Top Items:
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 …
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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 …
Matt Corley / Think Progress:
Town hall crowd boos Specter when he calls President Obama an ‘American.’ — Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) held a town hall today in Lebanon, PA, which was carried live by all three cable news networks. Towards the end, a man critical of health care reform asked Specter to …
Andy Barr / The Politico:
Specter faces fury: ‘You work for us!’
Specter faces fury: ‘You work for us!’
Discussion:
Scorecard's Blog, Ben Smith's Blog, Michael Calderone's Blog, Below The Beltway and Wake up America
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 …
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Ezra Klein:
Is the Government Going to Euthanize your Grandmother? An Interview With Sen. Johnny Isakson. — Sarah Palin's belief that the House health-care reform bill would create “death panels” might be particularly extreme, but she's hardly the only person to wildly misunderstand the section …
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, The Nation, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Matthew Yglesias, Salon, The Plum Line, Facing South, DownWithTyranny!, Daily Kos, Below The Beltway, On Politics, Hullabaloo, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, News Hounds, PoliBlog, ATTACKERMAN, Newshoggers.com, Firedoglake, Raw Story, James Fallows, The Treatment, MoJo Blog Posts, The Washington Independent and PolitiFact.com statements
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
ABC RUNS SOLID FACT-CHECKING SEGMENT.... For all the complaining I do about news outlets struggling to sort out fact from fiction, it's only fair to point to a good example of the media actually informing the public about a controversy in a fair and accurate way.
Discussion:
Outside The Beltway
Political Punch:
President Obama Addresses Sarah Palin “Death Panels,” “Wild Representations”
President Obama Addresses Sarah Palin “Death Panels,” “Wild Representations”
Discussion:
ABCNEWS, The Daily Dish, Matthew Yglesias, Conservatives4Palin.com and God's Politics Blog
Kate Snow / ABCNEWS:
Health Care ‘Death Panels’ a Myth
Health Care ‘Death Panels’ a Myth
Discussion:
msnbc.com, The Strata-Sphere, Ben Smith's Blog, Liberal Values and Michael Calderone's Blog
Political Punch:
Lost in Translation: Clinton Says She, Not Bill, is the Secretary of State — ABC News' Kirit Radia reports: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what “Mr. Clinton” thought about a Chinese trade deal …
Discussion:
Power Line, Washington Post, Gateway Pundit, Jules Crittenden, Sense of Events, The Note, The Moderate Voice, The Confluence, BuzzFlash.org, Shakesville, Taylor Marsh, Guardian, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Scared Monkeys, CNN, TigerHawk, New York Magazine, Outside The Beltway, TalkLeft, theblogprof, Below The Beltway and The Democratic Daily
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Megan Garber / CJR:
Andrea Mitchell Attributes Clinton's “Lost in Translation” …
Andrea Mitchell Attributes Clinton's “Lost in Translation” …
Discussion:
The Confluence
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
NV-Sen: Heller Won't Run — Nevada Rep. Dean Heller has decided not to run against Harry Reid (D-Nev.), robbing Republicans of their top recruit against the Senate Majority Leader in 2010, according to an informed source. — Heller, who was elected to the vast 2nd district in 2006 …
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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.
Discussion:
Real Clear Politics, Weekly Standard, YID With LID, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room and AmSpecBlog
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.
John Bresnahan / The Politico:
Rove key to New Mexico attorney firing — Documents released today by the House Judiciary Committee show that Karl Rove, the former top political adviser to President George W. Bush, played a critical role in the firing of the U.S. attorney in New Mexico following the 2006 elections.
Discussion:
At-Largely
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Carrie Johnson / Washington Post:
Documents Detail Campaign to Oust U.S. Attorney
Documents Detail Campaign to Oust U.S. Attorney
Discussion:
TalkLeft
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.
RADAR:
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW: Sarah Palin Resigned Due To Marital Troubles, Says Levi Johnston — Sarah Palin's marriage has been in trouble from the beginning, says Levi Johnston, the father of their grandson Tripp and ex-fiance of daughter Bristol. — What's more Levi told RadarOnline.com …
Philip Elliott / The Huffington Post:
Obama says health care critics use ‘scare tactics’ — PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Braced for a fight he never got, President Barack Obama went on the offensive in support of his health care plan Tuesday, urging a town hall audience not to listen to those who seek to “scare and mislead the American people.”
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Ben Armbruster / Think Progress:
Dingell says town hall mobs remind him of the Ku Klux Klan. — Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), currently the longest serving member of the House of Representatives, has been on the receiving end of some rowdy town hall meetings recently. People in attendance have displayed signs comparing President Obama …
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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:
Political Punch, Politics Daily, Political Byline, JustOneMinute, The Caucus and American Power
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 …
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.
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 …
psychologytoday.com:
Kiss my APA! — I've always been interested in really smart people who are cocksure about really dumb ideas. Drew Westen's recent presentation at this year's American Psychological Association Conference in Toronto helped me explore this phenomenon even further. <!—break—>
Carla Baranauckas / New York Times:
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Founder of Special Olympics, Dies at 88 — Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a member of one of the most prominent families in American politics and a trailblazer in the effort to improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, died early Tuesday morning at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Mass. She was 88.
Patrick O'Connor / The Politico:
GOP rebranding effort flames out — Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) generated the kind of buzz other politicians covet when he launched his bid to help rebrand the Republican Party last spring. — Television crews and reporters wedged themselves among the crowd of party faithful to cover …
Discussion:
msnbc.com, Washington Monthly, The Confluence, The Page, GOP 12 and The Washington Independent