Let me know your thoughts on this.  My first reaction to this was:

It is not just Iran that we are ignoring, but every credible threat as well as potential threat.  It is as if the policy is to ignore it in the hopes that it will just go away, kind of like bin laden, al qaeda, etc.,  in the 90’s.  We all know how well that worked out!

…[I]t is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted “Just say no!” drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.

Let the facts be heard

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.
…
This month, despite the disruptions, members of Congress will listen to their constituents back home and explain reform legislation. We are confident that our principles of affordable, quality health care will stand up to any and all critics.

Now — with Americans strongly supporting health insurance reform, with Congress reaching consensus on a plan, and with a president who ran and won on this specific promise of change — America is closer than ever to this century-deferred goal.

This fall, at long last, we must reach it.

Mike:

Sounds to me like Democrats have already made up their minds on health care “insurance” reform (notice the change from earlier health care reform) and are now attempting to “explain” their decision rather than “listen” to their constituents.

JWF:

First of all, Americans are not in support of ramming this legislation down our throats and in fact a mere 25% agree with Pelosi’s view that insurance companies are to blame for high costs. Pelosi and Hoyer may also want to clue themselves in to the fact their approval rating stands at a rock-bottom 14%, and this snide condescension sure won’t help.

Furthermore, who is it that’s waging an ugly campaign? It sure isn’t the right.

HRC:

Founding Bloggers:

Oh yeah. Medical care in America is world renowned for its lack of quality. People from every corner of the planet travel here to experience for themselves how bad it can be.

The Sundries Shack:

Make no mistake. Pelosi and Hoyer are not interested in a conversation with you if you disagree with them. If they were, they would have been listening to you long before now. They would have taken the independent study of the Lewin Group under consideration instead of perpetuating the outright impossibility that the presence of a government-run plan won’t cause people to lose the plans they already have and like.

If they really wanted a conversation, they would explain in detail how their belief that Obama care will lower costs through more preventative care even though the CBO has said that health care costs are far more likely to rise.

They can’t do either of those things because they do not have substantive answers to them. And the only way to answer direct, deliberate falsehood shouted through the megaphone of the MSM is to shout back when we have the chance to do so.

What Pelosi and Hoyer have entirely forgotten is that the sort of rowdiness they’ve seen at their town halls…wait. Let me correct that. Only Hoyer has seen any sort of rowdiness at all at a town hall meeting. Speaker Pelosi has spent her recess thus far wining and dining big-money campaign donors. I mean that literally. So what Steny Hoyer has forgotten is that the rowdiness that he saw at his town hall meeting is how democracy has always been done in this country. Jules Crittenden reminded me of that this past week. The notion of the bucolic New England town hall meeting was never true. They have always been boisterous. The only time you get a sedate town hall meeting is when they’re scripted to a fare-thee-well and take only pre-digested questions from pre-selected questioners.

Well, as Nina says,
it’s [the stimulus package] a trillion dollar mulligan. You know, the
first rule in Washington is if you’re in a hole, stop digging. And this
is digging more and more into the hole.

The administration
argues that the reason unemployment is higher than they projected is
that the stimulus hasn’t yet kicked in. Well, if that is the case, why
would you argue for a second stimulus that’s going to add another $1
trillion to the debt when there is no evidence yet, admittedly—you
would admit yourself there is no evidence—that the first stimulus had
worked.

And secondly…if
you’re going to add on a second stimulus after arguing that the lag in
the effect of the stimulus is large—and that’s why we haven’t seen any
effect yet—that means that the effects of the second stimulus would be
way down the road. It would be kicking in at a time when the
administration itself is projecting that the economy will be rising and
in recovery.

So it will overheat
and over-stimulate the economy, add to inflation rates, and add hugely
to our debt at a time when we already have rumblings from the Russians,
the Chinese, and even the Indians today of removing the dollar as the
world reserve currency.

Well, as Nina says, it’s [the stimulus package] a trillion dollar mulligan. You know, the first rule in Washington is if you’re in a hole, stop digging. And this is digging more and more into the hole.

The administration argues that the reason unemployment is higher than they projected is that the stimulus hasn’t yet kicked in. Well, if that is the case, why would you argue for a second stimulus that’s going to add another $1 trillion to the debt when there is no evidence yet, admittedly—you would admit yourself there is no evidence—that the first stimulus had worked.

And secondly…if you’re going to add on a second stimulus after arguing that the lag in the effect of the stimulus is large—and that’s why we haven’t seen any effect yet—that means that the effects of the second stimulus would be way down the road. It would be kicking in at a time when the administration itself is projecting that the economy will be rising and in recovery.

So it will overheat and over-stimulate the economy, add to inflation rates, and add hugely to our debt at a time when we already have rumblings from the Russians, the Chinese, and even the Indians today of removing the dollar as the world reserve currency.

Can Al Gore save his emplyees and stop global warming?

North Korea has launched a short-range missile from its Musudan-ri rocket launch site on the country’s east coast, a South Korean government official said Friday.

“What the North has launched this time appears to be different from what it had launched (previously),” the official said. “It is a new type of a land-to-air missile,” the official said.

North Korea launched the missile, with an estimated range of 160 km, into the East Sea at around 6:12 p.m., according to the official.

The North has been firing a series of missiles since Monday, when it said it successfully conducted its second nuclear test.

UPDATE:

Administration: Now North Korea is a threat again

Sometimes, we need a scorecard to keep up with the Obama administration’s positions on foreign policy and national security.  The latest case of whiplash comes from the ping-pong position shifts on North Korea.  When Pyongyang tested a long-range missile in April, Barack Obama called the DPRK a “regional threat” to security.  Last weekend, he upgraded North Korea to a threat to global peace.  Wednesday, though, Obama’s national security adviser James Jones dismissed Kim Jong-Il almost entirely, claiming that he poses no imminent threat to the US.

Today, Defense Secretary William Robert Gates goes back to Square One (via Flopping Aces):

The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday at an international conference. …

His comments came amid growing concern across the globe over North Korea’s latest nuclear test and test-firings of short-range missiles.

On Friday, two Defense Department officials said the latest U.S. satellite imagery has spotted “vehicle activity” at a North Korean ballistic missile facility.

“North Korea’s nuclear program and actions constitute a threat to regional peace and security. We unequivocally reaffirm our commitment to the defense of our allies in the region,” Gates said in Singapore.

Gates sounded a lot less concerned on Thursday:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, en route to an annual security summit in Singapore Friday, signaled as much, saying North Korea’s actions so far do not warrant sending more US troops to the region.

“I don’t think that anybody in the [Obama] administration thinks there is a crisis,” Mr. Gates told reporters aboard his military jet early Friday morning, still Thursday night in Washington.

Speak softly and carry a big teleprompter

After barely 100 days in office, it now appears Obama agrees: Since taking office, he has dropped virtually every position that distinguished him from Clinton.

• It has been nine months since former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) put his megaphone down, stopped talking about the “moral shame” of 37 million Americans who live in poverty every day, and started addressing his own “moral shame.”

• Most of America had forgotten about all of this. Only people who are close to this story like former staffers, donors and supporters, politicos and pundits in Washington have followed it. But Elizabeth has a new book, “Resilience,” she is going on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on Thursday, and the story is turning up all over the news like a bad penny.

• Why do this? That’s the question. Why put four children through the scandal and spotlight all over again? Why pour salt on the wound for those who gave up their lives to work on the cause? Why play with fire when so many feel that what Elizabeth and John did — launch a campaign for the presidency in which they asked people to raise millions of dollars, knowing it never had a chance at succeeding — was fraud?

• No one. No national Democratic leader has decided to make ending poverty for those who work in this country the cause of their lives. No leading and respected Republican has stepped forward to attend to the “Lord’s work here on earth.” And those whose knee-jerk reaction is to laugh at that idea should read the late Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp’s inspiring chapter in John’s book, “Ending Poverty in America,” about encouraging entrepreneurial efforts in the forgotten and neglected areas of this country.

• Please, will someone pick up that megaphone? It’s been nine months, and that’s too long to focus on the sorrows of a family when we could be easing the struggles of millions.

Thwarting Iran’s nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Israeli TV reports said Monday that Emanuel made the comments in a closed-door meeting the previous day with 300 major AIPAC donors.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem’s commitment to the peace process.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post Sunday, former US House speaker Newt Gingrich blasted the Obama administration for setting itself on a collision course with Israel and endangering the Jewish state. He called US President Barack Obama’s program of engagement on Iran a “fantasy,” and his Middle East policies “very dangerous for Israel.” He summed up Obama’s approach as “the clearest adoption of weakness since Jimmy Carter.”