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Well, you'd think Bill O'Reilly would at least be a little embarrassed that Fox News Channel was the only news entity on cable TV not to broadcast last week's "Hope for Haiti" concert.

But no. Instead of apologizing or even mentioning some kind of lame excuse why Fox didn't air it, on his show last night O'Reilly actually went on the warpath against the benefit and its organizers, demanding "transparency" and a full accounting of where all the money's going.

What really got his dander up? The benefit's organizers "wouldn't or couldn't" provide a spokesman to come on his show and explain himself.

In my dreams, the answer O'Reilly's people got when they called was this: "WTF? You want us to find someone to take time out of the hard work we're doing here just to satisfy Bill O'Reilly's ego? Get stuffed! If one of the participating channels wanted transparency, we'd be delighted to open the books for them. But we don't owe Fox News Channel a goddamn thing. Good-bye."

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As Steve Benen noted this is a better answer than the "I didn't campaign on the public option" nonsense which I thought was silly and insulting. People who've been following the process understand the difference between what you'd like to get passed and what's achievable with this Congress. President Obama said he got 95% of the reform he wanted in the health care bill. Whether you can call this 'reform' or not and whether he actually got what he wanted as opposed to what he campaigned on is something all of us will be debating for some time to come. There are some good things in the bill but I personally don't think they outweigh the bad without some meaningful regulation on the insurance companies.

This type of clarity in the beginning of the debate might have been helpful since we could have been pushing harder for meaningful regulations to keep prices down instead of a public option, but who knows. Maybe the public option was nothing but a shiny object so Joe Lieberman could have his ego stroked and feel like he got his evens with the progressive blogosphere and keep him focused on that instead of him attacking things the administration did actually care about keeping in the bill. Lieberman gets to give the progressive community a kick in the teeth to make him feel better without hurting what they actually cared about having passed in the legislation. It's that or Lieberman gladly played boogie-man to give them exactly what they wanted, or maybe a little of both.

I don’t know of anyone who is satisfied with what’s in this bill so far and no one knows what we’re going to end up with once it comes out of the conference committee. I do know we’re going to keep fighting to fix whatever mess gets heaped upon us and that John is talking to House members to keep the pressure on to try to improve whatever comes out of the committee. Next moves will come after the holidays.

You can watch the entire interview on PBS's site here.

On a personal note, I hope everyone who is celebrating had a wonderful holiday out there. We did ours a bit early because of conflicts with my brothers seeing their families and people going out of town. Everyone dealing with this terrible weather be safe out there and drive carefully.

Transcript below the fold.

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Have you given to C&L's Donation Drive? Here's a friendly reminder from David, Nigel, Derek and Ed Begley Jr., guesting on the drums.

I've been racking my brain to see if I could come up with a Donation Drive playlist of the top 5 songs asking for financial assistance. It wasn't easy:

1. Spinal Tap - Gimme Some Money
2. Barrett Strong - Money (That's What I Want)
3. Bing Crosby - Brother, Can You Spare a Dime
4. Destiny's Child - Bills
5. Tommy James and the Shondells - Mony Mony (This one's a stretch.)

Honorable mention: The Network (Green Day's alter ego) - Spike

What else?