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YUK! I took a shower but kept my hair dry, and never put on clothes Wednesday, just bummed around the house in my PJs and robe. Like many American men, I’m a real crybaby about being sick. I had to stop writing this post here to heat up some Theraflu powder, which I used to slug down another 1500 mg of Vitamin C. Oh, how yummy. ::snark::
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I want to say a word here about the politics of the health care debate in Congress.
Yes, I know all the papers and blogs and Fox talking heads can’t quit bringing you the latest breathless commentary. It’s bull. I mean it’s bull if it is coming from Hannity on the right or Jane Hamshire at FireDogLake on the left.
Here’s why:
this is just the legislative process, that’s all. We aren’t yet at the “nut cutting”, which will come later. Bills go through committees in the House and in the Senate. We’ve seen that and health care has been through five congressional committees. Everyone got all in a snit about that stuff, but it’s just routine.
Then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought the bill to the House floor and it passed with exactly the number of votes it needed, which doesn’t mean it barely passed, it means that Nancy gave a pass to endangered Democrats even if they were persuadable on a final bill.

Now, Harry Reid, the majority leader in the Senate, has a health care bill on the Senate floor. Now, everyone is hanging on every word that Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, etc., have to say. I don’t care what they have to say and don’t really think anyone else does either because they are just grandstanding and demogoguing the bill.
The Senate will pass a health care bill with 60 votes before Christmas.
It was a foregone conclusion before this latest “compromise” of the public option.
Then, and ONLY then, do we get to the hard part. The conference committee that tries to put together one bill from the House bill and the Senate bill where the two bills differ.
All of that will be done behind closed doors because it’ll be a butcher shop of blood and guts everywhere.
Some kind of sausage will emerge as a single bill for the consideration of both houses.
Everyone thinks Obama has been all “hands off” about this process so far and is whining and crying about him using his political muscle to stop the abortion ban or support the public option or whatever.
Hooey.
White House staffers have been part of every discussion behind the scenes and you can be sure have directed and spoken for the president about all the tiny details in a 2,000 page bill.
However, the president has no business being ham-handed during the legislative process. Senators and Representatives are expected to do their homework and make compromises and be creative in finding middle ground.
Once we have a conference bill, then we start to look at presidential power, but only then.
Then, when the conference bill comes to the floor, is when the hard stuff happens. That’s when every single congressperson, GOP and Dem, liberal, moderate, conservative and/or independent, has to look at their hole cards and decide whether to bluff, fold or play. NO ONE will be perfectly happy with the bill. EVERYONE will have to eat something they don’t like that’s good for them. THEN, the arm twisting really begins. THEN, the president can start talking about who he will campaign for or against, raise money for or against, whether he will veto it because he doesn’t like this or that.
I’ll give an example.
Everyone on the left, where I mostly hang out, wants to nuke Joe Lieberman and take away his committee chairmanship.
However, you get to make that threat only once between now and four years from now when he’s up for re-election. You can only take away that committee once.
Do you want to make that threat and give up that power over Joe when the stakes are a single provision in a huge bill or do you want to play that card when all of health care reform is at stake when the conference committee bill comes forward? Easy. You hold that card until it is the final winning play, not in the middle of the game, but at the last, hoping to get what you want for a lesser card until the last moment.
I strongly advise everyone to just avert your eyes until we get farther down the line. You don’t want to know what’s going into your sausage. Wait until it’s cooked and you can have a taste without having to think about how many pig snouts are in each bite. Just like Bismark noted, those who like law and sausage should not watch either be made.
Here’s a video to help you through the next few days. It was from The Onion last year, so you’ll have to adapt, but I feel my readers can do this:

Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election
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Maps 3 passed in OKC. I voted for it reluctantly and have lots of mixed feelings about the blank check we’ve written the City Council bozos and the Chamber of Commerce, the City Council’s bosses. I think there’s a slim chance the money will go to things I like, a good chance that people are lining their pockets out of the public treasury unfairly, and that firemen and policemen will take it in the shorts before all is said and done. However, my vote came down to this: vote no and have no chance of my hometown getting better, including getting better public transport and some things I do like, or vote yes and have a slim chance I’ll like how things turn out. One thing I do know going in — working people will pay more than their fair share for stuff that will unfairly benefit the rich.
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Backing off politics a little, the nascent journalist in me is very sad today. Both Kirkus Review and Editor and Publisher folded today. E&P had been the journalism profession “bible” for more than 100 years.
Journalists and journalism just has not really figured out this digital age. They’ve been in denial for at least 20 years and it’s catching up to them as they watch subscribers and advertising dollars fall like a rock. An old time saying in the business was “if it bleeds, it leads” and that crutch was part of the downfall because so-called “spot” news left newspapers and magazines at least half a news cycle behind broadcast and the internet. Why buy a newspaper that was written and produced yesterday when the news of this morning’s car wrecks on the interstate are no where to be found in print, but is everywhere on my iPhone and laptop? What print journalists can do better than their competitors is provide context and expertise, but that’s expensive and much more difficult than the “he said, she said” crap they got away with since Nixon was president. As much as I loved being a journalist, I’m glad I wasn’t there hanging on by fingernails during the past 20 years or so.
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As much as I’d like to ramble on, I just don’t feel well enough to do so.

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In a column in today’s New York Times, Frank Rich writes about a topic that’s been really bothering me lately: why the hell are the discredited neocons — who have been consistently wrong for more than a decade about everything foreign policy — still on the Sunday talk shows?
When does Stephanopolous look William Kristol right in the eye and say: is this like when you said the Iraq war would be over in 6 weeks? Is this the same as when you told us we’d be greeted as liberators in Baghdad? Is there any part of the “robust” assertion of American military power you advocate that has actually succeeded in doing good for us?
And, yes, I would include Sen. McCain, who has a foreign policy that is based on nationalistic fighter pilot chutzpah and not any serious and in-depth study of global issues, and who, I will remind you, lost the presidential elections rather badly.
They aren’t foreign policy experts, they just play one on TV.

There is a real foreign policy debate about realistic strategic options, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the popular press or watching cable television.
It’s only our survival at stake, why would we want a credible discussion?

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The Conventional Wisdom now has it that Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is a net bad thing for the president. Conventional Wisdom being what it is, it’s wrong again. A Nobel Peace Prize is a good thing for a president and for this country. Any other interpretation is gloss and illusionary thinking by people who wanted a foregone conclusion.
A Nobel Peace Prize is only a bad thing to those who need defense contractors to keep the money flowing and have such a strong penis/cojones envy that they love war.

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We are on the cusp, btw, about health care. All the attention has been on the Baucus bill coming out of the Senate Finance Committee, but that’s only one of five bills that have come out of two senate and three house panels.
It seems to me that it’s time for Reid and Pelosi AND OBAMA to say to Republicans that the Baucus bill is our attempt at bipartisan health care reform. It’s as much as the GOP is going to get. They can agree to drop the filibuster and vote for the Baucus bill and if they fail to do that and the Democratic Party must go it alone, then it will do so behind a bill that satisfies the progressives and the regressives can bite it.
The “whip count” stories I’ve read indicate that Pelosi can count on at least 210 votes of the 218 she needs to pass something like universal/single payer health care. Reid has about 51 votes without Joe Biden.
Since the GOP is going to run against the health care bill in whatever form it passes, why not pass a bill that Democrats can be proud of and defend?
One more time, does anyone else notice that the GOP emperors are naked?

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Speaking of naked Republicans, today’s Daily Disappointment carries a story purporting to examine if U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) will be politically damaged by reports that he’s up to his neck in the U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) sex and payoff scandal.
The grey lady of OKC says no, Tom will be just fine.
They may be right.
What Dem is gearing up to fight him? No one.
After seeing what happened to Andrew Rice against Inhofe, can’t say I blame the Dems much.
Screw that, yeah, I think OK Dems are a bunch of cowards and lickspittles, groveling at the feet of ignorant fundamentalist preachers.

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In personal stuff, George Oswalt’s opening in Norman Friday was, by my lights, a huge success. The work was vivid, thought provoking and challenged both the eye and the mind. Dinner afterward at Victoria’s on campus corner with the artist, his wife and a dozen others was delicious and filled with bonhomie. Love you, George, think you’re great.

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UPDATE:

Oh, Teh Stupid, it burns. More right wing, jaw dropping idiocy from Glen Beck:

shut up, he explained

Roger Ebert says that the Obama health care plan is a “moral imperative,” quoting Mathew 25 in support. Very interesting essay linking back to an earlier post in which he admits to making the mistake of favoring the real, literal, logical plan rather than some imaginary one.

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P.S. The health care stuff was too serious for me for this lovely Sunday afternoon, so here is a “mental health break” video: