Brief
What's Breaking News Tonight?
Byrding
Throw Out the TV. Imagine a poll question that asked, if you could, would you throw out every member of the TV and video news media and replace them with the first 5000 people shopping at Sam's Club (or Walmart's or Pet City or Apple etc) on Sunday afternoons? Would the result be half the voters or all the voters? Same for Congress? Who wants to look at these guys and gals another moment? Go to robots. Whip Count Byrding. Spoke to David Drucker, Roll Call, to learn that the Senate GOP is combing over the reconciliation bill for errors to permit challenges (points of order) un the Bird Rule, call Birding, that will oblige the item to be changes,…By John Batchelor | March 19, 2010 2:08 AM
(0)
Panic
Unconvinced. Hoyer does not have 216 on St. Patrick's Day, and this brings a nervous grin from Minority Whip Cantor. Source writes that the Democrats are boasting they have 211 as of Wednesday morning. Since no one who has the count knows if it is accurate, since it is…By John Batchelor | March 18, 2010 12:31 AM
(2)
Hillary No
Rust Belt Catholics. Spoke the Herculean Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, re the Whip count in PA, OH, IN, and learn that there is no change in the last hours: that Altmire PA-4 (above) is a No; that Dahlkemper PA-3 is a No, that Ellsworth IN-8 is a No ("What's he…By John Batchelor | March 17, 2010 1:57 AM
(9)
Those "No" Votes
37 Gone. Spoke Salena Zito re the undecided Democrats in her beat for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and found a whip count that does not favor Mrs. Pelosi. You will recall that the Hill whip count lists 37 No votes, and Mrs. Pelosi can give only 37 No votes before…By John Batchelor | March 16, 2010 12:09 AM
(7)
Injun Territory
Horse Opera. Hurt Locker wins lavish and politically sophisticated attention from Hollywood but not from the young people deployed to theater, and this tells me that what has happened is that the war in the ummah has now shifted into a safe enough political place for the scriptwriters and their…By John Batchelor | March 15, 2010 12:49 AM
(2)Politics at the Movies
David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957).
March 13, 2010 10:28 PM
(3)
March 13, 2010 10:28 PM
(3)Alex Guinness's Colonel Nicholson is a supreme example of a man who commits himself so completely to a particular event that he forgets the mission. Is this the Democrats and healthcare? The bridge is up. The train approaches. The explosives are rigged. The wire to the detonator is exposed. Will William Holden's Shears blow the bridge, or will the train roll across?
