Gee, you think Andrew Breitbart’s brain is a little overheated? Think his view of the Tea Party being equivalent to all of the United States is a stretch? Think that maybe he’s a little self-important, figuring that Obama had a grand design by deploying the Black Congressional Caucus to walk through a group of Tea Partiers? Think his assertion that Obama knew a gesture like that was capable of destroying both the movement and the nation a bit much?

Well, it’s such a huge threat. It might actually change a couple of Republican elections. We can’t have that, can we?

DAMN. Well, you finally caught on to it. I was hoping that no one ever figured that one out: yes, the walk-through was totally a ruse. The amazing thing is . . we’ve been doing it for years, walking in some proximity to the opposition. I’m walking next to a Republican right now, and, I swear-to-gawd, I’m about to burst out laughing — he has absolutely no idea.

Of course, in between slashing actresses, he’d send a message of approval of our politics. He’d say it was a terrifically nefarious strategy, literally.

And what would a metaphorical “evil strategy” be? Obviously, it’s some sort of non-strategy, the way a “bug” isn’t actually an insect. Or would a “strategy” strategy qualify? Why am I wasting time on Andrew Breitbart, ferchrissakes?

Here, feel free to read the angry ape-shit yourself . .

Shoot. And now we’ve fucked up again. Thanks anyways, Newt, for trying to stop us. History will show you were just being a mensch.

The brain-scratcher for Conservatives here is why. Why would anybody do this? Obviously, it makes no sense.

We’re just stupid. Or we’re Commies instructed to kill the country. Or we’re Socialists trying to break a chunk of the nation off and float it on over to Holland. Or we’re Nazis for whatever reasons Nazis do what they do.

Really — what reasonable reason could we possibly have for doing something as politically risky as reforming the entire healthcare system? Hell — why did we do the civil rights thing? I have no idea, neither does Newt.

Yesterday:

. . and . .

Today:

Conservative bloggers, to the rescue! Ann Althouse:

The members of Congress have a lot of power, and they ought to have to hear the anger their exercise of that power is causing. It’s outrageous for them to pose as victims without very good cause. So what if some idiot said a bad word? That’s a trivial distraction compared to the power they are about to exercise in the face of such strong opposition to what they are about to do.

So what if they spat on you and called you “n*gger”? Christ, you’re about to provide millions of Americans with healthcare — have you no decency, sir?

Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs:

Big media only deemed fit to cover the people’s revolution to smear, libel and sexually smear them (“tea baggers”).

This campaign of destruction culminated yesterday when a specious charge was made that a protester shouted “ni**er” at the Congressional Black Caucus. Color me skeptical. I am not sure why the Black Congressional Caucus deliberately chose to walk through the crowd as they shouted “killl the bill,” but it sure sounds like a set-up.

Walking through the Tea Partiers? Just what were the Black Congressional Caucus thinking? They know damn well that they’re Black. I smell a rat.

President Obama has made the rounds, spectacularly. But the politics are probably over, for the time, for the towering talent that leads the Democrats by word alone. Such are Roman Senators .

Al Franken lays into David Axelrod over health care bill
By ANDY BARR & MANU RAJU | 2/4/10 7:47 PM EST

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact…

In his public session with the senators Wednesday, Obama urged them to “finish the job” on health care but did not lay out a path for doing so. That uncertainty appeared to trigger Franken’s anger, and the sources in the room said he laid out his concerns much more directly than any senator did in the earlier public session.

The private session was set up in a panel format, with Axelrod joined at the front of the room by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine and Democratic strategist Paul Begala.

ADD: He did it again, today — attacking the CEO of Comcast for lying to his face:

Minnesota, you should be proud, the guy’s a damn good Senator.

He’s certainly a master at getting the tone of an anticipated speech just right. He proved that for the first time, for me, with the ‘Jeremiah Wright / Racism in America‘ speech where he effectively re-established his command of the campaign and the tangent issues.

He did it again tonight. He made it clear that America was angry with him, and he accepted that fact, and then he made it clear that both he and America were merely doing their jobs.

He said this year was the one to focus on jobs and to attack deficits, both of which everyone wanted to hear. He did not back down on healthcare reform, which he badly needed to make clear. He made a case for that being critically necessary whether politicians now have the courage to finish off the package or not. And reform’s the best way to address deficits, and he’s right.

It was very well done. I think he’s again seized the narrative, but that will only last for a couple of weeks.

I got a real sinking sense tonight of Obama’s being wholly but an American patrician. Intellectual and philosophical, he’s remarkably capable of measuring the buffeting political choruses with great accuracy and then invoking a call for a comprehensive plebeian answer grounded in sensible activism and incisive real-world experience. Really amazing, honestly.

Really empty, too. The one endeavor in his entire political life where that call showed up in reality and flesh is healthcare reform. All he’s done tonight is say that he’s still behind it. If he were really serious about it, he’d have been doing the dirty work of nastily twisting House Democrats’ arms this week. Instead, he’s spent all of his time thinking and pondering and balancing and crafting a terrific-sounding speech. Quite the Roman Senator.

He’s spent all his life parsing these issues. But he hasn’t figured out how to move people to do his considerably sensible will, other than to mull and draft another inspiring speech. Do you think that if the mob continue to ignore him, which they’ll surely do, he’ll just throw up his arms in exasperation? I do.

The poor Democrats are scared. And their feelings are hurt. And if ever there were a bunch of political pansies on the scene, it’s this bunch.

After the Martha Chokeley ass-whipping in Massachusetts, they feel America is angry with healthcare reform, and they don’t know what to do.

“Obviously, you cannot just proceed as if nothing happened, because something very significant happened,” [Chuck] Schumer said, referring to Brown’s victory.

So, Dianne Feinstein thinks we should slow down: “I think we do go slower in health care. People do not understand it, it is so big it is beyond their comprehension. And if you don’t understand it when somebody tells you it does this or it does that and it’s not true, you tend to believe it, even though it isn’t true . . .”

Senator Dodd thinks we should take a break and work on other issues: “Maybe we do need to take this time — look, it didn’t work, this process — and say ‘Look, I want all of us to take a month,’” Dodd said. “It isn’t as if you’ll have nothing to do around here. There’s a lot of other issues that could fill up the time of the Congress while we sat down and see if there wasn’t some way to resolve these differences and come up with a health care bill.”

Congressman Delahunt thinks we should break reform into a series of bills and pass them over time: “I think that we would get a good policy out of a series of bills that were brought up over the next several months,” Delahunt said during an appearance on MSNBC, urging a more modest approach. “What I think we should do is have discrete votes on all of the issues.”

Congressman Yarmuth feels the same: “I think what would probably be the best thing, from my perspective, for us to do the best thing on healthcare is to send pieces of the program — pass them here, send them to the Senate — and let the American people digest them bit by bit,” Yarmuth said during an appearance on Fox News. “All the surveys show that people like the individual elements of what we in the House were trying to do.”

Frankly, these people are idiots.

You’ve got two sweeping reform bills that have already passed. After a year of hard work, they’re sitting right on the precipice, inches from becoming law. Millions of Americans have needed this reform for decades.

Meanwhile, Republicans will oppose everything that Democrats try to do with healthcare, ever. There’s no possibility of even the smallest compromise. So, if you pause, or if you slow down, or break it all up into tiny pieces, what do you get in return? So close to an epic political victory for your side and for Americans everywhere, what’s the payoff for throwing away your advantage?

Absolutely nothing. Fucking ZERO.

Feinstein: “slow down” on health reform; Mass election part of a “sweep across the country.”
January 20, 2010 1:18 PM

“. . . I can tell you the situation has changed dramatically. And I think it’s a sweep across the country and I think that the (White House Economic Adviser) Larry Summerses of the world have to see it, the administration has to see it and we have to see it. And therefore everything is jobs and the economy and education. People are worried about education,” she said.

“You see anger. People are worried. And when they’re worried they don’t want to take on a broad new responsibility,” like health care reform, she said . . .

“I think we do go slower in health care. People do not understand it, it is so big it is beyond their comprehension. And if you don’t understand it when somebody tells you it does this or it does that and it’s not true, you tend to believe it, even though it isn’t true . . .”

Good goddamn. It’s already passed, you moron. Feinstein is the sort of spineless oatmeal that the Democrats have served up for too long. She makes it impossible for Democrats to ever be anything but non-winners. Let’s do what the opposition wants, great idea. Matthew Yglesias:

Do House Democrats Realize They Already Voted for Health Care Reform?

What’s baffling to me about the collective health care freakout happening on the Hill right now is that House Democrats don’t quite seem to be grasping the implications of the fact that they already voted for health reform back in November . . .

Enough. Now, do whatever you have to do, get it done. It’s what’s best for the country, Diane. Last and not least, ever, Paul Krugman:

He Wasn’t The One We’ve Been Waiting For

. . . Maybe House Democrats can pull this out, even with a gaping hole in White House leadership. Barney Frank seems to have thought better of his initial defeatism. But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.

Yep.

Don’t let anyone tell you that what happened Tuesday night, the Coakley loss, Scott Brown’s easy win in the Massachusetts Senate race, wasn’t a political bomb going off. That was a violent explosion, a complete disaster.

After all the epic machinations and manipulations necessary to pass the healthcare bill, — maybe single payer, but that’s a no-go, public option is the thing, naw it’s gone, now it’s saved, Lieberman just killed killed it, maybe Snowe is on board, no she’s not, how do we end-run Stupak, how can we get Ben Nelson on board, cut him some pork, when is the Senate vote scheduled? — the exotic trophy ‘supermajority’ that was everything, that made the whole thing possible, disappeared, poof, overnight.

Unbelievable. I doubt I’ll ever see it again in my life. And I have no idea why no one thought of defending it until about ten days ago, when it was way, way too late.

And, for aural punctuation, accompanying the long faces on this side are the sounds of millions of political orgasms on the other. Sounds like these:
– A Blue State Turns BROWN!!!
– Revolutionary Victory: Republican Scott Brown wins Ted Kennedy’s Senate Seat
– The Scott Brown Election Is A Referendum On The Establishment
– Massachusetts Miracle: Election night liveblog; Update: BROWN WINS, COAKLEY CONCEDES
– Brown Wins! Dems Taste Tea, CNN, MSNBC Fun To Watch, Amnesty Toast

Anybody could’ve predicted the reaction and momentum swing if Coakley were to lose. So, Coakley could never lose. But it wasn’t even close.

Good lord, this is some sort of historic embarrassment. Why didn’t anybody seem to care?

The answer? The leader of the Democratic Party, the President, Barack Obama, wasn’t up to the task. Like it or not, he asked for the helm, so it’s his responsibility. Yeah, but we all know he’s too busy. His responsibility, though, doesn’t require he do the actual work: technically he hires the entire executive branch, and they execute his governmental responsibilities. So where was his political right-hand man, the heavy-hitter to do all this critical work? If Obama’s not looking out for his own healthcare legislation, someone else better be.

You’re thinking David Axelrod? You gotta be kidding me, forget it. He’s a p.r. guy, a gun for hire, a “specialist in urban politics.” I wouldn’t ever count on him to step outside the Obama bubble. No, what I’m talking about is a national political party animal, right out of the smoke-filled backrooms. A stone-grinder of Democratic politics first and last, his pockets crammed with wet knives, fresh lists and plenty of chits.

Where is the President’s Karl Rove? It all should have been left to him. But, right now, he doesn’t exist.

Rove was the political boss of the Bush years, the ‘genius’ who got the single worst President in history a second term. This is the sort of guy we need: someone who can look down the road a couple years (or a few weeks, please) and start pushing pawns and pulling levers in order to give the Democrats the edge. You know, so that we can finally manage to get something done.

Remember how you chafed at Karl’s ridiculous idea of the ‘Permanent Republican Majority‘? The silliness made him an American political legend:

President George W. Bush called him “the architect” of his reelection victory and he has been the president’s chief strategist from the beginning. But Karl Rove is much more than a political guru, he is the single most powerful policy advisor in the White House. Frontline and The Washington Post joined forces to trace the political history and modus operandi of the man who has been on the inside of every political and policy decision of the Bush administration, including the current battles on Social Security, taxes, and tort reform. For Rove — observers say — enactment of the Bush agenda is a way to win the biggest prize of all: a permanent Republican majority.

Well, how badly do you wish we’d had even one operator in the administration who’d managed to look ahead just one month? Who’d have taken immediate charge of the pathetic Coakley campaign? Dragged Obama to Massachusetts on four successive weekends to talk up the now-gone Senator Kennedy and healthcare reform and ‘I’m counting on you to do the right thing in Teddy’s name’? Karl Rove would have been on top of that long before the good Senator’s death.

The hard truth delivered this morning is that the Democratic leadership are still playing a 20th-century political game, one they’d forgotten Rove already trumped twice in the 21st. Because of it, they’re flat out incompetents. It’s true — what else can you say of the folks who produced this political provenance for the open seat: John F. Kennedy, (Kennedy friend) Ben Smith, Edward Kennedy . . . Scott Brown? Cosmo centerfolds everywhere, Bay State Senate seats are now in play.

Well, being incompetent won’t cut it any more. With majorities in both houses, riding high in the polls, anybody can do that work, that’s pretty easy. All of 365 days later, shocked and embarrassed, they’ll never have it easy again. Take a look at what’s in store:

First, the Republicans now have the momentum. Seeing a Dem getting her ass kicked in midnight blue Massachusetts has terrified every Democratic Representative and Senator in anticipation of 2010 and 2012. Forget any political capital being risked for good things — if a bill or issue isn’t going to pay off immediately in their states and districts, they’re a lot less likely to be interested.

Second, the Tea Partiers and Fox News aren’t just weirdos and racists any more, they’re the regular folks in America. They’re politically relevant, they’re what’s happening in America, they’re what’s just happened to Massachusetts. So now everybody will have to listen to them. And with more and more people listening, they’ll tee off on the administration and Democrats even more viciously than before. It’s Obama and his people that are out of touch — did you catch the President sadly coming around two days before the blowout? (And how clueless did that look? No way ‘Rove’ lets that happen.)

Third, the Democrats have to manage some serious calisthenics to save their historic healthcare reform legislation. Without which, the last half of 2009 is wiped out and the Republicans are handed an historic and bloody victory. That mess likely kills any chance of real reform for two decades. Terrific.

How could the Democratic leadership not see any of this coming? How badly do you figure we need our Karl Rove now?

“I have taken my Christmas tree down. I have taken my Christmas wreath off my house. I have taken all the lights down. This is supposed to be a nation under God, and it isn’t.”

That sort of legislation, getting 30 million Americans healthcare…that is not Godly.

“They absolutely have ruined Christmas for all of the senators and representatives that are supposed to be…under God. This is God’s holiday for his…for the birth of his son.”

Look what they have done to all of the Republicans in Congress…

ACK! Transformed! Mindless minions of the Dark Side! And now–the good Baby Jesus…

…a plasticized holiday hor’s d’oeuvres for Satan, served on an ACORN! Mocked by Kelsey Grammar’s hair! And by perky breasticles, revealed Mardi Gras style to the world! No! Nutty Flash-ey Jesus!

“…I would like to see every light in the nation go out, especially in the White House…”

So we can crawl in a window and kill The One!

“..either it’s genocide on the…on the, uh, seniors with this hospice it’s never supposed to be supported by federal or state money, they are not-for-profit organization that Germany has even kicked out…”

GERMANY!

Gateway Pundit:

Michelle Malkin & Mark Steyn Report on the National Joker Outbreak

Mark Steyn and Michelle Malkin talked tonight on Hannity about the growing backlash against the crappy Obamacare bill. Michelle also mentioned the “Obama’s joker” signs that are popping up across the country this week.

Michelle Malkin says this jokerizing trend is just the beginning of the end for these log rollers and bribe takers.

Also:

Stunner. Barack Hussein Obama & Family to Skip Christmas Services

Another stunner from the Obama White House.

BHO and his family will skip Christmas services this year.

Evidently, Rev. Jeremiah G-D AmeriKKKa Wright was not holding services in the DC area tonight.

But they did put up a Christmas Tree… Complete with Mao Tse-Tung balls.

And I’m only kidding, they did note the healthcare bill vote:

After Enough Bribes Were Handed Out–Democrats Ram Obamacare Through Senate 60-39… There Are No Moderates

We’re all socialists now.

Democrats passed their unpopular nationalized health care bill today.

The vote passed without a single Republican voting in favor of the legislation.

The AP celebrated the historic vote…

And:

Unpopular President Welcomes Government Takeover of Health Care Industry…

..and on and on…

Normally, who’d bother with state Senators? But Dave is waaaaay wingnut.

And what’s great about that? This is what’s great: it’s a wingnut triumph of truth and the human spirit to speak your mind. WOW. Coool. He’s ‘Twitter’ing what only the worst of us are thinking.

Hello!

WOAH. The president is one of those terrorists that killed thousands of Americans in a matter of minutes back in 2001? That seems a bit much.

State Senate President Brandon Shaffer, a Longmont Democrat, calls Schultheis’ tweet “appalling” and has demanded a retraction, and Ed Kowalski, a director for the New York-based 9/11 Families for a Secure America, believes Schultheis was “clearly” referring to Flight 93 when he used the words of the passengers who fought to take back the ill-fated plane: “Let’s roll.”

Kowalski also disagrees with many of Obama’s policies but says, “Let’s not cheapen what happened on Sept. 11 by making random and or ill-fated comparisons to current policy.”

WHAT! Who the fuck said “Let’s Roll” was connected to anything about planes, including what I said?

“‘Let’s roll.’ It’s a comment people use all the time any more. ‘Let’s get going. Let’s move on. Let’s make major changes,’ ” Schultheis said. “I can see it now. But you’re busy doing jillions of things during the day. You sometimes don’t analyze every single word.”

Busy doing jillions of things, but he sees it now. So it was a mistake, because he was busy, but everybody uses it all the time, so it’s not a mistake.

Earlier this year, in a communicable disease transmission bill, Colorado lawmakers sought to test all pregnant women for HIV so that they could prescribe anti-virals to protect infants.

Dave:

“This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part, and I just can’t go there,” he said.

“We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. I’m not convinced that part of the role of government should be to protect individuals from the negative consequences of their actions.”

The whores should just watch their babies die. Okay.

1. Joe Lieberman walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The bartender turns to him and says, “Sorry, we don’t serve bitter old egomaniacs here. And fuck your stupid parrot.”

2. Joe Lieberman walks into a second bar. The second bartender says, “Get out.” Joe Lieberman says, “Why? Can’t I buy a drink?” The second bartender says, “Don’t you get it? Everybody hates you.”

Lieberman will filibuster health-care reform ‘as a matter of conscience‘

LIEBERMAN: “If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe debt can break America and send us into a recession that’s worse than the one we’re fighting our way out of today. I don’t want to do that to our children and grandchildren.”

EZRA KLEIN: I’ve sent a couple of requests over to Lieberman’s office for an interview, and haven’t had much luck. But my question is a simple one, and any reporter could ask it: What’s the mechanism by which the public option increases the national deficit?

This has been Lieberman’s standard argument for the past few weeks, but he has not, to my knowledge, explained how it works. Every analysis of the public option I’ve seen has concluded that it will reduce federal, and consumer, spending. Indeed, the stronger the public option is, the more it reduces the deficit…

We’re left, then, in a strange place. Lieberman says he cannot support the public option because he is worried about the national debt. But the public option, in its current form, shows some hope of reducing the deficit, and has no mechanism for increasing it. Any such mechanism would need to be added later, and would be subject to the filibuster…

3. Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Joe.
Joe who?
Joe Lieberman.
Get off my doorstep, you asshole.

4. Joe Lieberman is on a lifeboat with a young woman who was denied insurance coverage because she was raped, a middle-class guy who can’t afford his premiums, and a sickly child. He stabs them all in the back.

Our Troops Must Stay
America can’t abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.

by JOE LIEBERMAN
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:01 A.M. EST

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood–unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn…

5. Joe Lieberman is fellating the health insurance industry when a little boy opens the door and screams, “What are you doing, Senator Lieberman?!?” Lieberman wipes his mouth and says, “Isn’t it obvious, Timmy?”