Sane Pub Head Count

OK, maybe 'sane' is a stretch, but by my count there were exactly three Republicans who came off looking like they actually gave a damn about finding a solution during the health care summit: Paul Ryan, Jon Kyl and Tom Coburn. That's it.

The rest were a bunch of grandstanding buffoons. Boehner in particular seemed like the biggest shmuck on the planet. The petulant hangdog expression on his face after Pelosi tore him a new one on abortion funding at the end of the day was priceless.

Which is not to say there wasn't plenty of grandstanding and buffoonery from the Dem side of the table (my particular favorite was Dodd saying he was going to be brief so Patty Murray could use some of his time... jump cut to ten minutes later, as Dodd is still going full throttle about, err, something or other...) but it wasn't an epidemic the way it was among the Pubs.

Right Up To Your Face And Diss You

I've been trying to watch the health care summit on CNN, but their inane sports commentary drives me nuts. They keep cutting away to the studio so Wolf Blitzer can ask Candy Crowley or John King who's scoring the most points. It's like a seminar on what killed American political journalism. Hell, they're even calling the lunch break half time, and wondering if Coach Obama is going to change the game plan in the locker room. I want to strangle the lot of them.

Except Roland Martin. Goddess bless you, Roland. Wolf turned to him for some half time analysis, asked him how he'd score the action so far, and Martin's response was essentially: I wouldn't. It's stupid. A big part of the problem is that voters are sick of seeing politicians try and "score points" on this issue, and want to see an actual discussion and actual results.

Wolf quickly went and talked to someone else, and I'm not sure Martin appeared on camera again the rest of the day.

The Norwalk Virus Is Not Fun

Don't believe all the ads claiming you won't be cool if you don't have it; it really, really sucks.