Yes, Hillary was there when the Health Care Bill was passed in the House earlier in the week. From the White House.
Obama's Mideast Gamble from Politico
"The question facing Obama is whether he will be able to turn a perception of increased “evenhandedness” into Arab engagement in the peace process that the administration sought, but did not get, last year. "
1965 All Over Again? Obama's 'Persistent Progressivism' (Jonathan Alter) from Newsweek
"It's important for Democrats to get serious, not just about the right policy prescriptions but about girding themselves for battle against a formidable, disciplined adversary."
Who Won? How 25 Players Fared in the Health Debate from the National Journal
"What follows is an analysis of the roles that 25 key characters have played thus far and their potential influence going forward."
Learning from LBJ (Evan Thomas & Katie Connolly) from Newsweek
"Obama may be playing a more subtle game than is readily apparent. Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin ... says she now realizes that by working so closely and deferentially with Congress on health care, Obama was taking a page from LBJ's oft-expressed philosophy: "If they're with you at the takeoff, they'll be with you in the landing."
Health Bill Changes Everything (Bill Schneider) from the National Journal
"The prediction of electoral catastrophe for Democrats may turn out to the most overwrought forecast since Y2K. The reason is this: Once the health care legislation is law, everything changes."
Obama Found His Voice on Healthcare (Editorial) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Healthcare reform was the Democrats' signature issue – and Obama has managed something that eluded his predecessors"
Lawyers vs. Health Reform: Why the Court Challenges Will Fail (Dahlia Lithwick) from Newsweek
"Given the relative novelty of the individual mandate and the fact that the current Supreme Court is as conservative as it's been in nearly a century, the arguments aren't all completely hopeless. But "lack of hopelessness" isn't usually the basis for filing major lawsuits. Cuccinelli's claim, however, is coming in for extra-special scorn from scholars on both the right and the left."
History Suggests Passions Fade from Politico
"History suggests there is a better chance the passions over the country's new health care regime will cool with an alacrity that seems unthinkable amid the clenched fists and snarling insults of the recent debate. "
Sharp Momentum Shift Back to the Democrats after Passing Health Bill from The Hill
"Democrats are heading into the two-week Easter recess in high spirits after passing the most sweeping domestic policy reform since Medicare was enacted four decades ago. President Barack Obama on Thursday dared Republicans to make healthcare reform a campaign issue."
Whose Country Is It? (Charles Blow) from the New York Times
"The bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health care reform have been shocking, but they’re only the most recent manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation. It’s an extension of a now-familiar theme: some version of “take our country back.” The problem is that the country romanticized by the far right hasn’t existed for some time, and its ability to deny that fact grows more dim every day"
Nancy Pelosi -- It's Her House (Harold Meyerson) from the Los Angeles Times
"Pelosi's role in passing healthcare reform puts her in the top rank of House speakers."
There is similar praise HERE from the Boston Globe.
David Frum and the Closing of the Conservative Mind (Bruce Bartlett) from the Capital Gains and Games website
This story that relates to the on-target post by conservative David Frum from the other day.
"Since, he is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do."
Bartlett says more HERE while Atlantic reporter Joshua Green comments HERE.
In the Faces of the Tea Party Shouters, Images of Hate and History (Colbert King) from the Washington Post
"The angry faces at Tea Party rallies are eerily familiar. They resemble faces of protesters lining the street at the University of Alabama in 1956 as Autherine Lucy, the school's first black student, bravely tried to walk to class. ... People like that old woman in Little Rock, the Alabama mob that hounded Autherine Lucy, the embracers of Duke's demagoguery in Louisiana, never go away."
Vatican Attacks Media on 'Pope role' in Sex Abuse Case from the BBC
"The Vatican has attacked the media over charges that the Pope failed to act against a US priest accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys two decades ago."
I guess we've officially shifted into the "Agnew nattering nabobs" phase of this scandal. The folks at the Vatican are shockingly clueless.
DETAINEE NUGGET!!
Six Uighurs Released from Gitmo Face Culture-Shock in Palau from Foreign Policy Magazine
I wondered what was going to happen to these folks.
"For the six Uighurs released from Gitmo to Palau, the prospect of an eternity in a small island country, with no passport and no Uighur community other than themselves, is its own kind of confinement."
MEMORIAL NUGGET!!
National Memorial to Eisenhower to be Completed by 2015 from Politics Daily
I can get with this. As a historian I appreciate that the world could easily (and literally) have gone to Hell under his watch -- and it didn't -- and it was no easy or small deal that it didn't.
"An tribute to an American icon, former President Dwight David Eisenhower, may soon grace the National Mall in the nation's capital. A Frank Gehry-designed memorial to the popular president and World War II hero -- "Ike" to his legion of admirers -- could be completed within five years."
EU NUGGET!!
Gordon Brown Floats Idea of European peace corps from the Guardian [of the UK]
What an awesome idea!
"British PM wants thousands of young Europeans to volunteer across developing world in new organisation shaped on US peace corps"
ANCIENT HISTORY NUGGET!!
Stoicism and Us: Reviews of Marcus Aurelius: A Life by Frank McLynn and A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine from the New Republic
I've been on an ancient Rome jag lately -- so I found this review quite interesting.
"The Stoics, by contrast, did not aim at emotional repression--but at retraining our emotional responses. They thought that one could achieve a state of consciousness such that the things most people mind about--such as physical pain, and all the things that usually cause us anger, grief, frustration, and so on--would no longer feel important."
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