I prefer to believe Kucinich is intelligent enough not to vote "nay" as some ideological protest. If he did, that alone illustrates why he was an unsuitable Presidential candidate.

The towers on either end of the National Mall aren't made of ivory, and even the most hardheaded idealist must realize that real change comes wrapped in packages marked, "Made with kaizen".

Nothing as big as HCR happens wholesale, with one piece of legislation. Even Medicare (which this thing dwarfs) took 18 months. There are parts of the House legislation that I'm not happy with. However, it still represents a first large - and most important - step in the right direction. And I'm amazed that it looks like this thing might get to reconciliation within 11 months. I was sure this would become a midterm issue.

Given a choice between this bill and the status quo, voting "nay" is an effective endorsement of the status quo. And that's something I don't believe Kucinich endorses.

I believe the final count was 39 - including a certain Dennis Kucinich. Yet, no firebombs being thrown his way on these pages. Very curious, indeed.

I mean, I totally understand the "nay" votes from people like Artur Davis and Charlie Melancon, who are facing difficult statewide elections soon in places that aren't exactly Democratic strongholds. But Kucinich?

I'll also take this opportunity to note that I was dead right about Nancy Pelosi's abilities.

Excellent post, by the way. Rec'd.

No? OK.

Can we get a pooper scooper over here, someone?

You are required to write at least one New Yorker-length blog on each of these seven existential questions. (It's the only way I can hope to wrap my head around any of them.)

A large part of the reason for my absence from TPM has been my 91-year-old grandmother. I had to go through hundreds of hours of phone conversations, lawyers in two states, my own indigent mother, and two 20-hour roundtrip drives to St. Louis to finally be declared her legal guardian.

Now, I have her in a nursing home 10 minutes from my place, and I visit her 3-4 times a week.

My grandmother holds a M.Ed from the University of Illinois, plus 30 hours toward her doctorate. She taught for 43 years, 38 of them in the same classroom at (the now-defunct) Lincoln Senior High in East St. Louis, IL. She founded numerous local charitable organizations. She has scholarships and awards named for her back home.

When I visit her now, she asks me to go to her house and get her favorite pair of slippers. (She lost her home over back taxes while I was living near Chicago, and I never knew until it was too late.) She asks me to have the administrator investigate who stole her black Bible that had $4 tucked in it. (There was no Bible in her possessions when I moved her into this nursing home.)

She asks me when she can go home. This question is almost too much for me to bear, every time she asks it. I have to will myself not to scream, even though I know it's not her fault she's asking.

What I try to do is focus on the victories. She still plays solitaire. She still loves to write, and has the same authoritative script that she had when I was a small child. She still loves to do crossword puzzles and word searches. She's still capable of having conversations and making logical deductions. She's still feisty and jocular.

There's no doubt she has the beginning stages of Alzheimer's. But we focus on the positive - the things she likes to do, and does well.

In the meantime, much of the money that I used to keep for poker, pool, new gadgets and the like now gets donated to Alzheimer's research. Alzheimer's doesn't just rob one of one's life. It robs the spirit. It enervates the soul. And it takes the measure of everyone who must watch a loved one descend into its clutches. Defeating it has become a highly personal cause for me now.

Whatever progress is made in fighting this beast likely won't save my grandmother. But, if no other grandson has to endure it, then the money is well spent.

Thank you for writing this, Piggy. Highly recommended.

One point that often gets lost in this discussion is that Senate Democrats only need 60 votes to break the filibuster on any HCR bill. The final vote can be a simple majority. I've always thought it would be easier to get our 60 together for cloture than for the final up-or-down. This also allows people like Blanche Lincoln the political cover needed to vote "nay" on the final bill. Also, Ben Nelson has told Nebraskans that he will not vote "yea" on a bill with no Republican votes, so you'd think he's a goner, too.

However, the vote on Schumer's amendment says different, which is even better. The final margin was better than the 15-8 loss on Rockefeller's. Tom Carper and Nelson (!) were the switches. This is very promising, in my opinion. It shows that the moderate D's can come around - and Schumer, Rockefeller, et al., are even more energized to get them on board with smaller modifications to Schumer's proposal. If he can attract a milquetoast like Nelson, that's HUGE in the Senate voting calculus.

Ultimately, though, the real question on the public option lies with Obama - as it always has. If the President says he wants it, Harry & Co. will make it happen.

It is worth noting that I can't find any negative statements from Obama about the public option. The closest, I believe, was him saying several times that the public option was one way to lower HC costs for citizens. He's also said several times that single payer would make the most sense if we were starting from scratch. The obvious middle ground between "wealth care" and single payer is a strong public option, which probably appeals to him a great deal.

Obama, of course, would probably rather have frozen chocolate-covered haggis fed to him intravenously than be the final arbiter on this one. But in the end, anyone watching this particular debate closely knows that Obama's is the one voice that would make the moderates remove the fencepost from their collective butt.

One other consideration. When this (finally) goes to conference, half of the conference will be from the House. Since all of the House bills include a strong public option, it's not difficult to see that the public option will have a majority of conference participants supporting it.

Bottom line: I'm actually encouraged by today's votes. Neither of today's amendments were going to pass - but the ultimate keys are POTUS and the moderate Senate Dems. I think we're closer now to shaking those moderates loose.

However, I thoroughly agree with the premise of this post. This is not the sort of thing the President should be doing. And the timing couldn't be more awkward, with Obama coming to the Empire State.

I'd like to think this is either a saboteur or incompetent in the administration who leaked this information. If this was done with Obama's OK, it seems pretty inane to me. Rec'd.

I think you're referring to this comment made upthread.

I did look at that comment. And I humbly suggest that your interpretation is not accurate.

Here's the relevant quote from Rosenberg's comment. (emphasis mine)

Why is it that only white people -- and bought types like Clarence Thomas -- downplay racism while 95% of African Americans see it as a huge problem.

I don't believe Rosenberg is saying that ALL white people downplay racism. I think what he's saying is that the group that downplays racism consists of white people and "bought types" of African Americans. Perhaps it could be worded more clearly, but given that Rosenberg himself probably checks the "white" circle on his census form, I think it's clear he's not putting all whites in that group.

Now, I have several problems with Rosenberg's statement.

First, he oversimplifies the issue drastically. I believe Hispanic Americans now outnumber African Americans in the United States.

Second, other ethnic minorities are now large enough that they can't be dismissed to the margins - either in the census, or in our political discussions. Hispanic Americans, in fact, are a VERY large part of why Senator Obama is now President Obama.

Third, I violently object to the characterization of Clarence Thomas as a "bought type". Don't get me wrong - I disagree with pretty much everything Thomas says publicly. Whatever else one wants to say about him, though, he worked to get where he is, and I feel he comes by his beliefs honestly. He's utterly misguided, but I don't think Thomas is "owned" by anyone. Rosenberg's completely off the rails with that statement.

You make an even greater logical fallacy than the one you accuse Rosenberg of making. You weren't personally accused of anything - unless you are one of the "people spewing virulent hate against the President" (Rosenberg's qualifier in the very first paragraph of the post).

Then, you take your own background (which, on its own, is admirable as you have related it), attempt to superimpose it on every person who has voiced objection to Obama, and then declare, "Racism isn't involved in criticism of Obama!" (Not your exact words, but an easily imputed meaning.)

I don't know your race, but as an African American, I can state the following with complete certitude. If you're a minority and don't believe racism factors heavily into the thought processes of the "people spewing virulent hate", that simply makes you oblivious or utterly sheltered. If you're not a minority and don't believe racism factors heavily into the thought processes of the "people spewing virulent hate", then I suggest you pick up a copy of this book and read it, stat. It's still quite relevant today.

News flash: these people couldn't even tolerate an African American President on "24" or in a movie like "Deep Impact". These folks don't know how to react, so they simply oppose everything he says or does, often without giving even an iota of thought (see this as a prime example of the idiocy).

None of the foregoing places you, personally, in the group that Rosenberg condemns (assuming that your opposition is policy-based, as opposed to emotion and vitriol).

If my assumption is correct, and you have honest policy disagreements, I cannot fathom why you would want to defend the people in the aforementioned group, as they sap credibility from those like yourself.

PS: Your "fact that seems...self-evident" relies on the same sort of erroneous extrapolation I mentioned earlier. Rosenberg neither said nor implied that the US is "overwhelmingly white...and racist to the core." In fact, he said this:

[...]demographic changes in the American population (considerably assisted by LBJ's liberal immigration policy) ensured that the party of the white male would be unable to put together an electoral majority beyond 2000 or thereabouts.

Now, if you'd like to argue that the Republican Party is not "the party of the white male," well...good luck with that. Otherwise, what in this statement supports your final assertion?

Deconstructing a fable with the fabulist's own words. Brilliant stuff, this.

Personally, I'd like to see a similar rating system as the ones at sites like OpenLeft or DailyKos. I'd like to see people have the ability to rate blogs and comments, and to rate them "up" or "down". I'd also like to see people not be able to leave comments or rate posts/comments until they're logged in.

As for the rest of your post...it's not that it's wrong, per se. But I believe that TPM Cafe changes and evolves (or "devolves," if you prefer). And it may not be the place for extremely nuanced policy debates at the moment. It serves the purpose that its users want it to serve.

If you really want to "elevate" the level of discourse, I strongly recommend that you be the change you want to see in the Cafe. I see you have over 20 followers as of right now. So start posting some of those wonkish blogs whose alleged absence you decry. You'll probably find quite a few people who read, comment and rec them.

And those "empty" posts you dismiss so glibly? Maybe one person's trash is another person's treasure. My solution: I don't read every post here. And there are some writers I don't read. But maybe that post or author helps advance someone else's understanding of some issue being discussed. Just because it doesn't advance YOUR understanding of an issue YOU want to talk about doesn't automatically strip it of educational value.

As for me, I really don't care about being recommended. It's not why I blogged here, it's not why I comment here, and it's not why I rec here. Personally, I don't give too many recommends. I probably rec one out of every 20-25 posts I read, if that. But I come here every day, and read all the stuff - not just the front-page posts. In fact, that's why I don't follow anyone. I want to make sure I read many different posts and posters.

To my (perhaps unenlightened) way of thinking, TPM Cafe is a place where I can write what I want, when I want, and have it out there for review and criticism. Maybe people like it. Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't even read it. I really couldn't care less either way. I don't write for anyone but me. I think that's probably the best attitude to take with writing here.

As an example...you write an in-depth, well-sourced piece on mark-to-market accounting, international grain shortages, or what The Other Russia is doing to oppose Putin and Medvedev. And it doesn't get rec'd, or even read.

So what? Who gives a damn? YOU sure shouldn't.

The work itself should be your monument. The number of recs you get really shouldn't be a factor in your honest evaluation of your work. I've written pieces that have garnered a fair number of recs, but I often think my best work got few, if any, recommends. What makes me happy isn't the recs. It's knowing that I wrote something of which I can justifiably be proud. It keeps MY blood pressure down, anyway. :)

Also.