Top Items:
Wall Street Journal:
Senate on Verge of Health Bill — Measure With Stiffer Penalties on Employers and Public Plan Could Come This Week — WASHINGTON — Top Senate Democrats are close to finalizing their health bill and could unveil a measure as soon as early this week that would include stiffer penalties …
Discussion:
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Dan Pfeiffer / White House.gov Blog Feed:
The Public Option: Rumor Check — A rumor is making the rounds that the White House and Senator Reid are pursuing different strategies on the public option. Those rumors are absolutely false. — In his September 9th address to Congress, President Obama made clear that he supports …
Newsweek:
Obama's pointless bipartisanship. — From the magazine issue dated Nov 2, 2009 — “There she is, the Party of One!” cried Sen. Barbara Mikulski when she saw Sen. Olympia Snowe outside the Senate chamber last week. Mikulski, in a wheel-chair because of a broken ankle, rolled closer to the object of her praise.
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
After Reform Passes — So, how well will health reform work after it passes? — There's a part of me that can't believe I'm asking that question. After all, serious health reform has long seemed like an impossible dream. And it could yet go all wrong.
Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:
Senate Dems to Obama: Um, a Little Help Here? — After a weekend of furious activity, Democratic leaders in the Senate think they are close to getting the votes they need in order to pass an “opt-out” version of the public option. — But they feel like President Obama could be doing more to help them …
Eric Zimmermann / The Hill:
White House backing Reid on public option — The White House is trying to dispel rumors that it is less than enthusiastic about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) approach to the public option. — Reid is reportedly rounding up votes for a public option with an opt-out clause.
Alec MacGillis / Washington Post:
If you build a coverage mandate, will they come?
If you build a coverage mandate, will they come?
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias
Ezra Klein:
Congress tiring of reading the White House's tea leaves on the public option
Congress tiring of reading the White House's tea leaves on the public option
Discussion:
The Daily Dish
J. Taylor Rushing / The Hill:
Lieberman: Health bill concern not based on state's insurance firms
Lieberman: Health bill concern not based on state's insurance firms
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal
Lydia Saad / Gallup:
Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group — Compared with 2008, more Americans “conservative” in general, and on issues — PRINCETON, NJ — Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June.
Washington Post:
U.S. tested 2 Afghan scenarios in war game — Obama and advisers evaluating exercise that used different troop levels — By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Page A01 — The Pentagon's top military officer oversaw a secret war game this month to evaluate the two primary military options …
Discussion:
Politics Daily, Guardian, BLACKFIVE, DownWithTyranny!, The Washington Independent and National Review Online
Robert J. Samuelson / Washington Post:
Samuelson on the fake debate on the public health plan — In the health-care debate, the “public plan” is all things to all people. For supporters, it would discipline greedy private insurers and make health-care coverage affordable. For detractors, it's a way station on the path …
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Fred Hiatt / Washington Post:
Hiatt on the public option — Talk cloaks political inaction — The “public option” is dangerous not for what it might do but for what it allows the politicians not to do. — From the start, the Obama administration has said that health-care reform has to make health care both more accessible and less costly .
Stephen Labaton / New York Times:
U.S. Considers Reining In ‘Too Big to Fail’ Institutions — WASHINGTON — Congress and the Obama administration are about to take up one of the most fundamental issues stemming from the near collapse of the financial system last year — how to deal with institutions that are so big …
Jon Meacham / Newsweek:
The Great American Ideological Crackup — From the magazine issue dated Nov 2, 2009 — Shortly after the 2004 presidential election, I was chatting with a senior figure in the Democratic Party when, inevitably, the talk turned to why John Kerry had lost.
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Patrick Gavin / The Politico:
PRESIDENT OBAMA TIES GEORGE W. BUSH ON GOLF — President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years. — CBS' Mark Knoller — an unofficial documentarian and statistician of all things White House-related …
New York Times:
The Cover-Up Continues — The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration's expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush's cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama's cover-up.
Ronald Kessler / NewsMax.com:
Gov. Pawlenty: Obama Corrosive to Freedom, Liberty — President Obama has used bait-and-switch tactics first to get elected and now to push his healthcare proposal, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty tells Newsmax. — During the campaign, Obama portrayed himself as a centrist but has governed as a …
Patricia Murphy / Politics Daily:
Newt Gingrich Considering Run for President in 2012 — Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and perennial big thinker in the Republican party, said this morning that he will likely run for president in 2012 if he and his wife, Callista, assess the field of candidates in 2011 and feel “a requirement as citizens that we run.”
Ross Douthat / New York Times:
Benedict's Gambit — The Church of England has survived the Spanish Armada, the English Civil War and Elton John performing “Candle in the Wind” at Princess Diana's Westminster Abbey funeral. So it will probably survive the note the Vatican issued last week, inviting disaffected Anglicans to head Romeward …
Kristi Keck / CNN:
Is it morning in America, or has hope given way to malaise? — (CNN) — Nearly a year after the presidential election, the excitement of Barack Obama's campaign has faded into the reality of an Obama White House. — As observers try to determine what time it is in American politics, they arrive at opposite conclusions.