After two weeks of setbacks, the last 24 hours have proven to be a turning point in the fight for universal health care.

As President Obama grabbed the spotlight and held another health care centered town hall, under the radar, more tangible steps were taken towards the elusive legislative victory that has haunted American Presidents for more than fifty years.

First, Al Franken was finally named the 2nd Senator of Minnesota, and more importantly, the 60th Democrat in the United States Senate. And perhaps seeing the tea leaves, but more likely just caving to the constant pressure from the White House, the American Medical Association suddenly reversed course and said they were “open” to a public option in the health care bill.

CNN) — The new president of the American Medical Association, which represents the interests of the nation’s doctors, said Wednesday the group is open to a government-funded health insurance option for people without coverage.

Dr. J. James Rohack told CNN that the AMA supports an “American model” that includes both “a private system and a public system, working together.”

In May, the AMA told a Senate committee it did not support a government-sponsored public health insurance option.

Meanwhile, Senators Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd revised their own health care plan, which came under scrutiny two weeks ago for being too costly to garner widespread support, yet still kept the public option and brought the cost down to $600 billion over ten years.

WASHINGTON — Democrats on a key Senate Committee outlined a revised and far less costly health care plan Wednesday night that includes a government-run insurance option and an annual fee on employers who do not offer coverage to their workers.

The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Chris Dodd said in a letter to other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The AP obtained a copy.

By contrast, an earlier, incomplete proposal carried a price tag of roughly $1 trillion and would have left millions uninsured, CBO analysts said in mid-June.

While that is all terrific news, there is one more point to note: After President Obama held yet another hour long seminar on every facet of the debate today, critics claimed it was light on details. And I agree. He did not specify–when talking to the woman crying about the breast cancer she can’t afford treatment for–exactly how much she will have to pay in premiums for her six months of chemotherapy while including the costs of the future checkups, mammograms, and additional medication she will need if she were to survive.

But then again, I’m not exactly sure what these people are looking for when they say “details.” I am just curious as to who these people think has a better grasp of “details” and is willing to display it on camera ? Don’t get me wrong, criticism should be welcome on such a pressing issue and I don’t claim the President has a perfect plan anymore than anyone else does.

Just please name one person who is spitting out “details” better than this. Please. And obviously I’m excluding Peter Orzag, the White House Budget Director.

Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A Canadian journalist working in Iran for Newsweek magazine was detained without charge by Iranian authorities Sunday, the magazine said, adding that Maziar Bahari had not been heard from since.

“Newsweek strongly condemns this unwarranted detention, and calls upon the Iranian government to release him immediately,” the New York-based weekly news magazine said in a statement.

It said Bahari, who has been living and covering Iran for the past decade, was “detained without charge by Iranian authorities and has not been heard from since.”

“Mr Bahari’s coverage of Iran, for Newsweek and other outlets, has always been fair and nuanced, and has given full weight to all sides of the issues. He has worked well with different administrations in Tehran, including the current one,” it said.

The statement noted that as many as 20 journalists and bloggers are reported to have been detained since Iran’s June 12 elections, which set off mass protests after official results gave incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory.

What makes this story even more curious is Mr. Bahari was featured in an interview done by Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones on his visit to Iran in the lead-up to the election. The segment just aired this past Wednesday.

In it, Mr. Bahari tries to clear up Western misconceptions about Iranians while emphasizing commonality with the United States. Of course, he does this as Jason Jones satirically tries to enforce every possible negative  stereotype Americans may have about Iran, and as you can see, Mr. Bahari more than holds his own.

I sincerely doubt that the Supreme Leader watches Comedy Central, but the timing is interesting nonetheless.

Since I can remember, I have always rooted against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. I cringed with disgust when Kobe threw that final alley-oop to Shaq that buried the Portland Trailblazers in 2000. I thoroughly enjoyed Phil Jackson throwing Kobe’s leadership skills under the bus in his book following his initial departure from the Lakers five years ago. And I thought the boos he has received throughout the league for years in response to his selfish play and passive-aggressive behavior towards his teammates were well deserved.

But even I cannot deny, as much as I pull for Anyone But the Lakers every season come playoff time, Kobe’s competitive spirit and fire for victory. It is second to no one. No one. This is an exchange he had with a reporter following Game 3, addressing criticism he ran out of gas in the fourth quarter:

“As far as me hitting the wall, so what if I did? I didn’t, but so what if I did?”

“What does it mean if you did?”

“It means nothing.”

“Because?”

“Because I’ll run straight through it.”

In the words of Wes Mantooth, in reference to the immortal Ron Burgundy, “At the bottom of my gut, with every inch of me, I plain, straight hate you. But dammit, do I respect you!”

If you’re looking for American media reports out of Iran detailing the massive protests going on after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in their Presidential elections yesterday, you might be out of luck. Cell phone service has been shut down for a day now and they are kicking foreign journalists out of the country. In fact, the police just raided ABC and NBC’s offices and confiscated their cameras. But that does not mean information is not seeping out. Of the more spectacular allegations in the last two days that involve everything from voter irregularities to fraud to outright coup, is this:

As the Campaign reported earlier, the leading challenger to Ahmadinejad, Mir Hossein Moussavi, was informed by Iran’s Interior Ministry at 23:00 on 12 June that tabulated results showed him to be victor, and he was asked to wait on celebrations until Sunday.

A few hours later, the Ministry inexplicably reversed itself declaring a massive victory for Ahmadinejad. Iran’s religious Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ignoring turmoil in the Ministry and rising protests, announced the victory and declared the process finished.

Some great sources of ongoing coverage if you are interested:

• A list of English language twitterers in Iran. Twitterers have been playing such an important role at getting information to Western sources, they were hailed as putting CNN to shame.

• Check out Nico Pitney’s live blog on Huffington Post for  breaking news updates and videos of protests.

• Josh Marshall has been keep track of expert opinion at Talking Points Memo.

• Andrew Sullivan’s excellent coverage is second to none.

• And full coverage from the New York Times

Last Friday, a week shy of his 37th birthday, Shaquille O’Neal  abused All-Star big man Chris Bosh and the Toronto Raptors, scoring 45 points on 20 of 25 shooting. Afterward, O’Neal insisted he could do that every night if only he got more touches.

“I think I’m the only player who looks at each and every center,” he said, “and says to myself, ‘That’s barbecued chicken down there.”

Chris Bosh had a slightly different point of view:

Toronto’s Chris Bosh had an explanation for how Shaquille O’Neal scored 45 points: He cheated.

“He was just camping down in the lane,” Bosh said Friday night, after O’Neal’s biggest scoring night in six years led Phoenix to a 133-113 victory over the Raptors. “I mean, if they’re not calling three seconds – I thought it was a rule, but I guess not.”

Old age may have slowed his feet a bit, but apparently not his tongue. Shaq responded by comparing his skinnier opponent to the world’s most famous drag queen:

“I heard what Chris Bosh said, and that’s strong words coming from the RuPaul of big men,” O’Neal said. “I’m going to do the same thing (in their next meeting) I did before – make him quit. Make ‘em quit and complain. It’s what I do.”

Then on Sunday, fresh off his physical and verbal assault of Bosh, O’Neal  scored 36 points, and led the Suns to an upset over the favored LA Lakers, despite his old arch rival and teammate Kobe Bryant scoring 49.

After the game, a questioner who wondered aloud how the 37 year old is suddenly acting like he’s 25 again. O’Neal responded unfazed, in his legendary monotone delivery:

“It’s what I do.  I’ve been doing it since 1992. If you don’t believe it, Google me.”

It is no wonder Shaq mentioned Google because lately, he has been all over the internet. He now has one of the most popular Twitter accounts, originally starting it because someone posted under his name as an impostor. After publicly proving his tweet-legitimacy (and then some) last week, he proclaimed:

“To all twitterers , if u c me n public come say hi, we r not the same we r from twitteronia, we connect.”

As Republicans voted against the $789 billion stimulus package en masse again today, they were also publicly declaring that this ultimately unsuccessful strategy was actually a  victory. The whole process was a blessing, they said, because they have now “found their voice,” as if that fact is supposed to send a shiver down Barack Obama’s spine. In actuality, it probably means the complete opposite.

We all remember when Hillary Clinton declared she had “found her voice” after the New Hampshire primaries. It was her come from behind victory, her springboard to the nomination. And then she promptly got beat up in South Carolina, Super Tuesday, and about ten additional primaries.

Three months later, according to her biggest supporter Gov. Ed Rendell, she “found her voice” again in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Unfortunately for her, this was also the time everyone realized it was almost mathematically impossible for her to win the nomination.

John McCain was also great at “finding his voice.” He actually found it a bunch of times. He was hoping he found it when he claimed, upon hearing about the Leyman Brothers collapse, that “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.” But most people thought his real voice-finding experience was when he finally stopped beating around the bush and started calling Barack Obama a “socialist”. Others think it was in his final days, which were marked by his obsession with Joe the Plumber. Whichever time it really was, we know it was after McCain’s own advisers knew he couldn’t win and didn’t know whether they should tell him.

So, the Republicans can claim victory in the face of reality with this stimulus bill. They can smile for the cameras and say they finally “found their voice.” But that press conference will make me smile, too, because it can only mean one thing: they can’t win and they know it.

Obama’s first favorability ratings came out this week, and just like during the transition, they were extraordinarily high. This, of course, is an enormous advantage for Obama when it comes to getting bills through Congress-the legislators with a 20% approval rating are going to have to bend to demands from the man with a 70% approval rating-but the real benefits of Obama’s popularity may lie outside the borders of the United States.  And there is no better example of that than Iran.

Reaction from Iranian citizens to Obama’s election have been upbeat:

For now, though, most people in Tehran seemed relieved by Obama’s victory, and hope that he will live up to his name, literally, and improve relations. “Soon I’ll be visiting you in the U.S.,” my grocery storekeeper declared with a huge grin. “As soon as there is an embassy here,” he added, “I’ll be the first to apply for a visa.”

 

That certainly doesn’t sound like the usual “Death to America” shouting we see on TV. Then, two days ago, President Obama gave his first TV interview since becoming the President (foreign or domestic) to the television network Al-Arabiya, that reaches 23 million viewers, exclusively in the Mideast.

My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.

My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.

We’re going to follow through on our commitment for me to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital. We are going to follow through on many of my commitments to do a more effective job of reaching out, listening, as well as speaking to the Muslim world.

To the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is up for election in a few months (yes, they actually have elections) and while George Bush’s popularity was in the tank for a long time preceding our election, curiously so was Ahmadinejad’s. Another relieved Iranian speculated to Time:

With Obama in charge, many now see real prospects for U.S.-Iran rapprochement, especially if a reformist or moderate President takes up the job here in June. “If [ former reformist President Mohammed] Khatami should decide to run,” said a 33-year-old beautician, “it’s a done deal.”

As Jon Stewart often points out, the outrageous statements coming from Ahmadinejad the last few years, like the “Holocaust is a lie” or how he wants to “wipe Israel off the map,” are the same ignorant fear mongering that George Bush used to employ when he would call Iran the “axis of evil,” or threaten to bomb their country every other day. They were very different words directed at very different audiences, but the goal is the same to play to their political base. They both used their own inflamed rhetoric not for diplomatic purposes, but preserve their political power.

And the Obama Administration’s overtures towards dialogue and peace has the potential to be the death blow to Ahmadinejad’s administration as much as it was to Bush’s. Remember Iran has a very young population (In 2003, it was estimated 70% of their population is under 30) who are often more reform minded. They are known for listening to American music and watch our movies, so much so, that it causes some to wonder why they would have such a reactionary leader in Ahmadinejad. Well, that reason left the White House at about noon on January 20^th.

It is important to note that Obama went out of his way in the Al-Arabiya interview to single out the people of Iran. “The Iranian people are a great people and the Persian civilization is a great civilization,” he said.

In other words, we got rid of our George Bush, so now they can get rid of theirs.

Last postseason, Eli Manning famously made it through the entire postseason–which he played entirely on the road–while only throwing one interception. This, of course, discounts the botched pick by Asante Samuel that would have given the Patriots the Super Bowl victory, but it was nonetheless an impressive feat for someone who, up until that point, was known solely for his postseason failures. Then, with the Giants emerging early in this season as a potential perennial powerhouse, the talk of Eli being a bust as a quarterback all but dissapeared. He was, afterall, reigning Super Bowl MVP, who could question that?

It became painfully obvious, though, this past Sunday that Eli has barely improved over the course of his four years in the league. He throws the ball behind receivers’ backs, over their heads, at their shoe tips, and a lot of the time, directly into the other teams’ hands. He is a successful NFL quarterback who has never really thrown the ball at his receivers. He just throws it in their general direction, yet he is a Super Bowl champion.

Which is why he owes his career to Plaxico Burress. Burress, of course, shot himself in the leg on November 28th of this year while at a nightclub in New York City, but he effectively shot Eli in the arm that same night, as well. Look at Manning’s stats for December compared to the rest of his season. His rating dropped from the mid-90s down below 70. He was sacked more, he had a worse completion percentage, and less yards per catch.

Watch a Burress highlight reel and you begin to realize what a weapon he really was. Manning could throw a five yard dump pass which Burress could turn into a 50 yard touchdown. Then you’ll see him skying over two defenders for a jump ball, diving for a throw that would normally be unreachable, or reaching behind his back to make a one-handed catch. It’s a great highlight reel, but what the video doesn’t mention is that these were his normal catches.  He made those extraordinary catches look routine, turning Eli’s wobbly pop ups into stats that transformed Manning into a Pro Bowler on paper.

But as Manning struggled to make even the simplest of throws on Sunday against a mediocre Eagles defense, it became painfully obvious that if Eli plans on having a job past next year, it would be in his best interest to forgo his off seasons vacations and spend his money of defense lawyers and gun safety lessons for the only receiver that ever made him look like an adaquate NFL quaterback.  The reason the rest of the Giants said they would welcome the potential felon back with open arms is simple: they cannot and will not win without him.

Over the holidays, still-President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were busy doing their victory lap their best to explain away the last eight years in multiple television interviews. Both chose the “history will judge us well” approach as expected, and while Bush was vaguely regretful about nothing specific, Dick Cheney stuck to his tried-and-true script of smugly denying any wrongdoing whatsoever. He sounded exactly the same as he has in years past, yet in these interviews, that Penguin-like, crooked, half-crack of a smile was a little wider and a little more blatant than ever before. The most telling example was when he defended telling Senator Leahy of Vermont to “fuck yourself” on the Senate Floor. Instead of demurring on the subject, he seems to savor what was meant to be a criticism as a testament of his up-standing moral character. And he is equally unrepentant when admitting the far more serious offense of “sign[ing] off” on torture.

In the end though, the real show has been Bush himself–not necessarily his indiviual interviews that sugar coat and sail around his own catastrophic failures, but the media’s own Bush Nostalgia Tour that has focused more on the President’s diction rather than his deeds. It has become clear that far after the Iraq War runs its course and the stock market shoots up again, Bush’s mangling of the English language will be the real legacy he leaves behind.

Frank Rich of the New York Times, playing off this theme, opened his Sunday editorial “A President Forgotten but Not Gone,” with this blistering opening paragraph:

WE like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella. So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.

Others simply quote the man’s own words without comment. The AP ran an article of his greatest (mis)hits. Here’s a few highlights out of the almost countless collection of Bushisms:

_ “Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?” — January 2000, during a campaign event in South Carolina.

_ “Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.” — Sept. 6, 2004, at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

_ “Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech.” April 16, 2008, at a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the White House.

_ “This thaw — took a while to thaw, it’s going to take a while to unthaw.” Oct. 20, 2008, in Alexandria, La., as he discussed the economy and frozen credit markets.

David Letterman dipped even further back into the archives to see how Bush’s promises from his initial 2000 run for President stacked up to his actions. Needless to say, even his words that came out grammatically correct have become a sad joke:

Finally, in true Bush family style, W’s father, the first unsuccessful President Bush, gave us this final reminder of just how much things are about to change:

[Talking about Obama] “But I’m impressed with him. I’m very impressed with his style on the campaign and his coolness and his articulate nature. I think he can give a sentence and it will sound like it’s been thought out by Shakespeare or something,” he said.

Well said.

For the past week, conservative news sources, mainly Fox News, have been pushing the bogus story that there is widespread voter fraud going on across the country, especially in the battleground states that Obama is cruising to victory in. The alleged culprit is the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), a group that registers low income citizens to vote. Fox News has mentioned ACORN 432 times since just last Friday, according to Media Matters, and the main headline on The Drudge Report all day today was “ACORN registered Mickey Mouse,” the insinuation being Barack Obama and ACORN are conspiring to steal the election by having people vote under false names.

When anyone looks at the charges, though, it becomes clear that not only is registering massive amounts of fake voters for actual voting purposes IMPOSSIBLE, but is a deliberate attempt to cast doubt on real registrations and perpetrate a much more serious issue, voter surpression.

Josh Marshall explains how ACORN conducts its registrations:

ACORN registers lots of lower income and/or minority voters. They operate all across the country and do a lot of things beside voter registration. What’s key to understand is their method. By and large they do not rely on volunteers to register voters. They hire people — often people with low incomes or even the unemployed. This has the dual effect of not only registering people but also providing some work and income for people who are out of work. But because a lot of these people are doing it for the money, inevitably, a few of them cut corners or even cheat. So someone will end up filling out cards for nonexistent names and some of those slip through ACORN’s own efforts to catch errors. (It’s important to note that in many of the recent ACORN cases that have gotten the most attention it’s ACORN itself that has turned the people in who did the fake registrations.) These reports start buzzing through the right-wing media every two years and every time the anecdotal reports of ‘thousands’ of fraudulent registrations turns out, on closer inspection, to be either totally bogus themselves or wildly exaggerated. So thousands of phony registrations ends up being, like, twelve.

While John McCain has been trying to link Obama to this bogus story for the past two days, he neglected the mention he has been a long time supporter of ACORN, even giving a keynote speech at an ACORN event as recently as 2006.

This non-story, as well as Bill Ayers is all McCain has to cling to now that Obama has as much as a 14 point lead nationally and is on the public’s side on every major issue, from the economy, to Iraq, and now encouraging people to vote.

He can keep attacking, but it will continue to backfire. Tune in for the debate tomorrow to watch McCain dig the last few shovelfuls of dirt out of his grave.

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