nd with contentious fights over health care, climate change and Obama's first Supreme Court pick ahead, some Democratic senators are now convinced that they can't wade into some of the hot-button social issues their supporters would like them to pursue.

"They should not take anything for granted," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who as majority whip has the job of counting votes. "People keep saying, `Wow, if you get Sen. Franken up in Minnesota, everything is going to be fine -- you'll be at 60.' I've never said that, I know, because I face these senators every day, and I know that each of them has their own mind."

I think if anyone comes back it will be Izzie.

George is disfigured for good and so messed up (arm, hip, brain, face etc...) that it will be hard to have him running around as the same old George after this accident.

Now having said that it is TV and well, you know.

"President of the American Hospital Association says the White House misstated deal"

His body language indicates strongly that he has no passion for the so-called "public option." He campaigned on it, promised it--but is now going to be the Good Centrist and go all "pragmatic" and will not put political capital into getting it into law.

Oh, and no administration people show any enthusiasm for the public option in their body language, per Cummings.

There are things Obama cares about, and his body language reflects that. With the public option, it's not there. He's just not into that. No one mentioned the patronizing, condescending dig to "little single payer advocates" at his NM appearance. But both actual words and body language are in synch on this subject.

Looking back, it's not just the words, the labeling of supporters, such as "little single payer advocates" and "liberal bleeding hearts," but, yes, his body language. Just compare Obama talking about the glorious future of digitized medical records with how he looks talking about any actual coverage for health care. My mental image is of two very different enegy levels. He really is engaged in talking about those medical records. Wow!

Add his having to be pushed and pushed during the Dem primary to come out strongly for a public plan, well...says it all.

Woman caller to program said that if the Dems don't do public option that is genuine the public will go batsh*t crazy angry mad. Now Cummings is saying that she didn't indicate Obama wouldn't do something about public option; he just won't lead and fight for it. There's a great deal of oppostion to a public plan, and Obama would gladly sign a bill without it, would not fight for it. Then, if people got angry enough, he might try to get the public option -- later.

So, she said, if people want public option now is the time to make calls.

McManus says Obama has said Big Insurers have already promised to offer insurance to those currently turned down. No mention of cost, so maybe people won't be able to afford this new largesse from the private insurance companies.

The Serious MCMers on the show, Chris Cillizza, Doyle McManus, and Cummings appearing on the Diane Rehm Show today, first hour, all agreed that Obama' does spectacular flip-flops, but it's all good Pragmatism. It's all good. May PO his liberal base, but, hey, he's a Good Centrist.

For them it's not 11-dimension chess; it's just good politics. The successful pol does, says what he needs to get into power; when in power, do what he wants. Kinda like BushCo.

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation's largest toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation's environmental laws. On Tuesday, Obama "announced his intent to nominate" Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, "America's #1 Superfund Polluter":

Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997, General Electric has been a leader in the effort to roll back the Superfund law and stave off any requirements for full cleanup and restoration of sites they helped create.

This February, General Electric lost an eight-year battle to "prove that parts of the Superfund law are unconstitutional." One of the 600-person DOJ environmental division's "primary responsibilities is to enforce federal civil and criminal environmental laws such as" the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno's name is found in the Westlaw database as an attorney defending General Motors in another Superfund case, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana:

Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey's Branch and the Pleasant Run Creek watershed.

Although General Motors entered into an agreement in 2001 with the EPA to clean up the site, a number of local residents whose land has been contaminated by polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have sued for damages in Allgood v. GM (now Barlow v. GM), in a contentious and caustic dispute over cleanup, monitoring, and lost property values.

During the Clinton administration, Moreno was involved in another controversial case, unsuccessfully defending the Secretary of Commerce's decision to weaken the dolphin-safe tuna standard. In Brower v. Daley, Earth Island Institute, The Humane Society of the United States, and other individuals and organizations brought suit against the United States government for actions that were "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law," winning their case in 2000.