Anybody know what George Lakoff is up to these days? Anyway, here's Drew Weston:

This President just doesn't have the stomach to make anyone do anything they don't want to do (except women to have unwanted babies because they can't afford an abortion or live in a red state and don't have an employer who offers insurance), and his advisors are enabling his most troubling character flaw, his conflict-avoidance.

This is an Open Thread.

For the third year in a row, violent crime rates dropped across the U.S., according to a new FBI report released today. Property crimes also dropped. The only increase was burglaries in the South which rose slightly. The figures are for the first half of 2009. Some stats:

• Murder (down 10.0 percent);
• Forcible rape (down 3.3 percent);
• Robbery (down 6.5 percent);
• Aggravated assault (down 3.2 percent);
• Burglary (down 2.5 percent);
• Larceny-theft (down 5.3 percent); and
• Motor vehicle theft (down 18.7 percent).

The FBI press release is here. A more detailed report is here.

Ezra's on a roll today:

We're not changing our health-care system very much at all, in fact. Nothing happens in 2010. Or in 2011. Or in 2012. In 2014, when the bill really begins, the insurance situations of 18 million people change. A full 16 million of those people are uninsured. Aside from the small sliver of people who will pay a surtax on the final few dollars of uncommonly expensive insurance plans, the country simply will not notice this legislation.

Put THAT on the teleprompter.

Speaking for me only

Ezra humor for the day (and here is Marcy Wheeler laughing with me):

The health-care bill that looks likely to clear the Senate this week [. . .] is very close to the health-care bill that Barack Obama promised. [. . .] [T]here are, to be sure, some differences. The public option did not survive the Senate. The individual mandate, which Obama campaigned against, was added [. . .] Drug reimportation was defeated, and a vague effort to have government pick up some catastrophic costs was never really mentioned.

But other than that, EXACTLY the same. From the guy who spent the summer attacking Howard Dean for supposed "flip-flopping," this is damned funny. Look, the Senate bill will stand and fall on it own merits. And campaign promises are not worth the paper they are written on (NAFTA renegotiation anyone?) But this type of silly stuff does no one any good - not Obama, not Ezra, and not anyone else.

Speaking for me only

You beat him down in every war, you twisted every treaty, you bellied with his wife, you played mock the Monk . . . and then you made him love you for it. --The Lion In Winter

Some may think of my title as pejorative. I do not intend it to be because I think of politics and governing as the end result of societal bargaining. In essence, we make a deal on how we are governed. The deal making comes in many forms - but in a democracy, the key step is elections. The function of a politician and a statesman is to get elected by persuading enough voters that what they will do will be superior to the other choices presented (this leaves aside the entire question of what form of political structures are most efficacious.)

So what was the bargain that has been struck in the health bill? And what politicians delivered? We have spilled tens of thousands of words on the issues, but I think it can be summarized relatively concisely. I'll try to do so on the flip side:

Last week, Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) reintroduced his Prisoner Abuse Remedies Act. As the New York Times opines today, this is a bill Congress needs to pass.

The culprit is the Prison Litigation Reform Act, (PLRA) passed under President Clinton in 1996. It was aimed at reducing frivolous lawsuits by prisoners, but due to its requirement that the prisoner sustained a physical injury and exhausted all administrative avenues before filing suit, it became a vehicle through which prisons and courts denied claims by inmates who were sodomized (finding no physical injury) and the victims of other conduct, such as "strip-searching of female prisoners by male guards; revealing to other inmates that a prisoner was H.I.V.-positive; forcing an inmate to stand naked for 10 hours."

Juveniles, who are most at risk in prison, often have the hardest time following through with the administrative hurdles. [More...]

Update: 1:17 am ET: The Dems get their 60 votes to limit debate. Yeas: 60, Neas: 40. The Yeas were 58 Dems and 2 Independents. The motion is agreed to.

Update: 1:10 am ET: The vote to limit debate on the Reid Manager's amendment is underway. They just wheeled Sen. Byrd in. The schedule if it passes:

• Tues: 7am: procedural vote
• Weds: 1pm procedural vote
• Thursday 7 pm - Final passage

The Senate will vote on the health care bill in an hour, at 1:00 a.m. ET. David Shuster will be anchoring live on MSNBC.

Debate has begun, you can watch it on C-span here. [More...]

Can't say I didn't warn you about Martha Coakley. The latest: a Bait and switch. During her campaign to replace Sen. Ted Kennedy, she said she wouldn't support a bill with restrictions on abortion.

Today, she announced her support for the health care bill with its restrictions on abortion funding.

Coakley then:

Coakley’s stand was a major point of debate during the campaign; several of her opponents criticized her for being willing to sink the overall health care bill over a single issue, but she insisted that there were some things on which she would not compromise.

[More...]

It's a diarist over at Daily Kos vs. Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher.

What started it: This post by Jane at HuffPo suggesting progressives align with libertarians to defeat the health care bill. [More...]

Does anyone still care about Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Ken Starr and Whitewater?

The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, a 769 page book by Duquesne law professor Ken Gormley, which Politico says is "the definitive" history on the "scandal" will be published in February.

Both Bill Clinton and Ken Starr agreed to tell their stories to the author. Apparently, neither one gets a clean bill of health. [More...]

It seems Kevin Drum is not selling the "first step"/"starter house" line on the health bill:

I think everyone will be surprised at just how fast healthcare reform fades from the public discourse once it's passed.

Well, I do not know how many folks will be surprised, but I DO know a lot of folks are selling "the starter house" bit. The only way to make sure real health care reform remains on the political radar is to keep the one bargaining chip that will bring the insurance industry to the table - mandates - in play. Sunsetting the mandate is the most plausible way to do this.

Speaking for me only

Last night I watched the movie Julie and Julia. It was pleasant, nothing extraordinary. I'm pretty much a one-pot cook (stews, soups and pasta sauces.) In the summer, I grill. I haven't baked since the early 1980's when the TL kid was little. I gave away my Kitchen Aid mixmasters years ago. So how could I just spend $172.00 at Whole Foods, buying things like flour, brown sugar, chocolate chips and corn bread mix?

I also watched Inglorious Basterds. I thought it was going to be a comedy. I should have realized as soon as I saw Quentin Tarrantino's name that the violence would be over the top. I had to look up reviews afterwards to see what all the hoopla is about the movie. Apparently, it's what's called a "fantasy revenge" film. But I kept thinking, two wrongs don't make a right.

What silly things have you done this holiday season? If you haven't done anything out of character, this is an open thread, all other topics are welcome.