memeorandum: A Neutral Guide To The Legitimate Health Care Debate (Jason Arvak/PoliGazette)

2:45 PM ET, August 13, 2009

Top Items:

Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush — ‘Statute of Limitations Has Expired’ on Many Secrets, Former Vice President Says — In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the “far left” agenda of the new commander in chief.

Rasmussen Reports:

Election 2010: Pennsylvania Senate Election — Pennsylvania 2010 Senate Match-ups: Specter, Sestak Top Toomey — Uncomfortable town hall meetings are just the tip of the iceberg for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. He now trails Republican Pat Toomey by double digits in his bid …

Rasmussen Reports:

Trust on Issues — Voters Give GOP First-Time Lead on Health Care — For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%.

Discussion: Hot Air, Moe Lane, JammieWearingFool and NO QUARTER

PittsburghLIVE.com: Rasmussen poll: Toomey crushing Specter, Sestak

Patterico's Pontifications:

Roxana Mayer: I'm Not a Doctor But I Play One at Town Hall Meetings — [This post follows up on a previous post in which I questioned the credentials of a woman at a Texas town hall meeting who claimed to be a doctor, but turned out to be anything but. She is a graduate student in social work — oh, and an Obama delegate.

Matt Bramanti / Lone Star Times:

Obama camp plants fake doc, Che fan at Jackson Lee forum — I was reading the Chron's piece about Sheila Jackson Lee's town hall, when something caught my eye: … In this video, Mayer claims to be a general practitioner, eliciting applause and even a hug from Queen Sheila:

Discussion: Townhall.com, Blue Crab Boulevard, American Power, Gateway Pundit, Michelle Malkin, Redhot, Freedom's Lighthouse and Weasel Zippers

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Video: ObamaCare fans take Astroturfing to a new level; Mayer an OFA organizer

Discussion: NewsBusters.org

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

‘LOST CONTROL OF THE MESSAGE’.... There was an interesting exchange yesterday in the White House briefing room. A reporter asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the administration's message strategy when it comes to health care reform. … Gibbs responded by noting that there's …

Discussion: WhiteHouse.gov Blog and Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Obama Is Taking an Active Role in Talks on Health Care Plan — WASHINGTON — In pursuing his proposed overhaul of the health care system, President Obama has consistently presented himself as aloof from the legislative fray, merely offering broad principles.

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog, Washington Post, PoliGazette, Political Punch, Ezra Klein, The Note, The Confluence, The Huffington Post, Dennis the Peasant, The Page and Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!

Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal:
Obama and the Permanent Campaign

Discussion: Think Progress, Time, Washington Monthly, Commentary and And So it Goes in Shreveport

J. Patrick Coolican / Las Vegas Sun:

Heller acknowledges the John Ensign effect — Affair influenced decision not to challenge Reid, he says — Rep. Dean Heller's comments Wednesday to Jon Ralston, left, on “Face to Face” fuel speculation he is eyeing a Senate run in 2012. — 2 a.m. — Rep. Dean Heller has become …

Discussion: The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Scorecard's Blog and TPMMuckraker

Jill Lawrence / Politics Daily:

Nineteen Minutes In a Car With Harry Reid — LAS VEGAS - Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, was having second thoughts - or was he? - about the way he had characterized people who are disrupting town halls with “lies, innuendo and rumor,” and not letting others speak. They are, he said, “evil-mongers.”

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, Eye on 2010 and Power Line

Eric Zimmermann / The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:
Reid: Protesters are ‘evil-mongers’

Discussion: Weekly Standard

Greg Scandlen / AmSpecBlog:

Palin Is Not Wrong — As virtually everybody in America now knows, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin posted the following on her FaceBook page: … Naturally, she was roundly reviled for these comments. One person quoted by the New York Times replied, “One problem …

Michael O'Brien / The Hill's Blog Briefing Room: Coburn: ‘Death panel’ claims aren't outrageous

CBS News: Oregon Rep. Fights Palin, Gingrich Attacks

Los Angeles Times:

Wanted: Obama healthcare reform volunteers willing to be paid $15 an hour — It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama's embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer …

Discussion: The Strata-Sphere, Sister Toldjah, Hyscience and Gateway Pundit

The Huffington Post:

Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma — A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.

Discussion: The Atlantic Politics Channel, Dennis the Peasant, The Washington Independent and Swampland

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Massive campaign for Obama hits air — A new coalition on Thursday launched $12 million in television ads to support President Barack Obama's health reform plan, in the opening wave of a planned tens of millions of dollars this fall. — The new group, funded largely by the pharmaceutical industry …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Page and The Atlantic Politics Channel

Jonathan Martin / Ben Smith's Blog:
Strange bedfellows coalition begins massive ad campaign

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias

Judith Warner:

Hillary Fights a Tide of Trivialization — This was supposed to be the trip that would show exactly how Hillary Rodham Clinton would make good on her pledge, at her confirmation hearing for secretary of state, to make women's issues “central” to U.S. foreign policy, not “adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser.”

Discussion: TalkLeft, The Plank, Outside The Beltway, New York Times, DailyHowler.com and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Maggie Haberman / New York Post:
BILL SIDESTEPS GRILL OVER HILL

Discussion: msnbc.com and The Page

Max Abelson / New York Observer:

Paul Krugman Gets a New Place to Hang His Hat and Nobel — The Times columnist, Princeton professor, recent Nobel winner, and all-around ceaselessly smart economist Paul Krugman has a nice new co-op. According to a deed filed in city records today, Mr. Krugman and his wife …

Discussion: Telegraph

David Frum / THE WEEK News & Opinion:

The reckless Right courts violence — Hysterical talk from TV and radio hosts may be a cynical marketing exercise. But it's getting too dangerous to ignore. — A man bearing a sidearm appears outside President Obama's Aug. 11 town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., under a sign proclaiming …

Discussion: Firedoglake, The League of Ordinary …, msnbc.com, PoliBlog and Conservatives4Palin.com

CNN:

Tears, fears and shouting at Cardin town hall — (CNN) — There were tears, fears and lots of shouting Wednesday when Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland held a town hall meeting on health care at Hagerstown Community College in his home state. — Dozens of audience members crowded …

Discussion: The Washington Independent

J. Taylor Rushing / The Hill:
Sen. Cardin hears an earful on healthcare

Discussion: Hot Air and American Power

Jesse Lee / WhiteHouse.gov Blog:

The Return of the Viral Email — Read an email out this morning from Senior Advisor David Axelrod and watch a new “Reality Check” video from Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle below. Both respond to the malicious chain emails that have been circulating on health insurance reform:

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Swamp, erica's Blog, Big Brass Blog, USA Today, Gawker and msnbc.com

Janet Adamy / Wall Street Journal:

End-of-Life Provision Loses Favor — The cost of caring for patients who are near death accounts for a big piece of the government's medical spending. But a furor over a provision for government-paid counseling to plan for end-of-life care is steering lawmakers away from the issue.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Glenn Thrush's Blog, Ezra Klein, Talking Points Memo, TPMDC and Capitol Briefing

Carol E. Lee / The Politico:

Says he flubbed stats — Before presenting tennis legend Billie Jean King with the Medal of Freedom Wednesday, President Obama ticked off some ... ... of her accomplishments: 12 Grand Slam titles, 101 doubles titles, 67 singles titles. — “Pretty good, Billie Jean,” he quipped.

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, Outside The Beltway, Scared Monkeys and Freedom's Lighthouse

Henry Payne / Detroit News:

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Energy Leader (National Review, 08.10.09) — Detroit, Mich. - Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven't risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade …

Discussion: theblogprof, Moonbattery, Don Surber, Dennis the Peasant and The Foundry

National Enquirer:

JOHN EDWARDS SECRET DNA TEST PROVES HE'S THE DADDY! — BOMBSHELL WORLD EXCLUSIVE! John Edwards has secretly undergone a DNA test - and it proves he's the father of his mistress' love child, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively. — Multiple sources confirm the bombshell development …

Discussion: Gawker, Swampland, MomLogic, Scared Monkeys, Liberal Values and Stop The ACLU

Jon Hilsenrath / Wall Street Journal:

Cap-and-Trade's Unlikely Critics: Its Creators — Economists Behind Original Concept Question the System's Large-Scale Usefulness, and Recommend Emissions Taxes Instead — In the 1960s, a University of Wisconsin graduate student named Thomas Crocker came up with a novel solution …

Discussion: The Foundry, Environmental Capital, Politics Daily, AmSpecBlog and thedanashow.wordpress.com

Mickey Kaus / Kausfiles:

Will You/Won't You Be on My “Death Panel”? — My friend Bob Wright posts a persuasive “partial list” of the “false and misleading things” he argues a recent New Republic book review said about The Evolution of God. … The disputes are grouped into six substantive issues.

Discussion: Cold Fury, TigerHawk and JustOneMinute