memeorandum: MERCS....Max Boot makes some sensible comments about Blackwater … (Kevin Drum/Washington Monthly)

5:35 PM ET, October 3, 2007

Top Items:

Dems vow fight to beat health bill veto — WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation expanding a children's health insurance program by $35 billion over five years. — Bush exercised the veto at 10 a.m. ET before leaving the White House for a trip to Lancaster …

Discussion: The Texas Blue, Reuters, Power Line, Taylor Marsh, Comments from Left Field, All Spin Zone, NewsBusters.org, The Gate, Burnt Orange Report, The Democratic Daily, Three Wise Men, McBlogger, The Politico, CQ.com and Wake up America

Jennifer Loven / Associated Press:

Bush vetoes child health insurance plan — WASHINGTON - President Bush, in a sharp confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance. — It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, MyDD, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Pam's House Blend, The Opinionator, The Gun Toting Liberal™, the albany project, Daily Kos, The Democratic Daily, Left in the West, The Carpetbagger Report, Middle Earth Journal, Truthdig and Macsmind

John Stossel / Real Clear Politics:

Control Your Own Health Care — Candidates for president have plans to get more people health insurance. Some would compel us to buy it; others would use the tax code to encourage that. Regardless, insurance is the magic that will solve our health-care problems.

Discussion: QandO, Liberal Values, The Glittering Eye, Blue Crab Boulevard and PrairiePundit

Jonathan E. Kaplan / The Hill:

SCHIP slips as Dems trip over message — Democratic leaders on Tuesday moved quickly to shift public attention to President Bush's expected veto of a children's health insurance program from a surtax to pay for the war in Iraq. — Democrats had been reveling in their good fortune …

Discussion: The Swamp, Captain's Quarters and Right Voices

David Stout / New York Times:
Bush Vetoes Children's Health Bill

Discussion: Time, Feministe, TalkLeft, Greg Mankiw's Blog, Daily Kos and Lawyers, Guns and Money

Shaun Mullen / The Moderate Voice:
S-CHIP Bill Vetoed Behind Closed Doors

Discussion: Firedoglake, AFL-CIO Weblog, The Van Der Galiën Gazette and BlueOregon

McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Bush veto strategy threatens Republicans

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report and Brendan Nyhan

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy / The Huffington Post:
My Challenge to the President

Discussion: The Sundries Shack and Democratic Strategist

Reid Wilson / RealClearPolitics:

Exclusive: Paul Tops $5 Mil For Quarter — Texas Congressman Ron Paul, an anti-war libertarian making his second run at the White House, will report having raised $5.08 million in the third quarter. The number, which rivals those of John McCain and Bill Richardson, was boosted thanks …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, The Politico, Hot Air and Outside The Beltway

The Atlantic Online:

Ron Paul Raises Five Times As Much As Huckabee — Oh me of little faith. Ron Paul cannot be dismissed as a gadfly; the chance for him to outperform expectations rises exponentially with additional million dollars he raises. 5.08m is real money. There must be, within the Republican Party, a vein of anti-war libertarian sentiment.

Discussion: The Van Der Galiën Gazette, race42008.com and eyeon08.com

David Weigel / Reason Magazine:

Ron Paul: Five Million Dollar Man — Ron Paul's campaign confirms that it collected $5,080,000 in the third quarter of fundraising. That's more than double the campaign's second quarter haul of $2.4 million; it's also as much as "comeback" candidate John McCain has reportedly raised.

Discussion: blog.ronpaul2008.com, All Spin Zone, National Review and RealClearPolitics

Chris Cillizza / The Fix:

Huckabee's Money — UPDATE, 2:15 pm: Huckabee's numbers seem even less impressive given that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) — far more of a longshot than the former Arkansas Governor — raised more than $5 million over the last three months. — ORIGINAL POST — One of the biggest questions …

Discussion: The Caucus

Eric Pianin / The Fix:

Sen. Pete Domenici Expected to Retire — Veteran Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is expected to announce tomorrow that he will retire from the Senate in 2008, according to several informed sources, a decision that further complicates an already difficult playing field for Republicans next November.

Discussion: MyDD, Shakespeare's Sister, RealClearPolitics, Daily Kos, AMERICAblog and Brave New Films blog

Washington Post:

Clinton Widens Lead in Poll — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has consolidated her place as the front-runner in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, outpacing her main rivals in fundraising in the most recent quarter and widening her lead in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Sam Youngman / The Hill:
Edwards says Obama using stolen ideas

Discussion: The Politico, New York Times, Des Moines Register, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Hot Air, Taylor Marsh, The Carpetbagger Report, Outside The Beltway, CNN Political Ticker, The Swamp and The Caucus

Satyam / Think Progress:

White House Retaliates Against UK For Withdrawal: 'British Forces Have Performed Poorly' In Iraq — This week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that he would reduce British presence in Iraq from 5,500 troops to 4,500 by Christmas. The Guardian reports today that Brown will cut …

Discussion: The Independent, Guardian, Telegraph, Melanie Phillips's Diary, Dependable Renegade, Oliver Willis and Hullabaloo

Patrick Ruffini:

Kos Traffic Numbers Inflated by 60% — Yesterday, I had the good "fortune" of being frontpaged on Daily Kos. The post sat atop the site for two hours. According to Google Analytics, the link produced 1,164 visitors yesterday. — For the traffic behemoth Kos is portrayed as, that seems low …

Discussion: techPresident, Yourish.com, Riehl World View, Hot Air, GINA COBB, Outside The Beltway, Clayton Cramer's BLOG, Personal Democracy Forum and Instapundit.com

Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:

MERCS....Max Boot makes some sensible comments about Blackwater and other private contractors in Iraq: … At this point, we really have only two options. First, we could try to dramatically reduce our reliance on military contractors. This would require massive restructuring of our command …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Comments from Left Field and Majikthise

James Gordon Meek / NY Daily News: Blackwater to guard FBI team probing it

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:
Sinking in a Swamp Full of Blackwater

Discussion: Commentary and Alternate Brain

Andrew Sullivan / The Atlantic Online:

A Conservative Approach — I'm always bashing the Cornerites for not being conservative, so it behooves me to point out when the kind of conservatism I admire reveals itself. Jonah Goldberg is not what most would call a drug-legalizer (with the possible exception of pot).

Discussion: The Moderate Voice

Jonah Goldberg / The Corner: The Drug War, And Other Problems

Fred File:

Fred Thompson on Harry Reid's attacks on Rush Limbaugh — Congressional Democrats are trying to divert attention from insulting our military leader in Iraq and pandering to the loony left by attacking Rush Limbaugh. He is one of the strongest supporters of our troops, yet Democrats claim he is not being strong enough.

Discussion: The Swamp, National Review Online, Redstate, RushLimbaugh.com Home, JustOneMinute, Wake up America and NewsBusters.org

Darin Murphy / The Huffington Post:

Weak Has a Face, and It's Pelosi's — If there was any doubt before, which there wasn't, it's gone now. Watching Nancy Pelosi on The View yesterday morning provided the final proof that the backbone of the House is only as strong as its speaker. Her body language said it all.

Ben Nuckols / Associated Press:

Blind people: Hybrid cars pose hazard — BALTIMORE - Gas-electric hybrid vehicles, the status symbol for the environmentally conscientious, are coming under attack from a constituency that doesn't drive: the blind. — Because hybrids make virtually no noise at slower speeds when they run solely …

Discussion: The Van Der Galiën Gazette