Rachel Maddow had Sen Wyden on her show yesterday and he talked about his amendment to the Baucus bill. As I understood it, the idea was to allow any american to access the insurance exchange directly to shop for health insurance, whether or not they had plan provided by the employer, and to require employers to provide a range of plans to their employees.

This sounds a great idea to me so far (at least this element does) because it expands portbability and uses free market principles to drive down costs. I read also that the CBO estimates the bill would reduce cost of health insurance by an additional $1 billion over 10 years and the unions are on the record opposing it.

However, I wasn't able to find any details on this amendment apart from short summaries here and there.

Does anyone have a link to the proposed text and a more detailed description?

Thanks

Section 123 of the House version of the bill mandates the establishment of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee. It is supposed to be a panel that will design and recommend three classes of plans: essential, enhanced and premium.

You can read the definitions, but here is a summary of what it means:

• the Government will appoint a panel to design plans for a government program
• the plans will have tiered structure
• the plans have to be designed to keep the costs low

A version of this panel exists in most countries often cited as role-models for our reform. In the UK, it is called NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) and in New Zealand it's PHARMAC.

In both cases, these agencies evaluate the efficacy of new drugs, decide which drugs are cost-effective enough for the public system, and then negotiate the rates the public system will pay the manufacturers. In both the UK and New Zealand, the drug cost per patient has been reduced significantly as compared to the US. We spend more than twice on drugs, per capita, compared to New Zealand.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  It does - unless you have breast cancer.

Current treatment options for breast cancer include hormone therapy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. Mastectomy is a removal of the breast, fully or partially. Despite its enormous psychological toll on a woman, mastectomy can be performed as a preventive measure, to prevent the spread of cancer to other parts of the body.

Genentech, a relatively small biotech company of approx 11,000 people, developed Herceptin in the 1990s and obtained the FDA approval in 1998. The work of one of its developers, Dr. Slamon, was turned into a movie, "Living Proof", that premiered last year and describes the development process (nearly abandoned several times due to complexity and risk). 

Herceptin increases the survival rate to 95% in early-stage cases of breast cancer. It cuts the recurrence rates in half. And in combination with other therapies, it offers a possibility of a cure in early stages of breast cancer. A one year Herceptin therapy is currently the accepted international standard.

It costs US $70,000 for one year treatment.

In New Zealand, PHARMAC repeatedly refused to cover Herceptin treatment for breast cancer victims, in keeping with its mission of evaluating efficacy of the drugs versus their cost. In 2002, in response to mounting public pressure, PHARMAC approved coverage of Herceptin - but only in the cases of advanced breast cancer. In 2007, PHARMAC approved coverage of Herceptin for early stages of cancer - but only 9 weeks instead of a full year used in all other developed countries.

Update 1:

Cancer specialists cite more-restricted access to modern treatments like Herceptin and implanted radiotherapy than in Australia and other countries as a reason for New Zealand's worse mortality rates

Update 2:

Katie Sellars never thought she would be travelling the country meeting strangers from the internet, but breast cancer has changed all that.

News in October that Pharmac had again refused funding for the drug in early stage breast cancer was "like a kick in the teeth," Katie said.

Update 3:

It took a public grass-roots campaign "Boobs on Bikes" and a political pressure by the opposition party to change it. National Party won the election in November 2008 and pledged to fund Herceptin within 100 Days of the new government.

In the UK, NICE - a government organization that we're trying to replicate under the proposed health care reform bill - rejected 4 new drug therapies for kidney cancer, in August 2008, on the basis of their cost.

Update 4:

"This drug and others like it, we think, are a very major advance in the treatment of this disease."

Sutent is also licensed for GIST, the treatment of which has been revolutionised by Glivec. In cases where the tumours become resistant to Glivec, Sutent quadrupled progression-free survival from six weeks to six months. In a third of cases, the disease stabilised.

The new drug is not cheap, at about £2,400 per patient per month -- slightly cheaper than Glivec. Cost pressures in the NHS may limit its use.

 

The UK doctors were recommending their patients to travel to Italy, where one of these drugs, Sutent, can be bought cheaper, out of pocket - and without the risk of losing their government health insurance.

Update 5:

The move is a major victory for campaigners, patients and cancer specialists. They had described Nice's refusal to approve the drugs - which cost up to £70,000 a year per patient - as unfair, inhumane and condemning patients to an unnecessarily early death. 

Oncologists believe Sutent, Nexavar, Avastin and Torisel could benefit about half of the 7,000 people a year who are diagnosed with kidney cancer. No other drugs are as effective at extending life in patients with advanced forms of the disease or in whom cancer has returned after a period of remission.

This two-class system in the UK implies that the wealthy will be able to afford the new drugs while the poor will be stuck with whatever the government believes is worth covering in the name of universal access. In the US, our proposed draft bill requires the creation of 3 classes of plans (essential, enhanced and premium).

If they added Ultimate, it would be just like Windows Vista.

We all know what this means.

- Those who are supposed to sit in the back of the bus - will get an essential plan.

- 300 million people will be mandated to have health insurance - because we cannot find a way to deliver it to the 46 million, many of whom, we admit, have incomes above $50,000 and can afford it

 

Morpheus:

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

 

Obama:

If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?

 

Well. My liberal friends can believe what they want to believe. I prefer to stay in this Wonderland and find out how deep the rabbit hole goes. This plan deserves only to fail and I hope it does.

 

In January, Obama ordered a stop to military tribunals pending his review on how to proceed with them. Last week, he decided to keep the tribunals after all, while implementing several changes to "restore the Commissions as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law".

Several people on TPM took Obama's statement (as any other statement he makes) on tribunals at face value. But the truth is Obama flip-flopped on his campaign positions and attempted some remarkable window-dressing to cover it up.

1. When Obama voted against the Military Tribunal Act of 2006, he offered the following reasons explaining his vote:

- power to determine what constitutes torture was left with a president, not Geneva Convention

- Combatant Status Review Tribunal doesn't separate innocent "accidental" detainees from all others

- elimination, instead of just a suspension, of habeas corpus

 2. In 2008, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a provision in the MCA, and so

ruled that the detainees can challenge their designation as "enemy combatant" by Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) in federal courts.

Obama proclaimed it, naturally, "a rejection of the Bush administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo" that he said was "yet another failed policy supported by John McCain."

 

3. During the election season, Obama continued to insist that:

- habeas corpus should be restored to detainees

- Gitmo should be closed

- detainees should be tried in US criminal court or by the military court-marshall

- the process was too slow and inefficient

4. But that was all during the heat of pragmatism of the campaign season.

When Obama actually concluded his review of the anti-constitutional and internationally-illegal military tribunals last week, he decided he would continue the Bush policy after all.

And, get this!, he claimed that he actually liked the commissions all along, except for a couple of details:

- evidence obtained under cruel inhuman interrogation methods will not be admissible

- use of hearsay will be limited, shifting the burden of proof

- accused will have greater lattitude in choosing legal counsel

- basic protections to those who refuse to testify

- judges may establish jurisdiction over their own courts

 

5. With the exception of the choice of legal counsel, all the other points in Obama's statement are pure spin and window-dressing:

- Admission of evidence resulting under torture:

It's already inadmissible under the Military Tribunals Act of 2006 (see $948r (c)). Such evidence had already been rejected by military tribunals. Obama is taking a rule that is already in place and spins it to pretend he's fixing something.

- Admission of hearsay

Again, window-dressing.

The issue of hearsay in civilian courts is admissibility of statements that are made other than inside of the court-room under oath. The problem here is the legally meaningful reliablity of such evidence. Any hearsay admitted as exemption has to overcome the reliability barrier, so the burden of proof is always on prosecution. And even though there are many exceptions to admissibility in civilian courts, the biggest issue for the military courts is recalling soldiers from active duty to testify.

Note two things:

(a) Military Tribunals already do not to accept any evidence that is unreliable. And if they did, there is an appeal process created under the Act that Obama voted against, under which any conviction based on unreliable evidence will be overturned.

(b) Obama doesn't eliminate hearsay, he only limits it. So what is he doing that's different?? He's shifting the burden of proof. But the MCA of 2006 already explicitly provides that any detainee is innocent until proven guilty, so it's obvious that any burden of proof is on prosecution. To pretend that Obama is doing something non-trivial with these rules is just laughable.

- Lattitude in chosing legal counsel

OK, instead of just getting a tax-payer funded lawyer, then can a private lawyer. And the security clearance required under Bush will probably be reduced. I can see a change here.

- Basic protections to those who refuse to testify

What could it mean? That the tribunal will not use the refusal to testify against the detainee? Well, the Bush tribunal rules already provide that "The Accused shall not be required to testify during trial. A Commission shall draw no adverse inference from an Accused's decision not to testify"

 

Bottom line is this:

the Bush commissions, combined with the Supreme Court ruling on ability to challenge combatant designation, provide more due process to detainee than any military tribunal in the US history.

Instead of sticking to his campaign promises, Obama is tweaking with what amounts to the commas and font of the existing rules.

For a candidate who spoke about Constitution, international law, habeas corpus, civilian courts, Obama is doing exactly NOTHING. His changes to the current system are so insignificant, it's laughable to think anything other than the truth - Obama is continuing the Bush system.

He's delaying again the process that he himself accused of being slow and inefficient. But most importantly, he's clearly admitting that Bush system is the best there is today - he's not offering anything better except for trivial or outright fake "improvements".

Yet another failed policy of the past supported by Barack Obama.

 

It's been fascinating to watch the little tempest in a pot over the torture memos which Obama decided to release in compliance with the court order.

There is a small group of people (including myself) who believe that torture should be prosecuted and anyone involved should be punished. There is a larger group of people (including, frequently, Obama) who just want to use torture memos as a way to settle a political score - so they only focus on those in power at the time. Then there is another group (including, frequently, Obama) that just wants to move on. Of course, we already know which group will prevail in the end.

So, to those who want the truth, I say - you can't handle the truth. You will have to choose between the truth and Obama, and you will choose Obama.

So most likely, you will make a deal with your conscience and accept his invitation to "move on". At worst, you will cheerlead selective application of the law and focus on rounding up a few scapegoats so you can have a show trial and "move on". You don't have the balls to face the truth that will damage your own party and your own president.

The entire Democratic leadership in Congress has been complicit in torture policy. They have been repeatedly briefed about it. They voted for laws that protected those who tortured. They cared more about being seen as "strong on defense". They cared more about mid-term congressional elections. They care more about power than the truth, and that's why there will be no "truth commission".

And given the partisanship of party politics in America, you will close your ranks, distract yourselves with Bachmann 2.0 and then rush headlong to leave behind exculpatory evidence in the form of grand health care reform.

Please tell me it ain't so. 

So, Josh Marshall comes back from his holiday and is so obssed with "porn" and "teabaggin" I think the guy needs to wake up and have a serious and honest conversation with his wife about his unfulfilled sexual needs.

I understand the need to ridicule the opposition, but Josh - how about you check your moral compass occasionally, just to make sure you're not turning into someone you despise.

 

So, the Government is now in control of GM.

 

Obama forced out its CEO and replaced him with Fritz Henderson, who has a better relationship with the UAW Chief Ron Gettelfinger. It's obvious that the way Henderson has been installed into GM will make it much easier for the UAW to have more influence on how the company is run.

 

Media made some noise about the GM bankruptcy, but of course it's never going to happen. UAW is a critical voting block with multiple alliances and the Government will do everything to keep their votes. So instead of just sending the auto workers packing with a pink slip like every other bankrupt industry would do, they are given good buyouts and early retirement. And younger workers who remain will be guaranteed jobs.

 

The new and improved GM will become a perfect platform to for Obama's green energy vision.

 

The new management will create a business plan that will shift manufacturing to green or electric cars, away from SUVs and gas guzzlers. The government already promised to honor GM warranties. And it already controls enough banks through TARP to ensure there is plentiful financing to GM dealerships. Of course, "Organizing America" will work tirelessly to show that owning an Obamacar is the best way to help America. They will sell like iPods.

 

And everyone is happy.

I read with amazement Josh Marshall's longer-then usual post on the social contract today.

He acknowledges the amount of objection and disgreement over the way he covered AIG bonuses, but his post-rationalization is rather startling to me.

First of all, Josh, some people objected not only to your sensationalizing of the story and engaging in cheap populism. It's great that you recognize this but it's not clear that you care, because today's installment on AIG is not much better than yesterday's.

Most importantly, in my view, people objected to the kind of reporting that deliberately and therefore dishonestly leaves the reader misled and misinformed, while fanning the flames and feeding anger.

Your rationale today is that some people in the financial services industry are tone-deaf and context-blind, while the social contract is under strain. This has been going around the blogosphere for a couple of days now so it's not a novel theory anymore.

But the true essence of that pseudo-argument is this: if the taxpayer money is involved in running AIG, then the taxpayers have the right to change their mind about your compensation at any point in time, for any reasons, without warning. Basically, whenever they feel like it. Or whenever Fox News gets sore throat from stoking anger 24/7. Written legal contracts about AIG compensation have no power, even if  we, taxpayers, signed them. Don't like it? Tough shit, don't work for us.

Your (mis) coverage of the AIG mess is dishonest because it purposefully conflates the issue of the specific bonuses with the larger issue of limits on executive pay. It's your choice to follow the blind rage or to see the forest behind the trees.

The DeSantis point is about the taxpayer's anger destroying the company they own. It wasn't about $1.5 million dollars, which he isn't going to keep anyway. Of course, that's not how you reported this, you lumped it with the general "fuck you from Wall Street to DC" as if DeSantis defiantly refused to give up the money he is legally due.

So, when all is said and done, Josh, you own AIG now too. What do you want to see happen with it? And who would do it, under the conditions you suggest the social contract implies?

Rasmussen writes an opinion column in WSJ and says this:

Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001

 

Rasmussen thinks the reason is policy:

The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.

 

He lists the specific concerns (spending too much, raising taxes on everyone, overextending instead of focusing on economy, etc) and shows that more americans oppose Obama's budget now than support it.

The most striking thing to me is this: Republicans have some of the lowest approval numbers and are blamed for many of the problems.

And yet, the specific republican talking points (overspend, overtax, etc) seem to be capturing the mood of what more and more people think.

If this is true, then there is more than bravado to their claims that they will lose on policy but win on message, their polls must be showing the same trends. It also means that Obama is going to become even more like Bill Clinton fairly soon, to triangulate on issues (eat this Theda). And finally, we should expect even more partisanship a-la the WH-coordinated trashing of Rush.

 

I doubt anyone's interested or even noticing, but I just cannot help watching in amazement how the Obama campaign is walking into a trap after trap after trap.

Enough has been said about his campaign statement when Palin was announced and the whole vetting process, so I will not go there.

The same will happen with Palin's press interviews and debates. The expectations, once again, are lowered so quickly - she simply has to say something coherent to win this little catfight.

But the latest one is even more funny.

Obama started running commercials calling out the McCain/Palin lies on the Bridge to Nowhere. I think he's making another mistake.

My logic is this: Palin can make several claims to her effectiveness as a Governor and the pipeline deal is one of them. It has been analyzed in the press already and she got overwhelmingly good reviews for it. But she's not running commercials ont this or even brining this up in her stump speeches.

Why? They are baiting Obama on the Bridge to Nowhere.

McCain voted twice again the bridge, including making a fiery speech against it on the Senate floor. Palin, we're told, initially supported it and only pulled the plug when "the writing was on the wall".

Contrast that with Obama/Biden. Both of them voted for Bridge to Nowhere when it first came up.

Later, Coburn tried to kill in the Senate to free up the money to help with Katrina efforts. But despite this, both Obama and Biden voted for it again.

Do you see a problem with:
- voting with your own party 100% of the time?
- not ever fighting earmarks?

So my prediction is that McCain will use this to reinforce his central message of being a maverick and going against his own party and having the right judgement.

He can make a pretty devastating commercial over this.

And maybe later on, closer to the election time, roll out the pipeline brag.

Let's take another look at what happened since last Friday and ask ourselves a question:

What did TPM and DailyKos do to help Obama and advance the cause of his campaign?

The answer is simple: NOTHING

No, strike that.

TPM, DailyKos and other media channels, formerly known as "progressive", spent all this time helping John McCain, by "vetting" of Sarah Palin.

The speed, brutality, partisanship and bitterness of this "vetting" was breathtaking.

But that wouldn't be so bad, if Josh and his "progressive" friends didn't actively stoke the press and TV to pick up on these stories.

Mike Huckabee said a lot of stupid things in his convention speech. But he was dead on when he said that the Republicans owe the news media a debt of gratitude for uniting their party behind their candidates.

And the American voters will owe Josh Marshall a debt of gratitude for sending Sarah Palin on the path of becoming America's newest Erin Brockovich.

What a disservice to Obama and his message. With friends like this...

I have NEVER seen anything like this.



She crashes the TPM site. She sends the left blogs into an overdrive. She makes Josh Marshall defend a shady crazy guy who tasers his stepson in order to find something to question her. I thought Hillary was overloading servers, but look at this!!!


Sarah Palin is a BOMB!

The narrative of the Republican ticket has changed. And the race changed with it.

The voters are given a ticket of Twin Mavericks. A duo of reformers who broke ranks with their own party when necessary.

Bush/Cheney will not attend the GOP convention. McCain may accept the nomination from the Gulf Coast - the symbolism and message of distancing himself from the failure of Bush will be hard to ignore, while Obama/Biden are nowhere to be seen or heard regarding Gustav. The only Democratic message we've heard besides the convention is Fowles leaked video where he says that Gustav is proof that "God is on Democrat's side".

The GOP convention will serve as a megaphone for McCain/Palin to send two distinct messages: to continue the orgasmic rally of the base that started with his VP pick; and to send a message to concerned Republicans and Independents that it's time to reclaim the GOP - a party of young, unapologetic, charismatic new generation. The time of renewal, rebirth and realignment to fight for the "common good".

The uniform condescending dismissal of Palin will serve to lower the expectations to such a degree that she will be deemed "OK" if she can just hold her own against Biden. If she does better than that, the debate "victory" will be given to her.

Suddenly, the GOP ticket looks alive and energetic, new and fresh - only a couple of months before the election. With Obama overexposure on TV and his addition of the sleep-inducing Biden and his rather cautious Denver speech, makes the Democratic ticket look like a boring editorial from last week's newspaper.

The "inexperienced" argument advanced against Palin as a possible President backfires instantly because it forces to make a comparison between her and Obama's record.

On the campaign tactics, Republicans have been getting "A+"s for the past month or so.

The above is exaggerated somewhat to crystallize the question - how should the Obama campaign refocus and regroup its strategy?

Should it just continue "business as usual"?

Or, if it has to change something, what should it change?

Why are so many people at TPM busy smearing Sarah Palin, the person?

I think it's because they believe that by simultaneously praising Hillary (she's no longer a threat) and taking Sarah down they will pursuade themselves that those misguided, desperate Hillary voters will not vote for the McCain ticket.

It's becoming very clear that the vast majority of Obama supporters have absolutely no clue as to what motivated Hillary voters throughout the primaries and how they changed during that process.

I believe that the process of becoming a Hillary Voter was slow and was complicated by campaign events. But the main trajectory can be easily distilled to three key points:

- Many women became somewhat skeptical of Obama around the time when the "Messiah" comments first appeared in the press. On a certain level a cocky smooth operator, high on emotion but low on specifics, was a very personal and powerful stereotype for many women, especially single mothers. I recall first hearing comments like this at least four months before Iowa.

- As the campaign became more heated, the amount of sexism and Hillary-hate in the media spilled over into prime-time. That complicated everything because it allowed many women to feel sympathy towards Hillary.

- When the Obama campaign decided to add the personal dimension to their attacks on Hillary (time of the month, claws come out, etc), they pushed many of these women away from his candidacy, because Obama and the media were basically on the same train now.

If you read the leaked memos in "The Atlantic", you will remember that from the beginning of the campaign Mark Penn was pointing out that women voters would view Hillary favorably and that she should campaign hard to get them into her camp.

What happened was two-fold:
- Obama and the media campaigned to push them away by attacking Hillary as a person
- Hillary campaigned to take advantage of her favorability with women and to turn herself into their champion

As the campaign unfolded, the animosity grew and polarized the two campaigns and the vague skepticism towards Obama became an outright hostility, due to the reasons I mentioned above.

I am convinced that the sexism of the Obama campaign was an un-intended by product of hard competition. But it was there and his supporters fanned it and made it worse.

What we are dealing with now is the fruit of that. And by either demonizing Palin or reducing her to a clueless bimbo, we are re-tracing the process of driving people away from Obama. Doing the same thing all over again and somehow expecting a different result.

And because of the history of the primaries, it will now take half the time to turn an undecided woman into a Hillary 2.0 voter. Or force a Hillary voter to consider Sarah Palin. All you have to do is to show them that you will treat any woman the same way as you treated Hillary.

Compare her to Monica Lewinsky, call her a bimbo, call her a Trophy VP (look at the recommended list for more inspiration).

Let me tell you something: every time you smear Sarah Palin instead of focusing on the consequences of McCain/Palin election, you prove that you are only an average student of Karl Rove despite all your efforts.

The trick is not to give Hillary voters a Hillary substitute.

The trick is to make Obama supporters themselves, online and in the real world, push women away from the Obama campaign, in spite of Obama's and Clintons' efforts to unite the party in Denver. Suddenly, it feels as if Denver never happened.

McCain's gamble is simple. Sarah Palin was selected to help rally the base of the Republican Party. And to rally the Obama supporters to further alienate undecided women or Hillary supporters. For free.

And by doing exactly that, you prove that you are the worst friend Obama could ever have.

McCain campaign is exploiting the issue raised in the media and in the blogs - Hilarry didn't personally "vouch" for Obama in her speech and she didn't explicitly say that he is ready to be CiC.

I suggest that liberal blogs fight this as hard as possible because it is nothing but another way to exploit the divisions between Hillary's and Barack's supporters.

As I mentioned on another thread, I think Hillary gave Obama a much much better endorsement than any kind of vouching could possibly do.

Here's why:

She gave a powerful, emotional and forceful speech about what it means to be a Democrat and what Democrats stand for. And by repeatedly urging to elect Obama she made a far more visceral connection between him and the choices the country faces.

Secondly, for her to "vouch" for Obama would undermine the merits of his candidacy, now that he's the nominee.

It would be equivalent to saying that only after Hillary personally vouched for his readiness can the others believe he's ready. "Well, only if Hillary says so...".

For her to "vouch" for Obama would appear that she has to give permission and/or approval.

I'm glad she didn't do it.

By avoiding the "vouching", she endorsed him in a way that didn't belittle his candidacy on the merits and didn't imply that she was in a position to permit people to elect him.

She called to elect him because he's a true Democrat and stands for what true Democrats stand for.

I hope you agree. And I hope the blogs fight the media "vouching" meme as hard as possible.

I'm fully aware that this will as always ruffle some feathers here and reduce my already measly chance to get the sweet prize of "most recommended". Oh well...

Lesson One: The "Experiment" has failed

"In one sense, the grand experiment at the heart of the Obama campaign is an effort to win the election by speaking to the voters like adults" - Greg Sargent, Aug 20 2008

For those who are pragmatic enough and do not look for signs pointing to "High Road" in everything the Obama campaign says or does, this had been clear a long long time ago.

For everyone else, here is a rundown of how the $5 million dollars message was created: by deliberately twisting McCain's joke.

It doesn't matter that McCain himself had said his words would be distorted - damn right they would! I'm waiting for the noble FactCheck.Org to birth an analysis, but whatever.

Lesson Two: Netroots Rulz!

It turns out that the Obama campaign was not as Republicanized as some would were calling for. I include myself in that crowd, as I was clamoring for attack (and still do).

In fact, as we have all loudly pointed out, they had some trouble coming up with an effective message to define McCain.

That's until the help arrived. Get this, the credit for "Housing Gaffe" doesn't actually belong to McCain - it belongs to THE NETROOTS. Because they "created" it.

The choice of headline itself reveals both that the poor POW half-expected to be set up and (he was). Even his clumsy refusal to discuss his houses was enough. A quote is a quote, even when it's not.

Nevermind that too. Obamaland knows a good attack when they see one. They took it and they ran with it. About time.

Needless to say, the above link to Open Left points out an emerging issue of who's going to take credit. Who cares, we know that Obama will, if he wins in November. Personally, I don't mind one bit.

Lesson Three: Obamafication

Once Biden was gifted by the grace, the Obamafication of Biden began in full. Not unlike the biography of a certain POW, a whole year has been wiped out of his Wiki page. That year, by strange incident, was the one when he urged Kerry to take McCain as his VP and urged McCain to join the Democratic Party.

Well, as DailyKos said, the choice of Biden is about plugging the gaps. Maybe it's also about removing those old (hair) plugs.

Lesson Four: Hillary is still here!

Hillary, of course, was passed over for the nomination. Some deluded souls on this site (including me) were hoping against hope and against ourselves that she would get the nod. But I am reminded daily that Hillary has to get on a plane and walk every single voter by the hand to a voting booth and force them to vote for Obama. She has to convince them about Obama, because Obama can't.

Lesson Five: POW is the new black

Poor old McCain apparently decided that he can hide behind the POW defense with the same effect as Obama was able to hide behind the "Racism!" defense. The retard apparently completely forgot that the media (both the MSM media and the blogosphere media) love Biden. There's no going back.

Lesson Six: The Pundit Deathmatch

The battle of the pundits is now in full swing. It's between the "old" class of pundits who get speaking fees for opening their mouths on TV and the "new" class who get other ways of compensation for clacking the keys on the keyboards.

New pundit Markos of the DailyKos fame is pimping his new book on the front page. New pundit Josh Marshall is building an alternative media empire.

But only the new pundit David Sirota goes where nobody small balls would go - Fox News. He obviously doesn't have to point out that the "new" pundit has to put bread on the table. But in fairness, at least he's pushing the talking points.

Apparently, Sirota didn't realize that can go straight into the lion's den (also known as Fox News) and come back alive and with a check - but still not survive the collective wrath of the "progressives".

While Sirota is hurting in self-exile under the bus, the noble war against Fournier is in full swing. His crime is that the "opinion" label wasn't big enough on his piece. The pretext is that he once entertained a job offer from McCain. He should have called Sirota for a quick update, no doubt.

Phew, now that this is off my chest, let's go back and watch the Ad Wars.