Friday Night Thread For 2/19/10: The Facade That's Not Needed Right Now

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Are they being stupid and untrustworthy again?

That is the perspective one could easily infer from after seeing and hearing what Ezra Klein has said to Keith Olbermann tonight on Countdown in regardless to the stunning revival of the public option.

It is information that leads to something we are seeing publically with the petition (now at #19 Senators with Arlen Specter early this evening) maybe just a painful predictable facade for progressives to swallow.

"I got to tell you Keith, reporting on this is weird today because everyone that's sign the letter that when you call them every office I call is telling me privately were terrified of this," said the Washington Post and former American Prospect Blogger.

After Olbermann asked him if this is yet another leadership problem with the Democrats, Klein reply only needed one word.

"Exactly."

But he wasn't done.

"I think it's getting a little bit scary, I think you're actually seeing a failure of leadership from the White House right now."

Further, Klein highlighted the obvious dangers if a firm direction is not provided here.

"The worse things that could happen if it hangs out in this middle space, where we have this zombie public option debate," said Klein. "Where liberals have to get disappointed again and have another fight between people have another fight between who feel the bill isn't good enough without it and is good enough, that is a terrible outcome and could threaten the whole rest of the enterprise."

And to conclude, it seems some Senators (though Klein is vague on which Senators, and expectedly so to protect sources) have learned unsurprisingly the WRONG lesson from the "Truck Drivers" election in the Bay State, feeling this government insurance option revival will hurt the holy sanctimony feeling of bipartisanship!

Now in the remainder of the interview, Klein worries a little too much in my mind about how the Monday summit will be all damaged with talk of the public option where that can easily be countered with how popular it still remains.

There is nothing about "backroom deals" here with this letter started publicly by Michael Bennett. And I dare the fearmongering idiots to label it as such despite it being liked by the majority of the nation.

But once again, as Jed Lewison talked about yesterday, this petition commenced by Bennett (and originally supported by Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, and Kristen Gillibrand) had better not be one cheap political fabricated push to get progressives happy about reform one final time instead of really going after the best case for reform.

And with signs of Tom Harkin and Russ Feingold still not signed onto it, there is still that feeling of "Is this really serious" and "do you really mean this" that permeates through some souls.

It would be beyond stupid if this isn't a genuine late push for real reform, and I don't have to get much further into details about the ramifications that would result from such an asinine move. We all know the level of anger that it will generate from the online community and ardent base supporters overall.

And it will make that continued incongruous push of epic idiocy for bipartisanship (when the Senate bill and even some characteristics of the House bill) is already just that.

Anyway, It's Friday, so let's bring in Montell


I still can't get over this from Judge Joe Brown:


This seems to be a monthly story.

A way to get kicked out of the Olympic village is this.

Kind of surprising that Mr. Martin hasn't worked with these actors. And where are the actresses recommendations?

This is such a dumb thing the BBC has to deal with.

Coco is going on tour!

And why Hayden, just why? A lot of celebrities have a lot of problems, but hey, it's her business.

And that's that for this Friday in the TWD world. Enjoy the rest of your night.