Wacky RNC chairman Michael Steele, who is in very deep shit right now with the orange boner in charge of House Republicans, heard about all of those white coats from the American Medical Association — historically Republican allies against health care reform movements, until now, because things are just so terrible — showing up on Obama’s front lawn today, and proceeded to make his devastating move: “The AMA is–does not have the credibility on this health care issue, as they would like to project.” He will now write an op-ed for the Washington Post to introduce his latest alternative, which would order a government bureaucrat get between you and your lying so-called “doctor.” Michael Steele also said “poop” today, which was pretty cool. [The Hill]

• HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA, ‘IMPLIED,’ HAHA: Remember this thing from yesterday? It’s been FIX’D: “Editor’s Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.” Indeed, quite so, yes, tut tut, some readers may have inferred that that is what the original editorial was implying when it said that Stephen Hawking would be dead if he had lived in the UK. ONWARD WITH TODAY’S BUSINESS INVESTMENT INSIGHTS. [IBD]

Yay is everybody ready for the most rip-roaring good time ever at a town hall since a mob of outraged yokels stole George Washington’s wooden teeth and chased him off the premises clad only in his skivvies and the 18th-century version of a women’s brassiere (two monkey skulls held together with catgut and lignum vitae)? That’s what happens when you mess with New Hampshire, the forgotten Appalachia of the American Northeast. MORE »

Think Progress has a pretty good roundup of angry wingnuts attempting to harass their elected legislators to death over healthcare, but this clip is particularly entertaining. What is it with these creeps and the Pledge of Allegiance? (Answer: it is the only piece of “poetry” they know besides the dosage directions on their diabeetus meds.) [Think Progress]

• SOME OF MEGAN McARDLE’S BEST IMAGINARY FRIENDS ARE OBESE: Noted David Foster Wallace scholar and Most Eligible Healthcare Blogger Ezra Klein has some funny remarks about libertarian obesity advocate Megan McArdle: “[N]one of my many talks with obesity researchers have touched on the issue of the poor being idiots. Nor do they seem to think that the obese are insufficiently aware of society’s aesthetic standards. Megan doesn’t have straw men here. She has invented imaginary friends for her argument.” [Washington Post]

The most recent angry Republican to get caught sending an offensive email about the president wants to make it clear, as usual, that he didn’t mean to offend anybody, and in fact “the image has nothing to do with my feelings or thoughts on any race or culture.” He wants to focus on stopping Obama’s health care reform proposal, which should be totally easy now that the whole world knows him as “another racist wingnut” rather than “that neurosurgeon with (kooky) ideas about healthcare.” [TPMMuckraker]

Oh sure he is an angry spittle-flecked chicken and all, but this doesn’t mean Chris Matthews is always wrong, for example this morning when he yelled at Joe and Mika for being pussyfooting sellouts on the healthcare issue. Joe’s all, “But I am concerned about costs,” and Chris does not actually filibuster that much (!), just keeps saying “Well do you want working class people to have healthcare or not?” and Mika is just so ANGRY that nobody will let her speak. (Which it’s true is pretty goddamn rude.) [Morning Joe]

Sorry, Denby, but your boyfriend Ted Kennedy has written the most awful piece of proposed legislation since Mitch McConnell suggested ending state funding for robotic goat-dildoes back in the Gingrich Revolution. What is so terrible about Kennedy’s healthcare proposal? The Congressional Budget Office NO LIKEY. MORE »

Man, remember back in the Democratic primaries — which were still going on at this time last year — and all the terrible jokes and speculation about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton having angry anger sex all the time? What was up with that, huh? It’s like the notion of having both a female and a male candidate for president was so novel that people could only put it in context by thinking about that other thing men and ladies like to do together, besides run for president. Fortunately, we’ve gotten over that terribly juvenile little hump, and now even the New York Times can admit that Clinton and Obama are definitely not fucking. (Thank you loqaciousmusic for the tip!) [New York Times]

“Former President Bill Clinton today accepted responsibility for the failure to get a universal health care bill passed in 1993…. ‘It was more my fault than hers,’ the former president said. ‘We couldn’t raise the money.’” Ahh yes. The ol’ money excuse. [Iowa Politics]

* House approves campaign finance legislation along party lines; new rules will primarily benefit Republicans. [WP]
* Rep. Tom DeLay’s departure “has emboldened centrists and conservatives to push their divergent views more assertively.” [NYT]
* Many Republicans facing reelection “are feeling voter wrath” over Iraq; voters are increasingly critical of pro-war stances. [WP]
* Senate Republicans near agreement on immigration but “showdown” will come this morning; legislation “would allow undocumented workers a path to lawful employment and citizenship if they could prove [that] they have been in the country for five years.” [WP, NYT, USAT, WT]
* Bush tries to shift attention to domestic issues; visits Connecticut to talk healthcare. [WP, NYT]
* Majority of federal budget –military and entitlement programs– cannot be reduced by lawmakers. [NYT]
* Conservatives see the fall of DeLay as “a setback and a warning for their movement” — “a big hole in their forces in Congress.” [NYT]

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