Top Items:
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
How Conservatives Are Blowing Their Chance — President Obama is on his way to Portsmouth, New Hampshire at this hour for a town hall meeting on health care. At this same hour last week, several of the President's top political advisers were meeting in a White House conference room to discuss …
Discussion:
CNN, The Moderate Voice, Taylor Marsh, No More Mister Nice Blog, Below The Beltway, Liberal Values, Newshoggers.com and INSTAPUTZ
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
What's the Point of These Health Care Town Halls? — Michael Crowley liked Senator Claire McCaskill's performance at a town hall earlier today: … I agree, but watching McCaskill on TV what I mostly thought of was that I don't understand why members of congress are holding these town halls.
Discussion:
Democratic Strategist
WhiteHouse.gov Blog:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM TOWN HALL — THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Portsmouth! Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Everybody have a seat. Oh, thank you so — AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you! — THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. Thank you. (Laughter.)
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Dennis the Peasant, Left Coast Rebel, Washington Monthly, Donklephant and Blue Virginia
CNN:
Specter faces angry crowd at town hall meeting — LEBANON, Pennsylvania (CNN) — A hostile crowd shouted questions and made angry statements Tuesday at a town hall meeting on health care led by Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter. — At one point, Specter shouted into his microphone …
Political Punch:
President Obama's “Senior” Moment? — Rachel Martin and Jake Tapper report: — President Obama today suggested that the health care reform legislation for which he's pushing has been endorsed by the American Association of Retired Person. — “We have the AARP on board …
Ezra Klein:
It Is Democracy, Not Health-Care Reform, That Is Sick — As Josh Marshall says, we've reached a point in the health-care reform discussion where logic has fallen apart. Consider, for instance, Danielle Allen's op-ed this morning. Discussing the insistence of some that health-care reform …
Discussion:
Democracy in America, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, Will Wilkinson, The American Scene, American Power, Reason, Liberal Values, Stop The ACLU, Neptunus Lex, Washington Monthly, Firedoglake, JustOneMinute, Democratic Strategist, The New Republic, The Strata-Sphere and AMERICAblog News
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Carrie Johnson / Washington Post:
Documents Detail Campaign to Oust U.S. Attorney — The dismissal of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias in December 2006 followed extensive communication among lawyers and political aides in the White House who hashed over complaints about his work on public corruption cases against Democrats …
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Zachary Roth / TPMMuckraker:
Email: Rich Lowry Offered To Help White House Spin Firings — Here's a fun nugget from the U.S. attorney documents (h/t reader B.M.): — It looks like Rick Lowry of National Review offered the White House his services in doing some positive P.R. on behalf of Rove protege Tim Griffin …
Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Matthews to Obama protester: Why'd you bring a loaded gun to a town hall with the president? — Good question, especially given the sign this guy was carrying. Considering the lengths to which the Secret Service normally goes to investigate threats against the president …
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Andy Barr / The Politico:
Specter faces fury: ‘You work for us!’
Specter faces fury: ‘You work for us!’
Discussion:
Michael Calderone's Blog, Below The Beltway, Scorecard's Blog, Ben Smith's Blog and Wake up America
Scott / Power Line:
Does Linda Douglass know about this? part 2 — Barack Obama's denial that he has advocated a “single payer,” Canadian style health care system may not have been the most comic moment of his Portsmouth dog-and-pony show. He also disputed the notion that adding a government plan to “compete” …
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Philip Klein / AmSpecBlog:
Obama Lies on Single-Payer, Disses Post Office
Obama Lies on Single-Payer, Disses Post Office
Discussion:
Sister Toldjah
Dorothy Rabinowitz / Wall Street Journal:
Obama's Tone-Deaf Health Campaign
Obama's Tone-Deaf Health Campaign
Discussion:
The New Republic, Betsy's Page, JustOneMinute, Founding Bloggers, Hyscience and Bloomberg
Rasmussen Reports:
Support for Congressional Health Care Reform Falls to New Low — Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That's down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.
Brendan Steinhauser / FreedomWorks:
FREEDOMWORKS ISSUES ABJECT APOLOGY TO LEFT — Free-market organization thanks left-wing groups for instruction on the finer points of intelligent policy debate — Washington, DC — Today, FreedomWorks released an apology to leftist political organizations, including MoveOn.org …
Benjamin Spillman / Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Poll: Reid would lose if Lowden were to run — Republican Sue Lowden would defeat incumbent Democratic Sen. Harry Reid by 6 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup, according to a poll of likely Nevada voters. — Unfortunately for Reid-bashers, Lowden isn't running — at least not yet.
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Peter Daou / ConsiderThisNews:
“Send Them Home With a Bullet in the Head” — I've gone on the record disagreeing with the term ‘Teabaggers’ and with the use of the word ‘un-American’ - I've done so because despite the astroturfing and the faux-grassroots opposition to health care reform, I place a premium on citizen activism …
Niall Ferguson / Financial Times:
A runaway deficit may soon test Obama's luck — Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat! Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks! — President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black.
Michael Lind / Salon:
Are liberals seceding from sanity? — The left is crazy to insult white Southerners as a group — Back in the 1960s, Seymour Martin Lipset and Richard Hofstadter and other liberal sociologists, historians and political scientists, puzzled that anyone could support Barry Goldwater rather …
John H. Richardson / Esquire:
What Really Happens When You Demand the President Produce His Birth Certificate? — You get a bunch of outrageous people — very nice people, mind you, but frustrated enough to believe anything about Obama — storming the offices of the attorney general, the secretary of state, and the FBI.
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
How Democrats And Republicans Exploit Emotion — The field of cognitive neuroscience has all but given up trying to distinguish between emotion and reason, but political debate evidently lags far behind the science. Some observers of health care politics, particularly on the left …
Washington Post:
White House Decries Physicians Committee's Poster, Which Mentions Obama Girls — The posters went up last week, 14 in Union Station. On each of the large displays, a thought bubble rises up from a picture of a beautiful 8-year-old: “President Obama's daughters get healthy school lunches.
Discussion:
Power Line, The Huffington Post, Political Punch, Political Byline, Politics Daily, The Caucus, JustOneMinute and American Power
William D. Cohan / The Atlantic Online:
The Final Days of Merrill Lynch — IT'S BEEN ALMOST a year since Bank of America agreed to buy Merrill Lynch, on September 15, for $50 billion in stock, in what now looks like one of the most fraught deals in the history of American business. The deal was announced on the same …
Discussion:
Clusterstock
Peter Hamby / CNN:
Sanford defends expensive travel, denies divorce — (CNN) - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford defended his trips on expensive international flights on Tuesday and said that a state Senate probe into his foreign travel is driven by a politically-motivated “feeding frenzy.”
Discussion:
The Political Carnival
David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:
Armed and Dangerous? — MSNBC just aired footage of the crowd gathering at the Obama town hall meeting on health care that's supposed to start later today in New Hampshire and pointed out one man in a group holding protest signs with a gun in a holster on his hip. Apparently not a law officer, but a civilian.
Michelle Malkin:
Obama Kabuki theater in Portsmouth; crowd chants “YES, WE CAN!;” little girl laments “mean things” on protest signs; O lies about single-payer support — The Obama town hall in Portsmouth is underway. The president wrapped up his remarks to the cheers of “YES WE CAN!” from the fair and balanced audience.
Meghan McCain / Blogs and Stories:
My Message for Michelle Malkin — Blogs and Stories — The Daily Beast's Meghan McCain on why the far-right pundit, who says McCain needs to shut up, won't be getting her wish—and why telling moderates to get out of the party is bad for the GOP. — Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit …
Gateway Pundit:
Classy vs Classless: How Bush Handled Critics vs Obama — Classy vs Classless— President George W. Bush was the punching bag for the democrat media complex for 8 long years. He often had to defend himself from hateful attacks by the unhinged left. But, he never acted bitter or spiteful.
Fox News:
Georgia Congressman Who Hosted Rowdy Town Hall Finds Office Vandalized — A Georgia congressman who faced down a rowdy town hall meeting last week found his office vandalized with a swastika painted over the official congressional sign. — FOXNews.com — A Georgia congressman who faced …
Discussion:
Political Insider, Associated Press, Zandar Versus The Stupid, Townhall.com, On Deadline and LewRockwell.com Blog
Chris Ariens / TVNewser:
No More Talk Radio Hosts on CNN? — Exclusive: TVNewser has learned, and a CNN spokesperson confirms, that in his morning editorial meeting today, CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein asked his show producers to avoid booking talk radio hosts. “Complex issues require world class reporting,” …