After Howard Dean articulated his position in favor of killing the bill (remember: he's saying that the good should be maintained, but the removal of major provisions removes the need for a major bill), the responses and reactions began pouring in.

Dean has spent time refining and clarifying his response, saying to Salon:

What irks him the most in the current bill, he said, is that it permits insurance companies to charge as much as 300 percent more to some customers than others. So even though they must provide coverage to anyone who applies — known as "guaranteed issue" — the price differential that can be charged to older or sicker customers virtually erases that promise. "If you have to pay $20,000 a year for insurance, what good does it do if you have guaranteed issue?" he asked rhetorically. "Which is in fact what you'd have to pay if they can charge you three times as much as they do ordinary people. They have 300 percent rate differences in that bill. In Vermont, we have 20 percent rate differences, and that works."

The bill lacks sufficiently stringent controls on insurance company pay for executives and other wasteful expenditures as well, Dean argues, which is why he also opposes its mandate requiring all Americans (with few exceptions) to buy health insurance. "Why should you force Americans into a system that takes between 20 and 30 percent off the top for CEO salaries and return on equity?" he asked. "You're forcing them into that system and it's unfair." There should be no mandate without a public option, he said.

Uber-pundit Keith Olbermann launched the second wave on Wednesday night's Countdown.

Other notables from Olbermann's comment (taken from his diary at Daily Kos):

There could not be a finer line between the words compromise and compromised and tonight, with the greatest possible reluctance, I believe I have to go on the air and state my opinion that the Senate bill in its current form has clearly crossed that line and, as currently constituted, cannot be passed.

The American Insurance Cartel is the Death Panel, and this Senate bill does nothing to destroy it. Nor even to satiate it.

It merely decrees that our underprivileged, our sick, our elderly, our middle class, can be fed into it, as human sacrifices to the great maw of corporate voraciousness, at a profit per victim of 10 cents on the dollar instead of the current 20.

Sir, if they are going to call you a socialist no matter what you do, you have been given full unfettered freedom to do what you know is just. The bill may be the ultimate political manifesto, or it may be the most delicate of compromises. The firestorm will be the same. So why not give the haters, as the cliché goes, something to cry about.

This sentiment is mirrored by many progressives, who are concerned that reform will be a much larger benefit to insurance companies than to those it was originally conceived to help. Nate Silver, Markos Moulitsas and Jon Walker are arguing in circles about benefits and costs. However, I found stumbled across an easier way to explain it, thanks to my friend G.D. at PostBourgie, who recently posted a plea to progressives who want to scrap the reform bill:

This bill will be imperfect in a lot of ways. A public insurance option would have given the government the ability to negotiate lower prices with hospitals, which would have in turn lowered the cost for people insured privately. Even a Medicaid buy-in, the last, best compromise on the table after the all the public option stuff was killed, would have been a considerable improvement over what this final bill will look like. But it's worth remembering that Social Security, a landmark piece of progressive legislation, was a mess when Roosevelt signed it into law. In its original form, it effectively excluded women, people of color, farmers, nurses and tons of other folks. These were horrible exemptions, but to mix metaphors, the safety net was expanded as legislators added meat to the original skeleton.

G.D. also borrows an analogy from Nate Silver, who writes:

Suppose the following scenario plays out when you're trying to buy a used car:

Dealer: The price of the car is $2,000.
You: For that beat-up Honda Accord? I'll give you $1,200.
Dealer: Nope, it's $2,000.
You: How about $1,500?
Dealer: I'm going to stick with $2,000.
You: Will $1,700 get it done?
Dealer: My best and final offer is $2,000.
You: Give a guy a break! $1,875?
Dealer: $2,000.
You: $1,995 and a Slurpee coupon?
Dealer: Now we're talking - step into my office.

Is that a negotiation in bad faith? Is the dealer moving the goalposts? No. He's being very stubborn and very firm - but he's also being very explicit about what he wants. It's possible that you were an incompetent negotiator and that maybe if your first offer had come in a little lower, or a little higher, you could have gotten a better price. But more likely the dealer simply had more of the leverage and ultimately $2,000 is an acceptable price to you, even if it's more than you were hoping to pay.

But to me, there is a logical flaw in that argument. As I wrote in G.D.'s comment section:

People say it's a good first draft. But the government is not a school, and there are no deadlines for completion of these things. Much legislation has been deemed "a first draft" – then left alone for 20- 50 years before the next crisis comes up.

I quoted Nez this morning, but as I have said before – as an uninsured person, I am hoping against hope that this thing would turn out well. But as it stands now (and we haven't even had the big House/Senate throwdown!) the only guarantees are that (1) insurance companies can't turn me down (good) and (2) health care coverage will be mandatory, regardless of what they come up with (WTF?) There are other good things in the bill, but most of that has been hijacked. They are asking for too much trade and not enough reward.

[That being said, I] Disagree with Silver's analogy. It's like I walked into a dealership, mindful of cost but looking for a decent four door sedan. It doesn't mean we weren't flexible, but the conversation is more like:

Dealer: The price of the car is $2,000.
You: For that beat-up Honda Accord? I'll give you $1,200.
Dealer: Nope, it's $2,000.
You: Wait a sec…Blue Book on that is only $1,000!
Dealer: I'm going to stick with $2,000.
You: (Walk away, not trying to be robbed)

There's no Blue Book for Health Care Reform, but this cost/benefit isn't looking right.

In essence, we are being asked to support a bill that may be a lemon.

G.D. pointed to Social Security as an example of a first draft that evolved. This morning, Paul Krugman weighed in to the New York Times op-ed page with the same analogy:

Bear in mind also the lessons of history: social insurance programs tend to start out highly imperfect and incomplete, but get better and more comprehensive as the years go by. Thus Social Security originally had huge gaps in coverage - and a majority of African-Americans, in particular, fell through those gaps. But it was improved over time, and it's now the bedrock of retirement stability for the vast majority of Americans.

There are two key things wrong with that assumption.

Social Security Act was signed into law in 1935. But many people did not benefit from the laws until 1954, when a lot of the groups originally discriminated against were explicitly covered under the bill. According to The Color of Wealth, it was almost two decades before Social Security was workable and benefiting the most vulnerable groups:

As the U.S. Congress debated and the passed the Social Security Act of 1933, millions of workers were required to fill out applications where the choices were limited to white, Negro, and other: Indian, Mexican, and Asian. The Social Security Act disallowed coverage for farm workers, laborers, housemaids, and others in the service sectors. [...]

Social Security did not explicitly exclude blacks and Latinos, but by excluding agricultural and service work, the effect was the same. (p.146, p. 289)

Wealth goes on to explain how, after the 1950s era reforms, Social Security became the most effective social program we have. It doesn't mean that it is perfect. But Social Security, as we know it today, allows for many seniors to stay out of poverty. While we do have a 10% poverty rate for seniors, it is estimated that rate would be close to 50% without the program. In addition, the program that initially excluded minorities was transformed into a lifeline, especially for African American communities:

Because people of color have less income from stock holdings or capital gains than whites, social security is especially important to them: it is the sole source of income for 40% of elderly African Americans. The shorter life span of African American men mean that both survivor and disability benefits go disproportionately to African Americans. While African Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population, 23 percent of children receiving social security survivor benefits are African American, as are about 17% of disability beneficiaries. (p. 284)

So, it while we can look at the long term on this bill, it is important to note that it was close to two decades before most people were allowed to benefit. And as this debate has worn on, the goal posts seem to shifted from "getting Americans affordable coverage" to getting "most people affordable coverage" to "taking a first step." But if the American people need reform now, as many of the initial speeches on the subject proposed, why would be want an incremental change - particularly as history has shown that governmental change creeps like a glacier?

Secondly, the Social Security Act was not revisited because of the good will of Congress, but because people were being actively denied benefits due to discrimination, on many different fronts. It was because of the agitation of groups like the NAACP that change occurred - and I, for one, do not believe the bill will be revisited unless pressure continues to mount. Why do we need to wait for insurance companies to prove they are not acting in good faith to take reform seriously? If columnists like Krugman want to invoke historical trends, they need to look at the whole picture - if the American public has learned that bills are frequently inadequate when they pass, the lesson we need to learn is to get things right the first time.

However, many Democrats disagree. Former President Bill Clinton flexed his political might in support of the bill yesterday, saying:

Our only responsible choice is the path of action. Does this bill read exactly how I would write it? No. Does it contain everything everyone wants? Of course not. But America can't afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And this is a good bill: it increases the security of those who already have insurance and gives every American access to affordable coverage; and contains comprehensive efforts to control costs and improve quality, with more information on best practices, and comparative costs and results. The bill will shift the power away from the insurance companies and into the hands of consumers.

David Axelrod agrees, warning:

"We're on the verge of doing something that would make an enormously positive difference for people," Axelrod said, adding later, "I don't think you want this moment to pass. It will not come back again."

Axelrod - and by extension, the Obama Administration - argues that this is a bill "about the American people."

This debate isn't completely polarized. There are many, many people who fall somewhere within the opposing calls for all-in or all-out on the legislation. Andy Stern, president of the SEIU, who represents a large majority of America's unionized workers, says that we don't need to kill the bill. What we need to do is to fix it:

Our message is that it's time for the Senate to finish its job. We probably have the best we are going to do, and trying to improve the Senate bill doesn't seem realistic right now. The real final chapter in this story is going to be written in the conference committee. That's where all of us have to push together—to try to improve the affordability issues that, we think, the Senate did not handle as appropriately as the House. [...]

We have an organizational culture that allows individual senators to stop a vote from happening or stop a debate from taking place. I think that is morally wrong. It hurts America, diminishes its ability to solve problems. No single senator is so important, their ideas so important, that they should be able to stop us from having a debate over critical issues.

But somehow, as pressures mount to pass the bill according to the original timetable, and Republicans lock ranks in hopes to delay the bill, the concrete idea of why Congress started this process in the first place feels farther and farther away.

"It's unfair" [Salon]
Keith Olbermann joins call to kill bill [Politico]
Special Comment: Not Health, Not Care, Not Reform [Daily Kos]
20 Questions, 20 Responses [FiveThirtyEight]
A Good, Imperfect First Draft [Postbourgie]
The Public Option Fight May Not Have Been Winnable [FiveThirtyEight]
Pass the Bill [NY Times]
The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide (Paperback) [Amazon]
Social Security Act [Wikipedia]
Bill Clinton on Health Care [Time]
Axelrod: 'Insane' for Democrats to oppose health-reform bill [Washington Post]
Andy Stern: Don't Kill the Bill. Fix It. [The New Republic]
Health care time line still on track [Politico]
Senate Republicans vow to delay health-care vote [Washington Post]

Earlier: "Kill The Bill": Is Real Health Care Reform Still Worth Fighting For?

According to Klein, Clinton is a bundle of contradictions. She messed up an opportunity to advance fruitful peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, except such talks are almost never fruitful. ("For the past 40 years, the awkward Middle East press conference has helped define the job of Secretary of State. You go to Jerusalem or Ramallah; you stand there 'guardedly optimistic' in public; in private, you try to move a comma, but the Israelis or Palestinians move a semicolon to block your comma. The result is almost always the same: gridlock.") Clinton's big mouth made the administration look bad — by reinforcing things Obama had already said. "The conventional wisdom," is that by installing Clinton as Secretary of State, Obama "succeeded in neutering her" (nice), but then, he also gave her the power to "become a torpedo aimed at the Oval Office." She's bungled diplomacy yet made enormous strides in improving America's image abroad. Her edgier tone has been evident from the start of the Administration" — in some cases irritating the White House — yet "her reticence during her first nine months on the job," did indeed bolster the impression that she was "neutered." (Dear Joe Klein and rest of world, Can we please find a better metaphor for being rendered ineffectual?) By all on-the-record accounts, her "relationship with Obama really - really - is strong," but anonymous "emanations," "burblings" and "Foggy Bottom body language" (say that 5 times fast) indicate otherwise, maybe, sort of.

"These tensions are well within the boundaries of normal, creative policymaking," writes Klein, but he seems determined to make something more of them nonetheless. An "essential rule of diplomacy," he says, is "boring is almost always better" — but obviously, an essential rule of journalism is the opposite. So I can sympathize with the need to jazz up a story that amounts to, "She seems to be doing a pretty OK job — not perfect, but whatever." But the way he does it is sort of dizzying. Is she fucking up or doing smart, new things? Is she too blunt or too retiring? Too powerful, or too [new metaphor]? Is she putting words in Obama's mouth or vice versa? Do they lurve each other or secretly plot against each other? The contradictory questions don't balance the portrait of a complex woman so much as they obscure it.

By far the most interesting and enlightening parts come in the middle, when Klein sits down and talks to Clinton, whom he's known for a bazillion years. They talk about her first trip to Pakistan in 1995 — he was there — and she gushes about the experience and admits what a Benazir Bhutto fangirl she was. In this section, Klein points out that "Ironically, the rise of Sunni extremist groups like al-Qaeda has brought Clinton's interests - microfinance, education and health care - to the center of national-security policy for the first time" — oh hey, she has interests! — and says Clinton's excellent relationship with military leaders at home has "helped make the relationship between State and the Pentagon less fraught than usual." She has "a palpable toughness" to her, and unlike a lot of journalists, Klein seems to mean that as a real compliment. He mentions repeatedly that she is intensely guarded and private, which undoubtedly explains a lot of his (and everyone's) difficulty in pinning her down, but still, this middle part is where we get a sense that he's talking about a real person with identifiable strengths, weaknesses, goals and accomplishments. That angle just couldn't sustain a whole feature, I guess.

Perhaps the big lesson to take from this profile, then, is that Hillary Clinton is nowhere near as predictable as we'd like her to be. For as long as she's been in the public eye (and under insane scrutiny to boot), it really seems like we ought to know her well enough to anticipate her next move — and fully understand her last. But it turns out we might not. Which makes it hard to analyze her but really interesting to watch her.

Hillary's Moment: Clinton Faces The World [Time]

• This morning Lindsay Lohan posted an incoherent rant about Samantha Ronson on Twitter. She writes: "can you make an attempt to not ruin ANYTHI...zG positive that i have FINALLY deserved just to cry myself to sleep with your cheats, errors..."

• ...and thank you...for being a friend before a sell-out...the term "self out" was coined from ME and i gave them sooooooo much insight...For their not only COMPLETE, BUT SUBSTANISAN ***FRIENDS***********"... BUT YOU DID perform to her..you JUST told me that your friends are worth more than i am 2 your family & that i'm gross*thx." Linds hasn't claimed that it's the work of a hacker... yet. [Perez Hilton]
• Courtney Love says she's going to "sue the shit" out of the people behind Guitar Hero because they didn't ask her permission to use Kurt Cobain's image. She Tweeted: "not in twenty JILLION years would i EVER have allowed this and this islethal... we get NO money for this, travesty, Frances gets NO money for the rape." [TMZ]
• John Mayer denied the rumors that he's dating Kristin Cavallari on Twitter writing, "I'm sure she's a wonderful gal but we have never tasted the Skittles Rainbow together." Adding, "How do I put this like a gentleman...I have never high fived Kristin Cavalari with my penis." [People]
• Jennifer Aniston will sing and play the guitar in her new film The Goree Girls. She promises: "I can carry a tune." [People]
• A source says Paula Abdul was shocked by the news that Ellen DeGeneres is replacing her on American Idol. "Privately, Paula is very upset. She's never going to admit it publicly but this stung," said the source.[Radar Online]
• Ellen DeGeneres says of hosting American Idol, "I hope Paula's OK with it. I don't want anybody to think I took Paula's job away." [E!]
• Ellen says the reason she was picked even though she has no music experience is, "I'm just a fan like everyone else... The people choose. Ultimately, it comes down to them, not some executive in the music industry. I hope to be that voice." [L.A. Times]
• Randy Jackson says American Idol "reached out" to Ellen because, "We're all friends with Ellen, and Ryan [Seacrest] and I are pretty close with her. She's just mad cool." [People]
• Natalie Cole performed last night for the first time since having a kidney transplant. "I really do have to say ... it really is a miracle time. It's a miracle night for me," she told the crowd. "I never thought I'd be standing here healthy and whole and 100 percent." [People]
• Though Jermaine Jackson announced Natalie Cole, Chris Brown, and Mary J. Blige were going to perform at the Michael Jackson tribute concert in Vienna they've all dropped out or denied they were ever involved. Yet, their pictures are still up on the concert's website. [TMZ]
• Katherine Jackson, who is reportedly not happy about the Michael Jackson tribute concert, released a statement saying she'll be there on the 29th. The only problem is it's on the 26th. [TMZ]
• Barbara Walters interviewed LaToya Jackson for a 20/20 special that will air on Friday, in which she says of Michael Jackson, "I don't think we'll find a person as talented, a person who thought the way he thought. A person with the heart that Michael had... People aren't that way anymore. He was special. He wasn't God, but he was certainly God-like. He was the closest thing to a god that I knew." [ABC News]
• Movers are taking Michael Jackson's possessions out of his Holmby Hills mansion today. [TMZ]
• The trailer for Michael Jackson: This Is It, the movie made from rehearsal footage from MJ's final concert, will air on Sunday during the MTV Video Music Awards. [AP]
• Oprah says of her upcoming interview with Whitney Houston, "It will leave you gasping. She does not blame Bobby Brown and she takes full responsibility for her engagement in drugs. At one point she says, 'I didn't get out of my pyjamas for seven months.'" [The Sun]
• The hosts and musical guests on the first four episodes of Saturday Night Live this season will be Megan Fox and U2, Ryan Reynolds and Lady Gaga, Drew Barrymore and Regina Spektor, and Gerard Butler and Shakira. [The Wrap]
• Barbara Mandrell has become the first woman to be inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. [AP]
• Edward Norton will be running the New York City marathon this year with a group of runners from the African Maasai tribe to benefit the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. "The idea picked up traction pretty quickly," said Norton, who turned 39 in August. "Then, I was like, 'Wait a minute. What have I just done?'" [CNN]
• Gavin Rossdale will guest star on an episode of Criminal Minds as "a Goth rock star who has become lost in the frightening alter-ego he portrays on stage — an alter-ego the show's investigative team suspects may be a brutal serial killer." [UPI]
• Paris Hilton appears in the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations alongside Barack Obama, Confucius, and Oscar Wilde. Paris' words of wisdom: "Dress cute wherever you go, life is too short to blend in."[Daily Mail]
• Dustin Diamond is being sued for more than $21,000 in upaid property taxes and had his car repossessed. [Radar Online]
• Robert Carlyle says that director Danny Boyle is "edging closer" to making Porno, the sequel to Trainspotting, and says he'd be willing to do the movie for free. Ewan McGregor has said the sequel would be a "terrible shame." [BBC]
• Michael Douglas says he's "holding up fine," after his son Cameron's arrest for alleged drug dealing, adding, "It's a very difficult situation and painful, as I'm sure any mother or father of a substance abuser knows. So we're doing the best we can." [People]
• Jon Gosselin just can't behave himself. He got a ticked for going 78 mph in a 55 mile zone near his home in Pennsylvania. [TMZ]
• Joel Madden Tweeted on Wednesday morning, "Geuss who's back ... Oh i'm sorry we were only having a little baby boy." [People]
• Tila Tequila met with investigators from the San Diego District Attorney's office to discuss the altercation she had with San Diego Charger Shawne Merriman. [TMZ]
• Hugh Hefner went to Kendra Wilkinson's baby shower yesterday wearing a black suit and a bright red shirt rather than his customary pajamas. [TMZ]
• Laura Ling reveals that on her first night back from North Korea she ate pizza, and says Bill Clinton has been checking up on her family since her return. [TMZ]
• Melanie Chisholm a.k.a. Sporty Spice is making her theater debut next month in Blood Brothers on London's West End. [The Guardian]
• Geri Halliwell has been in Nepal all week as part of her duties as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. She's promoting maternal health and women's rights. At a press conference she urged Nepali men to use their power to encourage and protect women saying, "When we empower women and take care of them everyone benefits." [Perez Hilton]
• Here's a picture of Cynthia Nixon on the set of Sex and the City 2 dressed up for the '80s flashback scene. [Perez Hilton]
• More Sex and the City 2 plot speculation here: [Us]
• Apparently there is nothing Sex and the City can't do. On an upcoming episode of her talk show Tyra Banks reveals the show helped her lose weight. "I got rid of one of my couches in my living room and I watched Sex and The City episodes on the treadmill or the elliptical," she says. "So Sex and the City lasts 30 minutes – that's how long I'm on the elliptical." [People]
• Phil Collins says he'll never drum again because, "I've got a condition that means I can't play anymore. After playing drums for 50 years, I've had to stop. Obviously I'm very sad about it. My vertebrae has been crushing my spinal cord because of the position I drum in. It comes from years of playing. I can't even hold the sticks properly without it being painful." [Perez Hilton]
• Kelsey Grammer won a lawsuit filed against him by a contractor who worked on his kitchen. [TMZ]
• At the link are photos from Japanese Vogue featuring Lady Gaga in bondage. [Egotastic]
• Artwork for the Broadway play A Steady Rain shows Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig's faces fused together. [Just Jared]
• In the video at the link George Clooney keeps his cool even when an Italian journalist tells him he's gay, strips down to his boxers, and asks George to "choose him." [ABC News]
• Khloé Kardashian and boyfriend Lamar Odom seem to want to get their picture taken, since they've been hitting all the paparazzi hot spots. [E!]
• Joshua Jackson says Fringe, "has been the total opposite of my Dawson's Creek experience... Fringe has taken a while for the show to percolate in the pop culture. I would never complain about being on a show with the words J.J. Abrams above the title, but the expectations were impossibly high." [Just Jared]
• "[Being 16] is way overrated. I can't even drive in the city. Can you do more at 17? I don't know." — Taylor Momsen [New York Magazine]
• Rebecca Romijn says she and Jerry O'Connell aren't planning to have any more children now that they have twin girls. "We feel like the world was made for pairs. Four feels like the perfect number... Also, we're not interested in overpopulating this world," she added. "So we feel like we don't want to leave more than we are when we leave this planet." [E!]
• When asked if she would ever do a talk show Kathy Griffin said, "The sexism in late night talk is so profound. When you think that Joan Rivers is the first and last woman to do a network late night talk show-I mean, that's appalling to me. I don't know if I can win that battle-it's such a boys' club.... I'd like to do it in some way, but I gotta tell you, I like the freedom of a show like The D-List, where I can take my time with these celebrities and spend more than six minutes with them on the couch." [Publisher's Weekly]
• Drew Barrymore and an uncomfortable-looking Ellen Page are on the cover of Marie Claire. Drew says of Ellen, "She was in her frickin' bra and with an open jacket and hot-pink shorts, skating around the rink with red lips and… and she was sexy as a mother…. a feral creature. It was great. And it's so screwed up for girls to think, Oh because I don't have that cookie-cutter model body, it must mean I don't have the right body shape. And I love model bodies, but I just want women to embrace several body shapes. That's the thing I love about derby. It's really welcoming." [Just Jared]

• The Federal Elections Commission dismissed a complaint about the use of campaign money to pay for Governor Sarah Palin's clothes, so she's in the clear on that one. Now about donating them... [Anchorage Daily News]

• Unrelated: Palin issued a statement calling RNC Chairman Michael Steele "bold and courageous". Then, everyone wondered if she's noticed how much Republicans hate him. [Politico]
• Barney Frank has no problem engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent, which is why he went on Lou Dobbs with Michelle Bachmann. [TPM DC]
• Newt Gingrich thinks that being dishonest should disqualify one from being Speaker of the House. Related: I am laughing. [Time]
• The Chinese Uighurs, who Americans imprisoned in Guantanamo at the behest of the Chinese government, want to know why Newt Gingrich is such a dickhead. [Huffington Post]
• Apparently, they've never heard of William Smith, who's now Chief Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee and fervently believes that LGBT Americans are child rapists. [Legal Times]
• Donald Rumsfeld's spokesman is denying that the former Defense Secretary liked his briefings with a side of Bible quotes. [The Atlantic]
• Someone stole a hard drive of Clinton-era information, so keep an eye out on eBay. [Politico]
• Obama is pressuring Democrats to not challenge New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the primary next year. [The Hill]
• The Iranians swear they have a nuke that can reach Israel. [Huffington Post]
• Congressional Democrats have decided we're definitely not closing Guantanamo. [NY Times]
• Congressional Republicans would like the ability to deny our access to reproductive health care back, since Obama is all trying to find common ground, such as. [The Hill]
• But Ted Kennedy's brain cancer is in remission! [Politico]

• Hillary Clinton has not agreed to be Obama's Secretary of State even if she is officially offered it. [Politico]
• She has, however, been asked to head Ted Kennedy's health reform task force next year. [The Hill]
• Mr. Jowls will remain the Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. Jane Hamsher and others say, in so many words, fuck that guy. [Politico, Firedoglake, Politico]
• Chuck Norris might be able to defeat ninjas, cowboys and anyone who talks back, but what he's really, really scared of is boys who like to kiss other boys (we assume that, like most raging homophobes, he furiously masturbates to girl-on-girl porn). Chuck Norris, I have watched gay bear porn and survived with nary a scratch. I double dog dare you. [Queerty]

• In the mean time, Eric Holder appears poised to become this country's first African-American attorney general. Some people have their panties all in a bunch that he might or might not have had something to do with the 11th hour pardon of Marc Rich in the Clinton Administration. [Newsweek]
• Beau Biden, on the other hand, will not accept an appointment to his father's Senate seat and will likely deploy to Iraq as planned. [Washington Post]
• Less gracious is outgoing Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado) who has yet to officially concede the race she lost in a landslide to Democrat Betsy Markey or thank her staff, but what would you expect from the woman who staked her legislative career on trying to pass a Constitutional amendment to forever prohibit same sex marriage? [Politico]
• Speaking of controversial pardons, apparently Ted Stevens wants one. [Politico]
• Republicans are trying to decide whether to try and trample people's rights in order to regain some semblance of political relevance, or whether they'd like to try doing stuff for the Real Americans they so desperately swear they represent. [Huffington Post]
• Chuck Hagel pretty much said that Rush Limbaugh can go fuck himself during a speech. I say that all the time, Chuck! Want to grab a drink and make fun of him sometime? [CNN]
• Diane Sawyer conducted her interview with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, originally famous for fucking former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer for money, who, if this picture is any guide, will heretofore be known for sneaking into Sarah Palin's tanning beds one too many times and stealing Jane Fonda's steez from 9 to 5. It's unclear whether she actually says anything to make the interview worth watching, but since she's probably not going to dish about whether Spitzer really tried to fuck her up the ass without a condom while wearing his socks and singing show tunes, I'm guessing not. Fine, I never really heard rumors of show tunes. [Huffington Post]

ANA MARIE: I don't think I'm going to see "W." It looks like it's TRYING to be funny. And Oliver Stone movies are the most amusing when the humor is completely unintentional.

MEGAN: I believe it is trying to be funny.

ANA MARIE: Chris and I watch "JFK" pretty much every time it's on basic cable. Now THAT is a funny movie. I mean, Joe Pesci in a leotard and fucking Kevin Bacon? Pretending to do amyl nitrate? You don't make that funnier just by saying they're playing Republican political leaders. Because then it's just a documentary.

MEGAN: Joe Pesci in a leotard is basically the nightmare I hadn't yet had, so I'll report back tomorrow on my utter lack of sleep tonight. In my mind's eye, it's purple and there is a tutu involved. And he pirouettes up to a car and proceeds to beat someone with a tire iron.

ANA MARIE: It's actually gold lame and he's (or Kevin Bacon, I forget) is dressed as Hermes. Seriously: one of America's finest cinematic events.

MEGAN: Ok, I'm just going to pretend it is Kevin Bacon. Now that I'm thinking about Kevin Bacon boogeying in a gold lame unitard.

ANA MARIE: Perhaps dancing in a county where DANCING HAS BEEN OUTLAWED? That's probably as good a segue as we're going to get to talking about McCain, btw.

MEGAN: And suddenly, in the movable diorama that it my imagination, the tiny, gold lame unitard clad Kevin Bacon stopped his dancing, and hangs his head with sadness as the old man stumbles out and starts yelling at him to get off his lawn or he's going to nuke it.

ANA MARIE: I was watching "Morning Joe" earlier and they were joking around with Robert Gibbs about something or other and he brought up the "get off my lawn" trope and I thought: That's just really unfair to people who legitimately care about their lawns. McCain's commitment to lawns is just base-pleasing pander. Besides, McCain lives in a condo.

MEGAN: Well, in one of his residences, yes.

ANA MARIE: Also? I think McCain lost Scarborough a long time ago, but the happy-happy jokey-joke with Gibbs was still kind of amazing. Not as amazing, however, as McCain loosing Peggy Noonan. Did you hear about that?

MEGAN: I saw Peggy speak last weekend, but I was very hung over.

ANA MARIE: Yesterday on "Hardball" she said she "doesn't know" who she's going to vote for.

MEGAN: She doesn't like the faux populism, which she considers empty and stupid and not a strategy as much as a pander.

ANA MARIE: And I think she once accidentally threw her baseball into McCain's lawn. (It's very hard to stay away from that joke)

MEGAN: (I'm okay with that.) So, why is McCain so fucking angry this week? Because he's losing? And will he lose it on stage tonight?

ANA MARIE: I don't think he's any angrier this week than in the past. He's just taking more pleasure in it. And as for "losing it"... I guess that's why he can't look at Obama, maybe? It's funny how the right makes fun of the liberal "grievance industry" but, essentially, what McCain is mad about is being treated unfairly. To which I believe the traditional R rejoinder is "Well, life isn't fair."

MEGAN: Well, he understands life isn't fair. He was tortured! Didn't you know he was tortured?

ANA MARIE: I am familiar with the outlines of that story, yes. I can't decide if McCain is going into this debate tonight with ridiculously high expectations or if he's entering Palin territory: like, as long as he doesn't forget what day it is, he'll be fine. This is assuming he knows what day it is to begin with.

MEGAN: Well, it's his format, right? He's Mr. Town Hall, he's going to kill tonight and between that and the torture experiences with which I am sure he will make more Americans more familiar, he will be made President as is only his due because life isn't fair. By the way, are you as familiar with Obama's supposed terrorist leanings and his radical friends and whatnot as with McCain's experience as a tortured and yet still heroic POW? Because if you're not, Fox News has a show for you. It sadly doesn't feature Jerome Corsi who has been unavoidably detained in Kenya for working without a work visa. I know I should be all like "free press! free press!" but it made me just a teensy bit pleased in a way I don't like to admit.

ANA MARIE: My favorite thing about the Corsi story is the quote from the Kenyan official, who basically admits they arrested him because, you know, he's an asshole. And,

"We still haven't decided what to do with him."

I kind of feel the same way!

MEGAN: If being an asshole is illegal in Kenya, I guess we know where John McCain won't be visiting...

ANA MARIE: Or either of us, for that matter. Were you shocked to learn about that "new poll of 600 female voters found that most view Hillary Clinton as a better mom, role model and leader than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman to be named to a Republican ticket"? Because I sure was! I mean, for Palin to come in second... if it were fair, she'd come in behind "a comfy chair" in all those categories.

MEGAN: Actually, I think the right word my be "flabbergasted." You mean, Americans aren't buying her shtick? I feel like I might have underestimated Americans. I mean, except the ones calling Obama a terrorist at McCain rallies and threatening to kill him at Palin rallies.

ANA MARIE: Yeah, that does not reflect well on the Silent Majority, does it? Or rather, it explains why they are usually asked to stay silent.

MEGAN: Well, and the Palin supporter who told an African-American sound guy to "sit down, boy" at the Palin rally. I thought we had all agreed that it was unacceptable to be an open racist in modern American society? Wasn't there a consensus or a referendum or something?

ANA MARIE: Good thing that black people at Palin rallies are pretty rare!

MEGAN: Hell, I'd make myself scarcer than a condom in the Palin house were I African-American at one of those.

ANA MARIE: And as for that referendum, I believe that's scheduled for the first Tuesday of November.

MEGAN: I'm just going to go waaaaaaaay out on a limb here and suggest that racism will still exist in this country even if Obama gets elected.

ANA MARIE: But it no longer will be the first thing other countries think of when we come up.

MEGAN: That said, where would racists threaten go to avoid an Obama Presidency? Liberals are all, like, going to Canada or France, but it seems like racists hate everyone else.

ANA MARIE: Iceland is apparently in a real financial crisis right now, so a loose coalition of rich racists could probably pick it up cheap. And you don't get countries much whiter.

MEGAN: I don't think that there are enough dirty hooker toes in Iceland for Dick Morris, though.

ANA MARIE: And with that advice, I feel like my dream of ridding the country of racists is one step closer to reality.

MEGAN: We're sorry Iceland! You guys can come here, there might be a lot of space available. And, um, bring the Penis Museum for safekeeping.

ANA MARIE: Aye. Dick Morris. Why is he still appearing in public? Besides being the George Michael of toe-sucking jokes, why do I know ANYTHING MORE ABOUT HIM besides that? Who can I blame?

MEGAN: Have you seen his teeth recently? He's rather obviously still at it.

ANA MARIE: Never has a sexual fetish seemed more poetically appropriate, really. It'd be like finding out that Todd Palin likes to cross-dress. Almost too perfect.

MEGAN: See, I think cross-dressing would be too vanilla for Todd Palin. He's more like mint chocolate chip, you have to throw in a little pegging or something to make it work.

ANA MARIE: Cross dressing and dungeons.

MEGAN: I bet Sarah Palin has been wondering for a while why her nice underwear keeps getting all stretched out.

ANA MARIE: Oh, oh, oh: This is teh awesome. That awful American Carol movie? Apparently it is tanking because of a liberal conspiracy! Not because it sucks ass (or toes).

MEGAN: And not because it sucks? Also, since when to theatre owners have a political agenda that doesn't involve making money?

ANA MARIE: That's what happened with Ishtar, too, right?

MEGAN: Fucking radical commie theatre owners, trying to keep conservative movies down and out. You know they're just doing it to make sure W. does better, which it will and not just because it has, like, recognizable actors and a famous director and shit.

ANA MARIE: Well, theater-owners bias toward experimental liberal films is well-documented. And that why the megaplex down the street has five screens showing Reds.

MEGAN: It's like you think you're going to see the Batman movie and SHAZAM!! you're being indoctrinated again.

ANA MARIE: And the Koyaanisqatsi midnight showing. It's like Rocky Horror Picture Show but with people dressed as mountains.

MEGAN: And throwing glitter for snow. Unlike Rocky, though, it totally ends in a plushie orgy. Because that's what radicalized Commies do. It's why they never really succeeded — too busy fucking to fuck shit up.

ANA MARIE: And then everyone gets quiet for the five minute shot of a plane taking off. (Which is an actual scene in the movie. And, fwiw, I'm sure it does get Todd Palin hard.)

MEGAN: But, really, what doesn't get Todd Palin hard? I'm sure even Joe Pesci in a leotard and tutu holding a tire iron would do it.

• Hillary's push to seat Michigan and Florida despite Harold Ickes' vote to sanction the two states for holding their primaries early: breathtaking cynicism or heroic self-sacrifice? [TPM]
• McCain rejected the endorsement of that pastor who called the Catholic Church "the great whore." I'm not getting something here. I mean, sure, everyone knows by now that "whore" is a slur suggestive of misogyny, but the "Great Sex Worker" just lacks a certain ring, you know? [CNN]
• Anyway devout Catholic Bobby Jindal isn't letting the whole mess keep him away from McCain's running mate race! He's hanging out this weekend at the ranch with Charlie Crist (yikes! too much skin cancer for one presidential ticket!) and Mitt Romney. It's so Apprentice of them! And like, Bobby could tell the story of that time he witnessed an exorcism in the confessional…[AP]
• Abstinence education: Ted Kennedy's brain tumor was probably caused by herpes. [Radar]

• 62% of Americans think the government should tax the wealthy more and 78% of them think the income gap is too wide. By my estimate that's pretty much anyone with a household income less than $78,000. Fascinatingly, countries that already tax the rich a whole lot like Japan and Germany are more favorable to the whole notion while countries with less-developed social services like China and Italy are more skeptical. If you are familiar with common ethnic stereotypes and/or the work of my old professor Francis Fukuyama this will make total sense. [WSJ]

• Rapper Eve's clothing line Fetish is having a revival. After suffering bad break-ups with both the Innovo Group and Marc Ecko, it's now reborn under the Signature Group's tutelage. And, like, the quality's going to be really good and, like, Eve is totally involved on a day-by-day basis with the line this time and we stopped listening and...uh, wait, is Eve even actually famous anymore? [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Barney's, the luxury department store chain, will probably be acquired by the Dubai government's investment arm for at least $825 million. Because you can always find something to spend your excess oil money on at Barney's. [NYT]
  
• Apparently the Japanese Jill Stuart licensee wants to scrap Lindsay Lohan as the face of its fall marketing. Did these people learn nothing from Kate Moss? [Hollywood Rag]

• But OMG! Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham is totally going to be at the Saks Fifth Avenue New York flagship store this evening for the launch of her denim line, DVB. Because she is so imaginative, she didn't need a branding consultant to think of that name, which stands for "David Victoria Beckham." [Racked]
• Ok we get it already: Valentino isn't retiring anytime soon. (Even if he does have a bad case of "The lady doth protest too much.") [WWD, sub req'd]
• We are snickering at jewelry designer Carolyn Roumeguere, who told Vogue UK, "I think that my gold and silver discs... epitomise Bedouins. A percentage of each sale goes to education and medical aid in Africa so that I give something back to the country that I have chosen to be my home and have gained so much from." Ugh. [Vogue UK]
• The MAC Cosmetics AIDS Fund donated $1.25 million to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative. This is not exactly Bill Gates money but it makes us feel sorta better about buying at least one kind of MAC. [WWD, sub req'd]