memeorandum: Obama, Denied Full Victory on 2 Issues, Takes Validation (Peter Baker/New York Times)

11:10 AM ET, December 20, 2009

Top Items:

Why the Senate Should Vote Yes on Health Care — IF I were still a United States senator, I would not only vote yes on the current health care reform bill, I would do so with the sure knowledge that I was casting one of the most historic votes of my 36 years in the Senate.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Hill, The New Republic, AMERICAblog News, Prescriptions, The Page and Talking Points Memo

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
CBO: Senate health bill costs $871 billion

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post, Ezra Klein and Prairie Weather

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Senate healthcare bill steepens payroll tax for high-earners in 2013

Discussion: Fausta's Blog and Weekly Standard

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
National Organization for Women opposes Senate health bill

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, AmSpecBlog, Swampland, The Corner on National …, Weekly Standard, Wonk Room, MyDD and Riehl World View

John McCormack / Weekly Standard:

Can Stupak Kill Obamacare in the House? — Are there enough votes in the House to pass a health care bill very close to the one the Senate is preparing to pass? Bart Stupak says the Senate bill's abortion language is “unacceptable” and has pledged to lead a group of pro-life Democrats …

Ben Smith / The Politico:
Stupak aims to sink ‘unacceptable’ abortion compromise

Discussion: The Hill, Wake up America, The Mahablog, Jules Crittenden, Weekly Standard, Tammy Bruce, The Huffington Post, Majikthise, Daily Kos, TPMDC, FiveThirtyEight, TalkLeft, The Gaggle, Hot Air, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Political Carnival and The Plum Line

ABCNEWS: President Obama Hails Senate Health Care Bill as Ben Nelson Jumps on Board

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog: Stupak and McConnell

Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
One Premium, Two Checks: How Abortion Will Be Paid For Under The Nelson Compromise

Discussion: The Politico, The Nation, The Hill, FiveThirtyEight, Weekly Standard, Washington Monthly and Daily Kos

CNN:

Palin continues to blast climate change believers — (CNN)- In a late night posting on her Twitter feed, Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continued to blast climate change believers Friday, calling the talks in Copenhagen, Denmark a representation of man's “arrogance,” for believing people have an impact on nature.

Discussion: Little Green Footballs

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
MARVEL AT THE ‘ARROGANCE’ AND ‘NAIVETE’.... CNN is telling …

Discussion: Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! and Media Matters Action Network

Kevin Bogardus / The Hill:

Axelrod promises to push for drug re-importation after healthcare reform — A senior White House adviser said Sunday that the Obama administration will push forward on safe re-importation of pharmaceutical drugs after the healthcare reform bill is finished.

Nicole Belle / Crooks and Liars:

Sunday Morning Bobblehead Thread … This has been a really dispiriting time for many of us...and the likening of politicians and the bobbleheads to game show hosts is an apt one. Trying to sell us on merchandise by wildly over-inflating its value, even though in reality, it's not something we really wanted in the first place.

New York Times:

Show Us the E-Mail — WE end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers' 80 percent ownership stake in that company. The government recently permitted several banks to break free …

Discussion: naked capitalism, RADAMISTO, The Big Picture and Calculated Risk

William Kristol / Weekly Standard:

Kristol: Ten Words To Remember — There are lots of embarrassing little things to mock in the Senate bill (e.g., the special provision for Nebraska), and lots of bad provisions to attack (the tax hikes and federal funding for abortion, to mention two). But Republicans shouldn't lose sight …

Discussion: Pundit & Pundette

Frank Rich / New York Times:

Tiger Woods, Person of the Year — AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon. The Fed chairman was just as big a schnook as every …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Prairie Weather

Peter Baker / New York Times:

Obama, Denied Full Victory on 2 Issues, Takes Validation — WASHINGTON — President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, likes to say that the only thing that is not negotiable is success. The last 48 hours offered a case study in how the president applies that maxim to governing.

Discussion: Prairie Weather

William Kristol / Weekly Standard:

A Pyrrhic Victory? — Special editorial, December 19, 2009. — When a fellow conservative tried to cheer me up this morning by assuring me that the Senate Democrats' victory on health care was going to be a Pyrrhic one, I realized I didn't remember much about Pyrrhus. — I went of course to Wikipedia.

Discussion: Riehl World View, Pajamas Media, NO QUARTER, The Other McCain and The Corner on National …

William A. Jacobson / Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion:

This Is Why I Named This Blog “Legal Insurrection” — I was in the car most of the day, so I haven't had a chance to post on the Ben Nelson sellout. So here are some initial thoughts: — Yes, it is that bad. The Democrats are about to put in place the legislative …

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Matthew Yglesias, The Other McCain, Jules Crittenden, Hit & Run and The Politico

BBC:

Top Iranian dissident cleric Montazeri dies — One of Iran's most prominent dissident clerics, Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri, has died aged 87. — Hoseyn Ali Montazeri was a moving spirit in the 1979 revolution which created Iran's Islamic state, and was at one stage set to become its leader.