Your one stop pundit shop.
Eugene Robinson sees the glass as half full:
When you blow away all the smoke, that's what this fight is about. The Senate bill lacks a public health insurance option, the House bill is burdened by gratuitous abortion restrictions and the final product of a House-Senate conference will probably have both those failings. But once the idea of universal health care is signed into law, it will be all but impossible to erase. Over time, that idea will be made into reality.
The loose ends are so many and varied, in fact, that it will probably be necessary to revisit the health-care issue sooner rather than later. Even if it takes years to get it right, eventually is better than never. History suggests that major new social initiatives have to be perfected over time -- and that basic entitlements, once established, are rarely taken away.
Richard Cohen wants to see the health care reform bill passed too, although he takes more of a "I feel your pain" route.
Roger Cohen apologizes for being too glib when he wrote that "the greatest strength of America, its core advantage over the old world, is its lack of interest in where you’re from and consuming interest in what you can do," but says:
And yet, glib as I was, I still believe the American genius, for all its original sins (and slavery was a great sin), lies in a combination of an essential optimism and an essential pessimism about human nature so articulated by the nation’s founders as to make self-correcting renewal the nation’s core identity.
It might be a truth self-evident that all men are created equal and have a right to pursue happiness, but not so evident as to dispense with a system of checks and balances designed to spur the correction over time of the kinds of prejudice that flout professed equality of opportunity.
That’s America’s founding bargain. It still works.
Dana Milbank joins the disingenuous parade of pundits who are shocked to learn that senators barter for perks for their home states.
James Carroll, on religion, science and the solstice:
Today's darkness is tomorrow’s light. Contemplations of the winter solstice once opened into religion, which is why the cultic festivals of light define the secular space this week. “Here comes the sun,’’ as the Beatles told us, and they could have been singing of Sol Invictus, the Roman sun god whose celebration was preempted by Christmas, songs of a different Son. Sure enough, the days will get longer now. Does it matter that the sun, actually, is not “coming,’’ but that the earth, in its elliptical revolution, only adjusts the tilt in its rotation? Contemplations of the solstice opened equally into what we call science.
Windsor Mann isn't a fan of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC):
When the Founding Fathers outlined the proper role of the federal government, they didn't mention anything about inspecting children's pajamas for safety. They supposed their countrymen would be men, at least eventually, rather than infants infinitely.
They were wrong. Today's inhabitants of the land of the free and home of the brave are scared of Mr. Potato Head to the point that they pay officials to regulate which toys they can buy. If we followed all of the CPSC's advice, children would be unentertained, unclothed and unfed.
Tony Blankley is thrilled with the idea of America failing, and he trots out a load of tired talking points and teabagging rhetoric to explain why.
William McGurn does some standard-issue concern trolling about health care reform.