Fresh glimpses of the gathering outside of Searchlight, Nevada, last Sunday 28, when Sarah Palin led the cheering before a crowd of several thousand self-identified Tea Party followers. Moms and dads and the curious, all quiet, respectful, suited up for a stroll in the desert sun. The landscape is otherworldly. The serenity and July 4th barbecue atmosphere are recognizable for fireworks, or a travelling carnival, or a school fair. The Democratic partisan plan to smear the Tea Party as violent extremists or 1950s-style racists has stumbled and stopped with the facts.  Mr. and Mrs. Frugal America.

Spoke John McArdle, CQ-Roll Call, re FL 16 and FL 24 to learn that the Democratic challenger against Congressman Tom Rooney (above) drops out of the race suddenly after failing to attract money.  Also, that the GOP has recruited a well-to-do CEO of Ruth's Chris Steakhouse to challenge the precarious Yes vote of Kosmas in the 24th.  Both these CDs reflect the change in the fortunes of the Democrats and the GOP after healthcare and other partisan aggression on the Hill.  Much stranger, the 14-term Democrat Alan Mollahan of WV-1 is challenged by a Democratic State Senator because Mollohan, no progressive, is not conservative enough for his state.  The Democrats are flabbergasted, and this softens up the district for the winner of the GOP primary.  All energy CDs are in play because of the cap and trade vote in the House last year and the prospect of the Democrats' moving the bill in a new Congress.  The Yes vote continues to expose the Democratic Yes votes to odd events and to discourage recruiting and money-raising in unpredictable ways.

The most fun of the evening was speaking to Tim Burns, a charming, youthful first-time political candidate who is the Republican choice in the special election for Jack Murtha's PA-12 seat.  The CD is gerrymandered crazily, touching nine counties spread around Johnstown and Uniontown in Western Pennsylvania.  The whole of Greene County (below) is included, and this is an energy-rich coal county that is heavily anti-Democratic because of the cap and trade bill.  Tim Burns also tells me that the conservative Pro-Life Democrats who supported the colorful Murtha for decades are unhappy and despairing of the healthcare Yes vote as well as of the burgeoning Federal spending for the banks, the bail-outs, the programs.  Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, tells me that the Democrats have no energy or muscle for the status quo ante candidate put up, Murtha's district manager, Mark Critz.  The race is a fast-foward six weeks, and it will attract all eyes as an indicator for the GOP case to November.  Recruits like Tim Burns are mightily convincing that the GOP wave has far to go. 

Superb video from Moscow on the attack by Black Widows martyrs launched by isolated cells of jihad called Jamaats. This attack is linked to many in the past. What is news is that the cell cannot be penetrated because it is not in a pyramid structure. Once the martyrs are switched on, they operate alone and at their own time. Black Widows are extremely sad stories, the widows or mothers or sisters of KIA Chechens from the war years and the underground years, who pin the photos of their lost loved ones to their lapels and go into battle with unblinking despair.  Bottomlessly mournful.  Significantly, it is the face of jihad in the Russian empire. The aim is to undermine Putin's credibility as an authoritarian who can deliver security to the business hub.

The big boss builds his strength and popularity on certainty and violence toward disorder.  The Black Widows undermine the message.  Quote of the days from Moscow: Putin, "The terrorists will be destroyed."  Hang 'em high Volodya is off again on another adventure or pursuit and mayhem.  Who cannot love this guy?  Note that Putin intimidates POTUS and the Obama NSC team of nudges and utopians.  Putin is 'way too much force and unilateral ambition.  The START treaty last week was a slack and wasted press op for POTUS, Clinton and Gates, changing nothing.  Relations between Washington and Moscow are at a post-Cold War low.  Reminds that relations between Washington and Jerusalem are at a low point since Suez crisis.  Same for Berlin, Paris, Seoul.  Theme?  John Bolton did his senior thesis at Yale on the Suez Crisis (below).  We laughed about how those days are going to pay off now.  Ike and Ben-Gurion and Dulles and Eden.  Laughter.  Imagine POTUS sorties battle groups off Gaza and Israel?

POTUS dashes to Kabul for a few hours to press the reluctant kleptocrat Hamid Karzai for obedience to the grand bargain.  The deal is that Kabul fall into the condo run jointly by the ISI (Islamabad) and the IRGC (Tehran).  In exchange, Karzai gets money and a longer term for his brothers and partners to control the opium trade.  I am told that POTUS wants an exit from AfPak asap, and that handing Kabul off to its adversaries is an agreeable conclusion.  What POTUS needs is a semi-credible government in Kabul on order to declare a success for the surge.  The rush is on for a summer 2011 exit.  Pakistan is designated as local cop.  What has gone wrong with the deal, why POTUS flew to Kabul for five restless hours on the ground, is that Karzai will not take the deal.

No comment yet from the Blue House and President Lee at Seoul, who implores the search and rescue teams (below) to work faster in choppy, gray, wintry water.  A Seventh Fleet rescue vessel is inbound.  There will be facts.  Of note, POTUS flies to Kabul while the crisis in the Yellow Sea simmers.   POTUS knows that Tehran is linked closely to the Kim regime, and that Beijing is linked closely to Tehran and the Kim regime.  POTUS aims to embrace Tehran long enough to extract the American military from the region.  This means POTUS will accept a nuke chest in the IRGC's hands.  POTUS long-term foreign policy is to disentangle from bilateral commitments and to proceed only in alliance with a soup kitchen of Europeans and UN deputies.  American exceptionalism is discarded.  America working with various expedient and regional blocs is encouraged.  State calls it Smart Power.  

  

The Juárez-based drugs and guns cartel continues to intimidate and retaliate against the recent decision by US to integrate DEA intelligence with Mexican authority. The killings on March 13 were not idle, when hired guns from El Paso or other safe houses north of the border shot up vehicles with US citizens, consular employees, killing three, including an unborn child. The city of Juárez is the depopulated murder capital of the Western Hemipshere.   President Calderon deployed Mexican army units to all major drug cities with no results; there are at least 7,000 troops in Juárez, and they guard themselves. A major US mission arrived in Mexico City last week, with Clinton, Gates, Napolitano, Blair on board. The results look more of the same: money and law enforcement. The headless police chief looks to be the answer from the cartels. There is no reason to doubt that the cartels are fully briefed on all Mexican military and police operations. If this is a war, the enemy is winning.  Another headless police chief.  An enemy of the cartel, or one of its stooges who got greedy?

The Fence. 

Spoke to Nicholas Casey, Ana Campoy, David Luhnow, all WSJ, a week back to learn, among other details, that the virtual fence test by the contractor Boeing is a failure, and that any effectiveness of the hard fence is vastly overestimated. US Border Patrol is not equipped to confront or manage the cartel shooters. Juárez is beyond lawless, a predatory environment of devalued human beings with no restraints and boundless vice. Mary O'Grady, WSJ, recommends decriminalizing marijiuana for the start, because the cartels pay the gunmen with money from the marijuana alone, or just pay them in weed. She advocates solving the crisis by decriminalizing cocaine as well, all of it, turning it into a health crisis, not a law crisis.  David Luhnow measures the Calderon decision to deploy the military has failed in the mind of the public.  When StateSec Clinton was asked first thing if she would consider decriminalization as a tactic, she said, "No."  Old ideas, same results, one proof of policy inertia, also national madness.  A cokehead is a threat to me and my neighborhood?  Nah.  Marijuana is a threat to me and my children?  Where?  The DEA is a useful tool?  Nah.  Northern Mexico is a sinkhole of defeatism and despair?  Yes.  The US population's grotesque demand for drugs is the missing linkage? Yes.  The demand is the enemy.  Cut the demand, cut the shooters.

My information is that the DPRK general staff (North Korea) gave the order to sink the South Korean warship near on to the Northern Limit Line established in 1953.  Evan Ramstad, WSJ, reports that the first news of the incident was confusing and helter skelter -- mentioning a warship firing on a flock of birds, then mentioning a warship sinking.  President Lee and his national security council met in emergency session within hours of the sinking, at approximately 830 PM Korean time Friday 26, and met again on the morning after the attack.  No statement from the Blue House, the Korean presidential palace.  US State Department official Crowley suggests that no one "jump to conclusions."  My information is not jumping.  The clear report from sources is that a North Korean submarine torpedoed and sank a major South Korean warship.  The action was in response to perceived provocations during the join naval exercise between the ROK Navy and the US Navy over the last weeks.  The attack could not have taken place without Beijing signing off on the decision.  There is no information at this time that Tehran was consulted; however, the shoot order follows the general understanding between Tehran and the DPRK that any provocation must be answered with blunt force.   The shoot order is meant to humiliate ROK and to intimidate the Obama administration.  My information is that POTUS has ordered the Lee government to stand down and not retaliate in any fashion.  The Lee government has not yet characterized its position.  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, comments that the succession struggle in the Kim regime over the last year has been marked by violence, irrational conduct and threats, yet always coordinated with the Beijing leadership.  I speculated with Gordon Chang that the White House was on the telephone with Beijing to consult re the North Korean predation.  The answer is that nothing that happens in North Korea is outside of the supervision of the PLA and the CP at Beijing.

What connection does the shoot order have to threats against the US issued by Beijing over the last months?  The threat to retaliate for the Taiwan warship deal?  The threat to retaliate for the Dalai Lama's visit to the White House?  The threat issued when Treasury and the White House accused China of currency manipulation?  The threat against Google and other corporations operating on the Mainland?  The Beijing regime has piled up a list of grievances over the last year.  Is the shoot order in the Yellow Sea a push-back?

Evan Ramstad tells me the ship is down in relatively shallow water, so recovery will be matter-of-fact.  The DPRK and China have not made an effort to hide the evidence.  How will the Obama administration handle the fallout?  What of Japan?  What of relations between ROK and the US?  All unknowns.  This is a major landmark in the sixty-year road of violence since the sneak attack of the Korean war in June, 1950.  Trouble ahead.

Spoke to Sara Carter, Washington Examiner, re the report of negotiation between Hamid Karzai and the reviled gangster Hekmatyar. The US is about to get involved in the talks. POTUS has ordered the ISAF forces to engage the enemy until the truce and withdrawal can be arranged with the enemy. The bargain is in the hands of the House of Saud. Pakistan takes charge of Afghanistan. The ISI takes control of Al Qaeda. The Obama administration wants out of the conflict pronto. There is no mystery. ISAF has limited and mysterious goals. Pakistan's army aims to secure its flank and rear. The US wants out of the region entirely. The trade-off is that Al Qaeda promises not to use the North Waziristan sanctuary as a platform to attack the US mainland, and in return the US does not kill Bin Laden.

Spoke Hugo Restall, WSJA; Gordon Chang, Forbes.com; Jeff Bliss, BlissIndex.com, and Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover, re the Beijing mandarin suppression and shut-down of Google search on the Mainland and, soon enough perhaps, in HK also. Also spoke of the Rio Tinto trial ongoing on the Mainland, where four executives of the iron ore company are being prosecuted in a show trial. The general sense is that the Beijing mandarins are shutting up the country, or, as Gordon Chang comments, Chinese development is going in reverse. Victor Hanson spoke his despair that the Obama administration regards Beijing as an aggressor to appease and cajole into better behavior.  The facts are that iron ore prices are rising on demand, that China failed to secure good prices from Rio Tinto, that China aims to shake down the company, that Australia does not defend its nationals.  Beijing aggression is rewarded by Canberra and Washington.  In the meantime, POTUS meets to chastise Bibi Netanyahu and Israel, and the Obama administration dilutes the santions regime threatened against Tehran for its nuke program.  The observation is that the Obama team keeps its enemies close so they can enjoy the Obama team beating on its allies.

Signing ceremony of the healthcare bill introduces the theme of the remaining seven months until the midterm election: government vs. private enterprise. The Obama administration explains what it cannot sell to the American polling, which is that healthcare in the hands of the Federal government is cheaper, smarter, wise, cheaper. The CNN polling of the last days demonstrates that a supermajority of the voters, 70%, believe that the legislation just passed will increase costs and swell the long-term deficit.  The facts today are that the signing is done, and that the story moves to the battle over the midterms on the basis of this display of unapologetic incumbency power.

Salena Zito tells me that John Kasich is pushing past Rod Strickland for the Ohio governorship.  Also that Kathy Dahlkemper, PA-3, is likely done with her Yes vote; so are the pro-life Democratic members in swing districts.  Emily Cadei, CQ, identifies NY-1 in play with a challenge to the bearded professorial Tim Bishop by either Altschuler, a self-funding Republican, or Chris Cox, the grandson of Richard Nixon and son of the NY State GOP chair Christopher Cox.  Cadei believe that the GOP could grow its seats in NY from two to four or six.  The recruiting of young candidates is apace.  The NRCC reports a large fundraising of perhaps as much as $7 million.  The rising is just now starting in the fight-back for the House.  POTUS has committed an act of disunion.  

Spoke David Drucker, Roll Call, to learn that the GOP Senate argues its case in the Lyndon Johnson room of the Senate before the Parliamentarian of the Senate, David Frumin, and that the Democratic Senate also argues its case. The ruling is delayed until at least Tuesday, perhaps following the signing ceremony of the healthcare bill at the White House. The issue involves a violation of the third-rail rule of Social Security, the 2018 delay of excise tax. All wonderful arcana. The GOP Senate is also said to have a handful of Byrdable objections. Later in the evening, Drucker reports that Fromin denies the GOP challenge, and so the next event is the Byrd Bath of Tuesday, objections to the phrasing and language of the bill that would necessitate a resubmission for writing and voting to the House. 

Nebraska. 

Spoke to Jeff Fortenberry, NE-1, of Lincoln, Nebraska, re the healthcare vote; and we mentioned Senator Ben Nelson's unhappy Cornhusker Kickback, which is a source of embarassment to the fair-minded of Nebraska. Attorney General Jon Bruning of Nebraska joins other AGs in a suit against the healthcare law as imposing mandates that are a violation of the Tenth Amendement of States's powers. Jeff Fortenberry mentions that the Congress is not likely to settle down until Election Day, and that the nation seems more fractured than ever after a law is imposed that is against the majority desires of the American people.

http://www.scag.gov/newsroom/pdf/2010/healthcare.pdf

Late in the day, POTUS issues an Executive Order that satisfies Bart Stupak of Michigan and the handful of votes that he can deliver to put Mrs. Pelosi over 216 for the first vote on reconciliation and the Senate bill. Schultz-Wasserman (above) correctly states why the EO is moot. The Senate bill becomes law of the land with POTUS signature. The reconciliation bill is weeks from getting through the obstacle course of points of order, if ever. The EO cannot change the law of the land. Stupak leased his vote for a fiction. The EO is a flimsy and well-identified ploy. Enter chaos. 

Young Guns. 

Speaking Sunday 21 with the young GOP House that I can round up, Thaddeus McCotter 11 -MI, Devin Nunes 21-CA and Tom Rooney 16-FL. The ground war begins with the vote.  This has the feel of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.  Next is the caning of Sumner, and Bloody Kansas, and John Brown Rising.  The Union is fractured.  All is disunion.  

The Republican leadership in the House offers a wave of the hand as the Democratic leadership bypasses comity and goes for partisan confrontation. Michael Vlahos tells me Friday 19 that the Naval War College speaks of the nation transforming into the modern version of the Weimar Republic. Fractured, alienated, surly, fatalistic, enraged, parched for trust. Boehner's and Cantor's claims that they are doing all they can do to stop the Pelosi maneuvers are not trusted. Boehner's late-in-the-day claim that his objection to deem and pass contributed to the climb-down by Slaughter and Pelosi on the gambit is another example of the GOP failure to engage the adversary.  Boehner and Cantor chose to cooperate with the  contrivance of the Blair House gabfest, and they have chosen to stand by like kibbitzers at a Yankees game.

The whip late Saturday 20 is that the Democrats sit at 37 No's, with none to give.  Went through the 17 undecided in The Hill's list, using the brain of a GOP source in the House.  The name that was left as a possible No was Kathy Dahlkemper, a strong pro-life member.  If and when Kathy Dahlkemper flips to Yes, then Mrs. Pelosi may at last have her 216.  Watch PA-3.

Ryan Puzzle.  

News that Boccieri has flipped to Yes points to more flipping and a final crawl to 216. News that Stupak seeks a compromise with the Senate is clever cover not for a flip but to back off the youth attack teams from OFA and etcetera. Note from Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, that the Boccieri flip makes her think that Mrs. Pelosi has her 216.  No new word on Altmire or Dahlkemper or Ellsworth.

There will be Phoenicians.  

The damage is deep and consistent.  All Democrats are now on DefCon 3 going to 2 after the vote.  The GOP is not a healthy party, but it is the default oppo and will enjoy the rage of the Babbits and and their pals.  The deep blue CDs in urban heat islands are the only safe territory in the North and West.  Any Democratic Yes or No vote who survives the swarms of B-24 Liberators launching on Washington will be news, will deserve a museum trophy case right next to other impossible treasures such as the gold coins of Phoenicians.  There will be blood.  What is the plan to withstand the wave of revenge?  Masada-like Democrats?  Is this the Rahm/Ax plan for permanent siege?  Note that POTUS has just called for the entire Democratic Caucus to meet at the White House at 4 PM Eastern time Saturday 20.  Why?  Pep talk?  Team spirit?  Draw straws?

Nancy Pelosi Delivers.  

The element that is most enjoyable to imagine is Delay or Hastert or Boehner, or even Gingrich back in the day, delivering a suggestively Disneyworld pitch about a totally partisan power play in the Joan Rivers fashion of Nancy Pelosi.  That's entertainment.

  

Throw Out the TV.  

Imagine a poll question that asked, if you could, would you throw out every member of the TV and video news media and replace them with the first 5000 people shopping at Sam's Club (or Walmart's or Pet City or Apple etc) on Sunday afternoons? Would the result be half the voters or all the voters? Same for Congress? Who wants to look at these guys and gals another moment? Go to robots. 

Whip Count Byrding.   

Spoke to David Drucker, Roll Call, to learn that the Senate GOP is combing over the reconciliation bill for errors to permit challenges (points of order) un the Bird Rule, call Birding, that will oblige the item to be changes, and that once it is changed, the bill must go back to the House for another vote. Each time. Meanwhile, the first vote on Sunday (if successful) will turn the Senate bill into an Act of law once POTUS signs it. That is, the Dem House members negotiating for changes could well be left with ashes and the Senate bill that all hate and don't want to vote on. Drucker says that the GOP (Gregg and Alexander) will not reveal what they have already found. Kent Dorgan of the Democrats acknowledges that there are mistakes to be exploited. In sum, the first vote on Sunday, if successful, will start the process of vote and vote and vote. All the way for weeks. The whip count still remains uncertain. Charlie Dent, PA 15, tells that he heard on the floor today a count between 200 and 212. Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, tells me that Dahlkemper and Ellsworth and Boccieri remain NOs and that she is no longer sure of Jason Altmire, whose head is turned by the TV attention and the White House flattery.  Jodi Schneider,American Banker, tells that the Speaker does not have 216 yet, and that the vote may be delayed until Monday or more.  John Fund asserts that POTUS delayed his trip to Southeast Asia because he is needed to soothe and appeal, not because he is confident of the vote.  POTUS is the one advancing the case that the vote is about the survival of his presidency.  Silly season.   Mention that Charlie Dent says the Rules Committee room is wired for cameras, yet it is only one of three that does not permit cameras to cover the hearings (the other two being obvious spots for discretion, House Intel and the Ethics Committee).

Hoyer does not have 216 on St. Patrick's Day, and this brings a nervous grin from Minority Whip Cantor. Source writes that the Democrats are boasting they have 211 as of Wednesday morning. Since no one who has the count knows if it is accurate, since it is theory until the day of, this means that the majority remains unconvinced of the argument, awaiting the next pivot. Best source remarks that the Democrats are boasting of 211 because they do not have it, and are gaming their own members. 

The next pivot may be the CBO score of the so-far unrevealed sidecar legislation that goes into the reconciliation bill. Word last eve that there is trouble with the final cost, and Big Pharma was dragooned to Rahm Emanuel at the White House to hand over more cash give-backs. The score looks to be unhappy-making, and note that Harry Reid is announcing only a partial score of pieces of the reconciliation sidecar. The CBO does not fib, but it can only plug in the assumptions that are sent over. Not all the assumptions have been assembled, and the ones that have been may be getting swollen costs. Who knows? This is a major problem. Not only is there no transparency -- but also the guys with the bill don't know what the bill is or costs. Hilarious.  

Below find the latest spam video from OFA that is attached to a general cheat sheet about how I am to call a member of Congress and congratulate him/her for supporting "reform."  Note that the video includes another "Queen for a Day" healthcare nightmare that somehow will be fixed if and when we pay more for less.  Okay.   POTUS preaches to the choir like no one since Jim Wright.  Note that the choir behind POTUS is getting better, like a Coke commercial for who likes the "real thing," or a GM commercial about who is ready to go with the new dream car (no wheels, no engine, no gas, no costs, no car, just walk!).  The OFA is off course and doesn't know how to get back on the main road.  It is as if a posse of strangers swerved into the mainstream for a few months (August to November 2008) and since then have drifted back to their normal triteness.  Now they are frustrated that we do not hear them.  Retail politics is about listening to the voters, not the voters' listening to you.  POTUS is deaf.  POTUS sailed into the White House without an education in retail politics.  Assertion is not persuasion.  Shrug.  And telling old wives' tales is not leadership.  Shrug.

Spoke the Herculean Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, re the Whip count in PA, OH, IN, and learn that there is no change in the last hours: that Altmire PA-4 (above) is a No; that Dahlkemper PA-3 is a No, that Ellsworth IN-8 is a No ("What's he have to lose? He's not going back, and he wants to be Senator from Indiana!"); and that Tim Ryan of OH-17 is a likely Yes, because he is afeared of Nancy Pelosi.  Co-hosts Margaret Hoover and John Avlon spoke up to say that Youngstown was a devastation zone and needed everything, not healthcare. Salena Zito said that Youngstown is conservative Rust Belt Catholics who voted for Obama out of duty and with disgust for Bush and McCain, but that they do not like what is going on in the White House. "These are Hillary Democrats," Zito said. 

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 give only 37 No votes before healthcare fails to reach the 216 majority.  Therefore, any No vote from the 70 undecideds is consequential.  Zito identified Brad Ellsworth of Indiana 8 as a No vote, or else he can abandon his campaign to win the open Senate seat against Dan Coats.  Zito also identified Kathy Dahlkemper of PA-3, from a conservative Catholic district, as a No vote.  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 his 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.

Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, tells me that during her conversation with Jack Murtha in late January, the day before Murtha went into the hospital, Murtha told her the healthcare bill would not work as constructed. That it was necessary to start over and build a much smaller bill. Murtha said that the only way to do healthcare was to fashion a much smaller bill with Republican support.  Murtha said the way to work together was to follow the model practiced by Speaker Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan thirty years ago.  The ghost of Jack Murtha did not believe in his own leadership or in the path that the Obama administration has chosen for reform.  

The reconciliation manipulation between the House and the Senate begins immediately and will play out over the next four weeks, until the Easter break.   John Avlon says that independent voters will hate this game and turn very negative in the polling.  The panels were mixed on the question of whether or not the GOP will tie up the Senate and do no business in protest.  Avlon thinks it would be unwise.  We all wondered if the Jim Bunning temper tantrum last week was a warning shot or a maverick maneuver by a retiring veteran.  Reconciliation is so arduous, arcane (the rule was written by Robert Byrd in order to suit much smaller pieces of legislation in the budget process) and unpredictable a mode when used for partisan advantage that there is much room for mischief.  No one much disputed that Washington will no transform into a bickering battle on one subject.  Also, the polls will be painful.  Salena Zito tells me that and the young and earnest Jason Altmire (below) of 4th Pennsylvania, a first-term Democrat who defeated Melissa Hart near Pittsburgh in 2008, has put out a pamphlet that features his conservative feelings but does not mention that he is a Democrat.  Also, Selena Zito indicates that Murtha's 12th CD is leaning heavily toward the GOP even as soon as the May special election.