Top Items:
Camille Paglia / Salon:
Too late for Obama to turn it around? — Plus: The left's visionaries lost their bearings on drugs — but the GOP is led by losers — What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation …
Discussion:
POWIP, Financial Times, Don Surber, BizzyBlog, Whiskey Fire, The Strata-Sphere, Shot in the Dark, NewsBusters.org, RedState, Althouse, Commentary, Pajamas Media and Vox Popoli
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Wall Street Journal:
Obama to Endorse Public Plan in Speech — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, in a high-stakes speech Wednesday to Congress and the nation, will press for a government-run insurance option in a proposed overhaul of the U.S. health-care system that has divided lawmakers and voters for months.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Matthew Yglesias, Los Angeles Times, Prescriptions, ABCNEWS, Think Progress, Washington Wire, The Hill, Wake up America, NY Daily News, The Politico, Row 2, Seat 4, The Caucus, Pundit & Pundette, Salon, Commentary, Blog entry, Pajamas Media, TPMDC, Dennis the Peasant, MyDD, Below The Beltway, The Atlantic Politics Channel and The Reaction
Paul Krugman:
Why the public option matters — Most arguments against the public option are based either on deliberate misrepresentation of what that option would mean, or on remarkably thorough misunderstanding of the concept, which persists to a frustrating degree: I was really surprised to see Joe Klein worrying …
Discussion:
TalkLeft, QandO, The Mahablog, Left in the West, The Huffington Post, TPMDC, Verum Serum, Stop The ACLU, D-Day, The Plum Line and Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!
The Hill:
Tide turns against public option on eve of President Obama's address — Political momentum appeared to swing sharply against the public health insurance option prized by liberals Tuesday, on the eve of President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Despite Fears, Health Care Overhaul Is Moving Ahead — WASHINGTON — The conventional wisdom, here and around the country, is that the centerpiece of President Obama's domestic agenda — remaking the health care system to cut costs and cover the uninsured — is on life support and that only a political miracle could revive it.
Political Punch:Pelosi and Reid Tell President: We Have the Votes; President Wants Bill Passed Soon
Discussion:
Scared Monkeys, CNN, Hot Air, The Politico, Pat Dollard, Pajamas Media, Don Surber, New York Times and Conservative Dallas
Sarah Palin / Wall Street Journal:
Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care — The president's proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers. — Printer — Friendly — Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans “talk with one another …
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Fix, The Hill, The Note, Don Surber, The Moderate Voice, Sister Toldjah, Conservatives4Palin.com, Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Politics Daily, theblogprof, No More Mister Nice Blog, Cold Fury, Unreported, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Mediaite, msnbc.com, Another Black Conservative, Salon, Liberal Values, NewsBusters.org, Confederate Yankee, Front Row Washington, Wizbang, George's Bottom Line, RedState, Gateway Pundit, Pundit & Pundette, Polimom, Too, YID With LID, The Political Carnival, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!, POWIP, Shot in the Dark, Riehl World View and At-Largely
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Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Media Challenge: Will They Take The Palin Bait? — Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, has every right to submit an opinion piece on health care to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page, and they've got every right to print it. — But Palin's existence …
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh, Conservatives4Palin.com, Dennis the Peasant, Hot Air, No More Mister Nice Blog and Salon
Geoffrey Dunn / The Huffington Post:
Palin No Longer Writing Her Own Script — It's already been pointed out by several others that Sarah Palin has a new ghostwriter on staff and that she is clearly not the auteur of her most recent scribbles on Facebook and most certainly not the primary author of her op-ed yesterday in the Wall Street Journal.
Jonathan S. Landay / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
'We're pinned down:' 4 U.S. Marines die in Afghan ambush — Smoke billows up Tuesday after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the military entrance to Kabul's airport, killing at least three. Read the story. (Photo by Hal Bernton of the Seattle Times.)
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David Weigel / The Washington Independent:
Attacks on Sunstein Frustrate Conservative Fans — On January 8, The Wall Street Journal broke the news that Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein would be nominated to run the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It was a surprising choice for a job, created in 1980 …
Eric Schmitt / New York Times:
Times Reporter Is Freed in Afghan Raid That Kills Aide — Stephen Farrell, a New York Times reporter held captive by militants in northern Afghanistan, was freed in a military commando raid early Wednesday, but his Afghan interpreter was killed during the rescue effort.
Discussion:
Times of London, Michael Calderone's Blog, Abu Muqawama, BBC, The AfPak Channel, Guardian, Sweetness & Light, The E&P Pub and The Page
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Greg Mitchell / The Huffington Post:Again: Media, and Wikipedia, Blackout on Kidnapping of ‘NYT’ Reporter in Afghanistan
Discussion:
Mediaite
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:
Our One-Party Democracy — Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.
Discussion:
The Corner on National …, The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason, Gawker, The League of Ordinary … and Climate Progress
Daily Mail:
‘Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby’ — Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early. — They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines …
Tony Romm / The Hill:
Chambliss: Obama must express ‘humility’ in Wed. speech — Voters' reaction to the idea of a public option means the president must express “humility” in his health care address Wednesday night, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said Tuesday. — “I think what you're looking at is folks …
Discussion:
Freedom's Lighthouse
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Rachel Slajda / LiveWire:Chambliss: Obama Better Show Humility In Speech To Congress
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Balloon Juice, The Political Carnival, pandagon.net, AMERICAblog News and Shakesville
Amy Gardner / Washington Post:
After Thesis Uproar, McDonnell's Strongly Worded Comments on Gays Resurface — ‘Homosexual Conduct’ Comments ‘Irrelevant’ to Campaign, He Says — In January 2003, then-Del. Robert F. McDonnell helped gavel in one of the most extraordinary judicial reappointment hearings in Virginia history …
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
As an Exotic Mortgage Resets, Payments Skyrocket — Edward and Maria Moller are worried about losing their house — not now, but in 2013. — That is when the suburban San Diego schoolteachers will see their mortgage payments jump, most likely beyond their ability to pay.
Peter Whoriskey / Washington Post:
U.S. ‘Unlikely’ to Recoup Auto Outlay, Panel Finds — The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers' rescue.
The Huffington Post:
Cramdown Is Back: Banks Against Homeowners, Round 2 — Cramdown is back. — House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) tells the Huffington Post he plans to revive the effort to give bankruptcy judges the authority to renegotiate home mortgages …
Eric Boehlert / Media Matters for America:
With one simple sentence, ABC News confirms the death of Beltway journalism — It's from an online report about the Obama school “controversy,” and it's written by Dan Harris. In his piece, Harris notes that conservatives pre-emptively blasted Obama's stay-in-school speech even though conservatives …
Maureen Dowd / New York Times:
Less Spocky, More Rocky — As soon as I started covering Barack Obama, I knew he was going to be trouble. — Not Global Trouble, like W. and Dick Cheney. Or Hanky-Panky Trouble, like Bill Clinton and John Edwards. Or Tedious Trouble, like John Kerry and Michael Dukakis.
Jesse Lee / WhiteHouse.gov Blog:
The Investiture of Justice Sotomayor — This afternoon President Obama and Vice President Biden attended the formal investiture ceremony for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, where Chief Justice Roberts called on Attorney General Holder to present Justice Sotomayor's commission.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
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Brian Vogt / Across the Aisle:
Not time to do Afghanistan on the cheap — As Chris Preble mentioned in his post last week, there is are two different bipartisan responses to the war in Afghanistan. On one side, a collection of those on the left and the right are advocating for pulling back from this conflict …
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