Is it 2010 yet? 2009 wasn't such great shakes.
Tobin Harshaw:
Listen, nobody thinks that any daily Rassmussen poll numbers are a legitimate indicator of how people will feel about President Obama over the long haul, or that any of this holiday-hour bickering has much lasting significance in itself. But the fact is that the Senate has done something that only the most hopeful of Democrats likely thought was possible a couple of months ago, and all it would take is a yes-or-no vote in the House on the Senate bill to give the president an achievement on a par with George W. Bush’s tax cuts, Bill Clinton’s welfare reform and George H.W. Bush’s .... well, um, Americans with Disabilities Act? Re-authorization of the Clean Air Act? Nearly getting Nafta passed? O.K., let’s stick with Clinton and welfare. The fact is that all the things missing from the Senate version of the reform bill that liberal House Democrats are so upset about could always be added at a later date if the current thing landed on the president’s desk. But that, of course, is not going to happen; just ask Representative Louise Slaughter, Democrat of New York: "By eliminating the public option, the government program that could spark competition within the health insurance industry, the Senate has ended up with a bill that isn’t worthy of its support."
Quotes include Steve Benen, Digby and FDL.
Robert Dallek:
If the reform works as intended by expanding health insurance to an additional 30 million Americans and reducing the national debt, the Democrats will pillory the Republicans for the indefinite future. The GOP's uniform opposition—only one congressman and no Republican senators supported the bill—will make it vulnerable to charges of wrong-minded thinking about the suffering of fellow citizens on a scale with Herbert Hoover's failed response to the Great Depression. That cost his party five presidential elections.
Should the bill fall short of promised gains, it will reinforce national prejudices against big government and facilitate another round of conservative Republican dominance of national politics.
Maureen Dowd:
In his detached way, Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future, and that we still have to be scared.
Heck of a job, Barry.
There are scarier things in life, Maureen (like how long newspapers will stay in business so you can write this stuff.)
Jo-Ann Armao:
Q. Why is Obama still in Hawaii?
A. Uh, because he wasn't born there?
Con Coughlin:
Six months after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hotly disputed election victory, the Green protest movement led by Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated candidate for the presidency, shows no sign of abating. As a result, the Iranian regime finds itself once more resorting to the tactics of repression it has relied on for more than 30 years. Eight people were killed in nationwide protests on Sunday, including Seyed Ali Mousavi, the nephew of Mr. Mousavi.
Yet rather than being quelled by the regime's brutal response—as happened during the antigovernment protests of 1999 and 2003—the protestors' resolve has been strengthened. In the past week, antigovernment protesters have seized on two highly significant events to show that, despite the regime's attempts to silence its critics, Mr. Mousavi's opposition movement has grown substantially since last June's disturbances.
EJ Dionne:
What if they have a special election for Ted Kennedy’s seat and the Republicans don’t show up?
Conservatives are in a tizzy over the fact that while national Democratic leaders are giving lots of help to their party’s nominee, Attorney General Martha Coakley, for the Jan. 19 special election, national Republicans are doing practically nothing on behalf of Republican Scott Brown.