If we had a sane polity, it would be clear by now that for all of Obama’s popularity and obviously stellar political skills, he’s hardly invulnerable. Indeed, taking a very broad historical view, it’s incredibly obvious just how exposed he is: if he had a serious, thoughtful rival in either party, a genuine Nemesis, such as other similarly gifted American politicians have had to put up with, right now he’d be

“We can’t count on insurance companies. They are just maximizing their profits. They are sticking it to consumers.

“I am all for letting insurance companies compete. But I want them to compete in a system that offers real health-care insurance.

An activist then, an conservative activist now.

Holy smoke Batman. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape; you don’t spit into the wind. And you don’t mess around with Jen.AP has, through Yahoo News, put up an interview with Jenny Sanford, and it is a doozy. Do go read the entire piece, it is totally deserving. Many key questions are addressed, and Jenny Sanford puts on a tour de force.

ort.

We need 40 members of the House who will commit now to hold those “no” votes on a bad health care bill if and when the time comes.

Doesn’t it seem like only yesterday that, to many Americans, what Pakistan meant was the smiling proprietors of businesses in our cities and larger towns? “Those Pakistanis,” we’d think, “they assimilate so nicely.” And who can forget the man who effectively served as the face of Pakistan? The late Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan reigned over world music in the nineties.

After 9/11, though, when we learned that its intelligence agencies sponsored the Taliban, which had hosted al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan became a nation non gratis to many Americans. Nor was Pakistan the first country that American Nicholas Schmidle thought of reporting from when he sought to kick off his journalism career.

The time has come for President Barack Obama to recognize the important accomplishments of Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. He should appoint Joe Lieberman to, well, just about anything. Surely there are some ambassadorships still available to loyal “with us on everything but the war” Senators like Joe Lieberman.

Dafna Linzer reports that Walid bin Attash might be a candidate for indefinite detention because al-Nashiri was tortured.

Here’s the irony — the bill they are likely to pass, the one with the biggest price tag, is a bailout for the insurance industries. Also the one the Republicans are most likely to get on board with. The one that controls cost the best — single payer — they dismiss as “socialism.”

Before I look closely at what OmbudAndy (Andy Alexander) had to say about Froomkin’s firing today, I want to thank Dan for his kind words in today’s post and for the way he went out with a bang. Also, Dan and Jay Rosen will be talking about accountability and journalism on Tuesday at the Personal Democracy Forum (I’ll be speaking at 3:45); I plan to liveblog their conversation.