I saw the image below at Red State. It does a great job of illustrating what is going on in Washington right now and why the GOP needs to take over at least one house of Congress. If there is an administration that needs Congressional oversight, this is the one.

I haven’t watched the President’s interview with FNC’s Bret Baier so I’m not going to offer any thoughts on the interview…yet.  That said, this post is for those who missed it.  Myself included. I’ve embeded the first part, which is on health care, because it’s probably the more important of the two segments right now.

Part 1 – Health Care Reform

Watch part two, which covers foreign policy, here.

This document (SEIU Battleground Poll) is a memo detailing Democrats and Independents Concerns Regarding Congress in Colorado, New Hampshire and Nevada. The Benenson Strategy Group conducted a poll on behalf of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to figure out what Democrats need to do to stay in power through the 2010 election.  After reading through the document, I came up with 3 trends repeated in their answers.

1. Democrats and Independents don’t like deal cutting.
2. Democrats and Independents haven’t seen a change since the Democrats took power.
3. Democrats and Independents don’t like to see narrow interests taking precedent of the greater good.

So Democrats and Independents don’t like deal cutting? According to the poll takers “one key element to [winning in November] will be demonstrating that individual Democrats, unlike Republicans, are placing what’s best for the country ahead of narrow individual interests.”  Excuse me? Allow me to use health care to demonstrate who is putting narrow individual interests first with a little help from a list circulated by Congressman John Shadegg (R) AZ.

Current special deals in the health care bill:

(Read more after the leap)

Obama’s welcome to hold fundraisers for Baron, of course, so long as they’re far from southern Indiana.

But as for coming here to campaign? Not so much.

I guess we can’t look forward to Obama coming to Bloomington for some campaign rally later this year.

It’s just as well. There’s a lot to suggest (in recent elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia) that such campaign rallies don’t help the Democratic candidate any.

Politico:

Moderate House Democrats facing potentially difficult re-elections this fall have a message for President Barack Obama: Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Interviews with nearly a dozen congressional Democrats on the ballot this year reveal a decided lack of enthusiasm for having Obama come to their districts to campaign for them—the most basic gauge of a president’s popularity.

Some cite the president’s surely busy schedule. Others point to a practice of not bringing in national politicians to appear on their behalf. While these members aren’t necessarily attempting to distance themselves from the administration, there is nevertheless a noticeable reluctance to embrace him by a certain class of incumbent now that the president’s approval rating has fallen to a new low in the latest Gallup survey, 46 percent.

Asked directly whether he would invite the president, [North Dakota Congressman Earl] Pomeroy replied: “If the president of the United States wants to come to North Dakota, he’s always invited.”

Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.) offered the same generic, if unenthusiastic, welcome of Obama to southern Indiana.

“If he wants to come to my district, he’s welcome to come,” said Hill, who could face off against former GOP Rep. Mike Sodrel. “I don’t plan on asking him to come because I know he’s a busy guy.”

Hill did, though, point out that he had already had a fundraiser with Obama.

But when reminded it was in Indianapolis and not his district, he only said, “Uh huh.”

There’s an eager invitation if I’ve ever seen one.

Just so you heard that correctly, Dan Rather, the formerly distinguished CBS Evening News anchorman who got busted running a bogus hit story on President George W. Bush, was just recorded saying…

“Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate” this is what’s been used against him, “but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”

“Couldn’t sell watermelons“? Was Rather being intentionally racist? Probably not, but that’s never stopped the raging left from seeking to devour those who speak before they think….that is unless they’re liberals.

That said, I’ll give them the benefit if the doubt and give them a few days to release their scurilous rage against those who would speak ill of “The Chosen One”, intentionally racist or not.  But more than likely, the fiery depths of Hades are more likely to freeze over than the left get upset.

(H/T – Newsbusters)

Congressman Pence was on fire today in his response to the President’s health care speech today.  This is the most worked up I’ve seen Pence.  He assails the president’s call for health care to be rammed through in the next two weeks and reiterates what poll after poll after poll and the election of Scott Brown have said.  And that is American’s don’t want a government run health care system.  But the health care line of the day comes from House GOP Leader, John Boehner said “You can’t add some Republican sprinkles on top of a 2,700 page bill and claim it’s bi-partisan”.

Obama Caught Lip-Syncing Speech

Too funny!

(H/T – Red State via Hot Air)

I’ve made no secret of my frustration with the big-government policies of the Republican Party under George W. Bush. Congressional candidate Todd Young has taken to pointing out this irresponsibility, telling the Herald-Times that the “Republican Congress was the most fiscally irresponsible Congress in American history – until this present Congress.” While it’s good to see a Republican not be shackled by partisanship and willing to criticize his own party for bad policy, it is important to add the perspective that was missing in Young’s remarks about the Republican Congress.

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Here is the summary of the most important and productive points we need to take away from yesterday’s Health Scare Care Summit:

Wasn’t Obama supposed to supply the first case or two for today’s Beer Health Summit?  I don’t know about you, but I kept this thing on for most of the day while at work.  Was anything accomplished by anyone?  No.  Frankly, today’s summit was so boring the the cable networks were cutting away to their regular programming:

…and television networks eager to cover it at first lost interest as time went on.

By 2:30 p.m., at the opening of the session’s second half, Fox News Channel had shifted to its studio show (occasionally showing a mute picture of the summit on a portion of its screen) and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was reporting on poll results. Both covered it fitfully in the afternoon. MSNBC moved on to the Finland-Sweden ice hockey game from the Olympics. PBS aired “Between the Lions.”

Online streaming was the best option for people who wanted to watch the session uninterrupted.

Exactly. I ended up watching/listening most of the summit via my good friend, c-span.org.

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You’ve got to admire the brazen chutzpah of Evan Bayh. Even as he whines about the partisanship of Congress in announcing his retirement from the Senate, Bayh timed his departure to be the ultimate partisan act.

By leaving when he did, Bayh completely deprived hundreds of thousands of Hoosier Democrats of the chance to have a say in who will replace him. That decision will now be made by 32 of Bayh’s closest cronies on the Indiana Democratic Party’s State Committee.

Fred Barnes puts it well:

Did Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, who insists he favors more bipartisanship in Washington, schedule the announcement of his retirement to give his party a distinctly partisan advantage in picking a candidate to run for his seat? It sure looks like he did exactly that.

Indeed, Democratic strategists and party officials in Indiana were full of praise for Bayh for delivering his announcement less than 24 hours before the filing deadline for candidates. This means party leaders–32 of them–will pick a candidate (by June 30), and a primary will be averted.

Bayh almost certainly knew exactly what he was doing. He is the most important Democrat in Indiana and one of his close associates, state party chairman Dan Parker, will lead the panel that chooses the Democratic candidate for Senate.

And Bayh is very familiar with the state’s election law. His first elected office was Indiana secretary of state, the official who’s in charge of elections.

Politico, the Washington-based political newspaper, quoted Indiana Democrats as saying the timing of Bayh’s announcement was beneficial to their party. “I’m sure Sen. Bayh was well aware of the need for the party to have as much input as possible,” Marion County Democratic chairman Edward Treacy told Politico. “He knew what he was doing.”

The ABC News affiliate in Indianapolis, WRTV, said “Democratic sources” told the station tell that “Sen. Bayh waited ‘til the last minute to prevent other Democrats from entering the race and that also means keeping people out who might not have really had a chance at winning the general election.”

Think about that last line again:

“Democratic sources” told the station tell that “Sen. Bayh waited ‘til the last minute to prevent other Democrats from entering the race and that also means keeping people out who might not have really had a chance at winning the general election.”

Translation: Democratic sources said Evan Bayh wanted until the last minute to prevent Hoosier Democratic primary voters from electing someone (generally liberal and left of the Hoosier mainstream) like themselves.

(Read more after the leap)