memeorandum: Todd unloads — NBC's Chuck Todd goes off on Glenn Beck … (Ben Smith/Ben Smith's Blog)

6:00 PM ET, July 29, 2009

Top Items:

Jared Allen / The Hill:

Blue Dogs strike deal: No health vote before recess — Blue Dogs and House leaders have struck a deal to guarantee that the House will not vote on a healthcare bill before August, a leading Blue Dog said on Wednesday. — In exchange for putting off a floor vote until after Labor Day …

Discussion: Erick's blog, Don Surber, Daily Kos, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Hot Air, Right Pundits, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, HorsesAss.Org, AMERICAblog News, Little Green Footballs, The Washington Independent and DownWithTyranny!

The Hill:

Waters warns Blue Dogs to beware 2010 — Liberal frustration started to boil over in the House on Tuesday as negotiations over healthcare reform with centrist Blue Dog Democrats dragged into a second week. — The delay prompted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to lash out at the Blue Dogs …

Discussion: McClatchy Washington Bureau, The Swamp, Moe Lane, Don Surber, DownWithTyranny!, Wake up America, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Top of the Ticket, Political Byline, PoliGazette and QandO

Patrick O'Connor / The Politico:

Breakthrough on House health bill — Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has cut a deal to reconvene his committee and vote on the Democrats' sweeping health care bill, with a goal of completing work by the time lawmakers leave town for the summer on Friday.

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, Washington Monthly and Flopping Aces

CNN:
Dems say they have health care deal; no vote till fall

Discussion: Fox News, The New Republic, Zandar Versus The Stupid and RedState

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
WAXMAN, BLUE DOGS STRIKE A DEAL.... It wasn't easy …

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Marginal Revolution and MoJo Blog Posts

Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
House Retains Public Option In Compromise, But Delays Vote Until September

Discussion: The New Republic, Wonkette, D-Day and The Plum Line

CNN:
House Dems reach deal on heath care bill

Discussion: The Hill, Indecision Forever and Salon

Washington Post:

Bipartisan Senate Panel Nearing Agreement on Health-Care Bill — Panel May Vote On Bipartisan Bill Before Recess — An emerging consensus among a bipartisan group of senators is poised to shift the dynamic in the congressional debate over health-care reform and could lead to a final product …

Discussion: Reuters, New York Times, The Moderate Voice, The Note, Glenn Thrush's Blog, The Caucus, Prairie Weather, The Politico, WSJ.com, msnbc.com, AMERICAblog News and The Political Carnival

The Hill:

Dem healthcare infighting intensifies — A House fight among Democrats on overhauling the nation's healthcare system has spread to the Senate, where centrists and liberals are clashing over the direction the legislation should take. — Trouble is brewing now that a bipartisan group of senators …

Discussion: The Note, ABCNEWS, CNN, The Swamp, Taylor Marsh, PoliGazette, The Politico and The Moderate Voice

Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Baucus to Unveil Magical Health Care Bill?

Discussion: Zandar Versus The Stupid

Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
Ezra Klein Plays His Part in the “Co-Op Squeeze Play”

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, The Huffington Post, Hullabaloo, D-Day, Corrente and Blogometer

Jeffrey Young / The Hill:
Baucus: Health bill covers 95%, reduces deficit

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel

Mark Silva / The Swamp:
Obama: Critics ‘stop scaring everybody’

Discussion: The Politico and The Note

Washington Post:
As House and Senate Negotiate, Obama Fine-Tunes His Pitch

Discussion: Whiskey Fire, The Hill and Ezra Klein

Michelle Malkin:
August 22: Join the nationwide Recess Rally; Dems performing CPR on Obamacare

Discussion: Riehl World View and The Other McCain

Wall Street Journal:
Liberals Fear Losing Public-Plan Option

Discussion: Salon, KGO-TV, Daily Kos, Think Progress, Washington Post, Firedoglake and The Treatment

Mark Murray / msnbc.com:

FIRST THOUGHTS: LOSING THE MESSAGE WAR? — From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg — *** Losing the message war? Perhaps the biggest thing that stood out to us at President Obama's AARP town hall yesterday was that the White House appears to be losing the message war on health care.

Discussion: The Caucus, Time, The Hill's Pundits Blog, Firedoglake, Reuters, Taylor Marsh, The Moderate Voice, Donklephant, Political Byline, AMERICAblog News, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Associated Press, The Note and The Confluence

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

Todd unloads — NBC's Chuck Todd goes off on Glenn Beck on First Read today, but his real targets are Ailes and Huffington: “Former political consultants-turned-TV execs or former radio DJs, or former California socialites, the folks helping to accelerate the public's perception of the media off a cliff …

Discussion: AmSpecBlog, Balloon Juice and No More Mister Nice Blog

Nicholas Graham / The Huffington Post:

Lou Dobbs Slams “Tea-Bagging Queen Rachel Maddow,” Refuses To Back Off Obama Birth Certificate Controversy (AUDIO) — CNN's Lou Dobbs has come under fire for recent comments he made suggesting President Obama might be undocumented, and that, as a result, Obama's presidency and his actions as president could be deemed “illegal.”

Discussion: Think Progress, Political Byline, Media Matters for America, NewsBusters.org, Swampland and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Exclusive: Michael Steele Blasts Birtherism As “Unnecessary …

Discussion: Think Progress, The Politico, Salon, TPMDC, Ben Smith's Blog, Little Green Footballs, Brendan Nyhan and National Review

Eric Kleefeld / TPMDC:
Roy Blunt: Birtherism “A Legitimate Question,” …

Discussion: Think Progress, Washington Monthly, Talking Points Memo, The Washington Independent and Brendan Nyhan

Mike Stark / Firedoglake: Birthers, Part Deux: Republicans Divided

Harvey A. Silverglate / Forbes:

Prof. Gates' Unconstitutional Arrest — There's a First Amendment right to be rude to a cop. — The now-infamous Gates story has gone through the familiar media spin-cycle: incident, reaction, response, so on and so forth. Drowned out of this echo chamber has been an all-too-important …

Discussion: The Daily Dish, Reason and Below The Beltway

Niall O'Dowd / ABCNEWS:
Harvard Prof Gates Is Half-Irish, Related to Cop Who Arrested Him

Discussion: Hot Air, Top of the Ticket, Riehl World View, Sweetness & Light, The Huffington Post, Michelle Malkin, TPMDC, Pundit & Pundette, Jules Crittenden, Scared Monkeys, The Awl, Don Surber, American Power, The Swamp, Stop The ACLU and Prometheus 6

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:
So That Would Be “Black Irish”, I Guess

Discussion: Riehl World View

Rebecca Sinderbrand / CNN:

Vitter defends Southern influence in GOP, slams Voinovich — WASHINGTON (CNN) - Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana slammed fellow Republican George Voinovich Wednesday for saying the GOP's problems stem from the fact that it is “being taken over by Southerners,” calling the Ohio senator “a moderate, really wishy-washy.”

Discussion: Washington Monthly and AMERICAblog News

Washington Times:
Vitter: Core values key; Voinovich ‘wishy-washy’

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog, Salon and TPMDC

The Hill:

50 Most Beautiful 2009 - Top 40 (HTML) — Arjun Jaikumar … Arjun Jaikumar has been on Capitol Hill for less than two months and the shaggy-haired blogger and new-media guru for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) is already getting noticed.

Discussion: The Awl, Crooked Timber, Minnesota Independent and Political Byline

Rick Hadley / WBAP News/Talk 820:

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison Explains Plan for Gubernatorial Bid — ARLINGTON (WBAP) - U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) on Wednesday told WBAP's Mark Davis she plans to officially launch her bid for Texas governor in August. She added that she will step down from the U.S. Senate sometime …

Discussion: Politics Daily, Senate Guru, Swing State Project, Hotline On Call, TPMDC, Greg's Opinion and Burnt Orange Report

Texas Politics:
UPDATED: Hutchison says she will resign in October or Novemeber

Discussion: Townhall.com and Texas on the Potomac

The Huffington Post:

Obama's Doctor: President's Vision For Health Care Bound To Fail — The man Barack Obama consulted on medical matters for over two decades said on Tuesday that the president's vision for health care reform is bound for failure. — Dr. David Scheiner, a 70-year Chicago-based physician …

Discussion: Indecision Forever, marbury and Weasel Zippers

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

Back To Square One — The whole birth certificate issue gets weirder still: — “I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Below The Beltway, Political Byline and Balloon Juice

Gregory Levey / Newsweek:

Stand In — Why Obama should make George W. Bush his Mideast envoy. — Gerald Herbert / AP — Peace Partners: Bush and Obama could play good-cop, bad-cop with Israel — On Sunday, George Mitchell, President Obama's Middle East envoy, arrived in Israel to confer with its leaders.

Discussion: The New Republic, Zandar Versus The Stupid and Balloon Juice

Christopher Neefus / CNSNews:

White House Science Adviser Advocated ‘De-Development’ of the United States — (CNSNews.com) - President Obama's top science adviser, John P. Holdren, advocated the “de-development” of the United States in books he published in the 1970s. — “A massive campaign must be launched to restore …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, YID With LID, PoliGazette and Right Wing News

NPR:

NPR Poll Finds Tough Sledding For Obama … text sizeAAA — President Obama has hit a rough patch this summer, squeezed between a lingering recession and rising questions about the health care overhaul he has made the centerpiece of his first-year agenda.

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …, Outside The Beltway, QandO, AmSpecBlog, NewsBusters.org, Moe Lane, AMERICAblog News and Scared Monkeys

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Sarah Grabs the Grievance Grab Bag From Hillary — The woman who was prematurely counted in is out. And the woman who was prematurely counted out is in. — Goodbye, Sarah. Hello, Hillary. — In their vivid twin performances Sunday — Hillary on “Meet the Press” …

Discussion: Mediaite, DailyHowler.com, Politics Daily, Taylor Marsh and GOP 12

Gateway Pundit:

Dorothy D. Hoft... August 1925 - July 2009 — Dorothy Hoft loved God and her nine children. She loved the magnolia tree in the backyard. — My dear friend and mother passed away this evening at 10:16 PM. — She suffered a devastating heart attack 17 days ago. We put her on hospice late last week.

Discussion: thedanashow.wordpress.com, Stop The ACLU, QandO, Political Byline and Cold Fury

Ian M. / Think Progress:

Fox News legal analyst sides with Professor Gates. — On Monday, Fox News Legal Analyst and former New Jersey state Judge Andrew Napolitano told to the conservative network's audience that police broke the law when they arrested Professor Henry Louis Gates for disorderly conduct.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Raw Story, News Hounds and The Daily Dish