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- With Dick Durbin jumping on board, Democratic support in the Senate for re-introducing the public option is now at 30 and counting, which means it's time again to play "will Democrats act in their own narrow self-interest?" Now clearly 30 votes is not 50 votes, and a reconciliation bill that includes a public option changes the math in the House. But if Democrats are primarily interested in re-election, and they know they'll need their base fired up in order to be re-elected, then they should include this popular piece of health-care reform in the reconciliation fix. But in reality, most probably agree with Jay Rockefeller: Reintroducing something this divisive this late in the game is the last thing they need.
- E.J. Dionne Jr. writes a defense of partisanship, asking whether we can "finally acknowledge that our partisan divisions are about authentic principles that lead to very different approaches to governing?" It's amusing to consider that a newspaper pundit in 2010 is just now broaching this subject and that it's unheard of to even question why "partisan" has been understood almost exclusively in pejorative terms for decades. If only there were some sort of institution that existed independent of government, constitutionally protected, which was committed to reporting politics with an eye toward informing the public, providing vital context, and fact-checking the statements of politicians. But that's just not how things work in Washington, damn it all to hell!
- On the one hand, the fact that no one fears Barack Obama (or a revolutionary mass) is a problem and does reflect poorly on the president's leadership style. But on the other hand, there are structural and institutional factors that both limit what the president can get done and how popular he will be with the public. In the end, what matters is whether you're invested in the president's agenda. If you are, then it isn't necessarily contradictory to desire tougher leadership, even if you know that there are limits to what that will yield. For everyone else, the quest for ever more contrived explanations for the president's failures has become the premier Beltway parlor game.
- Weekend Remainders: Blanche Lincoln gets a primary challenge, White House support; Obama plans big reductions in our nuclear stockpiles; U.S. manufacturing is not dead, just manufacturing employment; global warming hoax produces iceberg the size of Luxembourg; nobody could have predicted that under its new management, The Wall Street Journal would become more overtly political and sensationalist; Texas looks like a great place to experience legal, state-sanctioned oppression based on xenophobia; Sen. Chuck Grassley demonstrates the high integrity the Republican Party expects from its caucus; Laurence Verga subscribes to the Dinesh D'Souza theory of terrorism deterrence; and the genius of Roger Ailes is that he creates a dialogue between Fox News and its viewers.
--Mori Dinauer
