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Lindsey Graham continues to tell the lie his BFF John McCain was telling on the Senate floor last week, that Sen. Robert Byrd does not think reconciliation can be used to fix the health care bill.

GRAHAM: Well, number one, they related to income and spending. And this is one-sixth of the economy about to be affected here. Under reconciliation, you can't make any changes to Social Security because Senator Byrd understood it was never meant to be used for a purpose like this.

Senator Byrd said you couldn't pass Senator -- President Clinton's health care plan through reconciliation. It was never meant -- and you can repeal the Bush tax cuts if you don't like it. If they use this device called reconciliation to deal out Republicans, it will open up Pandora's box.

And as Think Progress noted, he isn't being honest about the health care plan being very similar to what they passed in Massachusetts either.

GRAHAM: And the interview I just heard is spin, campaigning. I thought the campaigning was over. Are you trying to tell me and the American people that Scott Brown got elected campaigning against a Washington bill that really is just like the Massachusetts bill?

The American people are getting tired of this crap. No way in the world is what they did in Massachusetts like what we're about to do in Washington. We didn't cut Medicare -- they didn't cut Medicare when they passed the bill in Massachusetts. They didn't raise $500 billion on the American people when they passed the bill in Massachusetts.

To suggest that Scott Brown is basically campaigning against the bill in Washington that is like the one in Massachusetts is complete spin. I've been in bipartisan deals, I was in the "gang of 14" to stop the Senate from blowing up when the Republicans wanted to change the rules and use the majority vote to get judges through.

If they do this, it's going to poison the well for anything else they would like to achieve this year or thereafter.

Poison the well huh... like it can't be any more poisoned than is is now. Digby has more on Graham's hackery this morning.

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Jake Tapper on This Week interviews David Axelrod on the healthcare bill, pushing the right-wing narrative that people don't want this bill. Axelrod responds that when you push on into the details, the public supports the things this bill does:

TAPPER: David, pluralities, if not majorities of the American people do oppose this bill. Doesn't he have a point?

AXELROD: Well, first, let me note that Senator Brown comes from a state that has a health care plan that is similar to one that we are trying to enact here, and that people in his state are overwhelmingly in support of it. He voted for it and said he wouldn't repeal it. So we're just trying to give the rest of America the same opportunities that the people of Massachusetts have to get health insurance at a price they can afford.

This bill is important to the American people, Jake, and when you get underneath the numbers and you ask people, do you support giving people more leverage against insurance companies so that they -- if they have preexisting conditions, they can get coverage, so if they get sick, they don't get thrown off, so they don't have these huge premium increases of the sort we've just seen announced in states around the country, they say yes. When you say, do you want to give small businesses and people who don't have insurance through the job the chance to get insurance in a competitive marketplace where they can get it at a price they can afford and give them tax credits to help them do that, they say yes. And when you say, should we reduce the overall costs of the health care system over time, they say yes.

But that's the program. That's the plan. And it is important to the American people that we have the fortitude to go ahead against it, to leave the politics aside, to leave the partisanship aside, to resist the special interests and get the job done.

TAPPER: But according to polls, the American people do not agree with what you think--

AXELROD: The polls are split, Jake. I mean, one of the interesting things that has happened in the last four or five weeks is that if you look at -- if you average together the public polls, what you find is that the American people are split on the top line, do you support the plan? But again, when you go underneath, they support the elements of the plan. When you ask them, does the health care system need reform, three quarters of them say yes. When you ask them, do you want Congress to move forward and deal with this issue, three quarters of them say yes. So we're not going to walk away from this issue.

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I watched the better part of that Book TV interview Romney did this weekend with Juan Williams and it was about as painful to watch as this debacle with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. When you're talking in circles trying to answer questions from those two, you're in trouble.

Our friend Steve Benen weighed in on the interview at Washington Monthly:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is in a tough spot when it comes to health care reform. On the one hand, he seriously thinks he should be the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2012, and needs as big a gap as possible between himself and President Obama.

On the other, Romney successfully passed health care reform in Massachusetts four years ago, and his plan is awfully similar to what the president is proposing now. If Republicans think they hate Obama's plan, and Obama's plan was Romney's plan, they're going to hate the crowning achievement of Romney's limited, one-term political career. Read on...

This statement he made was the one that really astounded me.

ROMNEY: A big difference -- a state plan versus a federal plan. No new taxes, unlike his plan. No cut in Medicare, unlike his plan. And no controls over insurance premiums, price controls, cost controls like his plan. So very, very different in that regard.

It's the difference between a racehorse and a donkey, if you will, so -- they both have four legs, but one works pretty well and the other's not working and would not work at all.

So Romney thinks cost controls are bad huh? He went on right after that statement to defend the insurance industry. Maybe he can ask Frank Luntz to include those bullet points in the next memo he sends out to the Republicans. Insurance comanies good, cost controls bad and never mind those pesky CEO salaries and bonuses they're making while your premiums go through the roof.

Transcript via Nexis Lexis below the fold.

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(Calvin Coolidge - did for the Tribal Headdress what Dukakis did for the Tank)

Todays installment of the Reference room brings Governor of Massachusets Calvin Coolidge on the subject of Law and Order from 1918.

Gov. Calvin Coolidge: “Government is not, must not be a cold impersonal machine, but a human and more human agency, appealing to the reason, satisfying the heart, full of mercy, assisting good, resisting wrong. Delivering the weak from any impositions of the powerful. This is not paternalism, it is not a servitude imposed from without, but the freedom of a righteous self-direction from within.”

As Governor, Calvin Coolidge is probably best known for his putting down of the Police Strike in Boston in 1919. As vice-President, he was known as "Silent Cal". When Warren G. Harding died during his first term in office, Coolidge ascended to the Presidency and adopted a policy of hands-off government, imposing as few restrictions as possible. He did, however change the tax system so that the upper 2% of the taxpaying public actually paid taxes during the 1920's. But with the relaxation of curbs, particularly with Wall Street, it turned into a huge nightmare waiting for Herbert Hoover, when he took over the White House in 1929.

Coolidge has gone down in history both praised and damned. And judging from his performance in office, perhaps a bit of both. On the one hand, he is credited for establishing a fairer tax burden, but on the other hand, his almost complete abandonment of curbs, particularly with Wall Street, did lead to one of the biggest depressions of the 20th century.

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Lindsey Graham is asked to respond to Harry Reid's statement that the GOP Should "Stop Crying" About Reconciliation:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday that Republicans "should stop crying" about the possible use of the parliamentary procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass a health care reform bill.

Reid said reconciliation had been used 21 times since 1981, mostly by Republicans when they were in control of the Senate for the passage of items like the Bush tax cuts. (Here's a handy chart of when the procedure has been used.)

Under reconciliation, Democrats would need a simple majority in the Senate to pass legislation, as opposed to the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. "They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before," Reid said.

Of course Graham thinks this will be the "end of minority rights in the Senate" after the Republicans being the most obstructionist in history and the Democrats accepting 160 Republican amendments to this mess of a health care bill which is unfortunately already bipartisan. These Republicans continually count on the country listening to what they say as opposed to what they do. That doesn't stop Graham from calling getting what is a bipartisan bill passed on health care "arrogance on steroids" and calling this the "end of the Senate as you know it".

Sorry Lindsey. This has just been more of the Senate as we know it where what might be good bills go to die a slow death and Senators from states representing much less of the population than most of the large cities in the United States can muck up legislation for the rest of us who are not equally represented there. I'm just sick to death of the Democrats accepting Republican ideas without demanding some votes in return for caving into their wishes. It allows the likes of Graham here to continue to do their revisionist history on how none of their ideas were accepted.

I was reading a column written by Jill Lawrence of Politics Daily and I learned that I helped cause Evan Bayh to quit his day job.

Evan Bayh and the Senate's Lonely Moderates: Bridge-Builders No Longer Needed

During the long, still incomplete march to pass a health reform bill, Democratic moderates – in particular Montana's Baucus and Nebraska's Nelson -- routinely took incoming from liberal bloggers for dragging the bill rightward. The left was especially critical of Bayh's take last month on Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. Bayh told ABC News that voters up there "just don't believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems." He said Democrats would court catastrophe if they ignored the wakeup call. John Amato wrote at CrooksandLiars.com that Bayh was promoting Fox News talking points.

Yes, I am that mean and scary and Bayh just couldn't handle the heat from C&L, baby.

Look, I don't expect all Democratic politicians to vote 100% across the board, but when there is a signature piece of legislation that could help millions of Americans on a vital issue like health care, then I think the few ConservaDems should not help destroy a bill that is so critical to so many lives. Howie Klein has a breakdown of his voting record.

Last week polls showed ConservaDem Evan Bayh with a nearly insurmountable lead over lobbyist Dan Coats for the Indiana Senate seat. And this morning Chris Cillizza broke the news that Bayh had decided not to run for re-election. That must have been kind of sudden since he spent the last 6 years sucking up to every lobbyist on K Street, raised $8,911,690 and has a hefty $13 million in his campaign account. Beloved of Goldman Sachs, Eli Lilly, Allianz and dozens of corporations with anti-working family agendas, Bayh's fundraising looked extremely... Republican. But then, so does his voting record. Since Obama was elected president only Ben Nelson was a less dependable vote for Democrats when they were needed most-- on crucial, substantive roll calls where Democrats either lost or almost lost. The 3 worst scores among Democratic senators for the 111th Congress:

Ben Nelson- 47.76
Evan Bayh- 53.73
Blanche Lincoln- 59.70

Voting almost 48 % of the time against a newly elected Democratic president is beyond being a conservative democrat. it's aiding and abetting the enemy of change. Bayh whined like a teenager whose parents cut off their Internet yesterday when he gave his presser and said he was so tired of the partisanship. He could have done his part and helped President Obama and the Senate put together a good health care bill, but he did not. Politics is a contact sport and he proved he couldn't take it.
Ron Brownstein made a similar point On Andrea Mitchell this morning:

It's hard to see how he justifies this to other Democrats. But look it's more broadly what's happening with the Democratic Party. They've gone from 93-94, it took them 15 years to reestablish unified control of the House and the Senate and the White House as they did in 2009. And here they are, one year into it and the party seems to be in many respects losing its nerve. You have the Bayh thing as the latest in a series of --, Beau Biden, Lisa Madigan in Illinois, a variety of Democratic House members in tough districts walking away.

Look, politics is a contact sport and the Democrats have had the best opportunity they've had in 15 years to advance their agenda, and yet as they take all the flack that comes with that it feels like some of the party is crumbling and losing their nerve. Stunning decision.

Run for the hills you coward. And if your hero is Dick Lugar, why then is he still in Congress and you're not?

And shudder this thought by Digby:

The good news is that we are separating the men from the boys. The Democrats have everything, but it's all so icky and hard that a whole bunch of them are just walking away. Good riddance. If they don't have the cojones to stick it out when their country needs them, then they shouldn't be in politics.

I'm glad these guys weren't in charge during the Depression and WWII. We'd all be dirt farming for the Greater Axis Empire today.

Amen.

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Bob Schieffer fawns over Scott Brown during this cringe-inducing commentary segment on Face the Nation. And I thought Tweety was bad. Of course in typical Villager fashion Schieffer uses this as an excuse for calls of bi-partisanship without bothering to explain to his audience which party is caving into the other one and which one is obstructing. Hint to Schieffer, it's your miracle worker's party that's causing the gridlock along with the ConservaDems who are pretending to be Democrats.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Finally, there's been so much wonder expressed about the election of Scott Brown, I'm beginning to think that if it had happened in ancient times it might have been included in the Bible.

For sure, back then people were always looking for signs, and the politicians saw Brown's victory as more than just a sign. It gave them Old Testament-level shivers worse than Moses felt when he realized that burning bush was talking directly to him.

But was it more than that? I wondered. Did it herald a new Age of Miracles? Utter Brown's name and the waters part? Think about it.

Republicans tried for a year to kill health care reform. If Brown's victory didn't kill it in a second for sure it shoved it to the back burner.

And with great fanfare and the blessing of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the
administration planned to try the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in lower Manhattan. But Brown railed against civilian trials for terrorists, and in an epiphany worthy of the road to Damascus, the mayor of New York suddenly wanted no part of the trial--too expensive.

The heavens also parted for the administration: No backdown on civilian trials yet, but it looks like the proceedings will be moved.

And when the President went to Baltimore and had a very adult debate on issues with
Republicans--a debate that did both sides proud--I thought, stars above, maybe they are ready to work together. Well, silly me. An hour later that the partisan sniping and nastiness was going again full bore.

It's going to take a real miracle to stop that. But, we can hope.

Flashback via NPR:

ROBERTS: Well, it's always politically difficult for Democrats when they are dealing with an issue like terrorism. It remained the Republican's only winning issue through most of President Bush's second term, and it's a particular problem for a Democrat who hasn't served in the military.

It's her world and she lives in it. And you don't you.
Plus you better not dare take a ride into her Village.

DONALDSON: One third of that majority is on a government health program. I'm on Medicare. People who've been in the military are on a government health program. And yet the Republicans were able the make the idea that being on a government health program is terrible.

ROBERTS: Well, that's what I can't get over, is how the Democrats...

DONALDSON: Absurd.

ROBERTS: ... and the White House lost control of the message. I mean, that to me is phenomenal. After doing as well as they did in that campaign, they -- they let this public option -- nobody had ever heard of a public option. Suddenly it became the Holy Grail. You know, it's absurd. They should have just been out there day after day saying, "Thirty more million people insured, and you don't have pre-existing conditions on coverage."

Now I agree with her about screaming for the thirty million people who have no coverage and all, but poll after poll after poll shows that Americans love the idea of a public option. Even Scott Brown voters in Massachusetts love the public option, but not in Cokie's world.

Cokie also thinks that Obama should call John McCain and his crew into action and join the good fight because then he could embarrass them.

DOWD: ... he's going to have to say, "I embrace this. We went off a bit over the course of the last year, but I want to bring a bipartisan solution to the problems of America."

ROBERTS: He needs to call on them, you know, call them to action and ask them to be in it together for the country, you know, so that they look unpatriotic if they're not.

In Cokie's world, President Obama never reached out to republicans after he was sworn in.

In the third week of his transition to power, President-elect Barack Obama is working to build a cordial relationship with Republicans by seeking guidance on policy proposals, asking for advice on appointments and hoping to avoid perceptions of political arrogance given the wide margins of his victory. Obama has made calls to Republican leaders, and he dispatched Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, to meet with them on Capitol Hill.

Maybe she forgot. It happens:

For now, the Republican strategy is to praise President Obama and aim their fire at the House Democratic leadership. "It was very impressive that he came to the Congress and met with us. He was certainly very forthright," said Michigan Republican Dave Camp.

It could be that she was napping he entire month of January, 2009.

Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama.
{}
It was just one step in a post-election courtship that historians say has few modern parallels, beginning with a private meeting in Mr. Obama’s transition office in Chicago just two weeks after the vote. On Monday night, Mr. McCain will be the guest of honor at a black-tie dinner celebrating Mr. Obama’s inauguration.

Maybe she went to Hawaii for a vacation back then and didn't see Obama court the Queen of America, Olympia Snowe.

Or maybe, just maybe she's a blithering idiot?

Rep. Mike Pence, chair of the House Republican Conference, said Tuesday that President Obama had accepted an invitation to address GOP members of Congress at the group's retreat later this month.

"House Republicans are grateful that the President of the United States has accepted our invitation to meet with the Republican Conference later this month," Pence said in a statement released by his office. "House Republicans look forward to presenting the president with our proposals to protect our nation, create jobs, control federal spending, lower the cost of health care, achieve energy independence and strengthen families."

The House Republican Conference is slated to meet in Baltimore Jan. 28-30.

Being bipartisan and reaching out has really helped the president so far. Thanks Cokie.

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It would be nice to see a few more segments like this one where gasbag Bill Bennett gets some push back on his empty rhetoric for once instead of steam rolling over Donna Brazile or whoever they have him up against. From CNN's State of the Union, the panel is asked what went wrong in the Massachusetts Senate race and Martha Coakley's pollster Celinda Lake says the Democrats need to produce on jobs and Wall Street reform and get some things done or the Republicans are going to continue to seize on their "change" message.

When Bill Bennett tries to claim that the voters of Massachusetts didn't like what was in the health care bill and that the President has moved too far to the left, Lake and Brazile do a pretty good job of knocking down his talking points.

KING: He's not a rhetorical dynamo, but Mitch McConnell has been pretty disciplined in keeping the Republicans together, has he not? I know you're a Democrat, but as somebody who has to organize, he get points?

BRAZILE: For being an obstructionist? Absolutely. For not giving the American people any alternatives? When President Obama took the oath of office, we were hemorrhaging 20,000 jobs a day. Now no one is satisfied with 85 -- losing 85,000 jobs and now -- in the past month. But the truth is, s that the president inherited an economy that was on the brink. And with the policies that he has put forward, this economy is now moving along.

I agree that the president needs to go back to the basics. He needs to go back to the campaigning mode, not the campaign itself, but he promised the American people change. He promised to bring us together, to heal this country, and to move us forward.

And what we have seen from the Republicans is no agenda, no alternative. Yes, you benefited from a political environment that is anti-incumbent. It is bad out there. But I do believe at the end of the day that the Republicans need to put up. We need to vet the Republican policies once they put them forward. And they need to be held accountable for those policies. They had a free pass in 2009.

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Someone want to explain to me just where in this poll it says that the voters of Massachusetts wanted Brown to work with Democrats "to get Republican ideas into legislation". Papermoon at Daily KOS has a nice breakdown of that poll which flies in the face of Schieffer's hackery here--New Poll Explains Massachusetts.

Of course Schieffer can't help himself and has to get his little shot in on the blogs as well, saying politicians shouldn't be listening to the "fringes". Well Bob, it looks like "the fringe" at the Great Orange Satan is doing a better job of breaking down that poll than you are. And given the Democrats accepted 180 amendments from the Republicans on the health care bill and didn't get a single vote for them, just what else does Schieffer think they should do to show they'll work with the other side? Just another example of someone pretending to be a journalist while pushing Republican talking points.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Finally today, figuring out what Scott Brown's victory meant has set off a fiercer debate than trying to divine the meaning of the Book of Job. We were all certain it meant something profound, we just weren't sure what. Well, a Washington Post poll yesterday provided some clues. Sixty-three percent of Massachusetts voters thought the country had gone off course and the big part of them voted for Brown. That's pretty simple actually.

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Bill-O's stalker producer Griff Jenkins does a fawning biography piece on Scott Brown which looks more like a campaign ad than anything someone could consider journalism. After talking to his high school coach, the GOP Minority Leader in Massachusetts, his auto mechanic and a neighbor Jenkins concludes that Brown is "immensely well liked and trusted". Heck of a reporting job there Griffy. Fox sure isn't doing much to put aside the notion that they're nothing but a campaign arm of the GOP with this one.

GRIFF JENKINS: Hey, Greta. We know he's from Wrentham, and we know he drives a truck, a regular guy, but with extraordinary accomplishments. He's a Tufts grad. He has a B.C. law degree. He's a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard. He's married to a local TV reporter, Gail Huff.

And when we checked in on his high school, we looked in his yearbook and we learned a few little things, like his secret ambitions in life in 1977, the year he graduated, were to be outrageously happy and play for the Celtics.

Well, we went out and talked to several people that know Scott Brown, and here's what we've found.

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From The Daily Show Jan. 20, 2010. Stewart nails it as usual.

STEWART: So there you go. Democrats have lost one special Senate election in our nation's 15th most populous state. Let me see if I can break this down for you in mathematical terms: there has been a two percent swing in the power differential for 50 percent of our legislative branch of government, which of course makes up 33 percent of the federal hierarchy, so it's... let's put it another way.

[...]

What the f*#ck? Two percent of 50 percent of thir-... oh right, I forgot! As the 41st member of the minority party, Brown will now be imbued with near limitless power over financial, military, and social policy, just as our founders had intended.

And so it is at ah... 11:04 fake Eastern standard time we at The Daily Show are gonna call it. Scott Brown is now apparently the 45th president of these United States Of America! Wooo! Yeah baby! Welcome. It has been a long incredibly grueling couple of days since we first heard of this man. And now he's in charge of everything.

Joan Walsh does a good job on Hardball hitting back at the meme that the problem with the health care bill was that Obama bowed down to liberals when just the opposite is true. Of course Matthews and the corporate media are going to keep repeating the lie that Obama needs to move to the middle.

MATTHEWS:Chris and Joan, it seems to me there`s been a comparison between what we had yesterday in Massachusetts, and the one held in Pennsylvania, when Harris Wofford knocked off Richard Thornburgh, in that incredible race in `91. Is this has much of a leader, an indicator, of just where we`re headed -- Joan -- for this November?

WALSH: You know, I`m not sure it is but I do want to say I`ve spent the last week, Chris, saying, Martha Coakley ran a bad campaign, but we really do have to look at what this means for Democrats. And I think that`s the first and foremost thing that it means is that President Obama has simply not led.

He let the Republicans run this health care agenda. People want to blame Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? He turned it over to the Senate`s Finance Committee, he gave Republicans their marching orders, he gave them rope to hang him and that`s what they did. That`s why we`re still talking about this a year after his inauguration.

MATTHEWS: So he`s been ineffective?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: He`s been an effective progressive?

WALSH: Oh, please, don`t set me off today, Chris. I know you`re feisty. I`m really feisty. That`s the one thing I will be here to say.

This is garbage that he bowed to his left. This is a corporate bill with corporate giveaways that the left is pissed about. That`s the problem with it. And I`ll finish Howard Dean`s sentence. One more thing. Howard Dean was trying to say -- I don`t agree with him on everything. Martha Coakley lost the progressives because nobody cares that she`s for the public option. That is dead and gone because the President didn`t fight for it.

So the idea that he went too far to this left is simply, factually wrong.

MATTHEWS: No, I`m just asking whether Martha Coakley was the Progressive candidate out there and what she stood for. It sounds like she was addressing the issue the way you might do, had you been a candidate and I just wonder why the defeat of her didn`t signal a lack of favor for the position, is all I`m asking. I`m trying to learn here.

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Lost in Tarnation: Talking to your children about Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts. Now, how do we talk to WATB Dems?

Advice Unasked: Hillary Clinton's primary voters went for Brown?

First Draft: What a dick

Rumproast: Good for Cindy McCain

MediaBloodhound: My interview with Health Insurance whistleblower, Wendell Potter

The Sardonic Sideshow: The MSM doesn't exist...not anymore

Thom Hartmann hits the corporate Democrats who are carping for the party to move even further to the right after the loss in Massachusetts and the choice President Obama faces now of whether to listen to them or not.