Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty offers his thoughts on Barack Obama and the American electorate:

"Tiger Woods is holding a press conference at 11 o'clock this morning. I think we can learn a lot from that situation," he said.

Speaking about Nordegren, he said, "She said enough. She said no more. I think we should take a page out of her book. We should take a 9 iron and smash the window out of big government in this country."

Pawlenty isn't some random schmuck -- he hopes to challenge Obama in 2012. So now he's doing everything he can to appeal to his party's right-wing extremists, including traveling to Washington DC to veto a bill that would expand health care access to more people in his state. Somehow, they aren't embarrassed by this kind of garbage. They are moving to the right of Attila the Hun, and they are loving every minute of it.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 2/15/2010-2/18/2010. All adults. MoE 2% (Last weeks results in parentheses):

Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.

This week's installment of the Daily Kos State of the Nation Tracking Poll shows an electorate that is fairly stable, but also pretty darned grumpy, as well. Nobody gains favorability this week, as an incremental change in unfavorabilities give the slightest of bumps to President Obama and Speaker Pelosi. Everybody else cedes some ground this week, regardless of party.

Other indicators of voter malaise--the right track/wrong track metric remains decidedly soft, sitting at a 38/59 spread. Perhaps President Obama's net favorability has been resurrected somewhat after the SOTU address, but it is clear that voter optimism has not recovered similarly:

If there is any good news for the Democrats this week, it is that the gap in voter intensity has closed somewhat over the past few weeks. The closing of the gap, however, has not been owed to any resurgence in Democratic voter interest. It has been owed almost exclusively to a marked decline in Republican voter intensity.

Even though GOP voters still lap the field in terms of voter interest, net voter intensity for the Republicans have dropped markedly in three weeks. During the week of the SOTU address, 80% of GOP voters were likely or certain to vote. This week, it is down to 73%. During the same time frame, Democratic voter intensity has upticked by a single point (from 52% to 53%).

This is good news for the Democrats, but only if the party can find a way to inspire their base. While the gap has narrowed modestly, it is still a serious gap, and a gap that would remains perilous for Democratic electoral chances.

Two late-breaking stories breathe significant life back into healthcare reform and potentially a public option being included in that reform.

The first from Herszenhorn and Pear in the NYT says that the plan Democrats will present next week at the summit will be designed to pass as part of a reconciliation package.

Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.

Congressional Democrats, however, have not yet seen the proposal or signed on....

During a conference call on Wednesday night, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, that she could not agree to a proposal until rank-and-file lawmakers returned from a weeklong recess. A House Democratic caucus meeting is set for Monday evening.

And a senior Senate Democratic aide expressed doubts.

"It has been three weeks since the Massachusetts election, and we have not received a path forward from the White House on health care substance and process that can clear the House and Senate," the aide said....

The president’s plan would require most Americans to obtain health insurance or face financial penalties; it would bar insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions, and it would give tax subsidies to help moderate-income people buy private insurance.

Officials said the president’s bill was expected to include a version of the Senate’s proposed tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance policies. It would reflect a deal reached with labor union leaders to limit the impact of the tax on workers.

More recently, some labor officials have expressed dissatisfaction with that deal, and many House Democrats remain opposed to the excise tax.

The inclusion of the excise tax remains a thorny issue, as labor has backed away from the agreement negotiated prior to the Massachusetts election. Add to that a new analysis from UC Berkeley that suggests that the vast majority of employees that will be subject to the excise tax are in non-union households, and more members will be likely to oppose that revenue measure. It's still a major hurdle in the House, which the White House is well aware of. Which brings up one possible motive for the reconciliation threat--like the threat of recess appointments broke opposition and allowed some nominations to go forward, this could be aimed at shaking loose a few Republicans to support a potentially scaled-down package. That seems unlikely, both in intent and outcome, as there's only one Republican who has even come close to pretending to cooperate with Dems, and one ain't enough.

The second major development was diaried last night by nandssmith: Sebelius, appearing on the Rachel Maddow show, said the White House would support a public option if Harry Reid moved it forward.

Maddow: "The private insurance company writ large hasn't done a great job. That's why we want a public option to compete with them. These 18 Democratic senators want to bring that back into the fold. If that happened, would the administration fight for it?"

Sebelius: "Well, I think if it's...Certainly. If it's part of the decision of the Senate leadership to move forward, absolutely."

The hot potato game between Reid and the White House over the public option continues, but now that Reid has the blessing of the White House, it would make a great deal of sense for him to include it. It has the support of one person on his leadership team--Chuck Schumer. It would help bring the House on board to this new WH approved reconciliation effort. The public option is very popular in Nevada. There are all sorts of reasons to include it, including that fact that it's smart policy that will significantly help to lower costs to the system. But there's still some resistance in the Senate caucus. Jon Cohn:

At this point, it's going to take a herculean effort by President Obama and the leadership to secure fifty votes even for a modest reconciliation bill, one that merely fixes some of the more egregious flaws in the bill the Senate finally passed. Adding a public option--something more conservative Democrats never liked in the first place--will make that task a lot harder. Here's how one Senate leadership aide put it to me on Thursday, following the news about Schumer:

Despite the flurry of press reports, nothing has changed over the last couple of days, except that maybe there are less votes for the public option that there were a few months ago.

That's where we come in. Reconciliation as an option is gaining in momentum, with even Evan Bayh being open to using it. Reconciliation is far more likely to happen now that the White House is behind it than it was a week ago, but it still needs to be pushed. The inclusion of the public option is going to take serious citizen whipping. Thirty-two more Dem Senators need to step up.

So the public option is on the comeback trail. Or is it?

With 18 Senators now signed on to the letter urging leadership support of an effort to bring the public option to the floor under reconciliation procedures, things are either looking up for the popular plan's prospects, or else everyone's out looking for a freebie, hoping to snap up some progressive creds by signing on to an effort that's both doomed and the death of which can be blamed on the Senate's nonpartisan parliamentarian.

In the scenario where they're punking us, it's win-win in terms of the politics of it for the Senators. As long as there aren't 51 signatories and nobody thinks there ever will be, anyone who wants to look progressive but doesn't particularly care for the public option can sign on and be in no danger of being called upon to live with the consequences. And if they get 51, well then, what the hell? Go pass it. You've got all the cover in the world.

But even with 51 votes, it'd have to get past the parliamentarian first, and that's not such a sure thing. But even if it doesn't, that's just more win for Senators who need to look pro-public option but don't really want to have to vote for it. "Gosh, we really wanted to do it -- you saw me sign the letter! But that darn parliamentarian!"

That assumes a startling level of cynicism, of course. There's really not all that much reason to believe there are many Democratic Senators who really do secretly dislike the notion of a public option and who fear just coming right out and saying so.

And even if it's all somehow an act, it's still worth it all by itself when you look back at the conventional wisdom from not that long ago, which was that there was simply no way of even contemplating passing a public option in the Senate, and reconciliation was out of the question.

Oh, and one last point, too. The latest signatory to the letter is Chuck Schumer, who also happens to be Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. Now, the Rules Committee in the Senate doesn't play the same critical role as the Rules Committee in the House. And the endorsement of the idea of passing a public option under reconciliation procedures by the Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee isn't by itself dispositive on the question of whether it passes parliamentary muster. But it doesn't hurt things, that's for sure.

So those of you who might've been stung in the past by being called a DFH for thinking it was worth advocating using reconciliation to pass not only a "fix" for the old Senate version of the health insurance reform bill, but perhaps taking a second crack at the public option as well, take heart. If you're wrong, at least you're in good company.

In a conference call Thursday, Sens. Jack Reed and Chuck Schumer, joined by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, discussed the HIRE Act, the jobs bill Reid is planning to bring to the floor on Monday.

TWI reports that Zandi downplayed the impact this bill alone is likely to achieve.

[Zandi] said the bill is "too small" to tackle the jobs crisis and ensure that the country doesn’t slip back into recession.

"I don’t think this is enough," Zandi told reporters during a conference call with Democratic leaders. "It’s too small a step and more needs to be done."

While House Democrats passed a $154 billion jobs bill in December — a proposal featuring billions for new infrastructure projects, state help and unemployment benefits — Senate leaders are eying a much smaller package focused on business tax cuts. The reason is clear: In a tough election year when 60 votes are needed to pass anything at all through the Senate, there’s little appetite for another huge spending bill — even if another huge spending bill is the best solution to the jobs crisis.

The Senate’s $15 billion proposal is centered around $13 billion in tax breaks to businesses that hire unemployed workers this year, a provision championed by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Other components include an extension of highway funding, a bonds provision allowing state and local governments to borrow cash at lower rates, and another business tax break empowering companies to write off more expenses. The bill, Democrats say, is just the first in a series of legislative efforts designed to spur hiring.

The Senate will have to take up unemployment insurance and COBRA extensions next week as well, because they expire at month's end. After that, Schumer and Reed said they will take up legislation to provide aid to states. But at this point, passage of the jobs bill is entirely at question. Despite the fact that each of the four elements of the bill have Republican co-sponsors, Republicans don't want to pass this bill because Harry Reid stripped out all the extraneous tax breaks that were in the "bipartisan" bill Baucus and Grassley originally negotiated.

Republicans are especially concerned over Reid's move to drop $31 billion worth of tax breaks for individuals and businesses, which had bipartisan support. The provisions expired at the end of last year and would amount to a major tax increase if not restored for 2010, backers argue.

Reid has said there will be other opportunities to move a tax extender bill, and that the scaled-back proposal headed to the floor should be focused solely on job creation. But the move is likely to cost support from two key negotiators on the earlier bipartisan package, Senate Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah....

Hatch's opposition is also noteworthy in that he is the co-author of the centerpiece of the Reid bill: a payroll tax break for the remainder of the year for each employee hired that had been out of work for at least 60 days. Hatch worked on that $13 billion incentive with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y....

Senate Small Business ranking member Olympia Snowe also laid out her concerns with Reid's move in a letter Tuesday. She said the Reid bill, which contains higher small business expensing limits through 2010, should extend the provision for at least five years. As currently drafted, the one-year extension would provide only $35 million in tax relief.

And of course, there's Blanche Lincoln, who "said last week she opposed the loss of provisions such as the research tax credit and farm disaster aid." All this in a bill that was supposed to be about jobs.

Harry Reid has reached out to Scott Brown, on the slim chance that when he said he would be an independent voice after his election, he really meant it. Whether the first big vote Brown takes as a Senator is one that would go against his leadership remains to be seen, so Reid shouldn't be holding his breath on that one. It's very possible that Republicans will vote down jobs next week. This is a vote Reid has to force them to take.

Seriously?

Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

And is anyone surprised to know that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe this crap? Extra fun fact: supporters of Kay Bailey Hutchison are even more likely to believe this crap.

Here are some other fun "facts" they believe:

• 38 percent agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago."
• 22 percent said life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time
• 51 percent disagreed with the statement, "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals."
• only 41 percent know that humans did not live at the same time as the dinosaurs

Maybe instead of rewriting textbooks to teach kids that Newt Gingrich was the most important man ever, Texas should focus on teaching kids that, as Lewis Black said, "The Flintstones" is not a documentary.

Friday!! I smell weekend!! Or is it the work on the neighbor's septic?

Charlie Cook:

Welcome to Washington! Having spent last weekend at an investment conference where top-notch tax and budget experts and economists warned about this country's impending fiscal crisis, I found it perfectly natural to hear Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, one of the most moderate and pragmatic, not to mention decent, members of Congress, throw up his hands and virtually say, "This place sucks. I'm outta here!" The two-term senator from Indiana pointed to the defeat of a Senate bill a few weeks ago that would have created a federal budget deficit-reduction commission charged with developing a set of recommendations that Congress would have to adopt or reject as a whole; it would work much like the base-closure commissions that enabled Congress to deal with the dicey issue of mothballing military bases that were no longer needed.

Fifty-three senators voted in favor of the commission, seven short of the 60 needed. The 46 opponents were evenly divided between the parties, 23 from each side voting against doing what needed to be done. Clearly, Congress is no longer capable of dealing with our country's biggest problem, but it won't allow creation of the only mechanism that could possibly solve it. Democrats and Republicans are equally culpable. Well, that's just great.

Ain't it, though? But about that "equally culpable" thing...

WaPo:

Emboldened by a belief that their political fortunes are on the rise, conservative activists descended Thursday on the capital city they love to hate, seeking to stoke what they consider a grass-roots uprising against President Obama and Democrats in Congress.

Michael Gerson:

It does not fit Palinism, which, in spite of populist excesses, usually swims in the conservative mainstream. It does not even fit the polling of Tea Party activists and sympathizers, who report a fairly typical range of conservative views. The Tea Party movement, on the whole, seems to be an intensification of conservative activism, not the triumph of the paranoid style of politics.

But the birthers and Birchers, militias and nativists, racists and conspiracy theorists do exist. Some, having waited decades in deserved obscurity, hope to ride a populist movement like remoras. But there are others, new to political engagement, who have found paranoia and anger intoxicating. They watch Glenn Beck rail against the omnipresent threat of Saul Alinsky, read Ayn Rand's elevation of egotism and contempt for the weak, listen to Ron Paul attacking the Federal Reserve cabal, and suddenly their resentments become ordered into a theory. Such theories, in politics, can act like a drug, causing addiction, euphoria and psychedelic departures from reality.

Important observation from a tea party defender and conservative columnist.

Paul Krugman:

Health insurance premiums are surging — and conservatives fear that the spectacle will reinvigorate the push for reform. On the Fox Business Network, a host chided a vice president of WellPoint, which has told California customers to expect huge rate increases: "You handed the politicians red meat at a time when health care is being discussed. You gave it to them!"

David Brooks:

It could be that Americans actually feel less connected to their leadership class now than they did then, with good reason.

Yep. It may well be.

The Economist:

Broad support from the voters is something that both the health bill and the cap-and-trade bill clearly lack. Democrats could have a health bill tomorrow if the House passed the Senate version. Mr Obama could pass a lot of green regulation by executive order. It is not so much that America is ungovernable, as that Mr Obama has done a lousy job of winning over Republicans and independents to the causes he favours. If, instead of handing over health care to his party’s left wing, he had lived up to his promise to be a bipartisan president and courted conservatives by offering, say, reform of the tort system, he might have got health care through; by giving ground on nuclear power, he may now stand a chance of getting a climate bill. Once Mr Clinton learned the advantages of co-operating with the Republicans, the country was governed better.

I love science fiction, don't you?

Just when you thought right-wingers couldn't get any worse, the Conservative Political Action Conference came to town.

Some of what went on was the same kind of silliness partisans of all stripes engage in, such as the doormats with photos of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews captioned "Stomp Out Liberal Media." Rachel Maddow was bemusedly irked that they hadn't made one of her.  

And some of it was so grotesquely outlandish you had trouble keeping your meal down. As with Dick Armey's claim that there is no "crisis in health care." And the standing ovation for the self-confessed war criminal Dick Cheney who told the crowd he wasn't going to run for the Presidency in 2012. An announcement that Richard Adams lamented would deprive us of a primary pitting Cheney against Palin in a real-life version of Alien vs. Predator.

And then there was the truly vile. In this case, there was Jason Mattera talking about recruiting young people into the conservative movement with a comment about the CPAC gathering that he likened to "our Woodstock":

"Except that unlike the last gathering, our women are beautiful, we speak in complete sentences and our notion of freedom doesn’t consist of snorting cocaine," he said, "which is certainly one thing that separates us from Barack Obama."

Later came the coke-snorting Baldwin brother, the youngest of the clan, Stephen, who was on hand to recruit "Next Gen" conservatives by means of a snazzy social/entertainment lounge. He had this to say to ABC:

"I am not happy about the way things are. I pray for President Obama every single day.  But tell you what. Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it."

Just kidding, right, Stephen?

A few of the usual suspects lined up for ranger duty today, including ItsJessMe, Louisiana 1976, HoosierDeb, ybruti, BentLiberal, and Shayera. jlms qkw drove the escape vehicle/Editmobile.

Here are tonight's selection of the best and under-noticed writing posted at dailykos:

• jackster describes the tragic results of being Uninsured in the Rural South and Relying on the Kindness of Others. (ybruti)
• In a well-written piece breakingranks gives a personal account of the Quest for Access to Health Care: Edge of Blindness Edition. (Louisiana 1976)
• toad734 presents information to persuade those in denial about Climate Change and 20" of Snow in Philly...In February! (ybruti)
• innereye shows the absolute necessity for a real jobs bill in 5 Million to be Forced onto Welfare in June. (BentLiberal)
• Aris D lays out a thoughtful argument urging us not to settle for Congress 2010: The Best of the Mediocre?. (HoosierDeb)
• Do you want to see more and better Democrats elected? anonevent tells us It's the voting, Stupid. (Louisiana 1976)
• McCamy Taylor offers a dark view of the new election rules in Corporate Feudalism: What Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Means for Election 2012. (BentLiberal)
• Ojibwa makes an important contribution to history with Indians 101: Thomas Jefferson & the American Indians. (ybruti)
• Femlaw has an optimistic view of President Obama and The Road to Recovery. (BentLiberal)
• tjlabs walks us through some daily realities of what one person deals with just for Being gay in America today... (HoosierDeb)
• citisven offers up an interesting diary on Istanbul Inspirations (photos, photos, photos, & yummy food). (BentLiberal)

jotter posted High Impact Diaries: February 17, 2010.

sardonyx has Top Comments: Laments Edition.

Please join us in this open thread by suggesting your own favorite diaries from today, sharing the latest news, and playing nicely together.

It's no surprise, but former Rep. Charlie Bass officially entered the race to replace Paul Hodes as the House member for New Hampshire's second district. Bass's candidacy has already been polled by UNH for WMUR; he currently looks strong, but is clearly benefiting from name recognition much higher than any other candidate in the race, Democrat or Republican.

While Bass ran (and lost) as a "moderate" Republican in 2006, he's facing a Republican primary this time around, and Blue Hampshire's Dean Barker catches him running a classic Republican move.

Bass's official announcement says:

"Instead of spurring the economy  by supporting  private sector growth, Washington Democrats  piled up mountains of unsustainable debt through a trillion dollar  economic 'stimulus' package that did little to stimulate job growth - but plenty to stimulate the size of federal government."

As Dean points out, Dave Leonhardt of the New York Times gives the factual verdict on the stimulus:

Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.

In keeping with the Republican candidate playbook, Bass isn't interested in the truth of the stimulus. Presumably, though, he's hoping to join the 110 existing members of the Republican caucus who voted against the stimulus then tried to lay claim to its successes.

It's turning out to be a rather eventful week for nuclear weapons news, on both the domestic front and the international stage. For the sake of clarity, I'm going to deal with what's going on in the US in this post, and address international issues separately.

First of all, the Obama administration is in the home stretch regarding the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR); the President's national security team met yesterday to discuss the options they will present to the president, so he can make his final decision regarding "U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities and force posture" for at least half of the next decade. It is a legislatively mandated review, and I've written about it in several previous posts. Since the meeting was behind closed doors, we don't know many specifics, but national security expert and Ploughshares Fund president Joe Cirincione has laid out what form he thinks the final NPR should take.

Secondly, today, the administration continued to prove its ability to multitask on nuclear weapons issues. Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech at the National Defense University in which he basically expanded on his Wall Street Journal op-ed piece from several weeks ago, in which he discussed the proposed budget for the nuclear weapons complex, and why it is important in the overall national security picture.

As Travis Sharp noted over at the Nukes of Hazard, Biden's speech today took the middle ground regarding criticism of the new nuclear budget. Biden said:

Some friends in both parties may question aspects of our approach. Some in my own party may have trouble reconciling investments in our nuclear complex with a commitment to arms reduction. Some in the other party may worry we’re relinquishing capabilities that keep our country safe.

With both groups we respectfully disagree. As both the only nation to have used nuclear weapons, and as a strong proponent of non-proliferation, the United States has long embodied a stark but inevitable contradiction. The horror of nuclear conflict may make its occurrence unlikely, but the very existence of nuclear weapons leaves the human race ever at the brink of self-destruction, particularly if the weapons fall into the wrong hands.

Biden is pointing out what I emphasized when the nuclear weapons budget was announced: there's a lot of spin, and some of it is either uninformed and/or simply disingenuous. What is paramount at this point -- and this is what Biden's goal with this speech seemed to be -- is to lay the groundwork for the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT.

Since the arguments against CTBT ratification have included concerns that our nuclear arsenal is "too old" and "unreliable", Biden talked about how the national laboratories play an important role in maintaining the nuclear stockpile so renewed nuclear testing will not be necessary (emphasis mine):

As we’ve said many times, the spread of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat facing our country.

That is why we are working both to stop their proliferation and eventually to eliminate them. Until that day comes, though, we will do everything necessary to maintain our arsenal.

At the vanguard of this effort, alongside our military, are our nuclear weapons laboratories, national treasures that deserve our support. Their invaluable contributions range from building the world’s fastest supercomputers, to developing cleaner fuels, to surveying the heavens with robotic telescopes.

But the labs are best known for the work they do to secure our country. Time and again, we have asked our labs to meet our most urgent strategic needs. And time and again, they have delivered.

[snip]

During the Cold War, we tested nuclear weapons in our atmosphere, underwater and underground, to confirm that they worked before deploying them, and to evaluate more advanced concepts. But explosive testing damaged our health, disrupted our environment and set back our non-proliferation goals.

Eighteen years ago, President George H.W. Bush signed the nuclear testing moratorium enacted by Congress, which remains in place to this day.

Under the moratorium, our laboratories have maintained our arsenal through the Stockpile Stewardship Program without underground nuclear testing, using techniques that are as successful as they are cutting edge.

Today, the directors of our nuclear laboratories tell us they have a deeper understanding of our arsenal from Stockpile Stewardship than they ever had when testing was commonplace.

Let me repeat that - our labs know more about our arsenal today than when we used to explode our weapons on a regular basis.  With our support, the labs can anticipate potential problems and reduce their impact on our arsenal.

Unfortunately, during the last decade, our nuclear complex and experts were neglected and underfunded.

Tight budgets forced more than 2,000 employees of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore from their jobs between 2006 and 2008, including highly-skilled scientists and engineers.

And some of the facilities we use to handle uranium and plutonium date back to the days when the world’s great powers were led by Truman, Churchill, and Stalin. The signs of age and decay are becoming more apparent every day.

Because we recognized these dangers, in December, Secretary Chu and I met at the White House with the heads of the three nuclear weapons labs. They described the dangerous impact these budgetary pressures were having on their ability to manage our arsenal without testing.  They say this situation is a threat to our security. President Obama and I agree.

That’s why earlier this month we announced a new budget that reverses the last decade’s dangerous decline.

Biden effectively delivers the punchline:

The last piece of the President’s agenda from Prague was the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

A decade ago, we led this effort to negotiate this treaty in order to keep emerging nuclear states from perfecting their arsenals and to prevent our rivals from pursuing ever more advanced weapons.  

We are confident that all reasonable concerns raised about the treaty back then – concerns about verification and the reliability of our own arsenal - have now been addressed.  The test ban treaty is as important as ever.

This speech will most likely not make watchdog groups very happy, and it probably won't satisfy proponents of new nuclear weapons and renewed nuclear testing, but it will likely sit well with scientists at the national labs, as well as pragmatists in the Senate who recognize the value of the Stockpile Stewardship Program. It also got a thumbs-up from the Arms Control Association's Executive Director, Daryl Kimball, who makes the point that we really need to move on to the next step:

"The administration's robust budget proposal for stockpile management should dispel any doubts that the nuclear weapons labs do not have the resources, tools, and expertise needed to maintain a reliable arsenal into the indefinite future and can do so without resuming nuclear testing or building newly-designed nuclear warheads," Kimball said.

"Given the overwhelming evidence that the United States can maintain an effective nuclear arsenal without resuming testing or building new design warheads, it is time for the administration to step up its effort to work with the Senate to reconsider and approve the treaty,"

The nuclear nerds are doing their job at the labs. Now it's time for the President and his national security team to address what looks to be a potentially epic battle in the Senate. We need to do better than we did in 1999, and actually ratify the CTBT this time.

Thanks largely to a letter signed by a 17 Democratic senators (including Bernie Sanders) and 119 House Democrats, the public option has returned to the health care reform debate. While this is cause for celebration if the letter-signers seriously believe they will get an up or down vote on the floor of the Senate, I'm skeptical.

To me, this eerily reminiscent of what we were told last year by senior Democrats. Recall that for months on end, leading Democrat after leading Democrat told us they believed we would get a public option in the health care reform bill.

President Obama said the public option had to be in the bill and that arguments against it defied logic. Speaker Pelosi said reform couldn't pass the House without it. After saying he had the votes for a public option, Majority Leader Reid said Joe Lieberman wouldn't be a problem. Chuck Schumer said that if Reid put the public option in the bill, it could only be stripped by 60 Senators. (He also said it would definitely be in the bill.) Tom Harkin guaranteed a public option by Christmas. Anthony Weiner said dropping the public option would cost 100 votes in the House. (To be fair to Pelosi and Weiner, they have yet to be proven wrong, but both have indicated a willingness to move forward on health care reform with a public option. Given that compromise is the art of the possible, I wouldn't fault them for backing off their pledges.)

Now we are once again hearing the familiar sound of calls for the public option. The question is whether this is round two of the rhetoric of 2009, or if this is actually something that could happen.

If it's the latter -- if this is just another example of politicians posturing on behalf of something that they know doesn't have a chance of passing into law -- then they ought to cease and desist from raising false hopes. Unless they truly believe that the public option has a realistic shot at passage, they are going to end up looking like cynical opportunists, trying to shore up their progressive credentials without actually intending to deliver.

I sincerely hope that this movement for the public option is real, based on legislative strategy and not political calculus. Not only is the public option the right policy, but passing it into law might just be the best way for Democrats to reset the narrative about their ability to govern and get things done for the American people.

But we've heard promises before. We've heard confident predictions. We've heard guarantees. And we've been let down. The challenge now is to deliver results. Words alone aren't good enough.

MIA, according to Greg Sargent.

Congressional Dems have no message or strategy on national security, and they’re getting badly outworked by the GOP on the issue.

The GOP has a very specific strategy in place. Republicans are intent on making national security a major issue in 2010. Their plan: Drive a wedge between the White House and Congressional Dems by relentlessly attacking Obama’s policies for making us less safe.

The GOP goal: To get House and Senate Dems to break with the White House on closing Guantanamo, the Mirandizing of the Christmas bomb plotter, the plan to try terror suspects in civilian courts, and other issues.

The Republican leadership even sent House GOPers back to their districts this week with a very specific set of talking points, sent over by a source, telling them precisely what to say to constituents about those specific issues.

There’s no sign whatsoever that Congressional Dems were given anything similar, or even that Dem leaders have spent any time developing a strategy of their own. Are you hearing any concerted pushback, or any message at all, on these issues from Dems?

....

One frustrated Dem strategist who works closely with House Dem candidate across the country told me: "We’re behaving like the President has a 30% approval rating. On these issues, Democrats inherently believe no one will believe our arguments."

Spencer Ackerman adds:

The Obama administration is racking up wins on the issue like it was a pool hustler. Where are all the surrogates? Why are John Brennan and Joe Biden doing all the work here?

....

Crazytown. The facts are there. Obama’s national security numbers outpoll the GOP’s. There’s clearly an audience there. What’s amazing isn’t just that there’s no bunch of Congresspeople on TV to back the administration — to say nothing of Democratic candidates. It’s that there are no surrogates out there pushing back on endless conservative national-security attacks that have been disproven, like how we need to torture people to get information out of them, or how military commissions have a better record of convicting terrorists than civilian courts when the exact opposite is true. Hell, the question I have for the GOP is if the conviction rate isn’t the metric for success in a terrorism prosecution — Mitch McConnell called convicted-for-life Zacharias Moussoui’s prosecution a "disaster" — then what in the world is?

Dems have been so cowed for so long on national security that they are forgetting that in 2006 and 2008, Democrats won on Bush's and the Republicans disastrous "war on terror" and Iraq Debacle. Fear lost in the last two elections. Republicans are going right back to that well, and if Democrats refuse to engage on it, they'll lose because there will only be one side arguing.

Americans United for Change releases a new radio ad hammering Michele Bachmann for proposing to "wean" people off of Social Security and Medicare in order to kill the programs:

Public Policy Polling, as they do regularly, put a national poll into the field. Their analysis of said polling as it relates to the 2010 elections is a must-read:

Right now 50% of voters say they oppose President Obama's health care plan to just 39% in support. Digging a little deeper on those numbers though 64% of respondents planning or open to voting Democratic this fall support it with only 22% opposed. The overall numbers are negative only because of 94/1 opposition among folks who have said there is no way they'll vote Democratic this fall.

It's a similar story when it comes to the prospect of repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'

On the ballot question, the numbers are actually not catastrophic. As in most years, the Democrats have a built-in base that will vote for them no matter what, and the GOP has a built-in base that will vote against Democrats no matter what. The Democrats have a larger pool of resistance than they do a base, but barely so: 37% of voters will definitely not vote for Democrats, while 34% of voters will definitely vote for Democrats.

That leaves a persuadable group of roughly a third of voters who have not put themselves firmly in either camp. This is not a group that is uniformly hostile to health care or the repeal of DADT. They split about evenly on health care (42/44), and they approve of the repeal of DADT by a two-to-one margin.

The "persuadables", it must be added, are not uniformly hostile to President Obama, either. Far from it: Obama enjoys a respectable 54/36 approval spread with the 30% of voters who are willing to consider voting Democratic.

Many folks, myself included, have argued that action on signature Democratic causes is necessary to rally a base that, at this moment, does not appear to be terribly interested in heading to the polls in November. What this poll reveals is an important corollary--there is a significant bloc of voters outside of the traditionally defined "Democratic base" who want to see action on these causes, as well.

The poll also crystallizes a critical point that the Democratic leadership and President Obama would do well to take to heart: the people who would be most mollified by timidity on core Democratic causes are nothing short of a fool's errand as a campaign target. They can say they want bipartisanship and the nebulous concept of "centrism", but they will undoubtedly vote Republican in the Fall regardless of Democratic action or inaction.

Or, as PPP's own Tom Jensen put it so succinctly:

Congressional Democrats really need to decide if they're going to let their agenda be dictated by voters who won't support them no matter what they do.

If they decide to accept inaction or half-measures to placate a solidified and immovable opposition, this poll makes it strikingly evident that they have absolutely nothing to gain, and quite a bit to lose.

Charming:

Kansas lawmakers are currently considering a law that would bar insurance providers from covering elective abortions — unless a woman pays extra for a special plan...The bill "wouldn’t apply to abortions performed to save the life of a woman, or to pregnancies resulting from rape or incest." However, in the latter case, women would first be forced to file a police report.

"You’d have to have a report that someone stole your car," said Rep. Steve Brunk, a Bel Aire Republican. "This is kind of the same thing."

Republicans just love to make these asinine comparisons. Remember this guy?

Clayton Williams stirred controversy during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas with a botched attempt at humor in which he compared rape to weather. Within earshot of a reporter, Williams said: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Williams became an embarrassment for John McCain in 2008, when he was scheduled to hold a fundraiser for McCain, until ABC contacted the McCain campaign to ask about the quote. Williams was apparently vetted about as thoroughly as Sarah Palin.

But maybe this is progress. At least Rep. Brunk is willing to admit rape is actually a crime instead of an occasion to curl up by the fire with a mug of cocoa.