The Limits of Rahmism  —  AS A DOZEN or so top White House officials gathered in Rahm Emanuel's corner West Wing office one morning in early January, the president's political director, Patrick Gaspard, reported on the latest poll numbers in Massachusetts.  With less than two weeks until …

Sarah Palin heads north.  Er, south.  Er, to Calgary.  - UPDATED  —  It was little surprise that Sarah Palin's first visit to our home and native land (of public health care and gay marriage) would be in Calgary.  It also shouldn't be surprising that she was able to curry favour …

Dan Rather: ‘Articulate’ Obama Couldn't Even ‘Sell Watermelons’  —  HDNet's Dan Rather stepped on one mine after another in the racial minefield that exists when talking about the nation's first black President as the former CBS anchor, on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show over the weekend …

Conservative California state senator comes out  —  California State Sen. Roy Ashburn, a conservative Republican with a solidly anti-gay voting record, came out as gay today on a Bakersfield radio station talk show.  Ashburn's sexual orientation had been the talk of Sacramento since …

Poll shows Obama, Dems losing ground  —  A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.

CONCERN TROLLING GONE AWRY (AGAIN).... You know who's really looking out for congressional Democrats' electoral fortunes?  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  While you and I might think, “Wait, isn't that the guy trying to destroy Democrats as part of his drive for power?” …

Crist Poll Preview  —  We are going to have absolutely brutal numbers out on Charlie Crist tomorrow.  —  Here's a little preview: among Republican primary voters 19% would like to see him as Governor a year from now, 14% want him in the Senate, and 56% want him out of elected office.

The Health Care Whip Count  —  Dems are aiming to pass health care legislation, once and for all, by Easter recess.  But for all their optimistic talk, one thing remains clear: They don't have the votes just yet.  Then again, they don't have a bill yet, either.

Cheneyites Lose Stimson, Rivkin, Casey in al-Qaeda Shark-Jump  —  David Rivkin and Lee Casey are an op-ed-writing team of former GOP legal officials who defend practically every terrorism-related policy pushed by the Bush administration.  Here they are saying that warrantless surveillance “has always been on firm legal ground.”

Health care reform CPR  —  Can Speaker Pelosi bring health care reform back from the dead?  Did it ever really die? … In addition to my last health care post, Nate Silver summarizes well the forces pushing in both directions.  John Podhoretz also has a good strategic overview.

United Arab Emirates to Follow Third Reich Policies against Jews  —  So now it comes to this.  —  It is natural that the Muslim world would follow the policies of the Third Reich, as they were the allies of Hitler.  The Muslim world was the only member of the axis to walk away unpunished …

Senate Approval Ratings  —  The conventional wisdom has typically been that a politician's in trouble if their approval rating's below 50%.  We may need to rethink that assumption in this political climate though because the average approval rating of the 38 Senators we've polled …

Washington Bulls**t Watch  —  No one does it better than Mark Halperin.  Every single thing he cites in his latest brain-dead critique is, I believe, tangibly false, and the moronic attempt to grab some pageviews by a counter-intuitive and utterly dumb analogy - Obama is like Bush, guys!

Health Care Reform And Our Myopic Polity  —  One day, I hope, we will look back at the health care debate as a low point in our national political psyche.  The Obama administration and its allies in Congress are on the cusp of bringing some measure of reason to the health care system …

That Other Government Takeover  —  What else may go into ‘reconciliation.’  —  Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate.  Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted …

The story behind Oscar's “Kanye moment”  —  We talk to the two filmmakers whose personal fight became one of the ceremony's weirdest moments … People are already saying you “pulled a Kanye.”  What happened?  —  BURKETT: What happened was the director and I had a bad difference …

Business Lobbyists Push to Revive Estate Tax They Tried to Kill  —  Lobbyists for small businesses, construction companies, manufacturers and other trade groups are racing the clock to convince Congress to reinstate the federal estate tax they've fought for years to abolish.

ACORN Registration Workers Charged With Felony Voter Fraud  —  Five Wisconsin residents, including two who worked for community organizing group ACORN, were charged Monday with election fraud relating to the 2008 presidential election.

Health-care reform is progressive  —  Reading Chris Bowers's excellent list of the progressive priorities fulfilled or partially fulfilled by the health-care bill's sidecar amendments is a reminder of how peculiar the framing of this debate has been.  There's no doubt that progressives …

Déjà vu all over again … A Republican on Capitol Hill points out that we're going through a health care press coverage time warp.  In each of the following four headline pairs, one is from this morning.  The other is from last year.  See if you can guess which is which.

Obama To Dems: Reform Will Kick In This Year.  This Year.  This Year.  —  One striking thing about the speech Obama just gave at the big health care rally in Pennsylvania is how many times he stressed that if reform passes, voters will begin enjoying the benefits this year.