Now the final phase begins, where we see what House liberals can achieve within the confines of a broken system that gives a handful of senators from sparsely populated states a disproportionate power to shape legislation:

Democrats are already outlining a strategy to achieve a final compromise that can satisfy the more liberal House without upsetting the painstakingly assembled coalition of 60 Senate Democrats and independents.

Central to those talks, House leaders said, will be the search for an acceptable substitute for a government-run insurance plan that those without medical coverage could purchase, a provision the House designed to compete with private insurers and force them to rein in costs. While the Senate has decisively rejected the "public option," House leaders say they will demand other concessions to ensure that Americans can afford the insurance they will be required to buy if the bill becomes law.

[...] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has signaled approval for the Senate's solution: the creation of at least two nationwide insurance plans run by private companies but overseen by the Office of Personnel Management, the same federal agency that handles health insurance for members of Congress. In a conference call Wednesday, Pelosi also assured rank-and-file Democrats that they would not be asked to rubber-stamp the Senate bill and began soliciting ideas to improve it.

Among the options under discussion: pressing the Senate to increase the federal subsidies that would be offered to low- and middle-income people who do not have access to affordable coverage through an employer; having a single national marketplace for people buying insurance, rather than 50 state-based exchanges, as the Senate prefers; and moving up the launch date of those marketplaces and subsidies to 2013, one year earlier than under the Senate bill.

We're one step closer to passing this historic healthcare bill. A year ago, I would have put the odds of this passing the Senate right up there with... well, with the odds of the Vatican praising "The Simpsons."

Now it's on to the House, where hopefully the Democratic liberals will try to undo the conservative damage that's been done:

The Senate passed a landmark health-care bill Thursday morning that would provide coverage to more than 30 million people and begin a far-reaching overhaul of Medicare and the private insurance market.

Vice President Biden presided over the 60-39, party line vote, which brings Democrats closer than ever to realizing their 70-year-old goal of universal health coverage.

For the first time, most Americans would be required to obtain health insurance, either through their employer or via new, government-regulated exchanges. Those who can't afford insurance plans would receive federal subsidies. And Medicaid would be vastly expanded to reach millions of low-income children and adults.

Difficult issues must be still resolved in final negotiations with the House, which has passed more liberal health-care reform legislation, and those talks could stretch through January and perhaps into February, Democratic leaders said. But Democrats are increasingly confident that President Obama would sign a bill into law in early 2010.

"Health care reform is not a matter of 'if,' " White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday. "Health care reform now is a matter of 'when.' "

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared after Wednesday's vote that: "We stand on the doorstep of history." But he declined to speculate about negotiations with the House.

"I'm not going to talk about conference. I'm talking about passing this bill," he told reporters late Wednesday. For at least a few days after Christmas, Reid said, he would rest back home in Nevada. "I am going to just sit back and watch my rabbits eat my cactus," he said.

Republicans fought the Senate bill with every parliamentary weapon they could muster, raising a series of motions on that failed along party lines. The rhetoric grew more harsh as time ran short.

The last preliminary vote came Wednesday, when all 60 members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted down the final possibility for a Republican filibuster of the $871 billion package.

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John Harwood in typical Villager fashion takes a shot at liberals who are not happy with the health care bill or how Harry Reid or the Obama administration have handled it.

Brewer: So in the end, how does this deal get done John?

Harwood: Contessa it was really hand to hand combat and hand to hand diplomacy one vote at a time, finally securing that vote of Joe Lieberman by ditching that Medicare buy in that he was against and Ben Nelson with the abortion language; but I gotta’ say Contessa, just because so much of the commentary I've heard has been really idiotic. Liberals who want universal health care ought to be thanking Harry Reid for getting this thing done rather than talking about what's inadequate in the bill. I'm not saying the bill's a good bill, but if you're a liberal, and you want universal coverage in this country and think that you could do better than Harry Reid, can do better than what he's done, or the White House can do better, they ought to lay off the hallucinogenic drugs because we have had a vivid demonstration of the limits of political possibilities on this issue.

Can someone explain to me why Rep. Stupak and Sen. Nelson's attacks on a woman's legal reproductive rights are not being called into question over nothing more than their push to inject conservative ideology into the health-care bill? And why are the media not highlighting this at all?

It's a complete and utter media bias against women. Liberals are being portrayed by the media elites as being against the Senate health-care bill on the grounds of ideology because of the exclusion of the public option, but any serious person knows our beef is with the actual legislation of the bill and how it will help Americans. The public option is a tool that could create real competition against the health care insurance industry, and is its own cost-control mechanism. We also loved the Medicare buy-in at fifty five, but that fig leaf which was yanked out from under us -- a fact missing from the Sunday talk shows.

What function does the Stupak amendment or Nelson's anti-abortion compromise actually serve in the implementing of health-care reform for America, except to target the health-care concerns of women across America?

Barbara Boxer's compromise gives states the right to opt out of actually having health-care providers cover abortions and all medical issues that arise for women who deal with this issue. That's a huge step backwards for women in America.

Does allowing all those "pro-life" state legislatures like South Dakota's to completely opt-out of any requirement to offer coverage for abortion sound like an improvement to you? Do we all relish the inevitable, bloody state-by-state abortion battles?

On Meet The Press, David Gregory didn't even bother to have one female on the panel to discuss what is happening to their rights, as Taylor Marsh observed:

Well, as with the late Tim Russert, once again with David Gregory on “Meet the Press,” women are not seen or heard at a time when abortion politics has been at the center of the healthcare debate. (I’ve been covering this reality for years.) That women also pay more for health insurance evidently doesn’t meet the “Meet the Press” standards for being included in the debate. That says it all, not only about the continuing If It’s Sunday, It’s Misogyny...

Yeah, why would the opinion of a woman be needed when talking about abortion rights anyway?

The debate rages on as to whose fault it is that we find ourselves in the situation that Joe Lieberman can decide to cut whatever he likes out of the health-care reform bill and tongue kiss Dana Bash while doing it. Was the Obama administration so naive that they didn't think they needed to cut a deal with Lieberman on health care as soon as he won the election? Joe actually supported John McCain to the bitter end and bloggers made the argument that Joe should go from the beginning of his term, but the leadership decided to keep him on board.

Yes, the health-care fight was never going to be easy so why didn't David Axelrod secure Joe's vote on health-care before it got off the ground? It boggles the mind. We all know what prima donnas conservative Democrats are in the Senate. It's quite clear that Lieberman is only interested in punishing liberals and not helping Americans. They knew who he was. He wasn't f*&king hiding. He was stumping for McCain!

Howie Klein, Digby and I all thought that the Senate was ultimately going to call the shots at the end. I always figured the House would pass a fairly progressive bill, but it was the ConservaDems in the House of Lords who would be the problem. So that's why Blue America targeted Blanche Lincoln. She was the only senator up for re-election and had to face the voters in 2010.

Matt Yglesias makes a good case as to why this mess isn't really Obama's fault, but I don't agree with all of it.

I think there’s something perverse in the very strong desire I see among liberals to make problems in congress be about anything other than congress. It’s just not in the power of Barack Obama to make the senate anything other than what it is. To pass a bill, you need sixty votes. To get sixty votes you need Ben Nelson or Olympia Snowe to back your bill. Neither Nelson nor Snowe is especially liberal, and the President doesn’t have a great deal of leverage over either of them. You can try to change the rules, or you can accept that you’re at the mercy of Nelson and Snowe and maybe a few other moderate members.

And it’s crucial to remember that these people—each and every member of congress—is an adult human being, capable of making up his or her own mind, responsible for his or her own decisions, and possessed of moral agency. These are men and women who have amassed a great deal of power, and who ultimately need to decide on a daily basis what it is they want to do with that power. If they choose to use it for bad ends, then blame them for that, not Obama or his team’s alleged lack of familiarity with the United States Senate.

I really like Matt's writing. First, I never thought Tom Daschle was the guy for the job because he whipped the Dems to vote for the war in 2002, but maybe I'm wrong there. Obama is still the president and he won a mandate with health-care reform on the table. I think part of the problem is their inexperience in real-world governance and especially in handling a piece of legislation this massive and this momentous.

I believe that President Obama does want to pass good health-care reform, but you can't use the same tactics that were used for running a general election campaign and apply them to legislation. Not with the Senate vacant of any decent Republican human beings. The president is a wonderful speaker and a great communicator, but there was no way he could swoop in at the end and save the day like he was able to do in the general election. Policy does not work like that as we've just seen.

Digby writes:

I'm not sure how that will all work out in the end. But I'm fairly confident that the deficit scolds are getting ready to launch a full scale offensive on government spending, so "improving the bill" in any financial way is probably not going to be on the agenda any time soon, certainly not with a looming election and tanking poll numbers. And with the president's approval rating suffering not simply due to health care reform, but because of unemployment and economic torpor, what we get in this health care reform bill had better be enough to last us for quite a while.

Since the media loves Lieberman and everything he stands for, no matter what bill is passed he'll suddenly be the face of it and the Villagers will rejoice.

And Duncan adds:

I feel like those more supportive of this bill are attacking anti-mandate strawmen. The reason for thinking that without a public option or similar mandates are going to be a disaster is that without competition or sufficient affordability (due to not quite generous enough subsidies), you're forcing people to buy shitty insurance that they can't afford. Mandates aren't bad in and of themselves, but they're bad if they aren't part of a comprehensive plan which is... good!

Cohn:

Now, the reforms moving through Congress won't produce a system as comprehensive as what the Netherlands or Switzerland has. But that's not because of the individual mandate, which actually makes a lot of sense. (Read here if you want chapter and verse on that.) That's because the subsidies and regulation in these bills aren't as generous and strong as they could be.

In other words, you're forcing people to buy shitty insurance that they can't afford. Why would anyone possibly object to that?

As Harry Reid tries to push through a health-care bill in the Senate before Christmas, the ConservaDems and Queen Snowe had to make sure to cut as much out as possible that liberals wanted. Ezra Klein tracks the process as it unfolded, which many of us have followed just as closely:

To move the process forward, Reid had three options. The first, many would say, was reconciliation. But that would have required going back to the committees to refashion a reconciliation bill, and going back to the House of Representatives so it could craft a reconciliation bill, and then going back through the votes. There wasn't time for that, and even if there was, throwing the process so far back onto itself would have been an enormous risk.

The next was to cut a deal with Olympia Snowe. But Snowe had made it clear that part of any compromise with her was a deceleration in the bill's momentum. "The more they try to drive this process in an unrealistic timeframe, the more reluctant I become about whether or not this can be doable in this timeframe that we're talking about," Snowe told reporters. "There's always January."

That left Joe Lieberman. And Lieberman's price for signing onto the bill was the destruction of the public option and, unexpectedly, the Medicare buy-in provision. There would be no triggers, no opt-outs, no compromises. Lieberman swung the axe and cut his deal cleanly, killing not only the public option, but anything that looked even remotely like it. Some on the Hill remain worried that Lieberman will discover new points of contention in the coming days, as they believe he had signaled that he wouldn't filibuster the Medicare buy-in. They worry whether his word is good. But assuming it is, he can provide the 60th vote Reid needs to move the bill by the end of next week, and keep health-care reform on some sort of schedule.

Lieberman is not interested in helping the millions of Americans who need help, but screwing liberals who held him accountable for the Iraq war. Even Jay Rockefeller, who has been so strong on the public option, defended Joe's behavior, seemingly as a way to get a bill passed as soon as possible. Then the Medicare buy-in came up and we celebrated, but of course resident Lieberman couldn't allow to happen.

Digby writes:

Senate Democrats signaled their intention Monday to back away from a plan to expand Medicare, in a bid to break a deepening impasse on sweeping health legislation.

The move came at an evening caucus convened just off the Senate floor, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and other party leaders made clear they wanted to head off a widening dispute -- pitting centrists against liberals -- over a proposal that would open Medicare to people below the age of 65.

There you have it. Everyone knows that liberals must lose, so down goes the public option and the Medicare Buy-in. The question remains whether King Joseph will allow the government to help older people with long term care needs or any of the other things that anyone could possibly construe as liberal policies.

I think we have a way to go before this bill is bad enough for him and his cronies to allow the Democrats to commit political suicide with it.

Reconciliation doesn't seem to be the way Harry Reid wants to go because it's a slow process that might not produce any meaningful results.

mcjoan has a nice wrap-up and adds:

At this point, the assistance to the people who need it most is the critical moral and policy decision. Would it be a band-aid? Yes, but even a band-aid can staunch bleeding, and right now that's what we desperately need. The insurance reforms matter a great deal, too, and can be passed through regular process. It will be a lot harder for Senators to stand up and vote to allow insurance companies to continue to deny coverage to the American people.

We have to keep fighting to strengthen the bill before conference. There are millions of people who need our help. We still haven't seen the bill yet, so we're not sure how much it would help America. Howie and I wrote a bunch of posts during the whole general election process that Barack Obama wasn't a progressive, but a moderate Democratic politician.

Anatomy of a Right Wing Myth: Obama is the most liberal Democratic Senator

Anatomy of a Right Wing Myth part II: Obama is the most liberal Democratic Senator

Anatomy of a Right Wing Smear III-Hannity calls Obama #1 Liberal Senator

And here: Anatomy of a Right Wing Smear IV: Steve Doocy: Obama could be the most liberal Senator

That's what his voting record told us. We focused on the National Journal article that tried to paint Obama as the most liberal Senator in Congress -- which was a lie -- and we wanted everybody to be aware of it during the election. And that's where we come in now along with all the other great liberal groups. Many of us believed that one of our major tasks was to keep pushing for as much progressive policies as we could as soon as we took the White House.

Conservatism has been a complete failure as an ideology to govern America. George W. Bush had to promote himself as a new kind of conservative, a Compassionate Conservative who would do things differently, but as soon as he took office that was proved to be another lie. What we witnessed for eight years of Bush was an utter disregard for working class families and a foreign policy that sanctioned torture and the "preemption doctrine." A straw man was needed so Bush and Cheney could manipulate the media to justify an invasion of Iraq that didn't attack us.

A financial bubble was allowed to proceed because without that bubble, Bush's tax cuts and conservative philosophy would have been exposed as another conservative failure before the 2004 election. The end result was a global financial meltdown.

And we can't forget about Hurricane Katrina. We witnessed firsthand how conservatives protected our country during a natural disaster.

We fight as progressives because we have to. America is not a Bill Kristol academic exercise. It's full of real Americans who are worth fighting for as they try to survive. If not for us, who will speak for them?

So it comes down to this: Joe "I Don't Know How Anybody Can Decide Until You See The Actual Language" Lieberman got his widdle feelings hurt, and so Joe will do anything to get back at the mean liberals who hurt his feelings - even if it means hundreds of thousands of people have to die without health care.

Doesn't that make him a sociopath? And doesn't that make the Democrats co-conspirators?

The Huffington Post and Roll Call are both reporting that Joe Lieberman notified Harry Reid that he will filibuster health-care reform if the final bill includes an expansion of Medicare. Previously, Lieberman had been cool to the idea, saying he wanted to make sure it wouldn't increase the deficit or harm Medicare's solvency. That comforted some observers, as the CBO is expected to say it will do neither. Someone must have given Lieberman a heads-up on that, as he's decided to make his move in advance of the CBO score, the better to make sure the facts of the policy couldn't impede his opposition to it.

To put this in context, Lieberman was originally invited to participate in the process that led to the Medicare buy-in. His opposition would have killed it before liberals invested in the idea. Instead, he skipped the meetings and is forcing liberals to give up yet another compromise. Each time he does that, he increases the chances of the bill's failure that much more. And it's hard to imagine there's a policy rationale here, as he decided against even bothering to wait for the CBO's analysis before moving against this idea. At this point, Lieberman is just torturing liberals. That is to say, he's willing to directly cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.

[...] The final path would be to try the reconciliation, the parliamentary procedure that would allow Democrats to pass chunks of health care reform by a simple up or down vote. There are a host of hurdles that come with going down this route, including questions over what, exactly, could be passed. And at this point both the White House and Reid's office seem hesitant to use the procedural tool, even after Lieberman's latest round of opposition.

Reid could also try and find another compromise, but it's not clear there are many of those left. And at this point, the underlying dynamic seems to be that Lieberman will destroy any compromise the left likes. That, in fact, seems to be the compromise: Lieberman will pass the bill if he can hurt liberals while doing so. From Lieberman's perspective, the compromise is killing the compromise.

Chris Bowers points out the Democrats have put Holy Joe in this position:

Nothing Lieberman is doing would be possible without the ongoing support of the majority of the Democratic caucus. If Democratic Senators wanted to punish Lieberman for his consistent transgressions against the party, they could. If Democrats wanted to use reconciliation, and just circumvent him altogether, they could do that, too. But they are not going to do either.

As such, Lieberman is simply taking the power that is being handed to him by the rest of the caucus. Since he knows that Senate Democrats won't ever punish him, and won't ever circumvent him, he now has free reign to dictate whatever legislation he wants, get tons of face time with the White House and Senate leadership, regularly be the top story on news outlets around the country, receive millions in campaign contributions, and appease his Republican base (at this point, most of Lieberman's supporters are Republicans). It is a great deal for Lieberman, and it would not be possible without the ongoing consent of the majority of the Democratic Senate caucus.

Since we have already defeated Lieberman in a Democratic primary, there is clearly nothing more as progressive activists to threaten Lieberman. What we need to start doing is taking action against the Democrats who enable Lieberman and his ilk. If other Senate Democrats are not going to do anything about Lieberman taking control of the entire caucus, then really, what is the difference between those other Senators and Joe Lieberman?

Never though I would echo George W. Bush, but we have reached the point where it is time to stop differentiating between problematic Senators like Joseph Lieberman and the other Senate Democrats who enable them.

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The right's latest fake controversy is what happens whenever any Democrat happens to bring up historical truths about conservatism -- like the fact that it has been on the wrong side of right and wrong for much of the nation's history. They scream and shout about how mean liberals are and then cover over these truths with a pile of afactual excrement.

Here's what upset them so. Harry Reid accurately laid out the sorry history of conservatives in America whenever important and momentous advances in civil rights and the betterment of life for all Americans happen to arise: They stick up for the forces of oppression, hatred, and economic deprivation.

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over."

"You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right.

When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

The only thing right-wingers heard was that "Reid compared opponents of health-care reform to opponents of slavery."

Well, not exactly: He was pointing out that there was continuum to all of these, a common thread. That is, the opponents of health care, just like opponents of civil rights for minorities, and opponents of the vote for women, and opponents of ending slavery all had one big thing in common: They were all conservative.

Rather laughably, Sean Hannity and Karl Rove try to cover this over -- as does Michelle Malkin -- by pointing out the wonderful things Republicans have done over the decades, such as Lincoln freeing the slaves. Of course, what they don't mention is that these things were achieved by people who would today be considered liberal Republicans. Malkin also wants you to remember those Democrats who fought against civil rights: Of course, she conveniently omits the history of the Southern Strategy and the way old-line bigots like Strom Thurmond joined the GOP en masse in the 1960s and '70s, thereby transforming the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Neo-Confederates.

(Oh, and a reminder to Karl Rove, who claims that "Joe Wilson got in trouble for speaking the truth": He should ask Wilson sometime his views on Lincoln.)

And what they especially avoid confronting is that Reid is right in that opponents of ending slavery were CONSERVATIVE, and opponents of health-care reform are CONSERVATIVE. The contexts change with the shifting challenges of our respective eons, but we can always count on one thing:

When conservatives stand up to fight against common-sense advances that improve the lives of Americans, we can feel a sense of surety that history will prove them wrong. It always has in the past.

By the way, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was whining on Fox's Your World (with Eric Bolling filling in for Neil Cavuto) that Reid's remarks were "over the top" and asking him to apologize:

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Andrea Mitchell asked a Villager health-care panel on her show today to discuss how Harry Reid can get to 60 votes with the public option since the "Gang of Four" refuses to budge and threatens to kill health-care reform entirely.

Mitchell: And Ruth Marcus, what do they do, how do they water down the public option to make it acceptable to some of the moderates but placate some of the more liberals?

Marcus: Well, it's the "and still placate some of the more liberals" is the hardest part. You're dealing with a very complex Rubik's cube really at this point because every time you change something to please someone, you're annoying someone else and potentially losing his or her vote.

But the public option, I think, could be scaled back. There is already something that Sen. Carper from Delaware is working on in terms of allowing it to take effect perhaps more quickly in states or immediately in states which have very high costs and other states could opt in. There is Sen. Snowe's old trigger option that one could still pull the trigger on, so there are ways of doing it.

I think that in the end it is possible to mollify enough of the centrist Democrats, perhaps even a Republican -- now that seems awfully remote. The president, I think, is going to have to tell the left wing of his party and the balking liberal Senators that it is crazy to pull down the entirety of health care over this one issue which the president has already said is not the be all end all of health reform.

It's always the liberals who need to compromise their positions to the conventional wisdom of the Villagers. The Gang of Four are all righteous and virtuous while liberals are out-of-control hippies who act like barking dogs. How dare they want to produce a real reform measure that could eventually provide true competition for the health care industry and that will help lower overall health care costs? Outrageous!

Remember, Marcus was being a concern troll the day after America elected Obama to the presidency with a mandate to overhaul health care and wrote a column telling him to not to govern from the left.

Yet the experience of President Bill Clinton's rocky early months -- remember gays in the military? the BTU tax? -- suggests the steep political price of governing in a way that is, or seems, skewed to the left. This risk is particularly acute for Obama, whose opponents have painted him as a leftist extremist. The good news is that his advisers seem exquisitely aware of this trap and determined not to fall into it.

As David Sirota wrote:

The standard lie about Clinton's failures aside (it was NAFTA, stupid), the last sentence is particularly odd. Obama's "opponents have painted him as a leftist extremist." Yet, that supposed "leftist extremist" won the largest presidential mandate in the last generation.

And somehow, having done that, we are supposed to believe that means he should tack to the right.

Say what?

Email Marcus and ask her why the Gang of Four aren't the real problem, since 56 other Senators are fine with the public option: marcusr@washpost.com

Did you know that Luke Russert is the new political It Girl?" From now on, I'm calling him Clara Bow.

Digby explains.

Little Luke:That's what all signs are point to right now. But the interesting thing we can take away from this is a point that NBC producer Ken Strickland made that I think is great. It's that Harry Reid, no matter what happens, he is showing to the liberal base that he has done everything in his power to get a bill with a public option to the floor at least up for debate.

This satisfies the liberals, this satisfies the MoveOn.org crowd, and really, I think it will show him to be the standard bearer of the liberal cause, Andrea.

Andrea Mitchell: Luke Russert, you're in the right place with the best story in town. Thanks so much.

Young Luke is quite the analyst. You can see why he was vaulted to the top of the American news business over the heads of others who have far more training, brains and ability. It's in the blood.

Just in case anyone missed it, Little Luke thinks that actually getting a public option in the bill isn't important to liberals -- the real victory is that the public option got to the floor. Apparently, Villagers think this whole thing was simply a bid for attention and now that the savvy Reid has delivered that, it doesn't matter what the bill has in it, we just love him to death. After all, liberals would certainly would never be so bold as to forget our place and think we might actually win something. How silly.

To the wise and worldly Little Luke, liberals are children to be appeased with gestures and shiny objects. I wonder where he learned that?

The Villagers are covering their asses because they declared the public option dead a long time ago, so now the story is that we're all happy little Cheeto-eaters because Harry Reid got it this far. What morons. And they wonder why blogs are cutting into their world. Maybe Luke is just looking for more college football tips.

Gawker has a little more.

Joe Lieberman gives us a perfect example why he's a liar in chief.

Water Tiger:

now with an extra serving of tool-ness:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) raised hackles among liberals earlier this week when he claimed that the public option wasn't a part of the 2008 presidential campaign. He repeated that claim to reporters tonight, though acknowledged, when pressed, that then-candidate Barack Obama did in fact include a public option in his campaign health care proposal.

And then there's this: Anyway, I'm opposed to it."

Shorter Lieberfucktard: I don't care what it says: I'm against it. Oooh, LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!!!!

But he's such a serious warmonger that the media loves him.

You know, you have to appreciate that guys like Anthony Weiner and Joe Sestak will go on Bill O'Reilly's show to try to bravely counter his nonstop deluge of right-wing talking points. But as he demonstrated last night when he had them on to talk about the New York City terrorism trials, he just proved once again why it's never a winning proposition to go on his show, no matter how hard you try.

O'Reilly only invites liberals on to set them up for a shoutdown, really -- and that's what he did last night. Both Weiner and Sestak pointed out the absurdity of O'Reilly's fears about the civil court system setting the terrorists free -- and worse still, in O'Reilly's view, actually being permitted to stand up and voice their beliefs as part of their defense.

O'Reilly just wound up shouting at them about the four-year trial of Zacarias Moussaoui -- who in fact was convicted. But to O'Reilly, what was intolerable was that Moussaoui was able to use the trial as "propaganda" for radical Islam.

O'Reilly just doesn't believe in the American way of justice, and is afraid to let the world see our justice. Fortunately, many more of us are not so cowardly.

C&Ler Ross from Arkansas writes in about our new Blue America ad directed at Sen. Blanche Lincoln:

I am a resident of Little Rock, AR, and Sen. Blanche Lincoln never, ever responds to my emails. Sen. Pryor (who’s actually more conservative than Ms. Blank) and Rep. Snyder always reply, whether they agree with me or not. Hell, I’m even married to a gal from Lincoln’s home town and my in-laws are still friends with her family. She is in her own bubble and getting, what I believe, to be bad campaign advice. For some reason, she thinks she can garner some Republican votes (no way) by opposing any kind of public option but all she is doing is completely losing her base of liberals and moderates.

Arkansas politics is a funny monster. The voters here respond to leadership. Period. I’m afraid Ms. Blank ain’t up to it.

Keep them coming Arkansas.

The conventional wisdom about the Stupak bill among the male-dominated media: Why won't the women just sit down, shut up and let the men folk do their political bidness? What is all this talk about "rights"?

Instead, ask yourself these questions: Why is it that the moderates conservatives always get their way - at the expense of liberals, and of alleged Democratic party values? Why is the compromise always on our end? Why aren't people like Bart Stupak being told to "put on their big boy pants" and swallow compromise to get health care reform?

And why isn't some progressive politician introducing a bill to cut off funding for special education or any other services at Catholic schools? After all, how is providing the services from a trailer at the far end of the school parking lot not an "accounting trick"? Why aren't liberals aggressively challenging the tax-exempt status of the Catholic church?

I was under the impression we had freedom of religion in this country. Apparently, I was wrong.

WORCESTER - Opening up a major fissure in the US Senate race, Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday that she opposes the landmark health care bill approved by the House Saturday because it contains a provision restricting federal funding for abortion.

Coakley, in her boldest gamble of the campaign, said that fighting for women’s access to abortions was more important than passing the overall bill, despite its aim of providing coverage for 36 million people, establishing a public insurance option, and prohibiting insurers from discriminating against patients with preexisting conditions.

“To pretend that now the House has passed this bill is real progress - it’s at the expense of women’s access to reproductive rights," Coakley said in an interview, after making similar comments yesterday morning on Boston radio station WTKK-FM.

[...] Coakley’s opposition to the bill put her squarely at odds with her three rivals for the Democratic nomination, including US Representative Michael E. Capuano, who voted in favor of the plan and blasted Coakley’s stance yesterday, calling it “manna from heaven" for his campaign.

“I find it interesting and amazing, and she would have stood alone among all the prochoice members of Congress, all the members of the Massachusetts delegation," Capuano said in an interview. “She claims she wants to honor Ted Kennedy’s legacy on health care. It’s pretty clear that a major portion of this was his bill."

He went on: “If she’s not going to vote for any bill that’s not perfect, she wouldn’t vote for any bill in history. She would have voted against Medicare, the Civil Rights bill. . . . Realism is something you have to deal with in Washington."

Why is it that "realism" is always and inevitably at the expense of women, gays and minorities? Is that the new Democratic value?

UPDATE: Apparently Capuano has since changed his position, saying he'll vote against the bill if Stupak amendment stays.

I'm always happy to see the progressives step up and demand what they want - you know, instead of falling into the fetal position. Greg Sargent from The Plumline:

At a private meeting at the White House yesterday, top House liberals urged President Obama to more aggressively throw his weight into a public campaign on behalf of the public option, a leading House progressive said in an interview.

Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says that this point was made “emphatically” to the president in the meeting yesterday with House liberals, and that his help was urgently needed in bringing centrist Dems on board.

“We need the full engagement of everybody in this discussion — that includes the White House,” Grijalva said in characterizing the message that was delivered to the president. Grijalva described the meeting in an interview with Democracy Now.

Dems have largely refrained from making such a blunt case publicly, not wanting to appear critical of the president. But Grijalva appears to have no qualms about making it.

“We really do feel that engagement from the leader of this nation is vital if we’re going to end up with anything that approaches a robust public option,” Grijalva said.

Strong stuff. I’ve asked Grijalva’s office what the president’s response was, and will update you if I learn more.