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 …

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” …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Anonymous Group Making Robocalls With Fake Harry Reid Caller ID  —  Congressional staffers have been plagued over the past two days with telephone calls that appear to be coming from Senate Majority Harry Reid's office but are actually from an anonymous organization highly critical of Democrats.

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 …

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.

“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 …

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.)

Santorum dips toes in 2012 Iowa waters  —  Add former Sen. Rick Santorum to the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates.  —  POLITICO has learned Santorum will visit first-in-the-nation Iowa this fall for a series of appearances before the sort of conservative activists …

Jesse Griffin: Just Asking Questions  —  The investigation into infamous, expletive-spewing, former assistant kindergarten instructor and anti-Palin blogger, who when not encouraging masturbation on a blog he provided a link to on his MySpace page that any student who knew him by name could have discovered …

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 …

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 …

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,” …

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.

Little girl at Obama town hall has not-so-random political connections  —  As we always like to point out: There are no coincidences in Obama world.  —  Via the Boston Globe: Surprise! … Tons of readers point to this AR15.com post tracking Hall's political footprint, including this Facebook page and photo:

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.

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.

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.”

Obama baby boom: Predicted surge in births goes bust  —  On Nov. 4, the hope and happiness seemed boundless for supporters of President-elect Barack Obama, leading some to speculate, with a wink and a nod, that in nine months there would be a virtual Obama baby boom — a celebratory uptick in the national birthrate.

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.

Cap and Trade: Measuring the Disaster  —  The Heritage Foundation has released a new economic analysis of Waxman-Markey, the cap and trade bill that is dead—we hope—at least for this year.  The results aren't pretty.  Heritage finds that Waxman Markey would, by 2035: