37 Gone.  

Spoke Salena Zito re the undecided Democrats in her beat for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and found a whip count that does not favor Mrs. Pelosi. You will recall that the Hill whip count lists 37 No votes, and Mrs. Pelosi can only give 37 No votes before healthcare fails to reach 216 majority.  Therefore any No vote from the 70 undecideds.  Zito identified Brad Ellsworth of Indiana 8 as a No vote or else he can abandon his campaign to win the open Senate sea against Dan Coats.  Also Zito identified Kathy Dahlkemper of Pa 3 as a No vote, from a conservative Catholic district.  Also a possible No from Charlie Wilson of Ohio 6, another Catholic conservative district.  And a No from Tim Ryan of Ohio 17, more Catholic conservatives.  The biggest doubt she registered was for Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania 4, who is faced with a weak opponent for November, but who would ignite opposition if he votes Yes.  Zito says that Altmire is undecided, but that if he votes No, he will hold district "forever."

Hurt Locker wins lavish and politically sophisticated attention from Hollywood but not from the young people deployed to theater, and this tells me that what has happened is that the war in the ummah has now shifted into a safe enough political place for the scriptwriters and their producers that it is possible to present the romance and sentimentality without thinking about the ongoing threat and fight. Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker is a recognizable and matter-of-fact version of late-produced Hollywood horse opera, more like Ulzana's Raid and less like The Searchers or the prototypical 1939 John Ford oater, Stagecoach, with its line about "Injun territory": young rebel in a dutiful band of brothers, surrounded by Injuns, family and meaning somewhere back in the world of women (Sam's Club shopping), punctuated by explosions and a sense of futility and injustice. The Hurt Locker Iraqis are far more compelling than our rootless hero cowboys, and this irony is an advance on the John Ford Injuns, who were just marauding demons. The responses (above) suggest that young soldiers in theater do not recognize or even approve of the rebellion theme in the Hurt Locker screenplay. Band of brothers does not work when rebels act singularly on their vanity or doubts. Why back up a selfish or impudent person; why trust him to back you up? 

What is also apparent in the familiar tropes of Hurt Locker  is that Hollywood is not comfortable with the facts of the war in Iraq. The received narrative that worked for candidate Barack Obama was that the war was illegal and lost, and that it is necessary to evacuate Iraq asap. The facts do not support this prejudice. Yet Hollywood must now follow an Academy Award movie (which didn't earn well, but was cheap to make) with other, much more lavish, affairs. The new Matt Damon superman drama, Green Zone, looks to be a quick score on the horse opera theme, with a bigger budget and more defined virtue. More like a video game and less like a gabfest. Hollywood goes to war once it is safely removed from the political debate. It is too early to measure Afghanistan.  POTUS Obama has not found a narrative in AfPak that Hollywood can embrace. The pursuit of AQ is not a useful metaphor for a business that depend on selling tickets worldwide. Horse opera, yep; stalking jihadis as if they are deer or King Kong, nope.  (Detail: David Petraeus travels to New Hampshire to give a speech: the Iraq theme may be coming back for 2012.  Smile.)

Without a sense of humor, politics is insufferable, and the strangeness of the Tea Party phenomenon is that everytime I see someone who claims to be a representative of the Tea Party, such as this dour Michael Patrick Leahy, it worries me that there is no sense of the ridiculous in the Tea Party -- and a complete vacuum of irony. Leahy is a founding father? Are the other founders grumpy, too? Is this the smarty-aleck of the outfit or just fellow with time on his hands? Worrisome and puzzling. The notion that there truly is a competing Coffee Party makes it even sillier that Leahy decides that he has to restate endlessly what the Tea Party think it is, or what he thinks it is. The Coffee Party? Hey, Leahy, consider it is likely a prank. A handsome genius puts up a graphic with coffee cups popping up on the screen and claims this is spontaneous growth?  Looks like a prank. Sounds like a send-up. Note (above) that the Coffee Party declined to appear opposite Leahy.  And Leahy is happy to be there, debating the empty chair of java.  Presents the possibility that Leahy is a send-up?  Nah.  Dueling beverages?

It remains a mystery why anyone fears the Tea Party.  It is also possible that the Tea Party is a send-up.  It can feel these days as if we have wandered into a novel under construction by a distracted Sinclair Lewis.  "It Can't Happen Here" turns into "It Can Happen, But It Won't Be That Scary Here."  What Leahy has to say is routine, derivative, unhelpful, a sturdy B for civics.  The question unanswered is, why are we listening to Leahy?  Why does anyone fear Leahy?  The fellow may be humorless, but he is clearly rational and dull, the kind of guy who can supervise and manage and learn.  Shrug.  "Limited government... free markets... and ..."  Leahy does spring upon the name Soros with regard the Coffee Party, which he declares, "...big government... collectivist..."  Shrug.  Again, a B for partisanship.  Perhaps I am an easy grader.  B-.  

   

Republican Burkean Thaddeus McCotter is relaxed and succinct in a colloquy with Democratic knight-errant Chris Van Hollen, narrated by the sprightly Chuck Todd, a well-matched trio of savvy, articulate and polite observers of the healthcare debate.  The healthcare tangle now turns to a peculiar state of anticipation as the Democrats proceed cagily to a test vote next week.  David Drucker tells me that the new twist is that the House brains and the White House geniuses are exploring a rule that will allow the Senate bill, passed December 24, 2009, by 60-40, to go the POTUS for signature without the House voting on it.   The trick is to convince the scholars and the Senate Parliamentarian to allow the House to vote on the sidecar fix of the Senate bill, and to vote on it, alone (which requires only 51 votes in the Senate to pass); and this vote will be understood as validating the original December Senate bill.  The fear in the House is that the Democrats must vote on the Senate monster of a bill that is filled with pork and folly -- and that these 216 votes will be held against the House members.  The fear grows that, if the House first votes on the original bill, which contains unacceptable items such as the Cornhusker exemption and the abortion funding, this may be the only piece that passes muster, leaving the 216 House members exposed for having approved a mess that cannot be fixed.   Of course, this is all monumentally confusing.  It will require much scholarship to make the case that the original bill can go to the POTUS for his signature without a House vote.  The GOP is already shouting.  The media columns have not started to explain to the public how it is possible to avoid the vote.  Terra incognita.  This is what civil war looks like in the early rounds.  Comity and trust are in the museum.  Swords unsheathed for Monday 15.

Drucker tells me that the committee will report out pieces of the sidecar bill starting on Monday 15.  These have not been scored by the CBO.  There is a deal of bluff here, and a measure of showmanship as well, and the Democrats go into the weekend without a clear way to get to 216 either for the original or for the sidecar.  Note the McCotter inference (above) that the reason the House members were held in Washington on a Friday -- supposedly to vote on the wonderful but tangential anti-algae bill -- was that this gave Mrs. Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel more opportunity to hammer the reluctant and wrecked in their own caucus.    Algae.  Worms.  Bait.  The metaphors write themselves.

Horse-Trading Farmhand.  

Speaking Dan Henninger, WSJ, on Friday 12, re the difference between Senate Majority Leader and VPOTUS, and then the accidental POTUS LBJ and POTUS Obama. LBJ built the foundation for the Great Society by starting in the Senate with the extremely cautious and conservative (and Jim Crow) Democratic bloc in the South as early as 1957 -- passing the 1957 Civil Rights Act one vote at a time. LBJ argued that it was critical that the bill pass while maintaining good and meaningful relations between the opponents and proponents. LBJ also argued for incrementalism, in that the 1957 bill was only four pages long and did not achieve anything close to the comprehensive protection of rights in the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 and 1965.  LBJ believed in small bites in order to move to eating the whole pie without Richard Russell smashing the table and chairs and ending the meal.   Also, once the farm-boy LBJ was POTUS, he horse-traded fiercely to bring along the reluctant Western senators, such as promising them new dams and irrigation money. The contrast with how the rookie Senator Obama has conducted his administration is Sun and Moon. POTUS Obama has reached for a vast reordering of the economy without any votes from the GOP and by damaging if not wrecking the seats of conservative Democrats from the South.  Not only is POTUS Obama not LBJ, but also POTUS Obama is draining the Democratic Party of the strength it has built in the New South.

Spoke David Drucker, Roll Call, to learn that the Parliamentarian of the Senate has ruled that  the Senate version of the healthcare bill must be voted on by a majority of the House Democrats (216) and then must go to POTUS for signature into law.  At that point, the Democratic Senate must move the so-called sidecar bill to fix the Cornhusker trick, the pro-life trick, and all the other pork in the Senate.  Am told that the Parliamentarian cannot rule out the GOP amendments endlessly.  The GOP calls it the votorama.  This process can last till November.  And when and if the GOP changes one comma in the healthcare law (act), it must go back to the House for another vote of 216.  (Late news: rumor on the HIll is to call for the vote on Wednesday 17.  Also, it is said that Stupak and his ten or eleven fellows cannot be solved -- since they cannot fix the Senate bill for abortion banning -- and that Mrs. Pelosi will make up for it elsewhere.  Also the GOP is saying now that the whip is ten short.  I still count under 200, also.

Speaker Hope.    

Fresh report from Steve Dennis, Roll Call, that some of the Bart Stupak Dirty Dozen are slipping away from the coalition to resist the Senate bill and that not all is gloom and despair in the Speaker's office.  The White House's Rahm Emanuel attended a think tank session on the Hill in this news cycle, all of the leadership and staff gathered together to go over lists and lay out what is to be done.  Steve Dennis believes the vote is much closer than the Speaker is mentioning.  I asked if the number was still under 200, and Steve Dennis answered that he believes it is closer than that, but that there will be no movement until they have 216.  

Late in the evening, spoke to Jonathan Allen, Politico, re the story breaking late that Eric Massa's chief of staff, Joe Racalto, told a staff memeber of Nancy Pelosi's last October 2009 about Massa's living with junior staff members and had hired too many aides.  The puzzle is what did the unnamed staffer do with the heads-up.  As of now, Jonathan Allen does not have the answer to what happened to the report.  There is no FOIA for members of Congress, so there is no discovery.  Racalto has not been questioned yet.  Also, Mrs. Pelosi is spinning this that she only heard rumors.  Hill source tells me that Mrs. Pelosi likely sent the unnamed staffer out to leak the tale in order to control the spin.  The contest now is to explain the process without admitting that Mrs. Pelosi knew of the troubles before Steny Hoyer learned if it on February 8.  

Whip count again with John McCormack, Weekly Standard, along with Margaret Hoover FNC, and John Avlon, Daily Beast, to find that the number remains under 200 for the 216 needed by Mrs. Pelosi.   McCormack spoke to Bart Stupak of Michigan, leader of the well-established opposition to the Senate healthcare bill because it does not contain anti-abortion language. Stupak does not have a solution to how the Senate can rearrange itself to suit the Stupak amendment in the House bill. Nor does McCormack or anyone I have spoken with have a solution to how to include a prohibition in the Senate bill or the so-called sidecar. Stupak does assert that he will not accept a deal from the White House where, somehow down the road, the language will be satisfied in another bill. Stupak is joined in his opposition by Oberstar of Minnestota, Lipinski of Illinois and others, who are firm against the Senate bill.  Stupak is the story.  Above, the shrewd Evan Newmark argues that the Democrats will suffer mightily once the healthcare is passed.  Stupak makes me pause.  How does anyone solve Stupak? One of the most liberal records in the House, Upper Michigan, hard-charger, and now he is the Obama administration's immovable obstacle.  

Rahm and Eric and the Bear Raiders of Lost Minds.      

Nicholas Sarkozy arrives at the Court of Obama to campaign for the French presidency in the same town as his rival, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and the opening remark for the day's PR is that Sarko will defend the euro against the rascal speculators and their running companions, the bear raiders.  Meanwhile, Greek President Papandreou comes to Washington for a meeting with POTUS on Tuesday, and he has already announced that the evil speculators are under investigation by the heroic US Department of Justice.  This conspiracy theory dates from a February 8 dinner in New York attended by 23 represetatives of hedge funds in which shorting the euro was discussed.  What is also fun to report is that Squawk Box, the tool used by sober captains of capitalism while they trade markets around the globe, reported live Sunday 7 with almost simultaneity to its vast audience of sharpies that the John Batchelor Show (Jon Weil, Simon Constable, Jim McTague and me) was discussing the dinner.  It is a delight to learn that I am reporting to the traders -- and to have the report confirmed by the Greek and French presidents within hours.  The conspiracy theory grows, and it lacks a name like Truther or Birther.  Perhaps Shorter, or Hedger, or Whiner.  

The latest episode of Rahm Emanuel vs. Ivan's Court promises many more episodes and likely more video.  The turn here is that Rahm is now part of the news story of Eric Massa's news story that Massa was bullied and ejected from the House because he is against the healthcare vote.  Massa will now do the media tour and retell his tale with many pertinent details, and we can only guess that he will make his way to Oprah to speak of his "salty" conduct.  Nothing about Massa's story is credible so far, and yet the man is strangely thrilling in the way a dam break is thrilling if you are back far enough from the flood.  The tale about Rahm without a towel in the House men's locker room is bizarre to the point of delusional, and yet there is an element of certitude.  Massa has thrown a stink bomb into the Democratic caucus.  Grabbing towels is the least of it.  Need handholds to climb out.  What this does for POTUS is wreck the narrative and establish the Obama administration as an IPO in laughingstock.  Worse to come?  Speaking Tory Newmyer, Roll Call, and John Fund, WSJ, on Monday 8 re the road ahead with and without towels.

 

 "...I think it's realistic because the American people are desperate..."  HHS Sec Kathleen Sebelius was the early warning system on healthcare last year, when she commented on Sunday talk that the "public option" would not survive the process.  Sebelius is honest and trustworthy, and she knows much more than she speaks.  This presentation does not sound confident.  No one has the whip count by Hoyer and Pelosi, and as of Friday 5 they were not sharing.  Sebelius aims to make the process seem critical, timely, urgent, passionate; yet that facts are that there is no good whip count, or even bad whip count, right now.  The Obama administration bases its remarks on the healthcare bill on the aspiration for success with the House vote, not on the confirmation of the House vote.  The whip count is not going to become easier.  Bart Stupak of Michigan has already been targeted by the progressive partisans.  The Blue Dogs are preparing their retirements after November.  

No Good Choices.  

The best explanation I can find as to why POTUS persists against the large odds against the final bill is that there is no alternative, no other choice, no way out.  POTUS goes for the win in the House, at 216 votes, and if he wins, miracle.  And if he loses, hope. The calculation is that neither a win nor a loss will materially change the wave building to sweep over the Democrats in the House and Senate in November.  Used to be called a tidal wave.

GOP Stoogeship.  

The gem inside this inspiring Missouri River of palaver, in which POTUS reviews his reviews of his reviews of his own mania for reviewing, is the dependent clause, "...where we had a public and substantive debate on healthcare..."  POTUS correctly uses the Blair House gabfest as a tool to demonstrate the bipartisan energy of the search for healthcare victory. GOP stooges take note: you were used; you were used wittingly; you cooperated in your own stoogeship; you are here revealed as vain fools for the Obama administration. 

Best information this weekend is that the whip count for healthcare in the House is under 200.  The polite way for Speaker Pelosi to say this is that "we're not there yet."  The unsolved pieces include the Senate promises to develop a sidecar bill that answers the doubts and manias of the House Democrats.  The number needed is 216 after the sudden departure of Eric Massa and the unfilled seats of Murtha, Wexler and Abercrombie, and the sudden return of Nathan Deal.  The noise about insurance companies, about GOP intransigence and the evils of pre-existing conditions - all that will not change the whip count.  What must happen is the rewriting of the Harry Reid bill so that it suits the Saint Stupak Dirty Dozen on abortion language and the Blue Dog posse all facing immediate, overwhelming, numbing re-elect campaigns if they vote for anything that looks like a deal.  Indiana Jones faced easier adversaries routinely and found a way.  Hail to Mrs. Pelosi when she manages this miracle.  Mention that the White House more and more resembles a snake pit on board the Lusitania.  Is that a periscope?  Where is an administration when a torpedo is a smart career move?

Deeply knee-slapping remark by Harry Reid on the Senate floor (above) in response to the uneventful jobs report that showed "only" 36K jobs lost in February. Much talk of weather-related loss of work, and speaking to Sudeep Reddy, WSJ, on Friday 5 re how weather is a factor in the report -- also how the Census hiring affects the numbers for the remainder of this year. The larger puzzle is not the stumbling and likely defeated Reid of Nevada but the indifference as well as silence from the Obama administration with regard the fate of the Democratic party at midterms. The wave for the GOP is now 8.8 earthquake tsunami-size and still building. 

Above find a clip from Sergei Eisenstein's famous "Ivan the Terrible," a beautiful, scary, transforming presentation of the power of absolute kingship.  Mention that this clip was sent to me as an illustration of court ceremony that resembles the frantic and peculiarly self-satisfied policies of the Obama administration.  The fate of Rahm Emanuel is said to be determined -- called dead man walking.  POTUS is influenced by Susan Rice and Valerie Jarrett.  There is no Washington hand in the court.  Axelrod and Jarrett are slow, aimless, cut off and disdained by the elite.  If there is a plan, it is to wait while the Democratic majority on the Hill is wrecked and doomed.  How does this gain Obama the Terrible?  The scenario is that the jobs will come back to 6% by 2012 and POTUS will run for re-election by campaigning against the clumsy GOP and with a vision for a better world.  The court is patient.  The people are goats.  The Washington insiders are frustrated, slothful, vengeful.  What was Ivan's fate?

The Eric Massa scandal now includes the deep irony that Eliot Spitzer approved of Massa in the 2008 ad for the campaign on the basis of cutting taxes and making New York safer for families. Spitzer has already gone through his dark night of the soul, and now Massa enters the ordeal as a fresh candidate of self-destruction. I do not regard Massa as a victim, rather a fool to be helped and left in peace. What is not acceptable is that Massa continue his conduct of denial and disrespect in Congress where he is now faced with a vote for the turning point of Obamacare.  "Count every vote" is a partisan rallying point.  At the least, the allegations against Massa, now confirmed by no less biased a source than Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who mentioned "Mark Foley" in public remarks, move the story to loud noise, distraction and public mockery.  Next stop, screaming on the House floor.  

Massa was a "No" vote last year for the House vote on healthcare (of 39 "No" votes in the Democratic caucus) -- not because Massa was against massive healthcare reform but because he said at the time he was for a vastly more aggressive single-payer system.  Massa's 29th CD is the most Republican district in NY.  Massa's victory over Republican Kuhl was by fewer than one thousand votes.  It is extremely unlikely that the Democrats will hold the seat in the event of a special election between now and November.  Massa's vote for Obamacare moves to the center of the storm.  Is it respectful of the Congress to engineer the reconciliation process with a rotten vote from the 29th New York?  What is to be done?  Massa can save himself and his family asap by leaving the House, resigning his seat and seeking help, rather than staying in Washington and suffering public ridicule and what will likely be a bloody campaign.  The GOP will not be silent while the ethics probe continues.  The allegations are familiar and unmanageable.  Steny Hoyer is in March Madness with Massa and must now balance credibility with the POTUS mission to win by the Easter bunny.

Tale of Two Heads Less than One.   

In Washington, a surprisingly youthful and bold politician, POTUS, introduces a healthcare agenda that will bring on civil war on the Hill on the same day that in California a surprisingly aged and obtuse Jerry Brown, Attorney General of California, introduced himself as a grown-up who has reinvented himself. The contrast is stunning. Can this be the same party? Sure. Jerry Brown is running a non-race right now, heaving out generalities and avoid the details of what has to be done in Sacramento. Speaking Wednesday to Hotel California panel of Jeff Bliss at KSFO and the SF Chronicle political team of Joe Garofoli and Carla Marinucci, re the return of Governor Moonbeam.  Last time Jerry made news was his quixotic run for the presidential nomination for the Democrats in 1992.  Now the Democrats who control the California legislature in Sacramento have decided that Jerry Brown is the last best hope to lead an exhausted, dispirited pauper of a state.  Not the theme on Jerry Brown's campaign of 1992: "Take Back America."  We can guess that the new theme will be "Take Back California" to the Moonbeam past.  But if Jerry Brown is a recycled pol, a green maneuver, POTUS is a fresh pol who is going for a win against the polls, the GOP and perhaps his own House.  Spoke David Drucker, Roll Call, and confirmed that POTUS will go on the road over the next weeks to restate what he has said before in the states where Democratic members are dubious to negative on the vote.  Will POTUS change the minds of the "Nos"?  Shrug.  POTUS Moonbeam is not listening to his own party. A solitary campaign.  Jerry Brown doesn't listen.  POTUS doesn't listen.  Two heads are less than one.  Crack-up under way.  Jerry Brown told Clara Marinucci and Joe Garafoli that he will invite in the Tea Party.  Jerry will say and do anything to win.  Deaf and aimless.  POTUS will say and do anything to win.  Naive?

Vague Jobless.  

Team Obama Spinmeister Larry Summers is making the rounds on cable and with the newsprint types to prepare the public and especially the headline writers for a Shrek-ugly jobless number come Friday March 5. The spin is, Blame the blizzards of 2010.  This is both careful and cynical Summers.  Summers knows that the jobless figures are distortions of the scale of the problem, since the monthly figure is based upon people looking for work across sixty thousand households and does not take into account people who have stopped looking for work.  Set aside the fact that we all know the unemployment rate on the first Friday of each month is a vague reference.  Still, this March 5 number looks to be a bleary horror, especially in the non-farm payroll jobs lost detail.  There is a small possibility that we are being set up for a surprise.  Never too cynical with a 24-hr news cycle in the hands of the Obamanation. 

The driving theme for the jobless rate is that companies are reluctant to hire or rehire because of uncertainty.  The last weeks, Simon Constable and I have been pursuing what we call regime uncertainty caused by the four horsemen of the Obama administration: healthcare, cap and trade, financial reform and tax increases (Bush tax expirations).  We have spoken with  Charlie Dent of 15 PA, Shelley Capito of 2 WV, John Shimkus of 19 IL, and Adrian Smith of 2 NE, and each has told us a different version of uncertainty.  Healthcare and cap and trade are the major risks for hiring in their districts -- with the cap and trade bill getting the most mentions.  The weather is not mentioned.  The expectation in the market is that the Shrek-ugly number on Friday March 5 will make the market go up and the White House gloomy.  The disconnect continues between POTUS push on a healthcare monstrosity (abridged?) and the dread of the jobless.  Storm continues.

Payrolls have declined in 24 of the past 25 months. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch are forecasting that payrolls will fall by 85,000 in February, with much of the decline due to the weather. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 9.8% from 9.7%  

Mr. Smith.  

The retiring Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the only member of the Senate ever to have pitched a perfect game (Father's Day, 1964, Phillies vs Mets, 3-0) is on a personal campaign to force changes in a Senate bill that is unpaid for.  Any one senator can stop business; that is the theme of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."  Jim Bunning is launched on a one-man filibuster than cannot be stopped by the Democrats alone and that the GOP so far is reluctant to constrain.  Why?  My panels on Sunday 28 did not reject the possibility that Jim Bunning is a sample of Republican guerrilla tactics in the event that Reid and Pelosi press the reconciliation package.  POTUS is reported to be making the announcement of reconciliation on Wednesday 3.  POTUS will not use the word "reconciliation," and instead will speak of how the majority must rule.

Spoke Adrian Smith (R-3 NE) on Monday 1, and the congressman, parked outside a high school basketball tournament in the Nebraska Panhandle on Route 8, remarked that he does not believe Mrs. Pelosi has the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill with 218.  Smith mentioned the 40 or so conservative Democrats who will not vote for the Senate bill without important restrictions placed on abortion.  The measure is that the House is not whipped, and that when it is, Mrs. Pelosi will be many votes short.  Bunning is still pitching a perfect game in the Senate, if the House cannot manufacture 218 votes.