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1:30 PM ET, August 17, 2009

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Administration Official: “Sebelius Misspoke.”  —  An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “misspoke” when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option “is not an essential part” of reform.
RELATED:
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
The Swiss Menace  —  It was the blooper heard round the world.  In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor's Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking …
Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
Sorry, Can't Pass Health Care Bill Without a Public Option  —  The headline in The Hill says it loud and clear: … Many people are rightly upset that the White House is sending stronger and stronger signals that they are willing to jettison a public option.
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
Life After the Death of the Public Option  —  From the President on downward, the White House now seems resigned to losing the fight over the “public option”, a government-run insurance plan that would complete against private plans.  It's time to re-assess the playing field in light of this development.
Michelle Malkin:
White House public option ploy: A trial balloon, not a white flag  —  Do you believe the Sunday spin on the White House's alleged “retreat” from the Obamacare public option?  —  Video of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's pooh-poohing of the public option provision is here.
Jay Cost / HorseRaceBlog:
Obama Misread His Mandate  —  After a rough week for health care reform, Democratic leaders appear to be pulling back on their demand for a public option.  It remains to be seen whether liberal Democrats, especially in the House where they are more numerous, will go along with this.
Discussion: THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS
Mike Allen / The Politico:
Health concession fuels blowback  —  House Democratic officials say a public option will remain in their version of a health reform bill, even now that the White House has acknowledged it may be dropped later.  —  “This is just for the Senate,” a House leadership official said about the administration's concession on a public option.
Discussion: Salon, Raw Story and Below The Beltway
Ian Swanson / The Hill:
Obama picks fight with left on health reform
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Morning Fix: Creigh Deeds's Presidential Dilemma
Chris Bowers / Open Left:
Democratic Elites Urge Progressive Block To Fold
Discussion: Matthew Yglesias and TalkLeft
The Note:
The Note: Pulling Plugs …
Ross Doutha / New York Times:
Telling Grandma ‘No’  —  When Democratic congressmen dream these days, they're tongue-tied in town halls, fumbling with their microphones while they're shouted down by slavering, pitchfork-wielding Limbaugh listeners.  —  But Barack Obama is wiser than most Democratic congressmen, and his nightmares are savvier.
Jennifer Graham / Canadian Press:
Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors  —  SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.  —  Dr. Anne Doig says patients …
Brad Heath / USA Today:
Poll: 57% don't see stimulus working  —  WASHINGTON — Six months after President Obama launched a $787 billion plan to right the nation's economy, a majority of Americans think the avalanche of new federal aid has cost too much and done too little to end the recession.  —  POLL RESULTS: Six questions
Rajiv Chandrasekaran / Washington Post:
Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change  —  McKiernan's Ouster Reflected New Realities in Afghanistan — and Washington  —  In mid-March, as a White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan was nearing completion, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen …
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
ORRIN HATCH, PAINFULLY CONFUSED.... It's frightening to think this guys was involved for months with the center-right negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee.  —  On ABC's “This Week” yesterday, Jake Tapper asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah a good question.
Discussion: The Treatment and ABCNEWS
National Review:
Rationing and Rationality  —  Defined at a high level of abstraction, rationing is inevitable in medicine.  Not everything that might be in a patient's best interest can be done in a world of finite resources, and some constraint has to limit his treatment.  Thus the left-wing jibe that the market features “rationing by price.”
Bill Rankin / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Court says Troy Davis can present evidence  —  Condemned killer on death row for murder of off-duty police officer  —  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday gave Troy Anthony Davis the chance to present evidence in court that the condemned man has said for years will clear him of the murder of a Savannah police officer.
Discussion: The Moderate Voice and SCOTUSblog
Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
The Press Loves a Hero, but . . .  Dan Rather is wrong.  —  Barack Obama should stay out of it.  —  We don't need no stinkin' presidential commission.  —  It's not that the former CBS anchor has delivered a flawed diagnosis.  The news business, as Rather wrote in a Washington Post op-ed …
Mike Lupica / NY Daily News:
Lupica: President Obama is the real target of health care protesters  —  The woman went to an airplane hangar in Belgrade, Mont., the other day, prepared to actually listen to President Obama talk about health care reform in America.  —  She has watched, the way the rest of us have watched …
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
ARMEY'S STANDARDS, MEMORY LACKING.... On “Meet the Press” yesterday, David Gregory asked Dick Armey a reasonable question: “FreedomWorks, your advocacy organization is getting together a lot of folks, coordinating a lot of the efforts to get people out for the [health care] protests.
 
 
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 More Items: 
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Obama underlines DOMA opposition
Washington Post:
Time to Legalize Drugs  —  Undercover Baltimore police officer …
Discussion: Reason
Row 2, Seat 4:
White House responds to Major Garrett's questions about unsolicited emails
Discussion: Mediaite and RedState
Emily Miller / Politics Daily:
Tom DeLay on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ — It's Hammer Time!
Michael Yon:
The Kopp-Etchells Effect
Rod Nordland / New York Times:
More Troops Are Sought for Iraq's Restive North
Discussion: The Page
Tom DeLay / ABCNEWS:
‘Dancing With the Stars’ New Season Cast Revealed on ‘Good Morning America’
Discussion: Shakesville
 Earlier Items: 
Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:
Israelis sour on Rahm
Discussion: Salon, Israpundit and Israel Matzav
The Platform:
Truth and not-quite-truth in the health reform debate