Early this morning, I had breakfast with a member of Congress—a person I like, respect, have donated to in the past, will donate to in the future, and know isn’t crazy. This man shares at least 90 percent of my views. He’s not a Tea Party Caucus member but is a stalwart in the conservative Republican Study Committee.  He has a safe seat and, like me, sees some serious problems with the Boehner plan. That said, he made it clear that he’s not going to vote for the plan or anything much like it. I didn’t argue with him—he’s a man of conviction and believes in what he’s doing—but he’s exactly the sort of level-headed conservative who is going to be needed to get the plan (or anything realistic that raises the debt ceiling) across the finish line. Without his vote, we’re heading for default.

With less than five hours to go before a possible government shutdown, President Obama released a statement on Friday condemning the ongoing violence in Syria.

Urging the country’s authorities and protesters to refrain from using violence, Obama called for an end to “arbitrary arrests, detention, and torture of prisoners,” and demanded that “the free flow of information” be permitted.

“Throughout this time of upheaval, the American people have heard the voices of the Syrian people, who have demonstrated extraordinary courage and dignity, and who deserve a government that is responsive to their aspirations,” 
Obama said, adding that all Syrians deserve to have their universal rights respected.

The president also accused the Syrian government of failing to address the aspirations of its people, and maintained that “violence and detention are not the answer to the grievances of the Syrian people.”

“It is time for the Syrian government to stop repressing its citizens and to listen to the voices of the Syrian people calling for meaningful political and economic reforms,” Obama said.

The president released one other written statement on Friday, but he has not spoken in front of cameras since Thursday night.

The House can be a lunatic asylum. In 1998, the GOP lost five seats in a year it should have gained seats (because of the expected “six year itch”). The lesson that the GOP learned was to spend the lame duck on Clinton’s impeachment.  Fast forward to 2010: House Democrats have taken a broad daylight beating. And what do they do?  They re-embrace Nancy Pelosi, call the public ‘dolts’ and label the president a sellout.

How to explain this?  Part of it stems from being a talk show watching 50/50 nation. And part of it stems from the legal mandate for majority-minority districts — racially sanctioned gerrymandering — which yield bluer blues and redder reds.  Another contributing factor stems from what our cities have become: enclaves of high-end educated folks and the inner city. And think of who become their representatives? Pelosi, Waxman, Nadler — all caricatures of stereotypes.

Go back in time. Does today’s New York City delegation have anything in common with the days of Hugh Carey, Manny Celler and John Rooney?  Yes, there were also representatives like Jonathan Bingham and William Fitts Ryan, but they were very much in this galaxy. Weiner and Rangel?  Not anymore.  To encapsulate it: Nydia Velasquez beat incumbent Steve Solarz in the Democratic back in 1992.

David Brooks may write about Senators Dick Durbin and Tom Coburn reaching across the aisle, but that’s only in the Senate.  You won’t find that in the House.

Newt’s always been a backer of school prayer, but I didn’t think he would go this far.

Still, whatever one’s feelings on any other issue, spare a thought for him and the White House staff on this one.  First, give the President credit for not blithely abandoning his support for his offshore drilling plans in the wake of the disaster, as some on the left were urging him to do.  If he could only apply that consistency and firmness to, say, Iran…

Second, it’s worth recalling that the focus in the immediate aftermath was, correctly, the search for the missing workers.  The company’s estimates of the effects and volume of the spill were comparatively low.  In the rush of great waters that accompanies each day at the White House (to which Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card used to refer more prosaically as “drinking from a firehose”), it’s understandable that the initial reaction was muted – on the facts they had, that was probably the right call.  There are only 24 hours in a day; it’s easy to imagine a conversation along the lines of “Janet’s working on it; they report it should be contained fairly easily,” not having any information to challenge this estimate and not having any desire to blow the Administration’s response out of proportion.  (That sentiment, too – resisting the temptation for a direct comparison with the response to Hurricane Katrina by seeking to appear more magnanimous (or competent) than the previous Administration – is also a hopeful sign pointing to an Administration’s maturity.)  On the other hand, perhaps merging the Bush Administration’s Homeland Security Council into the National Security Council wasn’t such a great idea.  Jim Jones only has 24 hours in a day, too, and this took away a seat at the table.

And the future?  In the week of a U.K. general election, it’s simply too obvious not to cite a quotation attributed to former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan:  “Events, dear boy, events.”  Today’s visuals will be important, even though it’s a Sunday when fewer people pay attention to the news.   (Embrace Bobby Jindal as a man who’s suffering, for his state, and not one of Joe Biden’s more obvious opponents.)  So will the simple amount of time that the media devotes to this issue over the coming weeks, along with the reactions in Washington that will inevitably follow.  (A hint:  it’s seriously out of the way, but another visit right before going to Martha’s Vineyard would be a good idea.  And note to speechwriters:  keep a file for the 2012 acceptance, and this is in it.)

But the real question is the scope, scale, and persistence of the cleanup.  How long will it be before the hard-pressed people of southern Louisiana and the Gulf States can rebuild their lives?  Can the fisheries recover?  Can we actually have offshore oil drilling and how will the Administration be seen to regulate it?

And will anyone care?  Will this become the Santa Barbara oil spill?  The Exxon Valdez (which has entered the popular culture)?  Hurricane Katrina?  Or Hurricane Ike, which despite its terrible destructive force seems to have become the forgotten disaster?  In the final analysis, whether this becomes a defining moment for the Administration depends not only on the President or even the media, but us.

The Democrats basically promised Arlen Specter that he would be the highest ranking Democrat on the Judiciary. He would not be handed the chairmanship but the implication was that he would take over if and when the current Democratic chair, Pat Leahy, stepped aside. That was a very real possibility, since Leahy would certainly move to take over the plum job as chair of Appropriations were the 86-year old Senator Inouye to leave that spot for any reason.

The second that Harry Reid announced the deal the other Democrats on the committee — some of whom have been waiting over twenty years for a crack at being chair — revolted. The promise made to Specter was set aside and he was made the most junior Democrat on the committee, ending any chance of him returning to the chairmanship. After Specter made the announcement he could not renege — and the Democrats on the committee knew and took full advantage of it.

It’s a great message for the next person the Democrats try to get to switch parties — whatever is promised to you to get you to switch isn’t really binding. The Democrats have probably had their last party switcher for a generation.

The Republicans, on the other hand, went out of their way to accommodate their party changer, Parker Griffith. The Republicans even bumped a member off of the plum Energy and Commerce committee to make a spot for him on that key perch. The genius of the Republican approach is that they didn’t wait for a seat to organically open up on the committee — which they must have known was going to happen soon, given that the resignation of Rep. Neal to concentrate on his gubernatorial run occurred soon afterward. They made sure that future Democrats who could be contemplating the switch noticed that they moved to accommodate the party switcher even at some cost and not a little grumbling in the rank-and-file.

In short, Republicans clearly signaled that party switchers would be welcomed and rewarded, while Democrats signaled that any promises made would not be held to. It’s a nice little metaphor for which party is thinking down the road and which can’t concern itself with anything but the present.

For the free space in the center, pick either “change” or “opportunity”

Middle class

“health insurance reform”

“_____ of the future”

Green jobs

Kennedy (any counts)

“Let me be clear”

Immigration

Afghanistan

Deficit

Iran

“Vice President Biden” (in the body of the speech)

“on my desk”

“our highest ideals”

Michelle/military families

Purpose/resolve

“one year ago”

“American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”

“banks should lend”

“excessive pay”

Foreclosures

“those who would do us harm”

“Attorney General Holder” (in lieu of “Secretary Napolitano”)

Olympics/Vancouver

An alternative, and more challenging, version of the game forces the players to pick which words and phrases will not be included in the speech.  For instance, “Iraq,” “Maliki,”  “Copenhagen,” “farmers,” “Secretary Geithner,” “China,” “Employee Free Choice Act,” “Guantanamo,” “systemic failure,” “criminal trials in civilian courts,” and “recent attempted terror attack in the skies over Detroit” might be good guesses.

It really could come down to Stupak.  It’s hard to see the Senate receding to the Stupak language, but if all the Republicans hold together, it could lose over abortion coverage.  (On the substance, of course Stupak is right — the Senate language does weaken the Hyde amendment, no matter how it’s spun.)

In live television, this is how it works behind the scenes: The on air talent has a list of each of the available clips in front of him.  The list is coded (numbered) and the control room producer has a similar page, numbered the same; ditto the director and technical director. The director tells the technical director to push a button that plays the short clip, but there are many different buttons to choose from, each one of which would play a different clip.

It happens all the time that someone hits the wrong button and plays the wrong tape. With Palin so much in the news, there would have been various Palin clips cued up at the time they made this mistake. Fox News gets sloppy just like all the news channels. And in fact, these mistakes happen more frequently when the B-team is working (during daytime, on weekends and over night – all lower-rated viewing periods).

Also, the video clip catches the on air anchor saying that the footage he wants to show is “just coming in,” so there may have been added confusion in the control room.  The technical director would have had to properly identify a clip that was just delivered to the room on a feed via satellite or microwave truck. This “last minute breaking news” aspect would only compound the opportunities for error.

No doubt, as the wrong clip was played, the control room producer started swearing, the director threw up his hands, the technical director looked miserable and crestfallen, and somebody probably said “get out back to the anchor on camera”, and they did.

In this case, on live television it is quite easy for Fox News to have aired the wrong footage by mistake.  But for a channel that is shilling for Palin pretty egregiously, they do not have my sympathy.

SEN. LEGHORN ANNOUNCES $14.7 MILLION FOR TEXAS; ‘YEE, HAW!’ HE COMMENTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Foghorn J. Leghorn, D-State, announced Tuesday that he had won an extra $14.7 million in stimulating funds from the solicitous Obama Administration for the people of seven congressional districts in Texas.

“This funding will go for good,” the Senator said.  “Why, son, 98 hardworking, taxpaying, aging, poor, honest, hungry, working-class, middle-class, undereducated, disadvantaged, undercounted, overlooked, underprivileged, overtaxed and uninsured constituents of my good friends and esteemed colleagues in the 52nd, 58th, 86th, 00th, 68th, 91st, and 85th Congressional Districts of Texas deserve every penny,” he added.  “Yep, they can shore count on me.  Vote Leghorn!  Yee, haw!”

Following is an official, premeditated account* of the stimulating funds provided by the Obama Administration through Sen. Leghorn’s good offices:

Texas Congressional District    Jobs      Amount

52nd congressional district     0       $8,937,289
58th congressional district     45      $3,659,694
86th congressional district     6       $943,326
00 congressional district       11      $752,292
68th congressional district     1       $310,963
91st congressional district     30      $57,367
85th congressional district     5       $56,661

Stimulus Total: $14,717,592

Jobs Total: 98

*Please don’t call Sen. Leghorn’s office about this.  He’s busy working on health care today.  For further information on this gracious investment of job-creating government money, please “track the money” through the President’s Recovery website.