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- Can there be any doubt that the Republican party, particularly its leadership, are not serious about governing? I don't care if Joe Wilson was rude to the president -- I'm with my TAPPED colleagues on wanting a more lively Congress -- but this is part of a pattern larger than Wilson, who is no stranger to hyperbole and smears. This is about Eric Cantor being unable (or unwilling) to name a single point of compromise with Democrats. This is about Michael Steele not understanding that Ted Kennedy wanted his death politicized if it meant passing health-care reform. This is about Charles Boustany urging the president to "start over" in his rebuttal last night and then claiming "80 percent" agreement the next day. This is about politics at its most cynical, destructive, and debased.
- If the Republican party isn't serious about governing, then the broader conservative movement isn't much interested in being taken seriously, period. You've got talk radio chastising Joe Wilson for apologizing and right-wing bloggers crowning Joe Wilson a "great American hero" while calling Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) a "jackass" for refusing to buy into the "death panel" nonsense. Meanwhile the movement's flagship publication has devoted its latest cover to the "creeping culture of euthanasia" after kinda-sorta denouncing death panels two weeks ago.
- The Census Bureau's latest figures on poverty and the uninsured certainly are depressing. Interestingly, as Ben Smith notes, that number might have been even higher had the rolls of Medicare, Medicaid/CHIP, and VA not increased to 29 percent of the population to cover those affected by the economic downturn. And yet, with nearly a third of the country already covered by public health insurance, the "public option" is still considered, at best, negotiable for reform legislation, at worst described as nothing less than a slippery slope to socialism.
- Remainders: Obama teaches America a new word; maybe Fox News could do us all a favor and hire all the cranks and hacks currently working in the journalism profession; Andy McCarthy has the latest scoop on ACORN's fiendishness; and Rush Limbaugh takes great pleasure in advocating for human suffering.
--Mori Dinauer
