The Plum Line: January 9, 2011 - January 15, 2011
Open Thread
How much longer will the rest of the world callously turn a blind eye to the epic suffering being endured by America's persecuted minority of conservative personalities with millions of dollars and worshipful national followings?...
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Greg Sargent
| January 15, 2011; 9:14 AM ET |
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Miscellaneous
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Happy Hour Roundup
* Michael Steele's tenure as RNC chair comes to a fitting end: Steele: "And now, I exit stage right." Promptly exits stage left. * Chris Cillizza introduces us to new RNC chair Reince Priebus, the "anti-Steele," and maps out the...
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Greg Sargent
| January 14, 2011; 5:59 PM ET |
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Happy Hour Roundup, Health reform, House Dems, House GOPers, bipartisanship
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War of the talking points!
Yesterday I reported here that House Dem leaders have settled on the phrase they will use to brand the House GOP's push to repeal health reform: "The Patient's Rights Repeal Act." But some Democrats in the House -- being Democrats...
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Greg Sargent
| January 14, 2011; 3:31 PM ET |
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Health reform, House Dems, House GOPers
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Poll: More want health law expanded than fully repealed
Earlier this month, some on the right got very excited by a Gallup poll finding that a plurality, 46 percent, want the health law repealed, versus only 40 percent who want to keep it in place. That poll, however, only...
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Greg Sargent
| January 14, 2011; 2:12 PM ET |
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Health reform, House Dems, House GOPers
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Yes, the secret money still matters
Via Ben Smith, a new study finds that the influence of outside spending in the 2010 elections may have been substantially overstated: A new study from the Wesleyan Media Project found that while outside groups spent slightly more on...
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Greg Sargent
| January 14, 2011; 1:05 PM ET |
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2010 elections, 2012, Campaign finance
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How Obama got conservatives to listen to him
Did Obama's speech "rebuke" the left? So argued a number of people on the right, who hailed the President's speech because in their view, Obama called on the left to stop blaming the shooting on incendiary rhetoric. Conservatives are right...
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Greg Sargent
| January 14, 2011; 11:33 AM ET |
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House Dems
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Obama's Tucson speech will not 'change the tone' of politics
President Obama's speech at the Tucson memorial Wednesday night garnered praise from both conservatives and liberals, but it's unlikely to change the tone of our political discourse. For some reason, though, this idea seems to have gained traction. By not...
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Adam Serwer
| January 14, 2011; 10:18 AM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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The Morning Plum
* The new normal in Congress? The sense this morning is that the political world is finally gearing up to return to business, and Paul Kane and Shailagh Murray say House Republicans are facing a major challenge. How do they...
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Greg Sargent
| January 14, 2011; 8:32 AM ET |
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Health reform, House Dems, House GOPers, Morning Plum, Political media
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Happy Hour Roundup
* The "tale of two speeches" narrative continues with a nice piece by Dan Balz, with this blunt headline: "As Obama urged unity, Palin brought division." * Nice catch by Jonathan Capehart on what one of Obama's off-script moments last...
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Greg Sargent
| January 13, 2011; 6:02 PM ET |
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Happy Hour Roundup, House Dems, Senate Dems, filibuster
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Palin, 'blood libel' and the old epistemic closure discussion
You may recall a spirited blogospheric discussion a while back of the idea that conservatives were stuck in a feedback loop (as Jonathan Chait called it), with the key post by Julian Sanchez, who referred to it as "epistemic closure." ...
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Jonathan Bernstein
| January 13, 2011; 4:16 PM ET |
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Political media
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Is bipartisan SOTU seating an idea whose time has come?
In the wake of the shooting, Senator Mark Udall has been talking up the idea of mixed bipartisan seating at the upcoming State of the Union address, and now the idea has picked up the endorsement of the new chief...
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Greg Sargent
| January 13, 2011; 3:06 PM ET |
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Senate Dems, Senate Republicans
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Dems settle on branding for GOP repeal effort: "The Patient's Rights Repeal Act"
"The Patient's Rights Repeal Act." At a House Dem leadership meeting last week, Dem leaders decided that this is the phrase they will officially use to brand the House GOP's push to repeal health reform, aides tell me. With House...
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Greg Sargent
| January 13, 2011; 2:22 PM ET |
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Health reform, House Dems, House GOPers
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House GOP to move forward with repeal next week
With the political world uncertain how quickly it should get back to its regular schedule in the wake of the Arizona shooting, Republicans have decided to move forward next week with efforts to repeal the health bill. Brad Dayspring, a...
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Greg Sargent
| January 13, 2011; 1:14 PM ET |
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Health reform, House Dems, House GOPers
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A truce between right and left
Andrew Sullivan thinks the positive conservative reaction to Obama's speech suggests that the tragedy may ultimately lay the groundwork for some actual dialog between right and left. I'm not optimistic, but there does seem to be an awful lot of...
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Greg Sargent
| January 13, 2011; 12:18 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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Obama's Tucson moment
Obama's performance at the memorial in Tucson yesterday was so powerful that some conservatives have pivoted to attacking the crowd for not mourning the way they would have liked -- a decision that further emphasizes the president's talent for making...
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Adam Serwer
| January 13, 2011; 10:44 AM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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The Morning Plum
* After Obama's speech: The President's speech last night, in which he eloquently called for healing, civility and national unity in the wake of the Arizona killings, has been rightly hailed on all sides. He managed to call for us...
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Greg Sargent
| January 13, 2011; 8:43 AM ET |
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House Dems, Political media, filibuster
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Happy Hour Roundup
* Obama's speech tonight in Arizona, as expected, will mostly focus on the victims and the need for healing, and will sidestep making larger points about our discourse or political culture. * Snark of the day, from Stephen Stromberg, on...
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Greg Sargent
| January 12, 2011; 6:15 PM ET |
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Can "paranoid" political culture trigger violence in the unhinged?
I'm going to second Steve Benen's claim that this column by Harold Meyerson is an important addition to the debate over the shooting: The primary problem with the political discourse of the right in today's America isn't that it incites...
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Greg Sargent
| January 12, 2011; 3:48 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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Chamber of Commerce prez: Debt ceiling hike "will be done"
With a showdown over the debt ceiling looming, Dems are taking solace from the fact that the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- a staunch GOP ally -- said flatly on MSNBC this morning that he strongly supports...
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Greg Sargent
| January 12, 2011; 2:28 PM ET |
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debt ceiling
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Questions for Charles Krauthammer and others on the right
I agree with Charles Krauthammer: It's wrong to blame the Arizona shooting on any specific conservative commentators, officials, or personalities, as he argues in his column this morning. But in the spirit of civil debate that everyone is suddenly clamoring...
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Greg Sargent
| January 12, 2011; 12:42 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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Breaking: ADL condemns Sarah Palin's "blood libel"
Sarah Palin's charge that her critics are guilty of "blood libel," while designed to put her in the center of the conversation on her own terms and to retake the initiative after days of negative press, has generated some surprising...
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Greg Sargent
| January 12, 2011; 12:41 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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The foolishness of the 'blood libel' charge
Greg already touched on many of the more egregious aspects of Sarah Palin's video response to critics, but I wanted to focus more directly on her use of the term "blood libel." First off, it would be a serious stretch...
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Adam Serwer
| January 12, 2011; 10:51 AM ET |
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Sarah Palin and `blood libel'
I didn't have a chance to put together a morning roundup today, so let's just lead off with Sarah Palin's video response to critics who alleged that her crosshairs map and no-holds-barred rhetoric contributed to a political climate that may...
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Greg Sargent
| January 12, 2011; 8:57 AM ET |
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House Dems
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Happy Hour Roundup
* House Speaker John Boehner will not support a strict gun control measure -- set to be introduced by a House GOPer and backed by gun control advocates -- that would make it a crime to carry a gun within...
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Greg Sargent
| January 11, 2011; 6:30 PM ET |
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Happy Hour Roundup, House Dems, House GOPers, White House
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Bogus Fox claim that DHS tied shooter to white supremacists is debunked
I reported yesterday that the Department of Homeland Security was denying a Fox story claiming the agency had established possible links between the shooter and a white supremacist organization. Now Ken Vogel debunks the story completely: An Arizona law enforcement...
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Greg Sargent
| January 11, 2011; 4:33 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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Which side is more to blame?
Everybody is linking to this George Packer quote claiming that there's no equivalence between the rhetoric of right and left: Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots...
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Greg Sargent
| January 11, 2011; 3:11 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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Mental illness expert: We should be asking whether political climate helped trigger shooting
A leading expert in mental illness tells me that asking whether the Arizona shooter's violent behavior might have been partly triggered by the nation's political climate is a wholly appropriate line of inquiry -- even if the shooter is found...
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Greg Sargent
| January 11, 2011; 1:13 PM ET |
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House Dems
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The right-wing narrative about Clinton, the Oklahoma bombing, and Obama
President Obama is heading to Arizona to commemorate the victims of Saturday's events in Tucson, and conservatives are already expressing concern about a replay of Bill Clinton's 1995 speech denouncing "purveyors of hatred and division" on the airwaves in the...
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Adam Serwer
| January 11, 2011; 12:06 PM ET |
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White House
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George Will smears Howard Dean
George Will has a column today denouncing those who are hoping to use the Arizona shooting to spark some introspection about the tone of our discourse. He calls such people "charlatans" and accuses them of "political opportunism" and "McCarthyism." One...
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Greg Sargent
| January 11, 2011; 11:08 AM ET |
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House Dems, Political media, Tea Party, race
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The Morning Plum
* Obama steps up: The President is set to travel to Arizona tomorrow to attend the funeral service of the shooting victims, and he is expected to give a speech about tolerance, a theme he may reprise in the State...
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Greg Sargent
| January 11, 2011; 8:33 AM ET |
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House Dems, Morning Plum, Senate Dems
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Happy Hour Roundup
* As Jared Loughner appears in court, Gabrielle Giffords's condition remains unchanged. * And for Giffords at this stage, no change is good news. * Jonathan Alter says Obama's moment of silence today worked beautifully because it's "an appropriate expression...
By
Greg Sargent
| January 10, 2011; 6:12 PM ET |
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House Dems, House GOPers, Political media
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Paul Begala to right wing: Why so defensive about Arizona shooting?
Paul Begala -- who was in the trenches with Bill Clinton in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing and remembers how quickly the promises of civility vanished -- gets in touch to say that he hopes Dems and Republicans...
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Greg Sargent
| January 10, 2011; 3:57 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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Calls for `civility' generally prove short-lived
It's nice that so many public officials and commenators are seizing on the Arizona shooting to renew calls for more "civility" in politics, but it's worth noting that recent history shows that such appeals, while somberly agreed to by just...
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Greg Sargent
| January 10, 2011; 1:36 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media, Tea Party
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Official: DHS has not determined any possible ties between Arizona shooter and right wing group
For the last 24 hours, the Web has been alive with speculation that the Arizona shooter has some sort of ties to a right-wing group called American Renaissance. The primary source for this claim is a Fox News report from...
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Greg Sargent
| January 10, 2011; 11:38 AM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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'Violent imagery' in politics isn't the problem
The shooting in Tucson that grievously injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six people, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, has sparked a conversation about violence in our political discourse. The conversation is probably long overdue. We...
By
Adam Serwer
| January 10, 2011; 10:49 AM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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The Morning Plum
* What did Jared Loughner believe? He was a 9/11 truther who believed that global elites, hell bent on world domination, are in the process of creating a one-world currency. * Did he draw his ideas from the fringe right?...
By
Greg Sargent
| January 10, 2011; 8:40 AM ET |
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House Dems, House GOPers, Political media
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On the Gabrielle Giffords shooting
It's crass and counterproductive to start asking whether any political parties or ideologies are to blame for the tragic and horrific shooting of Dem Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others at an event with constituents yesterday. That's especially true given that...
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Greg Sargent
| January 9, 2011; 4:35 PM ET |
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House Dems, Political media
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Sunday Open Thread
The argument will never end, and it will never have a clear winner....
By
Greg Sargent
| January 9, 2011; 8:10 AM ET |
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Miscellaneous
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