Lightning Round: When Stereotypes About Washington D.C. Politicians Become Reality.

• Even though the public option is already a fairly big compromise on what should be a much more liberal health-care reform bill, that doesn't mean the "strong" version of it will pass in the House, much less the Senate, where killing it isn't so much a function of a coherent objection to the provision, but rather seems to be based on petty revenge or ego-stroking.
• According to The Hill, some House Republicans are frustrated that the leadership has yet to introduce a health-care reform bill as an alternative to the Democrats' proposals, even citing division in the caucus over whether the GOP should be involved in health-care reform legislation in the first place. Perhaps one reason for the delay is that House Republicans seem more interested in spending their time introducing legislation that writes the 9/12 march on Washington into the annals of American history.
• It's easy to forget that amongst all the daily drama of health-care reform legislation the Senate has begun hearings on the small matter of getting a cap-and-trade bill to the floor. And unlike health-care, which affects people's lives in a direct fashion, climate change is more abstract, but at least one recent poll shows public support for cap-and-trade. The trouble, as always, are the institutional hurdles, and having an opposition party unanimously uninterested in the problem at hand.
• Along with the conservative movement's need to portray local elections of matters of great national import, there's also their tendency to portray local elections as a "referendum" on politicians they don't like, in this case President Obama. It turns out, though, that the people of Virginia, whatever they think about Creigh Deeds, aren't thinking about their election in terms of the political fortunes of the president.
• Remainders: Arlen Specter is a man of principle; stories debunking the global cooling myth belong in the politics section of newspapers; a prime example of how awful Beltway journalism can be; all serious news organizations produce incomprehensible indices of presidential approval; and I fear I will never understand the political appeal of Fred Thompson.

--Mori Dinauer