Daylight Savings Time

Three best headers from yesterday's blogs:
"Republicans Turned off by Size of Obama's Package."
" Can the Pope be arrested?"
"Let's Waterboard Jesus."

Rachel Maddow did her usual splendid job in taking Rep. Bart Stupak down to size. But she obviously went on the air as Bart kept following up his interview with the National Review. He complained he had been abandoned by the House leadership, confirmed they were no longing negotiating with him on the abortion language and lamented the loss of a few of his friends. But down in the e-mails to the National Review, he suggests there are only one or two more Democrats like him. From the original two of 12 defected,which Rachel reported, he ends with himself and another left. Defiantly he closes,"I haven't caved." No wonder Michael Moore is bitter--this guy is his congressman.

The Senate parliamentarian confirmed what I suspected. On Tweeter, he tweeted that the Republicans had misrepresented what he told them about reconciliation. No surprise!

Don't be disappointed there is no public option in the Healthcare bill. Yes, the House bill had a strong one but the Senate bill did not. Yes, 52 Democratic Senators signed on to a letter supporting one. But as Anthony Weiner said last night, the Senate has been privately telling Nancy Pelosi "don't make us vote for one." So the ball is in the Senate's court and if they want one they can only add one.

For the first time in his administration, Obama's personal pollster has appeared to shut down all the propaganda about the American people opposing the healthcare bill. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post but has also been sharing his polling data with nervous Democrats.

It looks like a House vote by next Saturday. Shut out all the noise until then because everything we will hear will be propaganda, disinformation and factions lying.

Back to my polling obsessions, can we really say the Democrats will be blown out in 2010? The Research 2000 polls, which are pro-democratic but must follow professional polling standards, covers the ups and downs of both Obama and Congress weekly. Obama gained a point this week. But more relevant are these numbers, which have been constant for some time. Approval rating of Democratic congresscritters 38%; GOP 23%. Approval of Democratic Party 40%; GOP 29%. Approval of Pelosi 35%; Boehner 19%. Approval of Reid 26%; McConnell 20%.

So given the "rage of the American people" and Obama's policies, etc. how do we get from those numbers to a Republican landslide? There is no Republican leader--in government or outside--that has even half Obama's approval rating. That is a stunning fact. How do you go from having 29% approval rating at a point Republicans worry is their peak moment this year to winning the House and Senate? They are actually concerned they have peaked too soon. That's peaking!

People point out to the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans. It's something like 27% of Democrats and 45% for Republicans. Sound horrible. But that turns out to be 9.8%for Democrats and 9.45% for Republicans according to party identification numbers in the United States. That's percentages of total voters. If job numbers go up and healthcare passes, the percentage for Democrats will increase. And both parties will have to fight over the independents. But the burden is on the Republicans. If they start with 20-21%, then the rest of their voters must come from independents. That's a heavy lift, when the ideological base of the party has shrunk and become inclusive, not exclusive.

I think Nate the Great Silver is catching on to this. Everyday he keeps taking down the symbols for potential party changes from various Senate seats.

Thomas Jefferson got the boot from the American History curriculum in Texas. That's like erasing Trotsky from the Bolshevik Revolution. The operative point where he was excluded was on the standardized test question:"How did John Locke, David Hume, Robespierre, Thomas Jefferson affect revolutions from 1750 onward?" Instead of TJ, they substituted John Calvin. Why not Torquemada? No one ever expects...

I finally watched Karl Rove's complete BBC interview on waterboarding. It's enough to make one throw up. First, Karl, because lawyers tell you torture is legal, that doesn't make it legal or moral. Secondly, every attack Rove says was prevented by information obtained by torture has been proven over and over and over again to have been thwarted by intelligence work totally unrelated to torture. Thirdly,having doctors present at torture, doesn't make it safer or more humane. The Nazi doctors were tried at Nuremberg . Robert Jay Lifton wrote a whole book on Nazi doctors.

Col. Lawrence Wilkinson , Colin Powell's chief of staff, showed up again on Countdown last night to say Rove,Cheney and Thiessen were "liars and cowards". He also said that he had the highest security clearances possible and saw the same reports as Colin Powell and he can testify that he saw no report on any attack ever being prevented by these torture techniques.
He also added that if Karl Rove had access to the same classified information, it was a terrible breach of security since Karl is only a political operative.

And Rachel Maddow is a ratfink for debunking the myths about daylight savings time. I will not deign to repeat them.