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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.)

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 …

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.

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 …

Lobbyist-Run Group Americans for Prosperity Provides Talkings Points To ‘Birther’ At Rep. Perriello Town Hall  —  EDITOR'S NOTE: Over the coming month, ThinkProgress will be traveling to town hall events across the country to report on what we're seeing on the ground.  This is our second eyewitness report.

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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—>

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 …

Dobbs Sort Of Sorry For Saying Dean Could Be Stopped With “Stake Through His Heart”  —  CNN host Lou Dobbs is expressing some regret for referring to former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean as a “bloodsucking leftist” who could only be stopped if one “put a stake through his heart.”

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 …

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.

On Private Conference Call, Tea Party Organizers Say No Reform At All Is Goal  —  On a private conference call, a group of top Tea Party and conservative organizers offered a surprisingly frank description of their goal, according to a source on the call: Completely blocking any kind of bipartisan compromise …

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.