Reid brought the bill to the floor in an effort to secure the support of doctors groups such as the American Medical Association (AMA) for the future fight over an overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system.

Reid’s gambit, however, backfired, leaving Reid blaming the AMA for failing to secure GOP votes and the AMA retorting that the leader misinterpreted its pledge.

Reid told colleagues that the AMA said it could deliver 27 Republican votes for the legislation, according to two Senate Democratic lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some Democrats wondered whether it was reasonable to expect that as many as 27 Republicans would support a 10-year freeze in light of the fact that only 17 Senate Republicans voted for a one-year freeze last July. Of that group, only 11 remain in the Senate.

Joe Gandelman has an excellent roundup on this topic

–Ed Morrissey:

Winners take responsibility, while losers look for scapegoats. Last I looked, the AMA doesn’t have any leadership role in the Senate. They don’t “deliver” votes, and it’s not their role anyway. Perhaps a real Senate Majority Leader would have enough pull to count his own votes and make his own case, rather than leave that to a lobbying group and then get shocked, shocked to discover that most Republicans would not allow Reid to play his shell game with $250 billion that should get counted in the full ObamaCare proposal instead of hidden from the CBO.

Besides, let’s not forget that Reid has 60 Democrats in the Senate. Why should the AMA have to deliver any Republican votes? Reid can’t even deliver his own caucus. The cloture vote wasn’t even close at 47-53, which means that a number of Democrats defied Reid and rejected the shell game, too. Reid can sob all he wants about Tonsil Vultures, but the problem is that Reid is pushing legislation so radical and dishonest that he can’t deliver his own caucus.

–McQ:

Vote counting is a tried and true art within legislative bodies and any competent leader would pretty much know what to expect before ever putting a bill or amendment up for a vote. In fact, Reid missed by 27 – just on the Republican side.

Apparently he wasn’t aware of the 13 Democrats who were going to vote against it as well. That’s 40 no votes in a body of 60. That’s a pretty big miss.

Then he whines about things being run by a minority – a game he was more than happy to play when he was the Minority leader.

Harry Reid – incompetent (not that I’m complaining, mind you – just pointing it out), and the opposition’s best friend.

–My DD’s Charles Lemos:

How is it that the nation is being held hostage by a caucus of forty?

Nor is it terribly reassuring that the Majority Leader can’t keep his own caucus in line. A dozen Democrats and one independent crossed party lines and voted with the Republicans on the 53 to 47 roll call. The Democrats who voted against the party leadership were Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Bryon Dorgan of North Dakota, Jon Tester of Montana, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jim Webb of Virginia, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut also joined the GOP in defeating the measure.

Still it is more concerning that the Democrats are being outwitted tactically by Senator Mitch McConnell.

This news won’t help the Democrats’ efforts:

Also, career government economists within the Department of Health and Human Services dealt a blow to the House bill Wednesday, releasing a report concluding national health care spending would increase because newly insured people would seek care.

Unlike the analyses produced by the Congressional Budget Office, which looked at the impact of legislation on the federal government alone, the HHS report examined the impact on the national economy. The report complicates President Barack Obama’s pledge to sign a bill only if it slows the rate of health care spending.

WHITE HOUSE MASTER TO SLASH EXEC PAY

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Hume’s challenge to media: Do you really want the Gibbs Seal of Approval?.

After reading that, take a look at:  Krauthammer Rips ‘Repulsive Audacity’ of White House for Fox News Attacks

“And look, there is nothing illegal about it. It’s not unconstitutional. But it is outside the Democratic norms of our society, which are Madisonian,” Krauthammer continued. “Our idea is that you have as a way to protect against tyranny in governments is to have the growth, the interaction, and the clash of what Madison called ‘factions’ but what we call ‘interests,’ special and otherwise, and you argue, you interact and you clash. But you don’t undermine, delegitimize, and destroy. That is the Madisonian way, and we are getting, instead, is the Chicago way.”

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

Tapper Asks Gibbs Why It’s Appropriate For White House To Decide Who’s A News Organization | NewsBusters.org.

Gaffes in federal reports this week about stimulus have called into question the government’s ability to accurately track how many jobs are being created by the massive $787 billion Recovery Act.

The data in Thursday’s reports were filled with mistakes, including an error that made it look like a French vaccine maker received the largest stimulus contract, $1.4 billion, when in fact it has gotten an award one-100th the size.

Government research organization OMB Watch said its assessment of the reports revealed many inconsistencies in the job data.

“The data is rife with mistakes,” said Craig Jennings, senior federal fiscal policy analyst at OMB Watch. “When you put out data that hasn’t yet been checked, it undermines transparency, because you are putting out wrong information.”

…A mistake in the very first contract listed on the site prompted doubts about the reliability of the reports.

Recovery.gov erroneously reported Thursday that French vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur had received $1.4 billion in stimulus funds from the Department of Health and Human Services. The company topped the site’s list titled “Largest federal contracts in U.S.”

When CNNMoney.com first asked about the contract Thursday, a spokeswoman from Sanofi Pasteur suspected the $1.4 billion figure was a mistake. HHS spokeswoman Vicki Rivas-Vazquez said the number on recovery.gov was erroneous and the actual amount was $10.4 million.

Sanofi Pasteur said Friday that $10.4 million is the correct figure.

“We anticipated errors in the reporting and so informed many reporters beforehand,” said Edward Pound, spokesman for the Recovery Board. “This is the first time this kind of reporting is being done. These reports are being reviewed by federal agencies and recipients to catch any errors or problems.”

The Recovery Board has the tall task of compiling all of the data, and is spending $18 million revamping its Web site to manage all of the information.

OMB Watch said its review yielded “really weird job numbers,” including many discrepancies within the reports themselves. For instance, Jennings said OMB Watch found that many companies said in a narrative portion of their reports that it was able to retain several employees because of stimulus funds, but the “jobs created” column read “zero.”

The Recovery Board aggregates its jobs data from the “jobs created” column to display the total number of jobs saved or created. Jennings speculated that recipients might have been confused about the scope of the term “created.”

“I would not stake any sort of claims on those job numbers,” said Jennings. “We don’t know what’s going on there.”

FY 2009 Federal Deficit Terrifyingly Huge

after reading the links within that link, this will make perfect sense:

That’s a little like resuscitating a guy who had a heart attack on the way to his execution. Yeah, he’s alive but for how much longer?

When confronted with something this unsustainable there’s only two things to be done.

1- Spend untold trillions more taking over the nation’s health insurance system.

and

2- Blame Bush.

Obama to conservatives: Grab a mop and help me clean up your mess

The good news: The “socialist mop” line made me laugh. The bad news: He’ll be telling us it’s our mess that he’s cleaning up until, oh, 2015 or so at the earliest. How he’s planning to blame the stimulus waste or inevitable cost overruns on health care on the right isn’t yet clear to me, but have faith. He’ll find a way. It’s … what he does.

Question: Given the electoral realities in Congress these days, is it really the right that’s his biggest pain in the ass?

Sima Samar, women’s rights activist in Afghanistan: “With dogged persistence and at great personal risk, she kept her schools and clinics open in Afghanistan even during the most repressive days of the Taliban regime, whose laws prohibited the education of girls past the age of eight. When the Taliban fell, Samar returned to Kabul and accepted the post of Minister for Women’s Affairs.”

Ingrid Betancourt: French-Colombian ex-hostage held for six years.

“Dr. Denis Mukwege: Doctor, founder and head of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. He has dedicated his life to helping Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence.”

Handicap International and Cluster Munition Coalition: “These organizations are recognized for their consistently serious efforts to clean up cluster bombs, also known as land mines. Innocent civilians are regularly killed worldwide because the unseen bombs explode when stepped upon.”

“Hu Jia, a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, who was sentenced last year to a three-and-a-half-year prison term for ‘inciting subversion of state power.’”

“Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. He now lives in the United States.”

MIXED REVIEWS; 'EMBARRASSING JOKE'...
PAPER: This makes mockery of peace prize...
White House Aide: 'It's Not April 1st, Is It?'...
Carter: 'Bold statement'...

Obama Peace Prize Reaction

Even mainstream media stunned, skeptical over Nobel Peace prize

Advisor to Nobel-award winning POTUS says shari’a law “gender justice” for women

White House: Scarborough ‘A—–e’ For Mocking Nobel; Scarborough: Rush’s Manhood ‘In Blind Trust For W’

Story of Obama’s life: “Rather than recognizing concrete achievement…”

DrewM summs this up best:

High school kids want to be popular. Nations want to be prosperous, secure and in America’s case, a force for good in the world. Those things don’t usually lead to popularity because it means making hard choices and doing the right but often un-popular thing….you know, like a grown up.

Obama is making America popular again by talking us down and saying in effect, “We are nothing special, just one of the gang. We’ve been bad before and I’m sorry. I won’t do anything you don’t like.”

That’s morally bankrupt and dangerous. But who cares? We can eat lunch with the cool kids again!

Big Government » Blog Archive » AMA Endorses Largest Denier of Health Care Claims.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Shhh: White House negotiating for public option behind the scenes.

Limbaugh on Chicago: “Who knew the Olympic Committee was a bunch of racists?”

Flashback: “For New York, Victory In Defeat”