Recently, I’ve begun to worry that our politics have degraded in to the world’s most depressing chutzpah contest, with each politician competing to outdo the last by whining about a self-created problem in the most outrageous, fractionally baseless and/or entirely cynical manner possible. It looks like Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has decided to prove my concerns correct with his campaign’s absurd attempt to label him as a Washington “outsider.”

Democrats were willing to cut $400 billion from Medicare, Coburn wanted another $130 billion lopped off. Not a pretty picture.

Bipartisan fetishists everywhere poured a little out, after Sen. Tom Coburn quit the Gang of Six deficit reduction talks. The impasse, according to Coburn, came over entitlement cuts.

I’m not sure there’s anyone who believes that the Obama Administration will suddenly reject a budget bill that came out of a bipartisan process. The Administration has encouraged the Gang of Six. They’ve sat in on negotiations. They’ve put their credibility on the line, by saying that Democrats and Republicans have to come together on a balanced approach. Now, if the bipartisan negotiations produce an unbalanced result, will they simply dismissed it? I don’t see that happening at all.

Republicans look terrified to actually go through with the shutdown given the focus on women’s health and choice. The question then becomes: who’s forcing the issue?

Consumed by fear, Garin insists that Democrats play on the Republican’s side of the field, and try to out-cut them. The implications for real people doesn’t really matter in this game.

I really hope this video of the shooting doesn’t get leaked, but just the retelling of it reinforces what Cheney leaned toward today. Jared Loughner, a determined individual, ran up and shot dozens of people at close range, and only ended his rampage when he had to reload, providing a moment of opportunity for the victims. Nobody had any chance of stopping him at any other point; the only heroic acts available to them were to shield other bystanders and sacrifice themselves. Loughner’s victims never knew what hit them. “More guns” in this case would have amounted to nothing; in fact, the one person with a gun who came running out to aid in the situation almost wound up shooting an innocent man.

The pressure was apparently too much to hold back the 9-11 health care first responders bill. A reduced version passed the Senate by unanimous consent.

After new START gets ratification today, we’re going to apparently get the first test vote on the 9-11 health care bill. With Tom Coburn committed to blocking or at least delaying the bill, there’s no chance of unanimous consent, but the leadership of both parties is working out some kind of agreement to consider it. The House is prepared to pass the measure as well, but they’re waiting to see what the Senate will do.

In a cloture vote, the Senate today voted by a 67-28 margin to cut off debate on the new START nuclear arms reduction treaty, displaying enough bipartisan support to ratify the treaty with a 2/3 majority tomorrow.

With new START and the continuing resolution out of the way, the only other big item left that the Senate would like to pass is the 9-11 health care bill. It appears that Tom Coburn will drag out passage of that bill, potentially killing it in the lame duck.