Turnabout Is Fair Play

From the report on Obama's physical:

The doctors also recommended "moderation of alcohol intake".

Looks like we have him hitting the sauce, too.

PILING ON:  The lying weasel is still smoking, so enough already with how slim he is.  BTW, he is 6' 2" and his weight is now 179; if he really quits smoking and tacks on 16 pounds, he will be officially overweight.

Yeah, yeah - BMI is a joke for athletic men.  Don't slow me down.

MY FADING LANGUAGE SKILLS:  Don't the Germans have a word to describe the feeling when something you didn't think was true turns out not to be?  "Schadenfalse", maybe?

Anyway, the Guardian was just having their fun at Obama's expense, no doubt as part of our special-in-a-new way relationship with Britain.  From the actual report, by way of Ms. Althouse, we see these exhortations to the President:

Continue smoking cessation efforts, a daily exercise program, healthy diet, moderation in alcohol intake, periodic dental care, and remain up to date with recommended immunizations.

Hmm - a resting pulse of 56 and a BP of 105/62, not not to mention a body temperature of 97.8?  This guy really is cool.

Comments

[Janet]

I love this from the article -

He told reporters last year he had quit but still had an occasional cigarette, without specifying how many.

I'm using the Obama standard for myself. I too have quit smoking, except when I smoke.

[Thomas Collins]

Let's not tweak Obama for his booze and butts habits, because by doing so, we simply give aid and comfort to the Michael Bloomberg-like scolds who want to control every personal habit they decide offends them. My problem with Obama is his policies, not the fact that he lights up or tilts one back on occasion.

[Tilts on just how many occasions?]

If you've got a doctor telling you to moderate your alcohol intake, that doctor thinks it's a problem.
===========================

[So what if it's 2:00 AM?]

I'd guess it's more than two drinks a day for the doctor to tell him to moderate it.
========================

[Lobeline? What else?]

I'd surely like some more information on the 'self-medicating' he's been doing.
=======================

[Pofarmer]

I'd surely like some more information on the 'self-medicating' he's been doing.

Booze and pills baby, Booze and pills.

[Pofarmer]

Ya know, drunk and high would explain some things.

[daddy]

I still think we should have random urinalysis tests for each and every one of our Public Servants in the House and Senate.
I have to whiz in a bottle at a moments notice every time I win that lottery, and in the big scheme of things they can do a ton more damage to the general welfare of this Nation by voting snockered, than any of the rest of us could do in our lifetimes.

So for those reasons, Senator, please breath into this breathalyzer, then step up and fill this cup to this level, and donate just like the rest of us.

[MarkO]

Tiger could say "he had quit but still had an occasional [slut]"

It is quitting with benefits.

[Dave (in MA)]

No mention of the nose candy that he admits to doing in his youth?

[Our press has its nose up in the air.]

Pof, I think the self-medicating referred to efforts to quit smoking, so not much proof he was getting high with those medications. That said, most of the drugs to treat anxiety, which he'd feel in nicotine withdrawal, are drugs that are readily abused, especially by self-medicators.

I smell rats.
=======

[The metabolites build up you know.]

Maybe that's why he just doesn't seem to give a damn. Vitamin V at toxic levels.
=======================

[Danube of Thought]

I became suspicious when he and the missus made that trip to the big apple early on. The tab showed two martinis, and I figured he had both of them.

When a doctor asks me how many drinks I have per day, I tell him "either none or eleven." (From now on I think I'll throw in something about carrot cake.)

[Dave (in MA)]

I hope he doesn't tie one on and push the button.

[Janet]

Let's not tweak Obama for his booze and butts habits

Oh, I disagree. Alinsky rule #4 Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

[Ignatz]

--Oh, I disagree. Alinsky rule #4 Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.--

Yes, but Janet, on the left you get to keep a double set of books.

[Captain Hate]

I still think the irritated look he was showing at the end of the morning in the Health Summit was because he was jonesing for a cigarette or a hit off the flask. With his purported family history of alcoholism and cancer, neither of his habits is very smart; of course neither is BOzo.

[Thomas Collins]

I am reading the link of Dave(in MA) to mean that Obama doesn't plan on going ahead with the Reliable Replacement Warhead (he has already announced his opposition to continued work on RRR). Is there a different reading from anyone? I keep hoping against hope that Obama will come to his senses on this and proceed with RRR.

See, if Obama was smoking and boozing in Churchillian proportions, he would be formulating better nuclear strategy!

[E. Nigma]

"Skinny, smoking, drunk and high is no way to go through life, young man," what Dean Wormer might have said to young Obama at Occidental College.
Well, onwards and upwards.

[Janet]

Who is the dumb cowboy now?

[Dave (in MA)]

I had him pegged as more of a Newport guy, but I suppose that's unfair stereotyping on my part.

[Porchlight]

I would agree with kim's 12:18 - given the coverage this report will get, if the doctor is willing to put in writing that Obama needs to moderate alcohol intake, it is far more than 2 drinks/day.

[macphisto]

KOOL Milds, i think.

[Thomas Collins]

We need a Camels straights and Jack Daniels POTUS.

[Danube of Thought]

I would hope that the bit about moderating alcohol will get some significant press attention. Like, "Robert, how much does the president drink?"

[BumperStickerist]

for any news reporters -

The question is not - have you quit smoking - the question is "On a life insurance application, would you say that you use tobacco? Bearing in mind we take hair samples to verify your answer. -

[bgates]

Too bad the domesticated housepress won't breathe a word of this story.

[Jim Ryan]

After Nov '10, it's Betty Ford Clinic for BOzo.

[Janet]

Yeah bgates, the alcohol part wasn't mentioned in the WaPo tiny article today.

[Clarice]

A good doctor would take Obama's family history. Since his putative father was an alcoholic, I'd expect a prudent doctor would think he should moderate his alcohol intake--perhaps to even less than the normally considered "moderate" 2 drinks a day. He is genetically vulnerable.

[Paul T]

per NRO:
"New 'Much Smaller' Obama Bill Wednesday [Daniel Foster]

According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the White House will release a new health-care bill on Wednesday that will be "much smaller" than either the House or Senate versions, according to news reports..."

[Jack is Back!]

"KOOL Milds, i think."

Racist!

DOT: I am of the same persuasion when it comes to disclosing my drinking habits to the medico - none or a dozen. He just laughs and tells me the same for him. Before I gave up cigars, I used to burn 2 on the golf course and 1 at night with the wine. My medico confessed he couldn't understand how I could manage to a 3 cigar limit - he was a 5 stogie a day man.

The point is that the docs can give advice but its up to you the individual to heed it. I gave up the cigars because I have a little guy and wanted to set an example. The Won doesn't have the same consideration for the girls which is not surprising since its all about him, all the time, all the way. Watching his performance at Blair House left me with an expanded dislike for his personality and thin skin. Without sounding condescending and racist - he was putting on airs!

[Carol Herman]

He got through the 7-hours of health-care C-Span TV. So, for a lot of it, he wasn't smoking. Maybe, he smokes to take a crap? Maybe, he likes to blow smoke at his staff meetings?

As to the 'drink less,' whose to say that wasn't boilerplate? If you answer that you swallow ANY alcohol, a doctor could automatically add that advice?

This was the first time he ever met the Navy captain! And, doctors are licensed. Including licensed to give you needles.

[JM Hanes]

Thomas Collins:

"My problem with Obama is his policies, not the fact that he lights up or tilts one back on occasion."

It's not the sex smokes, it's the subterfuge.

[Jim Ryan]

Hang on a second. Rage disorder. Sloshed. Self-medicated with what - percocets? Delusions about family members. Said to surf the blogs....

Can it be that the President of the United States is our own little puddle of human filth cleo?

[Dan D]

Read the wording of the actual report, folks. It's boilerplate, recommending a good diet combined with exercise and moderate alcohol consumption, not a concerned recommendation to "moderate" (in a verb sense) one's consumption. The same kind of yada yada everybody over 45 sees in their annual physical handout when the technician hits the Print function on Family MD Handy Dandy desktop office practice software.

[Clarice]

Ann Althouse says the alcohol claim is from sloppy editing of boilerplate in the medical report..and really refers to his continued moderation of alcohol consumption.

[Elliott]

Since when do 73 inches equal 6'2"?

[Jane]

OT: Daddy has agreed to let me put some of his travelogues up at You TOO. (I know, it is off subject but they are very cool).

You can read Part 1 of Travels with Daddy - Shanghai, here.

[Jack is Back!]

Elliot,

Since when did Austrians start speaking Austrian or since when did 57 equal 50?

[Old Lurker]

Having nothing to do with any thread....

Over the weekend WaPo printed two big pictures of KB Hutchinson attending some functions in Texas. She was in High Cowgirl Fashion from head to toe. Nice big hat; real fancy boots; and everything in between. Porch would be proud.

Since she never looks like that in DC, I was wondering how that plays in Texas?

[Old Lurker]

"Since when do 73 inches equal 6'2"?"

Is this where we tell the dirty joke about why girls are no good at math?

[Clarice]

It's not the sex smokes, it's the subterfuge. It's what they say but I don't believe it..it is the sex/smokes/whatever..

Might as well lie about it.

*****

I must be losing my mind. I could swear that I read somewhere that on Wed Obama plans to put forward his own short health care proposal, but I can't find the piece anywhere and so I must have somehow dreamed it.
(Have to stop drinking so much Red Bull, I guess.)

[Old Lurker]

C, the story was that on Wednesday he plans to inform Congress how he thinks they should proceed to get a bill on his desk.

[Extraneus]

Yeah, I was having a hard time believing his doctor would have written down something like that. The boilerplate explanation makes a lot more sense.

[Thomas Collins]

I wonder whether the "smaller" health care bill referred to in Paul T's above post is Hennessey's Bill 2, to be signed by POTUS after the House passes the bill already passed by the Senate (which Hennessey labels Bill 1) and signed into law by Obama.

Hennessey may have called it. Two pieces of law, signed one after the other by Obama, with Bill 2 "fixing" Bill 1.

[JM Hanes]

Dan D:

Perhaps you could link to where you "[r]ead the wording of the actual report," because the actual wording quoted in the summary TM linked to above did, indeed, use "moderation" in the active sense. "[I]ntake," as opposed to consumption (the term even you, yourself, use) is not conventional boilerplate language either. This is the official report on the President's physical, not a yada yada handout. For the yada yada, you need to go back to the letter from Obama's doctor he produced during the campaign.

[Danube of Thought]

I choose to conclude that he's an erratic drunkard.

[Clarice]

Ann Althouse has the pdf of the report..The Guardian fiddled with the language and that is what Drudge ran as the report.

Jane, are you aware of this outfit?
ttp://handsoffmyhealth.org/reconciliation?origin=recon_336x850

[Clarice]

Ah, the article I was looking for was in Paul's link to the NRO--Hmm

[Porchlight]

Since she never looks like that in DC, I was wondering how that plays in Texas?

It depends. With KBH I wouldn't think it would go over all that well because it's such blatant posing. But I don't like her, so I'm biased. Perhaps Sue or bad could give their input?

[bgates]

Clarice, here's the story.

[Dan D]

JM Hanes, please read it again. There is not an active sense in the sentence in question.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/potusmedicalexam.pdf

We have plenty of good material to pile on the guy, but just look like carpy kids when we automatically chase after a distorted meaning in something boringly routine.

[Clarice]

OL you're wrong..(thanks, bgates I was just trying to get there) The article says it is not the House nor the Senate bill and it has nothing to do with reconciliation:
Monday, March 01, 2010

New 'Much Smaller' Obama Bill Wednesday [Daniel Foster]
According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the White House will release a new health-care bill on Wednesday that will be "much smaller" than either the House or Senate versions, according to news reports.

The White House said that the new proposal will "borrow" ideas from last Thursday's health-care summit and will be designed to garner bipartisan support.

A senior administration official told Fox Obama's proposal will be introduced Wednesday.

"In a matter of days, we will have a proposal," Pelosi said, pointing to Obama's forthcoming bill. "It will be a much smaller proposal than we had in the House bill, because that's where we can gain consensus. But it will be big enough to put us on a path of affordable, quality health care for all Americans that holds insurance companies accountable."

Melody Barnes, a top Obama domestic policy adviser, did not dispute Pelosi's characterization of the new plan as smaller in scope - and quite possibly in cost - than either the House or Senate health care bills.

"It's going to be matter of drawing on these different ideas and coming up with the right proposal," Barnes said in an exclusive interview with Fox. "That's what my colleagues are working on. That's what they're talking with Congress about. We'll see what it looks like when the proposal is sent forward."

Asked how White House staff is putting the new proposal together, Barnes said they are "borrowing" from conversations at Thursday's health care summit.

"We're going to be borrowing from those conversations...to come up with a bill that we hope can receive bipartisan support," Barnes said.

The White House indicated that two GOP ideas — malpractice reform and insurance purchasing across state lines — would be worked into the new proposal.

03/01 01:59 PMShare

[Jeff]

Obama is definately a Virginia Slims guy ...

[It's very common, you know.]

Clarice, I don't think a whole lot of the 'genetic vulnerability' argument though there is a little to it. An exhaustive family history will almost always find alcoholism. And since it is a source of shame, deserved or not, it's often hidden.
=====================

[Janet]

I choose to conclude that he's an erratic drunkard.

Hahaha....me too DoT! By the way, have I told you I've quit smoking?...except occasionally...like now.

[Jack is Back!]

OL:

Regarding KBH, down in Texas there is an old saying: "all hat, not cattle".

[Sue]

If it is boilerplate, it should be on other president's reports, no?

[Old Lurker]

"OL, you're wrong..."

Words I hear often at home.

Seriously I had not seen that story sio thanks for repeating it above. Perhaps the LUN from Bloomberg accounts for some of their actions?

[bgates]

An exhaustive family history will almost always find alcoholism.

How often will a family history confined to the two closest male relatives find it twice?

[matt]

okay, strategically, let's step back here.

Obama had his health care seance' on Thursday and was basically shot down in flames by the Republicans. All through the weekend we heard that it was a now going to be a ramdown, including from Mad Nancy.

Now all of a sudden there is a new, improved message of hope and change including a couple of Republican ideas thrown in.

First this indicates an incredible degree of either disorganization or failing that, duplicity. Second, knowing the Chicago style rules these people play by, where are the whoopie cushions?

It sounds as if Obama may have just thrown the entire Democratic Party under the bus.

[But is it genetic or cultural?]

Surprisingly often.
=======

[Clarice]

If this NRO/Fox report of a new bill entirely coming out of the WH , not the Congressional Mosh pits, is true it mesns:(a) the debate starts over in both houses; (b0 there is no reconciliation,(c) Nancy and Harry don't have the votes.

Where am I wrong?

[Thomas Collins]

Clarice, if you're correct, it looks as if I join Old Lurker in being wrong. If you are correct, instead of the double nuclear option (the one described by Hennessey that I thought was going to be the game plan for the White House), POTUS has decided upon the radiological bomb option (take what he can get now and come back for more later).

I guess I am too cynical to believe that this new bill will really include the kind of market reforms that the GOPers were discussing at the summit. And, if POTUS is really choosing the radiological bomb option. I think it's only because he knew the double nuke option was a non-starter.

Jane, if this turns out to be true, I still have to eat crow, because I thought Full Monty ObamaCare was going to pass.

[Captain Hate]

Where am I wrong?

Nowhere that I can see, aside from your standard keyboard gaffes.

[Clarice]

sounds that way to me, too, matt.

Of course, we have to see what's in the bill--but let's pretend that someone with some political sense in the WH (like Re) drafted up a moderate, cost cutting proposal which will be offered--everybody's a winner! Except Nancy and the far left.

As for mad Nancy..she's been caught out in another bald faced lie:

Cybercast News Service, by Edwin Mora Original Article

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insisted on Friday that the Senate health care bill does not allow tax-funding of abortion, and added that she had spoken with “Catholic bishops” about the issue. However, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told CNSNews.com that anyone who had spoken to the bishops about the legislation should know that it does fund abortion and that the bishops oppose the bill."

[Sue]

I haven't seen the picture of KBH in hat and boots. It would depend on where she was when she wore them, IMO. If it was appropriate attire for the event she was attending, then no one would think anything of it. Not in Texas, anyway.

[Sue]

I did a google to find the picture. If it is the one of her on horseback at a parade, then she would have looked silly wearing a DC outfit. I thought she looked okay.

[JM Hanes]

Thomas Collins:

Congress can obviously fix any bill ex post facto with subsequent legislation. I just don't see how that even begins to resemble the kind of reconciliation process set up by Byrd et al., or what purpose Byrd's (strictly) budgetary convention would serve in that context, or why it would even be particularly controversial when Congress amends legislation all the time.

Per my comments in the Sunday thread, it seems to me that the only plausible hot button nuclear issue here is what the Democrats try to do if they can't get the House to pass the Senate's version or vice versa. Why would the Senate suddenly bow to House demands after their own legislation passes? Why would the House put stock in any such promise to do so?

It also seems to me that going the Byrd Reconciliation route (as I thought I understood it) is essentially a surrender to incrementalism in all but name only. You put money into the budget for Healthcare Reform (putatively offset by revenues) and then duke it out over how you use the funding piece by legislative piece later. In the meantime, you've got something to spin as victory for the elections.

Maybe I'm hopelessly confused or am missing too many pieces of the puzzle, but -- for the moment -- that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[matt]

back to the health topic, the Prostate Cancer Charity in the UK reported that 20% of all requested PSA exams in that country are turned down by GP's. That is an amazing statistic. I blogged on it. LUN.

[Sue]

The two summaries of Bush's exams both state he doesn't drink alcohol.

[Sue]

I guess I should say the 2 I found.

[Thomas Collins]

JMH, before Clarice's posts above, I was taking the position that, whatever the letter and spirit of the reconciliation process is, the Dems, with Biden in the saddle as Senate Prez, would be able to do the stretching they needed to do. But, after reading Clarice's posts above, I'm not sure.

Is this a true compromise or a Trojan Horse?

[Rick Ballard]

TC,

Trojan Jackass will prolly come closer to the mark.

[glasater]

I thought Zero had already proposed a compromise bill after the summit.

Someone wrote that he had taken the worst of both bills to go forward.

[Jim Ryan]

Or he's asked himself over the weekend, "Do I want to go down as a mediocre two-term center-right president or do I want to crash and burn right now with these morons Pelosi and Reid?" I don't think he gives a hoot about leftism but only about his own ego. Perhaps he's realized that eight years as a mediocrity beats 100 years as a laughing stock.

[Old Lurker]

TC, if we are wrong and the HCR fails, then we will be very happily wrong.

Sue, I went online to find the pics of KBH and you are correct, they seem to have been at a Rodeo. Brooks Brothers might have been out of place.

Then again I am old enough to recall the abuse heaped on Richard Nixon for being seen in black socks on the beach at San Clemente.

[Clarice]

Either it's reasonable and it will pass with votes across the aisle, or it is unreasonable, it will pass with only Dem votes and the cry,"look how hard we tried". In either case it will be better that what preceded it and the Reps will say we fought it and lose but in doing so we got a less onerous law, and if you elect us as the majority we'll trim out of this jackass everything that stinks.

[Janet]

Off Topic -
We went and saw a good movie this weekend. "North Face" - about climbing the Eiger in 1936. LUN for the trailer.

[Clarice]

**we fought it and losT*

[Porchlight]

I thought Zero had already proposed a compromise bill after the summit.

I think it was last Monday, before the summit, but I'm losing track fast.

[Jane]

Frankly I think the president should be denied healthcare until he gives up the butts and booze. Clearly he is too big a risk to the country and his children. If he can't lead by example he should step down.

Oh and Obama's new bill was not a compromise, it was a bigger expansion than the senate bill - because he's president.

[Clarice]

kim--From Wired:
Genetic analysis of an ancient polar bear fossil has formally dated the species’ birth to 150,000 years ago, shortly before an Ice Age thaw produced a climate comparable to what’s expected in a globally warmed future. “They’ve certainly experienced climate changes before,” said Charlotte Lindqvist, a biologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo and co-author of the analysis, published March 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The big question is whether they’re going to be able to survive in the future.”"

[Jim Ryan]

Sounds from the article like he has another new bill coming out in two days.

[Clarice]

That's how I read it,jim.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

If it is boilerplate, it should be on other president's reports, no?

Well, no. Bush_43, for example, is a recovering alcoholic and teetotal; it would not therefore be appropriate for his report to recommend "continuing moderate drinking".

[JM Hanes]

Over on the other thread, glasater linked to Ezra Klein, who does some tap dancing of his own around the history of reconciliation. He does, however, link to a useful Summary of the Byrd Rule. It does seem clear that it pertains to compromise legislation developed in the Conference committee which "reconciles" Senate and House bills -- when neither one can be passed, as is, by the other House. Klein is certainly right that reconciliation, per se, has been used often enough. The real difference, however, would be reconciliation under the Byrd Rule, which allows a bill to pass in the Senate on a simple majority in certain fiscally derived circumstances.

The key to the controversy here seems to be that the Byrd Rule doesn't automatically apply, it must be invoked. Once it has been, it takes a 60 vote majority to waive it. The downside, however, is not, as I thought, the possibility of infinite amendments, but rather a continuous stream of motions and points of order which must be addressed if raised. Perhaps this is where the Prez of the Senate's apparent power to overrule the Parliamentarian comes into play. I wonder if having to do so -- and being seen to slap down objections at every turn -- in order to git 'r done, however, wouldn't be the real high risk part of such a political exercise for the Dems.

I still have yet to see how House passage of the Senate bill could figure into this process, instead of the opposite, though.

[pagar]

"I don't think he gives a hoot about leftism"

IMO, he is every bit as committed to taking this country as far left as he can. Will he have the success that Hugo Chavez has had? Who knows, but at this point, I don't see much stopping him. We picked up a family member, from Venezuela, at the airport yesterday. That was his impression, no one thought Chavez was as committed as he is, until it was too late.

[Clarice]

Conrad says the Senate will not pass the House bill, that Pelosi has to pass the Senate bill to start anything.

The House bill I believe is more radical than the Senate bill .

Otherwise, I think you've got the process down pat--Assuming that the report of the Prsident offering up an entirely new, short form bill on Wednesday, doesn't materialize.

[JM Hanes]

The Prez can propose a piece of compromise legislation, but if the Conference were to adopt it as reconciliation bill, it would be high irony if the Republicans derailed it by invoking Byrd. Somehow, I doubt that the White House will be coming up with a thousand pages of detail any time soon, and I'm not sure I see Pelosi/Reid & Co. embracing the idea of doing his heavy lifting yet again.

It occurs to me (Holy Shades of You Know Who) that the Democrats are fighting a war amongst themselves on multiple fronts. The President is desperately seeking bipartisan cover even if he has to manufacture that fiction himself, while House leadership couldn't care less about it. Then you've got the House vs. Senate battle, in which I suspect both Pelosi and Conrad know that if the House passes the Senate bill, or vice versa, it's not reconciliation, it's OVER.

[Melinda Romanoff]

JMH-

If the White House presents a recommendation for a shorter bill, it's just that, a recommendation. I believe for it to be proposed as a bill, it would need it's own path to the floor, introduced by some member of Congress, a formality, I admit. My question is this, wouldn't a new bill need to be passed through committee and such before hitting the floor? Which, as a formality, is no big deal, what is a big deal is the time this would take. I see it getting bogged down by their own efforts and continued dissatisfaction of the electorate. Suicide by inches is not something I think these wizards will tolerate. Add a few more recall efforts to the mix and I would be willing to bet on the collapse of their collective will.

Just a finer point from the "nit" department. Could be wrong too, won't be the first time.

[Sue]

"continuing moderate drinking".

That isn't what it said.

If it was boilerplate, wouldn't it be continue abstaining from alcohol since Bush told them he didn't drink any alcohol?

[Clarice]

Exactly so,jmh. It's an intraparty war.
Yes, it would have to be pssed in both houses, Mel and that would take time. I believe if the report is true, the head count is lost on all other pending alternatives.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Jennifer Rubin weighs in on Nancy's chances and brings it to its fulcrumatic ( I know it's not a word, but I like it anyway. )point.

[PaulL]

If the House were to pass the Senate bill, the Senate would not follow through on their promises of making fixes in a second bill.

Ibama would sign the passed bill and screw the House.

The House knows it cannot trust the Senate.

[JM Hanes]

Dan D:

Thanks for the link. Boilerplate it is. Of course, the Doc only released what the Prez authorized him to release.....

Just kidding! I threw that in so Frank Rich could find a useful quote for his next outing. The longer the left contents itself with thinking Tea Party type folks are lightweight conspiracy nuts, the better the potential surprise in November.

[PaulL]

Like you said, JM!

[JM Hanes]

Melinda:

"My question is this, wouldn't a new bill need to be passed through committee and such before hitting the floor."

As a putative synthesis of the House and Senate bills, I believe it could be adopted as the House/Senate Conference Report (i.e. a "reconciled" bill) and sent back for a "final" vote in both houses simultaneously. At that point, however, it's my impression that the Byrd Rule would have to be invoked to avoid the 60 vote obstacle in the Senate.

There's just no way Obama would be submitting his proposal as a new, standalone, piece of legislation at this point in time -- in large part because of the very problems you mention. He, too, is essentially relying on the reconciliation process for his own purposes. He's just hoping no one will point that out and/or that he can convince the Dems in Congress of the wisdom in doing it his way. I get the feeling that they're not looking to do the Prez any favors, though, but they might temper their public reaction on the off chance that he could deliver a key vote or two.

[glasater]

So Ezra Klein is back at it defending his position.

He does have a kind word or two about Paul Ryan however.