate for president in 2008 by allowing him keep his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship. Joe, ever the self-serving opportunist, now expresses his gratitude by vowing to filibuster the Health Care bill if it includes the public option (Joe has to take care of himself by taking care of those Insurance company donors) and this morning on FOX News Sunday, spewing forth unsubstantiated claims to fan the fear of terrorism (to propel his committee into the media spotlight) by saying "if" Major Nidal Malik were acting as an Islamic terrorist, this was the worst domestic terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Then, as an after thought, self-serving Joe noted that we need to let the investigation go forward "before" jumping to any conclusions. Way to illustrate John McCain's recent presidential campaign slogan, "Country First," self-serving Joe!

I think that Joe Lieberman does exemplify two of the three syllables in McCain's slogan very aptly, though, Chris!

And now! Bob McDonnell! His victory was STRIKING! Can his success be replicated? Maybe! If you run to the center, keep the teabaggers away, and run against candidates who voters don't like and who make tons of structural mistakes during the campaign, then maybe!

Anyway, Chris Wallace is like, WHERE DID ALL THAT GREAT SOCIAL CONSERVATISM GO? McDonnell says, uhh...hey, unemployment is bad, mmm'kay? Wallace is like, are you going to forget about the crazy people, though? McDonnell more or less says, uhhhh...please stay out of our state! I'm POSITIVE! EVERYONE STAY POSITIVE! SMILE!

Wallace wants McDonnell to commit to jacking over Planned Parenthood, and expand Virginia's death penalty (which is ALREADY the deathiest death penalty in the world). Then he asks McDonnell about the health care bill, and all the times the word "Shall" is in the bill (THAT'S THE MEME, BY THE WAY?). Know what McDonnell's number one problem is, Chris? TRANSPORTATION. All of your crazy concerns are secondary to fixing Virginia's transportation problems.

Chris Wallace asks McDonnell is he wants to be Vice President, he doesn't. He pledges four full years as Virginia's governor.

Now, Panel Time! With Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Kirsten Powers, filling in for Juan Williams.

What about the health care? Brit Hume says that maybe there's some Democrats who are vulnerable now! Unless of course the economy improves? Or maybe the voters in their districts are okay with their health care vote? Anyway, that's Brit Hume, doing the best he can to scare. Liasson says that the bill continues to become a reality, and it's becoming more centrist.

Kristol, who's predicted failure for the bill, aggressively attempting to engage hsi pea brain, and comes up with reverse-engineered hypotheticals about how maybe if people who no one knew months ago were asked questions that no one was asking about a future outcome no one could have divined, maybe the imaginary people would have told their imaginary interlocutors that they would have thought health care would have passed the House by a wider margin. Of course it's just as likely that someone would have said, "Oh, yeah. The Speaker probably managed her cushion so that those who felt like they'd be hurt politically signing their name to it could pretend to not support it in the final vote...that's how these things work."

Powers says Obama might be better off by spending the next year talking about big picture. Hume says that health care doesn't matter, unemployment does, and that's fairly correct. Liasson says, well sure okay, look for Obama to talk about the economy, forever, all next year, cosigning Powers' "big picture" notion.

Kristol says, "THIS BILL BURDENS THE ECONOMY!" But that won't be an issue in 2010! The bill won't go into effect until 2013.

Apparently, during commercial, everyone was arguing with each other. Powers was apparently attempting to defend the administrations' efforts on the economy. She notes that unemployment is a lagging indicator. Well, it's pretty lagging! One of the fundamental electoral points I'd make is that time is more on Obama's side than Congress'.

It's too bad that the best part of this discussion happened during commercial. Maybe Kirsten doesn't just sit there, inert and sad, when the camera is off, like Juan Williams!

Anyway, the panel is now asking if "political correctness" -- a media created bit of faddish fussery that was passe over a decade ago -- played a role in the killings at Fort Hood. If a cultural relic can be loaded into a firearm and shot at people, then yes. Kristol goes on to bizarrely scoff at the suggestion that the incident shows bases need additional force protection. "We need soldiers to protect soldiers from other soldiers?" he asks, mockingly. No, idiot! We need LESS SOLDIERS TO DIE IS SOMETHING LIKE THIS -- AND BY THIS I MEAN "GUY WITH A GUN ON A MILITARY BASE" -- HAPPENS AGAIN.

Powers says that it's wrong to extrapolate the incident into "act of Islamic terror" without any evidence that goes beyond the suggestion that this guy just snapped. Brit Hume starts to object, but Wallace calls the panel short, telling viewers that anyone who'd like to see Brit yell at Kirsten some more will have to do it online.

THIS WEEK

Anyway, Gen. George Casey is here, to talk about the Fort Hood incident. He says his trip to the base with John McHugh was both "gut wrenching" but also "uplifting" in that he got to witness the way the soldiers there bore up under the tragedy and supported one another.

Casey begs off making comment on matters pertaining to the investigation, like whether or not there were any other perpretators. He does suggest that early reports that their may have been accomplices may have been founded on bad premises. SURPRISE SURPRISE, to everyone who doesn't remember Balloon Boy.

As far as warning signs go, Casey cautions about speculation based on anecdotes. "Let the investigation take its course." As far as Muslims in the military goes, Casey says that "what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but it would be a greater tragedy if the Army's diversity became an additional casualty."

He goes on to say that the Army will "take a hard look at ourselves" to prevent similar occurences, and continue to take strides to improve the "mental fitness" of the force. I draw from this that while Casey feels obligated to leave all possibilities on the table, he's pushing the story in the direction of "guy who snapped" over "guy who was a stealth jihadist."

Meanwhile, Michael Steele and Tim Kaine. Will the health care bill wreck Democrats' electoral future? Kaine says no, this was AWESOME HISTORY, put it in the HISTORY CHANNEL, and the bill is amazing, and we should talk about it as if it didn't have to get reconciled with a Senate bill and survive another vote. BECAUSE: PRETTY.

Steele, of course, is all: GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF HEALTHCARE, BOOGAH-FOO! Why won't the White House meet with the GOP? What happened to all those days of fawning over Chuck Grassley, where did those times go? Kaine argues, Steele does his best "Bish, pls!" act. Kaine points out that the hastily offered bill didn't include rules getting rid of pre-existing conditions.

Steele says: "Where's your tort reform, where's your portability, where's your small business pools, where's your program for health savings accounts?"

Well, "health savings accounts" are an idea that would be mooted under a comprehensive health care bill, so the reason that's not in the bill is because it's unnecessary. As for the rest of those things, know what? They are IN THE BILL. Take it away, Igor Volsky:

3. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR - POLICIES ACROSS STATE LINES: "Interstate competition allowing people to buy insurance across state lines." [Sen. John Thune (R-SD), 9/8/2009]

HOUSE BILL - POLICIES ACROSS STATE LINES: Allows for the creation of State Health Insurance Compacts - permits states to enter into agreements to allow for the sale of insurance across state lines.

4. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR - MEDICAL MALPRACTICE REFORM: "Why not bring about reasonable restrictions and limits on medical malpractice claims to end the era of defensive medicine?" [Rep. Mike Pence (R-IA), 9/9/2009]

HOUSE BILL - ENCOURAGES MALPRACTICE REFORM: The bill establishes a voluntary state incentives grant program to encourage states to implement "certificate of merit" and "early offer" alternatives to traditional medical malpractice litigation.

5. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR - HIGH RISK POOLS: "Senator McCain has a proposal sometimes called high-risk pools at the state level...These are efforts I think we can have bipartisan agreement on and deal with the question of pre-existing conditions." [Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), 9/10/2009]

HOUSE BILL - HIGH RISK POOLS: To fill the gap before the Exchange becomes available in 2013, the bill creates an insurance program with financial assistance for those uninsured for several months or denied policy due to preexisting conditions.

[...]

8. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR - PROTECT SMALL BUSINESSES: "Helps employers offer health care coverage to their workers by reducing their administrative costs through a new small business tax credit." [Republican Health Solutions Group]

HOUSE BILL - PROTECTS SMALL BUSINESSES: The bill exempts 86% of businesses from the requirement to provide coverage. Businesses with payrolls below $500,000 are exempt while firms with payrolls between $500,000 and $750,000 would pay a graduated penalty. Small businesses would also receive a tax credit that helps cover 50% of their health care expenses.

I don't know what Steele means by "small business pools," so I went ahead and guarded against whether or not he's conflating "small business protection" and "high risk pools." Read the rest of Volsky's piece for seven more things that the GOP requested...and GOT, in the House bill.

Steele says that the Democratic bill should be compared to the GOP bill. OKAY! Take it away, Matt Yglesias!

The good news is that the House GOP bill does reduce the deficit. CBO says adopting their plan would reduce the deficit by $68 billion over ten years relative to current law. The number for the Democratic bill, however, is $104 billion. So in exchange for that lesser deficit reduction, the Republicans must cover more people right? Well, of course not. Instead, under the Boehner Plan the number of people without health insurance will stay steady at 17 percent. The Democratic plan will see that sliced to just four percent.

The CBO also says that for most people the GOP plan won't lower premiums: "In the large group market, which represents nearly 80 percent of total private premiums, the amendment would lower average insurance premiums in 2016 by zero to 3 percent compared with amounts under current law." And insofar as their plan does reduce premiums, it's by making your coverage worse:

The second source of change in average insurance premiums is changes in the average extent of coverage purchased. Those changes can reflect both changes in the scope of insurance coverage--the benefits or services that are included--and changes in the share of costs for covered services paid by the insurer--known as the "actuarial value." With other factors held equal, insurance policies that cover more benefits or services or have smaller copayments or deductibles have higher premiums, while policies that cover fewer benefits or services or have larger copayments or deductibles have lower premiums. Provisions in the amendment that would reduce insurance premiums by affecting the amount of coverage purchased include the State Innovations program, which would encourage states to reduce the number and extent of benefit mandates that they impose, and provisions that would allow individuals or affiliated groups to purchase insurance policies in other states that have less stringent mandates.

To repeat myself from yesterday, this is basically a plan that works well for you if you never get sick.

There are days where I imagine a time where Sunday Morning interlocutors read things like the above and resolve themselves to be armed with actual information, should their guest attempt to glibly slide by some talking points they've been honing for a month. I think to myself: such a talk show would be neat.

Anyway, Tim Kaine is doing his pirouette around the election results. Steele is carving up statistics and inflating the results. "The Democratic Party had better pay attention!" he says. I'd like to extend some congratulations to the people of THIS WEEK. GREAT JOB, GUYS! This is precisely the sort of discussion you could have pre-scripted. It's all terribly terribly unpredictable.

Apparently, small business owners have "roosts" in their "back pockets." Maybe they should give tax credits for building aviaries.

Kaine says: "I am a governor!" Steele says, "I was a Lieutenant Governor." Kaine says, "We are building things!" Steele says, "That's government contract work" and it's not permanent. I say: Do you want it to be permanent? Temporary work until the private sector is growing seems like just the thing to keep people at work without adding permanent government jobs. Steele says "what about the brother on the corner by the grocery store." I think he just plugged the new Clipse album!

Kaine calls NY 23 the "gift that keeps on giving." At least for a year! Kaine is actually pretty hilarious, saying that Sarah Palin supported the Democratic candidate, by helping to drive out Dede Scozzafava. But that's that. Bye, you two.

Panel Time! We got Will, Luntz, Brazile, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts. George Will is concerned about TEH JOBS. Card check will kill jobs, as will health care! Sam Donaldson says that Paul Volcker will save us, and Obama is "odds on" for re-election, and someone needs to tell Sam that Obama isn't LISTENING TO PAUL VOLCKER, and that's uhm...what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yeah, "PROBABLY STUPID." I guess that's TWO WORDS.

Frank Luntz says we are all teabaggers, except for the youngs, and that 1994 is going to rise again! Brazile says, it's not 1994, because there's not a bunch of crazy scandals and widespread retirements. Also, the GOP in 1994 had a plan, whereas the GOP in 2009 is deciding on whether or not they should band together with the crank faction. The lesson of 2009, by the way? NO! DON'T DO THAT.

Sam Donaldson agrees with me, so he gets a lollipop. Someone give him one.

Will says, OH YEAH? EVERYONE HATE TEH INFLATION. Donaldson says, "We have no inflation." Alex Tabarrok says: "I wish ...that inflation [was] around the corner. We could use some inflation to get back on track. Nominal wages are simply not flexible enough to get the job done in short order and there is much to fear from populist backlash."

Now the panel is sort of generically attempting to kick off 2010 coverage. It's going to happen, folks.

Sam Donaldson, meanwhile, is trying to fill in for the absent Paul Krugman: "More stimulus!" Frank Luntz is reeling off his version of Superfreakonomics. Roberts says, "Whatever, check your demographics, they are awful." Will agrees that it's a problem, and that the GOP needs to be the party of ideas...and, uhm...well, CHECK OUT FAIRFAX COUNTY! So many schoolbuses! So much McDonnell support! And Sam Donaldson is yelling about Glenn Beck and the poster comparing health care reform to Dachau.

And then, for no reason, we get Jon Voight, being totally mental. Luntz tries to make a point about how that comes from a lack of faith in "American exceptionalism." Cokie Roberts counters by saying that if people like Jon Voight are any guide, then American exceptionalism isn't too exceptional.

Donna Brazile explains to George Will how buying health insurance across state lines, like firecrackers, isn't the end-all-be-all he thinks it is. Frank Luntz is now wandering out of his crank-Sabermetric pocket to complain about how long the bill is, "LONG BILLS SCARE AMERICA." Whatever, Frank, I made it through INFINITE JEST just fine.

Sam Donaldson is like a Cialis commercial today! He can go all night long!

Frank Luntz feels sorry for Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu -- all they've done is stand in the way of fixing problems so that they can continue to run on a platform of the urgent need to fix those problems again and again!

MEET THE PRESS

Okay, so, let's get through this, shall we? Haley Barbour and Ed Rendell? Ugh, DO NOT WANT. Tom Brokaw has found Berlin! But first, here's General George Casey. This runs in the same direction as the earlier interview on ABC. Casey has to limit comments on the investigation, he's worried about "speculation based on anecdotes," there are professional investigations going on, they "will take a hard look at" themselves.

On the larger issue of combat stress, Casey says it's a matter that the Army is keenly aware of, and that they are working hard to restore the 'balance point." He highlights a number of programs to indicate that the Army is working hard to get help for people who develop post-traumatic stress disorder, and do more in advance so that soldiers have better coping skills ahead of trauma.

As far as a concern about backlash against Muslim soldiers, Casey says: "Yeah. I think those concerns are real. And...they're fueled, partially at least, by the speculation about-- based-- based on anecdotal-- evidence that people are presenting. I think we have to be very careful with that. Our diversity, not only in the Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

GREGORY: Do you have any reason to believe that having Muslims in the Army-- puts them in a very difficult position? Makes them more conflicted, fighting a war against Muslims in Afghanistan or Iraq?

CASEY: I think that's something that they have to look at on an individual basis. But I think we as an Army have to be broad enough-- to bring in people from all walks of life.

People should reflect on this matter in the way that David Frum encouraged, earlier this week.

Oh, my. Ed Rendell is not looking well.

Haley Barbour thinks health care is doomed. Rendell says it will. LET'S BATTLE!

Rendell points out that Arkansans LOVE THEM SOME PUBLIC OPTION, so Blanche Lincoln should vote for it. Barbour insists that the people who defeat the bill will be popular. There's nothing interesting being said, because these two guys are saying the same things that have been said for months.

Meanwhile, the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER happened right? Barbour thinks it was good for the GOP, Rendell thinks it's anti-incumbent but not anti-Obama. Barbour has got even more obscure election results to spin gold from. Rendell says, "A year in politics, is light years." This is like Mark Halperin's The Page got up and started talking. By which I mean, starting boring the bejeezus out of me.

Here's a great question formulation by Gregory: "Is the President going too fast on the economy, when unemployment is at 10%" No, no. Of course, slow down. Gregory is part of this new strain of moron who doesn't believe the president can do more than one thing at a time. This vision of management did not exist until it was clear that was how Obama was going to have to govern -- two wars and no health care and a decade-long employment crisis and a collapsing economy exacerbating all three -- and the media felt obligated to inveigh against MULTITASKING. On a long enough timeline, Meet The Press and David Gregory could potentially mount the case that almost everything we've settled as possible and doable is actually rimming with stupidity.

Let's watch Barbour run away from Sarah Palin:

DAVID GREGORY: Sarah Palin got involved in that race. She endorsed the independent conservative. What role does she play right now in the Republican Party?

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: Well, she doesn't play any official role in the Republican Party, but a lot of people care about her. A lot of people are fond of her. And she's like a lot of voter-- politicians who are very well regarded in our party.

DAVID GREGORY: What do you think of her?

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: I like her.

DAVID GREGORY: Is she--

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: Don't always agree with her, but, you know, my wife doesn't always agree with me, either.

DAVID GREGORY: But is she an important Republican leader in your book?

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: Oh, I think she is. I think she's got somethin' to offer.

DAVID GREGORY: Right.

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: One of the great things--

DAVID GREGORY: Do you think she could be President?

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: One of the great things about when your party's out of power, you don't have a spokesman. You have a lot of spo-- I don't want to say (UNINTEL) 1,000 flowers bloom. But you have a lot of different people. And that's healthy for your party.

DAVID GREGORY: Do-- do--

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: The Democrats do that when they're out.

DAVID GREGORY: Do you-- do you think she speaks for the party?

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: I think she speaks for herself, just like I speak for myself.

DAVID GREGORY: Do you think she could be President?

GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: Look, it's a long way away from there. Every time we-- every time people ask me about President, I remind them, David, any Republican who cares about the future of our country, they should be focused on the elections in 2010. Those are the elections that matter. We'll worry about President after 2010.

Gregory somehow restrains himself, limiting the number of times he asks Barbour if he's running for President to two.

Rendell says no to a second stimulus: "I don't think we need a second stimulus. I would like to see our transportation infrastructure spending, which is the best job producer, I would like to see that front-loaded-- and start in January or February of this year." He gives Obama a "solid B" on the economy, because of the stimulus.

Barbour says that regardless of what Obama does in Afghanistan, he's not going to criticize him, which is interesting: "But right now, if the President does the right thing here, I'm gonna applaud him. If he doesn't, I'm not gonna criticize him."

Okay: Panel time! Today we have David Brooks and EJ Dionne and Rachel Maddow and Ed Gillespie.

What is the state of the LOLSURGE? (34,000 troops, by the way, is the leak.) Brooks says Obama is wondering who he is supposed to partner with in Afghanistan. Maddow says that Obama is not going to find a magic troop level number that will stop the GOP from criticizing him.

Gregory, in a rare feat, points out to Gillespie that Bush 43 took a lot of time, dithering, before his own LOLSURGEOMGZ. He says sort of what Haley Barbour said as far as politicizing the war, but darkly reminds that Bush paid a price for Iraq.

Will there be momentun from the House health care bill? Maddow says that Bart Stupak's amendment is a poison pill that will lead to a "revolt" from female Democrats if it's not stripped in conference.

EJ Dionne does a great job retelling history, pointing out that all the dire warnings of TEH SOCIALISMZ came up when Medicare was being passed, and the GOP ended up not just not repealing Medicare, but defending it. He predicts that years from now, Ed Gillespie will be on MEET THE PRESS, telling viewers that the GOP would never cut the bill "he is now calling Pelosicare."

That's a bleak vision from Dionne: I had sort of counted on Meet The Press being off the air, 20 years from now!

Maddow points out that the more fiscally irresponsible choices are implementing the GOP bill or doing nothing, and predicts that anyone who votes against the bill will pay a price. That leads to Brooks, agreeing, but saying that the bill is "fiscal insanity" and that the "system" -- what system he refers to isn't clear -- needs to be fundamentally changed. Where that places the solution - beyond mere doomsaying - isn't clear. Perhaps Brooks has some fifth-dimensional health care plan he can only communicate to aliens.

Here's a hot scoop of conventional wisdom jizz on the MOST IMPORTANT AND FEARFULLY SYMMETRIC OFF-OFF YEAR ELECTION OF THE LATTER HALF OF THE FIRST DECADE OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY OF ALL TIME. Dionne says the "substantive lessons" for Democrats are in Virginia, not New Jersey. Gregory suggests that McDonnell kept his alienating social conservatism hidden behind a run to the center. Gillespie says, UHM, LET'S AGREE TO CALL THAT, "transforming conservative principles into practical solutions." So, I guess that means McDonnell will fix Northern Virginia's traffic infrastructure by fighting its homosexuality.

Maddow says, WHATEVS, CREIGH DEEDS WAS TEH SUXXORS. Reporting from Sam Stein backs this up:

A Research 2000 Virginia Poll conducted for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee reveals that 64 percent of Virginia voters who supported Barack Obama said that the party's gubernatorial candidate, Creigh Deeds, was "not progressive enough." Driving the point home even further, 58 percent of Virginia voters who are registered as Independent but supported Obama in 2008 election, likewise, said that Deeds was "not progressive enough."

The findings cut against the conventional wisdom that emerged from the 2009 gubernatorial elections, which held that Democrats lost in Virginia and (to a lesser extent) New Jersey by not pushing more moderate positions.

Only eight percent of Democratic Obama voters in Virginia and 16 percent of Independent Obama voters in Virginia said they thought Deeds was "too far to the left."

In its survey, PCCC also looks at how a public option for insurance coverage played in the Virginia governor's race. And it concludes that Deeds was hurt by his opposition to the public plan. Forty-one percent of respondents said that Deeds declaration that he would "opt-out" of a public plan as governor made them less excited about his candidacy. Only Six percent said it made them more excited.

Brooks mislays the voting shifts by independent voters. They aren't shifting away from the White House because they're worried the White House is spending too much, or "moving too fast." They are getting disillusioned by the White House's timidity and incrementalism.

Maddow says, "Job numbers are the holy grail of the next election," and points out that they should be aggressive in combatting unemployment, because there's no scenario in which the Democrats AREN'T going to get criticized for spending. It's a good point. I remember driving from Charlottesville to Ithaca, and going through Pennsylvania, and seeing all those threatening signs for how much the ticket was going to be if I got busted for going even 56 miles per hour. So I made myself miserable, driving the speed limit. On the way back, I realized that under those conditions, I could get a big ticket by ACCIDENTALLY speeding. Given those circumstances, it actually made more sense to just speed like the dickens.

That was the smart decision. If you are going to get damned no matter what you do, don't get damned having done nothing. Go big!

Dionne has this crazy idea that the Democrats should point out that government actually does good things. And then Gillespie all but proves Maddow's point: "HEALTH CARE WILL BE A JOBS KILLER." Well, the day is never going to come where Ed Gillespie isn't going to insinuate that the policies the Dems put forward are going to kill jobs, SO THEY MAY AS WELL BRAVELY PUT FORTH THEIR POLICIES.

Meet The Press ends with old footage from the show, and Tom Brokaw, revisiting the Berlin Wall, I guess because they wanted to remind us that the NBC News Division was once capable of vital news coverage or something?

Oh well, I guess we'll all remember where we were when NBC News remembered where they were when the Berlin Wall fell, unless the internet explodes! Have a great week, everyone!

Far be it for me to criticize the campaign arm of the White House/DNC, Organizing For America, seeing as they have successfully gotten one more president elected to office than I have. But I have to think that if you want to maintain this reputation of being awesomely granular sorters of voter data and skilled messaging micro-targeters who can quickly and effectively align voter support for key priorities, then the emails you send out to constituents ought to demonstrate that you have a functioning understanding of how... say, the U.S. House Of Representatives works. That way, you avoid sending voters perplexingly useless missives, like the one that Mitch Stewart, Director of OFA, blasted out to residents of the District of Columbia:

[NAME REMOVED] --

This is it -- the House of Representatives will vote on health insurance reform tomorrow. All signs point to it being incredibly close, possibly even coming down to a single vote.

With the clock ticking, insurance company lobbyists are going all out to stop reform. Please call Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton at 202-225-8050 now.

Today, President Obama is visiting the House to call for reform, and I hope you'll add your voice to his. If you haven't called before, now is the time. And if you have recently called, thank you -- now please ask friends, family members, and co-workers in your district to join you.

http://my.barackobama.com/HouseVote

Everything we're fighting for comes down to moments like this -- and every second counts.

Thanks for stepping up,

Mitch

Well, I have to say, if the House health reform bill does come down to a single vote, reform proponents better hope like hell that single vote doesn't have to come from Eleanor Holmes Norton! This is not because Norton isn't an awesome lady -- she is, as evidenced by her many appearances on the Colbert Report. But while Norton is an ally of the White House and supports the larger effort to expand health care coverage, as the duly sworn representative of the District, she does not enjoy voting privileges. So, as far as her vote goes, she would vote if she could vote but she can't vote so she won't vote.

Anyway, thanks, Mitch Stewart, for reminding the residents of the District of Columbia that they enjoy second-class status and their hopes are largely tied to other people's representatives.

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On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart laid out his take on the terrifying Glenn Beck Appendectomy Conspiracy, RAISING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS over how maybe it was all "a plot by Hitler to steal Glenn Beck from all of us internal organ by internal organ by internal organ and then reprogram him to use as a weapon." But maybe Stewart was only scratching the surface of this conspiracy! Let's all RAISE SOME QUESTIONS over whether or not actual Marxists were, in fact, rooting around inside Glenn Beck's body and mind.

Yesterday morning, Glenn Beck communicated with the world, in his patented Pidgin Twitter, saying:

Nvr a gdnight sleep in the hospital but always easier w/family, prayers and AMAZING drs/nurses. They didn't even cut off my feet!!

Amazing nurses, eh? Amazingly anti-American, maybe! Alexander Zaitchik is RAISING SUSPICIONS:

The quality of care he is receiving should not have come as a surprise. When Beck complained of acute abdominal pain during his radio program on Wednesday, he was rushed to a nearby hospital. The security-conscious Beck has not disclosed the name of the facility, but it's a safe bet that it is staffed by proud members of a storied union: New York's Local 1199, aka United Healthcare Workers East, which belongs to the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU has organized all of Manhattan's major hospitals, including every facility to which Beck could have conceivably been sent.

It probably has not occurred to Beck to link his kind, efficient nurses to something as dastardly as the SEIU. As recently as Wednesday, he was busy smearing the union with his usual verbal feces. For the past several months, on radio and television, Beck has cast the SEIU, the country's largest union, as a Toxic Avenger-looking bogeyman in his conspiratorial fantasyland. In the progressive plot of Beck's imagination, the "radical, Marxist" SEIU is conspiring with ACORN "thugs" to destroy the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and turn this country into North Korea--or worse.

Now, I don't know if the "amazing nurses" that tended to Glenn Beck were SEIU members or not. But the following infotaining factoid simply can not be ignored! No one has been inside the Obama White House more than SEIU prexy Andy Stern. Now, Andy Stern has, through Marxist nurse proxies, gained access inside Glenn Beck's body! WHAT DOES ACORN WANT WITH GLENN BECK'S PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS?

Later that same morning, Beck tweeted: "I just realized my tonsils are missing. Man, I wish I were as rich as M. Moore i could've had some of that sweet Castro Care he loves." But, Glenn Beck is as rich as Michael Moore! Or at least he was, before he received sweet Castro Care, from Maoist nurses that he now refers to as -- AND I QUOTE -- "AMAZING."

All right, here's the kicker. Do you know the name of the planet on which all of this occurred? Give up? IT WAS EARTH!!

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On this morning's Fox And Friends, hosts Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson were all a-whip with Salem Witch Trial panic over the thought that Nidal Hasan represented some sort of vanguard of deadly Islamist shootings to come.

Kilmeade began the nonsense thusly:

KILMEADE: Do you think it's time for the military to have special debriefings of Muslim Army officers -- anybody enlisted?...Because if I'm going to be deployed in a foxhole, if I'm going to be sticking in an outpost, I got to know the guy next to me is not going to want to kill me.

First of all, as someone who's been unfortunate enough to catch Brian "The Brown Haired One" Kilmeade revealing his personality on the air, my judgment on the matter is that the only foxhole in which Kilmeade is not likely to encounter someone who harbors the desire to do him harm is one in which he is the sole occupant. And even then, who knows? I give even odds!

But it fell to Geraldo Rivera to point out the obvious:

RIVERA: But isn't this the headline, Brian, that there are four or five million American Muslims and how scant and few and far between these horrifying incidents are? It's the same thing in the military. Believe me, I've been in Afghanistan with these guys,in Iraq with these guys. They are treasured for their bilingualism, their multiculturalism, the fact that they can bridge and understand and translate for us.

But then, Gretchen Carlson became concerned with "political correctness," saying, "Could it be that out military was also exercising political correctness -- even though he had a poor performance report, even though he spoke openly about being a radical and had those supposed postings online -- could it be that the military was exercising political correctness in not approaching as seriously as they would have if he had not been a Muslim."

Rivera agreed though he went on to cite government bureaucracy, not political correctness, as the reason those warning signs went unheeded.

WATCH:

By the way, here's a fun fact:

Motorcycle and street gang members have joined the U.S. military and served in Iraq, a new FBI report says.

[...]

The Defense Department does not track gang membership in the military. But FBI investigators believe the reduction in enlistment standards -- due to recruitment pressure related to the Iraq War -- has brought more gang members in.

Recruiters are not trained to look for signs of gang membership, the report said. Others ignore criminal records of willing volunteers -- such as the recruiter who concealed the fact that a member of the Latin Kings was awaiting trial for a razor assault on a New York police officer.

So, I'm not sure, exactly how or where "political correctness" enters into this.

RELATED:
Fox hosts want 'special screenings' for Muslims in military [Raw Story]
Kilmeade, Johnson want to know if it's time for "special debriefings," "special screenings" of Muslim officers [Media Matters]

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Well, if you were wondering what paranoiac smear artist would be the first to step out and attempt to name President Barack Obama as the man who guided Nidal Malik Hasan to his murderous rampage at Fort Hood yesterday, the answer -- naturally! -- is Jerome Corsi. Corsi has a long history of lunatic, fact-averse ravings and he fails to disappoint on that regard on the pages of World Net Daily, today, in a piece entitled "Shooter advised Obama transition." Except, of course, he didn't do any such thing.

Corsi hangs his entire allegation on a document produced on May 19, 2009 by The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute entitled "Thinking Anew, Security Priorities For The Next Administration." In that document, Nidal Hasan is listed, on page 29, as a "Task Force Event Participant." He was one of hundreds of people listed as a "participant." Significantly, Nidal was not the author of the document. He was not a member of the HSPI's "Presidential Transition Task Force." Nor was he a member of the HSPI's "Task Force Staff." He was not a member of the HSPI's Steering Committee or a briefer to the task force.

Also, the activities of the HSPI here do not in anyway constitute official transition advice to the White House, despite the fact that a committee got named the "Presidential Transition Task Force" and the HSPI's activities involved identifying homeland security priorities and offering advice. Here is what the HSPI does:

Founded in 2003, The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) is a nonpartisan "think and do" tank whose mission is to build bridges between theory and practice to advance homeland security through an interdisciplinary approach. By convening domestic and international policymakers and practitioners at all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and academia, HSPI creates innovative strategies and solutions to current and future threats to the nation.

The task force gave itself the following mission: "to further policy discussions of the top strategic priorities in the area of security in order to generate actionable recommendations, for the Administration taking office in January 2009, designed to effectively meet the most vexing challenges the United States faces today."

Essentially, what the HSPI did (and all of this is spelled out explicitly in this document's executive summary) is convene a giant group of security wonks and academics, heard some briefings, made some "internal deliberations," and generated a set of priorities and recommendations. Then those recommendations got published, and maybe someone at the White House read them, but it's more likely that the content ended up as material to cite in the middle of further security-wonk discussions.

And at some point in the process, Nidal Hasan might have sat in a room while this was happening, with a few hundred other people.

But none of this constitutes formal advice given to the president on homeland security during the transition of power. This was a university panel that has sod all to do with the White House, generating ideas, and calling it "advice" for the president. If two or three of you wanted to meet up with me at the Au Bon Pain on Pennsylvania Avenue this afternoon and chat today, we will have accomplished basically the same thing.

Corsi, in fact, knows this. He writes:

While the GWU task force participants included several members of government, including representatives of the Department of Justice and the U.S Department of Homeland Security, there is no indication in the document that the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition, other than to serve in a university-based advisory capacity.

In short, the facts Corsi obtained torpedo the premise of his piece, which, I remind you, is that the "shooter advised [the] Obama transition." Were this being written for a responsible journalistic entity, some creature called an "editor" would have stepped in and said, "Hey, Jerome, you realize that by your own findings, you article is complete horseshit, right?" But this is World Net Daily, written by and for complete charlatans.

UPDATE: I contacted Frank Cilluffo, the director of the HSPI at George Washington University, who tells me that Nidal Hasan has no affiliation with the HSPI or with George Washington University, at all. "[Hasan] has no role on the task force, other than the fact that he attended these meetings as an audience member, as did hundreds of others." Hasan's name appears on the list of participants only because he provided the HSPI with an RSVP, indicating his attendance. Cilluffo told me, "We always record RSVPs and publish them as a matter of transparency, and will continue to do so."

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Remember Election Night 2009? The big takeaway from the 23rd District of New York -- where Democrat Bill Owens prevailed as the first Democrat to win that Congressional seat since the Ice Age -- was that conservatives were at war with each other. Brother against brother! Establishment against fringe! Well, as it turns out, that battle is being waged most bloodily inside the Imaginarium Of Michael Steele.

Yesterday, Michael Steele was defending Delicate Flower of Center-Right Moderation Olympia Snowe from the stern rhetoric of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, telling the Morning Joe coffee-klatsch:

"I say, Welcome. Welcome. Each member of this party has a unique footprint. And it's different from region to region. I can't win in the Northeast with a candidate best suited for the South and vice-versa."

But that was yesterday, when the largest looming concern was the NY23-FAIL. Today, Capitol Hill is ramped up into Bachmann Tea Party Overdrive, and Michael Steele is suddenly drawing down on anyone who thinks they're gonna bring their "unique footprint" into his "big tent":

"So candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you're crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles, because we'll come after you," Steele continued.

"You're gonna find yourself in a very tough hole if you're arguing for the president's stimulus plan or Nancy Pelosi's health plan. There's no justification for growing the size of government the way this administration and this Congress wants to do it."

So there you have it: Michael Steele is sort of riding a wave of confusing emotions.

UPDATE: Wow. Michael Steele is just spinning like a pinwheel, trying to decide what sort of Republicans he likes and what sort he doesn't. Via Sam Stein:

Hours after Michael Steele warned moderate Republicans that they woud be targeted if they didn't support conservative principles, the RNC Chairman called discussion of intra-party feuding "stupid" and insisted that the GOP would lose if "we play politics amongst our own."

More from Sam, here.

RELATED:
Meet The New, Very Violent Michael Steele [Wonkette]
Hitching Wagon to Tea Partiers, Steele Threatens to 'Come After' GOP Moderates [The Washington Independent]

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Via Amanda Terkel at Think Progress, here's video of representative Todd Akin (R-MO) treating today's Teabachle to the Pledge of Allegiance. Akin led off with a brief oration on the importance of the words "under God" in the pledge, because someone has to stop Nancy Pelosi from killing God, with death panels. Perhaps the overemphasis on that mid-20th century drop-in was what led Akin to leave out another important word of the pledge: "indivisible." Though the setting strongly suggests that this may have been a Freudian slip.

[WATCH]

The upshot is that now Chief Justice John Roberts will have to get everybody together later to say the pledge again, you know...so it counts.

UPDATE:
Today's rally isn't exactly going down as the most coherent gathering of patriotic Americans ever assembled! Via Politico's Glenn Thrush, here's video of John Boehner getting the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence mixed up:

Boehner only had several days to prepare for this! But, then, if you recall, he doesn't go in for a lot of that readin' stuff.

Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel responded by saying: "Both texts are vital to the liberty beloved by every American." Very true. So vital, that many actually learn them!

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Bloomberg's Yalman Onaran takes a glance at the state of play on the consumer protection front, and sizes up the influence that the banking lobby has been able to exert on ongoing efforts to reign in the excesses that caused the 2008 economic meltdown. Overall, it's a bit of the ol' good news/bad news:

Banks and securities firms spent $193 million to fund political campaigns for the 2008 elections and raise even more money through events that their trade groups organize. They have successfully fought the administration's efforts to limit executive pay and are battling against draft legislation governing the $592 trillion market for derivatives.

When it comes to consumer banking, the industry's lobbyists are no longer all-powerful. Banks lost their bid to squelch new credit card rules that Obama signed into law in May. They lobbied for months before a bill that would have forced them to renegotiate mortgages failed in the Senate.

Now the banks and their trade associations are lobbying furiously to kill Obama's plan to create the new financial protection agency, which was approved by the House Financial Services Committee in late October and is likely to face a full House vote by the end of 2009.

Onaran goes on to attribute some of the waning influence on the overwhelming public sentiment against the banking industry, the "weakened position" of major players post-bailout, and the difficulty that varied interest groups are having coalescing around "how they want the bill rewritten."

Nevertheless, the lobbyists have not surrendered, and that revolving door remains a-spin:

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-biggest U.S. bank, got 48 percent of its revenue from consumer lending in the first nine months of 2009. The bank, which was one of the least scathed by the crisis, has stepped up its lobbying. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon now visits the capital twice a month, meeting with administration officials and congressional leaders, up from twice a year in 2006.

"JPMorgan also added two lobbyists to its Washington staff, which includes former Commerce Secretary William Daley. Jill Blickstein, who was previously chief of staff at the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration, was one of the new hires."

RELATED:
Banks Discover Consumer Protection Too Big to Fail [Bloomberg]

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Over at Foreign Policy's blog, Joshua Keating reports that President George W. Bush was in Japan yesterday, throwing out the first pitch at game three of Japan's World Series and doing what he could to finally teach the Japanese to GET MOTIVATED! Along the way, he addressed a group of students, and offered them advice on how to run a major world-power a baseball franchise. Bush was the managing general partner of the Texas Rangers from 1989 until his ascension to the Texas governorship in 1994.

Bush's irony-rich advice included this tidbit:

Bush also said it was important to take responsibility for decisions, including bad ones - and referred to what he has acknowledged was one of his biggest mistakes with the Rangers: approving the 1989 trade that sent future home-run slugger Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox for designated hitter Harold Baines.

Ahh, the memories:

At any rate, of course you wouldn't make that trade today! 9/11 changed everything.

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All right, the "Superbowl of Freedom" is yet to begin, but, via ABC News' The Note, we already have our first word of small-scale protester-on-legislator action. In this case, the pro-health care reform faction has struck first:

First out of the gate - 8 Protesters backing a universal health care system briefly occupied Sen. Joe Lieberman's office this morning.

Protesters were arrested, one by one, and dragged out of his office amid chants of "Everyone in and noone out, universal healthcare now!" and "Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!"

The whole affair, from occupation to final arrest, lasted 40 minutes.

Lieberman, who has pledged to play a role in derailing the health care effort but could be merely holding out in the hopes that Harry Reid will brown-nose him to the point of toxic shock, is likely to be a key focus of protesters today, as health care advocates protest his opposition and Bachmannites urge his continued antagonism to reform

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Over at True/Slant, Neal Ungerleider tells us that al Qaeda, apparently heedless of the recessionary downturn that's felled so many publications in the freedom-loving world, is currently publishing a pair of magazines. If print media doesn't die, it could kill you!

Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Battle) and Sada al-Jihad (The Echo of Jihad) are two magazines produced by Al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. Available on various jihadist Internet outposts, these publications are disseminated as print-to-read PDFs. Ungerleider reports that "Issue 11 of Sada al-Malahim," which is shown in the picture below, is a "dense little bastard of a magazine, clocking in at 73 pages of text, graphics and basic-Pagemaker design. As one might expect; al-Qaeda magazines don't include such kuffar innovations as advertising." It's pretty Conde Nasty, largely featuring a flattering profile of the bomber who attempted the August 2009 assassination of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, extolling the violence as an example for future terrorists to follow.

Charming.

According to Ungerleider, the magazine "devotes a fair amount of space to arguing internal politics within the movement and justifying the latest public statements of leaders." As Alex Balk quips: "So it's kind of like the Weekly Standard!"

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On this evening's edition of Hardball, Chris Matthews hosted Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, and the two men proceeded to have the following preposterous conversation:

STEELE: Excuse me. What about the left wingnuts who won't let the President get his agenda through? What about all the left wingnuts that are the reason we don't have health care right now? You have 60 votes in the Senate. You have a 78-seat majority in the House and I don't see anyone talking about the left wingnuts who are stifling the health care for my mother, my family and my community. Don't give me the name calling. That was a political process. Now we are talking real things here when you talk about the Democratic Party the division is real because we don't have health care. The division is real because we have --

MATTHEWS: Interesting. The President would be better off if he didn't have a left and he could push a more moderate health care bill.

STEELE: I don't know. That is the choice the Democrats have to make. I'm embracing my party, I'm embracing--

MATTHEWS: You are making it for me. You are saying something smart. That the President of the United States has to make a tough discerning decision to find the kind of bill that will pass and pass it instead of being hung up by his far left?

Yeah. Not only is that not "something smart" to say, it is a rivetingly dumb thing to say and Matthews has nary a fact on hand to support his cosigning of Steele's contention.

I'll concede Steele's point that the significant majorities the Democrats enjoy in both the House and the Senate make the Republicans irrelevant to the health care discussion. But there's a reason you don't hear "anyone talking about the left wingnuts who are stifling the health care." It's because there are no left wingnuts stifling the health care bill!

Just as an example, here, once again, are the Senators who are doing more than anyone else to stifle the health care reform bill. They include such luminaries as Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Kent Conrad, and Blanche Lincoln, and there's nary a "left wingnut" among them! The facts are these: the progressive membership of both houses have been nothing but accommodating to the health care process. From Jump Street, the legislators to Obama's left willingly bargained away the single-payer health care system they favored in order to lend unified support behind a reform package that was more sellable to moderate Democrats and Republicans. They ended up uniting behind the "public option," only to discover that President Obama wasn't willing to say much in praise of that idea other than to say, "Yeah, sure, that public option thingy would be neat, I guess?"

The sum total of progressive obstructionism came when a progressive bloc in the House of Representatives briefly let it be known that they would not support a bill that did not contain a public option. Did health care reform get "stifled" in the House as a result? No! The bill that will be sent forth for a vote contains a public option! So, what has the "left" stopped from happening, exactly? Meanwhile, the Senate's reform bill waters down the public option still further, into the "opt out" version. So, once again, progressives have given ground, have done nothing but accommodate the process, and in the end they may be asked to give still more ground, to get a watered down version of the health care bill that Obama sometimes says he wants, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

And really, having given ground on the matter three or four times already, how could anyone object to "the left" refusing to bargain away anything further? Let's remember, public option supporters are reflecting the will of a vast majority of the American people. You really cannot pretend that 55-75% of the country is a "wingnut fringe."

Chris Matthews is supposed to be some sort of shrewd and meticulous chronicler of political reality, but if he really thinks Steele is offering a smart idea, he needs to have his head examined. There is not one single shred of reality to back up Matthews' contention that the "left" is gumming up the health care reform process. That is what we call a "nimrod fantasia." But let's call the ball where it lies: Chris Matthews doesn't really care about reporting political fact, he cares about pleasing Michael Steele with enough adequacy so that he'll return to his show to share more of his so-called wisdom.

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