LIGHTNING ROUND: THE LIMITS OF CONTRARIANISM.

• Even as the Senate Finance Committee is positive about the CBO's score of their health care reform bill and the House Energy and Commerce Committee was able to keep the public option in exchange for a September vote, it's clear that Americans are all over the map on what reform means to them. An interesting Gallup poll finds great discrepancy between how the public sees reform affecting the country and how it affects themselves. Furthermore, a forthcoming New York Times/CBS News poll confirms that while Americans prioritize deficit reduction, they don't want to pay more taxes or reduce government spending.
• This exchange between Jeff Sessions and Justice and Defense Department counsels over reading Miranda rights to to terror suspects in the field is very surreal. Despite assurances that "Miranda warnings have been given in less than one percent of cases" and only by the FBI "in a very few cases in order not to foreclose prosecutions," Sessions seems to think this is some sort of widespread practice that will "diminish intelligence" because then suspects will know when they should keep their mouths shut. I was under the impression that this was the justification for "enhanced interrogation," so what's the problem?
• I think this Gregory Levey opinion piece that proposes -- but not really! -- that Barack Obama dispatch George W. Bush as his Mideast envoy to set up a little good-cop, bad-cop routine, doesn't seem to understand the dynamic of that particular mind game. In the good-cop, bad-cop routine, both actors are equally powerful but of radically different temperament and ethics. But only Obama is president, so Bush could never be "the decider" in any real sense, and hence his "bad-cop" routine would be a transparent charade. But hey, I've heard that contrarianism is good for a journalist's career...
• Ben Smith is "puzzled" as to why the "health care reform will lead to euthanasia" meme has become so prominent, but does console himself with the fact that the current media environment is "less hospitable" to spreading misinformation because of all the independent fact-checking. Well, maybe. But wasn't it just yesterday that Smith's own paper, Politico, ran a piece with the headline, "Will proposal promote euthanasia?" Yeah, real puzzling.
• I don't have anything to significant to add to this, but this collection of RSS feeds for political science (mostly IR) journals is a fantastic resource. For all the brouhaha over blogging's relationship to journalism, the use of the technology to disseminate academic materials is one of the great untold story of this still-unfolding "information revolution."
• Remainders: Another Senate retirement is announced; the White House issues another veto threat; the Post Office is in dire straits; and can Norm Coleman still have a political future?
  

--Mori Dinauer