Compare Dana Milbank and Chris Cilizza’s take on Obama’s “confrontation” with Republicans over Iran with that of the guy the WaPo fired.

American’s private health insurance industry threatened Americans with dire consequences if they have to face genuine competition from a public health plan option. In his press conference, Obama called their claims nonsense.

It’s a story that has been told time and time again. It has been written in poems. It has been captured in photos. It has been screened in videos. If you’re on the Internet and you haven’t heard of the DREAM Act, you’re not doing it right.

Ryan Grim over at Huffington Post has an interview with Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) that offers a glimpse of the terrain that lay ahead in the health care battle.

Michael Calderone is bitching that Nico Pitney asked what the White House correctly anticipated was going to be a question on Iran. Since when is it a scandal that the reporter doing the best job on a subject gets asked about that subject?

Harper’s Magazine fires off a broadside that has mainly, but not exclusively, been confined to the right wing: Barack Hoover Obama. The backside of the downturn, the part where states have to gut spending and raise taxes, and jobs are still very distant for most people, is generating a finally visible disquiet – while Obama is still personally popular, the public is not quite as confident of his economic policies.

A new poll indicates that 76% of Americans overwhelmingly support having a public health care option, but the influence of lobbying money on Congress is making that hope seem remote.

It’s time to change that.  Let’s whip for a public plan.

To the phones!

Certainly seems to be taking a harder line, but undoubtedly, won’t be hard enough for the neocon anklebiters.

How can an entity that only operates in Minnesota negotiate successfully to control costs with Merck? For a public plan to have the market leverage and bargaining power that it needs, it has to be administered at the federal level. You’re never going to force the insurance companies to compete if there isn’t a national standard . Small regional coops run by their members that spring up at different times aren’t going to be able to compete successfully with giant national corporations. It’s like asking your local food coop to compete on price with WalMart.

Bingaman needs to clarify.

The good old Chamber of Commerce, still trying to enact the failed policies of the Reagan-Bush era, and putting vast amounts of money into the effort.