Dude thinks he’s hanging out at the frat house instead of giving a weather report, I guess:

Yikes:

Brown got over-excited and particularly creepy when he declared his daughters “available” during an improvised portion of his victory speech tonight. It was awkward – and it wasn’t immediately cleaned up…

After Beck played more of the clip, making his own commentary throughout (including a reference to the infamous Cosmo spread), he took the whole thing to the next level. “I want a chastity belt on this man,” he said, while his producer tried to justify Brown’s comments. “I want his every move watched in Washington. I don’t trust this guy…This one could end with a dead intern. I’m just saying, it could end with a dead intern.”

Go here to view the part of the speech Beck is referencing. I’ve seen it a few times, and it doesn’t come across as creepy to me. But, Beck completely jumps the shark on this one with his asinine commentary. I saw a Dad ribbing his daughters- yes, they were embarrassed, but that’s what Dad’s do. I remember several instances where my father embarrassed my sister…granted, it wasn’t in front of hundreds of people and TV cameras, but it was still just good-natured silliness.

You know who else thought that? Ayla Brown, his 21-year old daughter:

“That is incredible. It just surprises me that people can be so negative,” Ayla said. “I feel as though all fathers across the nation can relate to having daughters and having these conversations…That’s our dad. There’s nothing creepy about it at all.”

The joking around apparently runs in the family. Beck needs to get back on his meds, bottom line. The rodeo clown garbage got old a long time ago. Mark Levin, it seems, tends to agree.

The White House is signaling that it’s full speed ahead on getting a bill to the President’s desk, but after Tuesday night that will be much easier said than done. With Scott Brown promising to be the 41st vote against ObamaCare and the threat of a filibuster in the Senate fully restored, just how do they expect to do that? Here are the options I’ve seen tossed around:

1 ) Ram it through the Senate before Brown is seated- Not going to happen, even if House and Senate Dems agreed on a compromise bill and could get it together quickly for both chambers to sign off on. Democrats Jim Webb and Claire McCaskill, as well as Barney Frank, have already thrown cold water on that idea, too, and the optics of shoving something through before Brown can cast his vote would be so poor they wouldn’t dare try.

2 ) Force the House to accept the Senate bill without changes, so that can go straight to the President’s desk- Extremely unlikely. The Senate version has no public option and includes taxes on so-called ‘Cadillac’ health plans that unions vociferously oppose, bitter pills House liberals will find hard to swallow. Pelosi herself said the Senate bill needs changes. Also, the Senate bill is less restrictive on the abortion issue, which House Blue Dog Democrats are sure to find objectionable. The first “reform” package only passed the House by a handful of votes, and they’re already assured of losing one of them. If House liberals cave, fine…but there isn’t a lot of incentive for them to go along with the Senate.

3 ) Use reconciliation- In order to bypass the filibuster in the Senate, Democrats could employ a special budgetary process where parts of ObamaCare can be passed with only a simple majority. But, this procedure is limited to only items pertaining to budgetary issues, which leaves out such things as the insurance mandate, state-level insurance exchanges, and ending the pre-existing condition limitation on issuing insurance. So, there’s not a whole lot that could get through, plus the optics would once again be pretty bad (though Republicans used it under Bush).

4 ) Break up the bill and pass the smaller pieces- It’s been said that there’s bipartisan agreement on some 80% of ObamaCare, so this avenue makes a lot of sense. Democrats would get some of what they want and force Republicans to vote against individual bills which, by themselves, would probably command popular support (ex. ending the pre-exisiting condition limitation). If they decide something is better than nothing, I think this route is a strong possibility.

5 ) Go to conference, decide on a compromise bill, and force the Senate GOP to use the filibuster- By doing so Democrats can go into the midterms saying they tried, but Republicans killed it. Since the bill as is remains unpopular that’s very risky, b/c many will applaud the GOP while the Democrats-even with hefty majorities-will be seen as weak and unable to get anything done. I believe they’d rather have something to hang their hat on, so I doubt they try this.

6 ) Go to conference, decide on a compromise bill, and buy off a few Senate GOPers- Every Senate Republican voted against the reform package, but it’s not out of the question that Collins, Snowe, or Voinovich (who’s retiring) could possibly be swayed to support the final version.

7 ) Start over by pushing a much smaller bill that includes things Republicans want- Take some of the more popular things from ObamaCare, add portability and/or competition across state lines, and maybe you get enough Republicans to push something through. Progressives will howl as it will be, from their perspective, watered-down reform (if they even called it that at all), but its something that they can all say they came together to accomplish. Hard to say if either side is open to this now.

8 ) Drop it altogether- There’s no way they spend months focusing on health care reform and not do something. Sure, they could pivot to jobs and Wall Street reform while blaming the GOP for obstructing action on health care, but I think they’ve gone too far to throw in the towel. Democrats feel that Clinton lost Congress in 1994 because his own push for health care reform failed, so again I believe they want at least something for Obama to sign.

It’ll be interesting to see the approach they take. If anyone has their own thoughts about what they should do or what they expect to happen, feel free to share.

Wow. Obama won the state by 26 points. Ted Kennedy, liberal icon, held that seat for over 40 years. No Republican had been elected to the Senate from MA since 1972. Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-1 there. And yet, the newest Senator from the Commonwealth is GOPer Scott Brown. Gone is the Democrat supermajority in the Senate, and very possibly ObamaCare.

The recriminations began in earnest well before the polls closed, as Democrats assembled in their circular firing squad. I’m not sure if this will lead to other Democrats jumping ship on Obama’s agenda, or more early retirements, but this is a pretty big deal. I can’t imagine how the vote isn’t a referendum on what is happening in Washington, DC.. Martha Coakley was a poor candidate and ran a bad campaign, but this is Massachusetts. I know Democrats will be inclined to minimize it, as I would in similar circumstances, but if people were pleased with the direction the country was going in there’s no way she doesn’t win in a walk. Am I wrong? Maybe this man is right?

Update- Senator Jim Webb:

In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.

Raising the white flag on ObamaCare? He’s likely not the only one.

And before I forget, here is Jon Stewart commenting on the Massachusetts race Monday night. Stick with it, as he is none too pleased:

Via The Corner, Democrat Chris Van Hollen discussing the potential loss of Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat and others this November:

“Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?” Van Hollen said.

Hey, at least he used ditch instead of lake, right?

Ahem. Anyway, all eyes are on Massachusetts today, and don’t think Democrats aren’t keenly aware of what it will mean should Scott Brown do the unthinkable. To wit, “We are in deep s— if we lose on Tuesday.”

I leave you with the immortal words of our modern-day Murrow, Keith Olbermann. How reckless and how sad, indeed:

Need a good reason to take in the liberal viewpoint? Not only is the different perspective interesting, it’s often also good for some lolz. Take Krugman’s latest, for example:

The Obama administration’s troubles are the result not of excessive ambition, but of policy and political misjudgments. The stimulus was too small; policy toward the banks wasn’t tough enough; and Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.

What is this man smoking? It’s been ‘blame Bush’ at every turn. In fact, the Associated Press was just remarking on that very thing earlier this month. According to their “analysis”:

He says “the buck stops with me,” but nearly a year into office, President Barack Obama is still blaming a lot of the nation’s troubles — the economy, terrorism, health care — on George W. Bush.

Over and over, Obama keeps reminding Americans of the mess he inherited and all he’s doing to fix it. A sharper, give-me-some-credit tone has emerged in his language as he bemoans people’s fleeting memory about what life was like way back in 2008, particularly on the economy.

Every administration plays the blame game…I have no real problem with it. However, voters eventually tune that out and start to clamor for results; regardless of the spin, double digit unemployment with the stimulus-when the admin said it’d top out at 8% without it-tends to hurt your credibility. That is Obama’s real problem now, not that he didn’t blaming Bush enough. Disappointment begets apathy, and the more the latter grew the harder it was for Obama to play the Bush card. It’s not about what the last guy did or didn’t do…it becomes a question of what have you done for me lately?

How many recounts will it take for Martha Coakley to win? Leave your best guess in the comments.

It’s comforting to know the Dem play book hasn’t changed.

"If you think there’s magic out there and things can be turned around overnight, then you would vote for someone who could promise you that, like Scott Brown," Kennedy said. "If you don’t, if you know that it takes eight years for George Bush and his cronies to put our country into this hole … then you know we have a lot of digging to do, but some work needs to be done and this president’s in the process of doing it and we need to get Marcia Coakley to help him to do that.

(Curiously, Kennedy mentioned Coakley repeatedly during his remarks to reporters, each time referring to her as "Marcia," not "Martha." )"

AND I’LL HANG AROUND AS LONG AS YOU WILL LET ME

I guess we’ll know how long that will be come Tuesday.

Video warning: Contains the D word after the 4 minute mark.

The bad news for Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts? Obama-who remains popular in the state-is planning a last-minute campaign appearance to prop up Martha Coakley, who is doing all she can to make Creigh Deeds look like an awesome candidate. The good news for Scott Brown? Creigh Deeds, Jon Corzine, and the Chicago Olympic committee all found out that Obama doesn’t have the pull he thinks he does. Maybe it’ll be different in Massachusetts…or maybe not:

But, in reality, the situation is a lot worse for Dems than it appears. According to strategists familiar with internal polls conducted for Coakley’s campaign, the consequences of Obama’s visit could produce a net-negative effect on Coakley’s campaign.

Obama has a net favorable rating in MA, according to public and private polls…But the intensity of voters who view him unfavorably, or who disapprove of his job performance, is so high that an appearance with Coakley could bring out more GOPers ready to vote for Brown than it could Dems set on their nominee.

“Obama is radioactive in polls,” said one senior Dem operative who has seen the campaign’s internal numbers. “Every time they dropped his name in a poll, it was awful. So you just can’t take those kinds of chances.”

We’ll see, I guess. The fact he is planning to stop in deep blue Massachusetts to try and salvage Teddy’s old seat for the Dems tells you all you need to know about how nervous Democrats are getting. Given that, you’d think they’d be on their best behavior. Not so. Check out this DSCC ad put out on Coakley’s behalf: Read the rest of this entry »

Does NBC actually air The Biggest Loser? I’ve not seen it-I think people compete to lose weight or something, to avoid this sort of thing happening-but the show’s title is too perfect to ignore. Especially, of course, when discussing the Peacock network and the whole Leno/Conan brouhaha.

I don’t watch much TV at all anymore, especially the broadcast nets, but I used to. And this idiocy has got to be one of the biggest TV PR disasters in recent memory. (Maybe the Janet Jackson ‘Nipple-Gate’ fiasco on CBS comes closest.) If you haven’t been following the drama, you can catch the latest here, but suffice to say that NBC has really screwed up. They put Conan’s The Tonight Show behind the 8-ball to start with by scheduling an hour-long show for Leno at the 10 PM hour, 5 nights a week, apparently because they didn’t want to lose Leno to ABC or FOX. Then, when the 10 PM Leno doesn’t work and NBC affiliates start complaining, they decide to move Leno to 11:35 PM and bump Conan to after midnight. The latter isn’t having any of it and wants out, while Leno is just getting thrashed in the media and amongst his peers for not just going away. NBC has managed to damage both of them, and I very much doubt that Leno will ever be able to recover from the hits he’s taken, even if he does regain The Tonight Show. I don’t blame either for wanting to hold NBC to their contractual obligations.

Anyway, if Conan is indeed on his way out he’s making the most of his remaining time there: Read the rest of this entry »