I understand that Reconciliation requires jumping through such legislative hoops that it militates against a well designed piece of legislation.

I hope a simple majority is available but my guess is that Senators Lincoln and Ben Nelson are unlikely to be part of it. My guess is that the changes required to recruit Snowe will be sufficient to recruit Lieberman and that Snowe's very preseence-giving it a bi partisan coloring-
will work for Senator Landrieu.

Bottom line, we might as well save outselves 8 weeks of impassioned rhetoric.What Olympia wants, Olympia will get.

Actually a quote I've stolen from Barber Conable, upstate NY Republican who was able to disagree without being disagreeable. Also true of Ted Kennedy to be bipartisan in awarding accolades.

A key ingredient was the mix of infinite patience, good humor and close attention with which he dealt with his tenancious opponents in the British medical establishment. When he died a decade later the papers were full of almost unanimous praise from those same former antagonists.

And he didn't need to do that. Labour had an overwhelming majority. He oould have just said he was going to do it "my way".

Substitute Harry Reid and Olympia Snowe for the players above and maybe there's a clue about what has to happen in the next 45 days. And I think, will.

Which is too bad. bslev is not Elliott Abrams. I nearly always agree with MJ's positions but not with his short fuze. My guess is that he is just worn down from the constant abuse but that has never seemed to me to be bslev's approach.

Reconciliation" is a word that has abruptly come into vogue – with Karzai and with some U.S. officials and experts. But it is absurd to think that an Afghanistan partly or wholly given over to some imagined "moderate" Taliban would not in short order turn back into a sanctuary for international terrorism. Promises that the Taliban might make in the process of gaining a deal would not be worth the paper they were written on. And a population disgruntled by the havoc, waste and corruption that has characterized the international presence will prove vulnerable to the enticements of Al Qaeda recruiting sergeants. The answer is not to lower the bar but to raise it.

I don't maintain that she's right and that those who have a different view are wrong. (And she may have changed her view since altho when I heard her being interviewed a few weeks ago she sounded much the same.) Just that her's is a position that merits serious consideration. She's paid her dues.

He'll get re-elected in 2012 if voters feel good about what he's done irrespective of whether it was what he promised. They've got better things to do than keeping a check list of campaign promises. Not enough time. (AOBTW they wouldn't if they had the time b o r i n g ).

Until 2000 many senate rankings placed him near the center of the Party.To the left for example of Senator Cantwell and others who are not much critized here.And if anything that became even more true in the run up to his delusional presidential campaign in 2004.

Always a strong supporter of Israel of course but for a some of that time that meant support of Rabin and his constructive policies.

And my memory is that he was particularly helpful to Obama as a novice sentator. Given that, and the reasonably acceptable historical record it's not surprising that Obama spoke well of him in 2006.

And he may have just liked the guy. Like Ted Kennedy and Orin Hatch.Or Barney Frank and Henry Hyde. Happens.

I can see why his reliosity annoys non religious people-of whom I'm one. But I avoid criticizing people for their beliefs and hope they'll return the favor with respect to my atheism. To be frank I myself wouldn't use Holy Joe lest I invite the return characterization as Unholy Flavius, true tho that actually is.

The question is not whether governments make mistakes. It's whether they make so many that they are the problem. Or if not the problem enough of a problem so their role should be diminished to the extent possible.

Governments do some things right and some things wrong. Non governmental entities do some things right and some things wrong. Like say AIG. In fact
all organizations get lots of things wrong lots of the time. Management theorists make far too much money by writing books about that with titles like The Peter Principle or In Search of Excellence.

But there is an added problem when governmental functions are delegated to business. That basic human attribute- greed -causes businesses to not only make their particular quota of mistakes but also to deliberately carry out the function in such a way that the business can make as much money as possible . Despite that it is usually the case where it is better for the sake of checks and balances for a government to assign tasks to businesses and then check on them. A lot.

But where something as irreplaceable as a human life is concerned the cost of assigning important functions to a non governmental body is too high. At least too high for the particular individual who dies because he can't afford the $40,000 charge for a procedure whose incremental cost to the agency is perhaps one fortieth of that.

Mr. Miller, I don't really care very much whether the government or free enterprise runs the communications net work,or the transportation system, or even the department stores.But some things are too important to be assigned to free enterprise with not only its own quoata of incompetence but with the perverse effects of unchecked greed: the military, education and health.