MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Iran: "Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday that it will start producing higher-grade enriched uranium, prompting the United States and France to call for tougher U.N. sanctions against the country."

* Tehran fails to impress: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Saturday played down assertions by Iran that it is ready to reach a deal on its nuclear program, saying Tehran's overall response to overtures from the Obama administration has been 'quite disappointing.'"

* Anthem Blue Cross in California is jacking up its health care premiums by as much as 39% next month. The Obama administration wants "a detailed justification for these rate increases to the public."

* Ukraine: "The opposition leader Viktor F. Yanukovich appeared on Monday to have won a narrow victory in Ukraine's presidential election, according to nearly complete results, giving him an unlikely comeback from his humiliating defeat in the 2004 Orange Revolution, when he was shunned as a bumbling Kremlin sidekick."

* Why the European debt crisis matters to the United States.

* After the explosion at the Kleen Energy Systems: "All workers at a Connecticut power plant that exploded have been accounted for, leaving the death toll at five and the number of injured at 12, the mayor of Middletown said on Monday."

* Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was asked if the U.S. is at risk of losing its triple-A bond rating. "Absolutely not," he replied. "And that will never happen to this country. When people were most worried about the stability of the world, they still found safety in the Treasuries and the dollar. That is a very, very important sign of basic confidence in our capacity as a country to work together to fix these problems."

* Matt Yglesias explains why President Obama is having far more success than the conventional wisdom suggests.

* Getting a sense of what and whether college students actually learned after four years.

* Retired Col. David Hunt, a Fox News military analyst, is generally pretty conservative. But he supports the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and criticized John McCain on the air over the issue.

* Fact checking the Sunday shows.

* No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.

* Remember that awful Reuters report about the Obama budget and "backdoor" taxes that don't exist in reality? The reporter who wrote it is no longer at Reuters.

* I tend to think Sarah Palin writing her beliefs on her palm is a fun little side story, but it never occurred to me the defense that Fox News would come up with. Gretchen Carlson "suggested that it was a brilliantly clever plot to draw attention to Obama's use of a teleprompter." Oh my.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

COLLINS STILL CAN'T ADMIT HER MISTAKE.... For reasons that are still unclear, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has decided to take a leadership role in going after the Obama administration's handling of the attempted Abdulmutallab attack. So far, this hasn't gone especially well.

Collins said officials only interrogated Abdulmutallab for 50 minutes. That was wrong. She said Abdulmutallab "stopped talking" after having been told of his rights. That was wrong. Collins suggested Abdulmutallab only began cooperating "in the context of plea negotiations." That was wrong. She said there "was no consultation with intelligence officials" about the questioning. And that was wrong .

More recently, Collins has emphasized her outrage over the Obama administration's decision to make Abdulmutallab aware of his rights (the same step taken by the Bush/Cheney administration in a nearly identical terrorist plot in 2001). Except, she, too, was briefed on the arrest by a top Homeland Security official, and raised no concerns about the legal process.

This afternoon, a Collins spokesperson, without a hint of irony, accused the Obama administration of trying to cover its "mistake."

It is offensive, to Senator Collins and the American people, that the Obama Administration is more concerned with political spin to cover a mistake than with taking the actions urgently needed to improve our nation's security. Clearly, the Administration is trying to divert attention from the fact that it interrogated a foreign terrorist for less than one hour before the Justice Department unilaterally decided to Mirandize him and he stopped talking.

Senator Collins calls on the Obama Administration to immediately change its policies and ensure consultation with top intelligence and security officials before treating the capture of the next foreign terrorist as only a civilian law enforcement matter. She will continue to press for her bipartisan legislation that mandates this consultation.

When we cut through the nonsense and cheap talking points, what we're left with is Collins, after making a series of demonstrably false claims, complaining that the Justice Department didn't coordinate further with other agencies on how best to deal with Abdulmutallab. That's it. That's all that's left from the original argument.

But, again, this is foolish. For one thing, the Obama administration has applied the exact same procedures as Bush/Cheney, and Collins never expressed this outrage before. For another, as Attorney General Eric Holder explained last week, "No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued."

What we're left with, then, is Susan Collins making a mistake by falsely criticizing the administration, and then digging deeper with a series of even more absurd false criticisms.

She should have quit while she was behind. As this story has dragged on, Collins has sounded less like a reasonable, moderate, influential senator and more like a rookie House member trying to impress Fox News producers. As Josh Marshall noted recently, Collins' criticisms have turned her into something of "an embarrassment."

JOHN MURTHA (1932-2010).... A statement released this afternoon:

Congressman John P. Murtha (PA-12) passed away peacefully this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. At his bedside was his family.

Murtha, 77, was Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in February of 1974, Murtha dedicated his life to serving his country both in the military and in the halls of Congress. A former Marine, he became the first Vietnam War combat Veteran elected to the U.S. Congress.

This past Saturday, February 6, 2010, Murtha became Pennsylvania's longest serving Member of Congress.

Murtha's career -- both as a war hero and as an accomplished lawmaker -- has been rather extraordinary, but when I think of him, I immediately turn to the moment in 2005 when Murtha decided he'd made a mistake in supporting the war in Iraq and began calling for an end to the conflict. It made him a hero to many the Bush administration's critics, but just as important, Murtha's stand represented something of a turning point -- if someone of his reputation, stature, and experience, especially on defense issues, came to believe the war was a mistake, it made it easier for others to reach the same conclusion.

For his trouble, Republicans literally accused Murtha -- a decorated combat veteran -- of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." Murtha nevertheless refused to back down. It was a defining characteristic of his adult life.

As for what happens next to his congressional seat, there will apparently be a special election, and given recent trends, it appears Pennsylvania's 12th will be a pick-up opportunity for Republicans, which in turn may make approving legislation like health care reform that much more difficult. [Update: Chris Cillizza reports: "According to state law, the governor has ten days once the vacancy is officially declared to decide on the date of a special election, which can come no sooner than 60 days following that proclamation. That likely means the special election will be held on May 18, which is the date already set for federal primaries around the state."]

But those additional angles will be fleshed out in time. For today, it's enough to say that Congress has lost one of its bravest leaders, and his presence on the Hill will be missed.

ALL CUTS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.... Taken at face value, the debate over "cuts to Medicare" can be a little confusing.

For many years, Republicans sought steep cuts in Medicare, which Democrats fought vehemently against. Last year, Dems crafted a health care reform plan that was financed in part by savings in the Medicare program, prompting counter-intuitive cries from the GOP: "They're trying to cut Medicare!" Last week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, unveiled a GOP budget blueprint that slashes Medicare to the extent that the program as we know it would practically be eliminated.

But when the parties talk about taking money out of Medicare, they have very different ideas in mind. Jonathan Cohn had a very helpful explanation on this today.

For starters, the Democrats' reductions don't appear to be as large as what's envisioned in the [Republican "Roadmap" strategy]. Also, under the Democratic plan, most seniors would still be getting their coverage directly from the government, which has lower overhead than private sector insurers. So every dollar the Democrats spend on seniors would actually go a little further.

No less important, the Democratic plans wouldn't simply slash spending and let the market sort itself out. Instead, the Medicare cuts are part of a broader package of reforms designed to change the way Medicare pays for services. These reforms are designed to reward efficiency (by, for example, paying more to doctors that join integrated group practices) while penalizing inefficiency (by, for example, paying less to hospitals with high rates of infection or, eventually, paying less money for drugs that don't work that well). They are also designed, quite frankly, to push down the prices that providers charge.

This is a critical difference. If you simply reduce the money flowing into Medicare, relying only on the wits of beneficiaries to figure out how best to spend what's left, seniors are bound to end up with less care. That's the Republican method. But if you also introduce system-wide changes that reward more efficient care and force down provider prices, the dollars in the program really might go farther -- so that spending less doesn't always mean getting less. That's the Democratic approach.

A GOP lawmaker told Roll Call the other day, "There's a lot of worry that we beat the Democrats up on health care for cutting Medicare and now we're going to turn around and do it."

That's true, but it's incomplete -- the Dems' cuts are defensible and intended to help the system and seniors. The Republicans' cuts? Not so much.

GOP OBSTRUCTIONISM MAY BLOCK JOBS BILL.... The Senate Democratic leadership hoped to have a vote on a new jobs bill as early as today, but a regional blizzard closed the government and delayed the legislative process.

But even as the snow begins to melt, it's unclear if Republican obstructionism will thaw enough to even allow the Senate to vote on the proposal. It's tempting to think that even the GOP, as far gone as it is, would have to be crazy to block a jobs bill when unemployment is nearly 10%. Given that Dems have included a variety of tax cuts in their plan, it seems like even reflexively right-wing lawmakers would at least allow a vote on the nation's most important issue.

But, at this point, the threat of Republicans blocking a vote on a jobs bill remains very real. Brian Beutler added:

...Democrats still don't have enough votes to overcome a filibuster, and unless they can win over at least one Republican, they may adjourn this coming weekend empty-handed.

What's the hang up? Republicans are working with Democrats on one key aspect of the legislation: tax relief for employers who hire new employees. But beyond such a measure, Republicans are balking at supporting a full package.

It seems, then, that we're left with a familiar dynamic -- Republicans will allow a vote on a bill that gives them what they want, but nothing else.

This seems like it should be political suicide, given the public's hopes for an improved jobs landscape, but Senate Republicans hope Americans just won't be knowledgeable enough to know the difference. The public, they assume, won't know that the GOP is blocking a modest jobs bill, and won't know that a 59-vote majority isn't enough to pass legislation.

And they may very well be right. But let's not forget that if Republicans won't even let the Senate consider a modest jobs bill, filled with GOP-friendly tax cuts, in the midst of an employment crisis, how is it that any bill on any issue at any time can reasonably be expected to pass? For that matter, how is it that the Democratic majority can reasonably be expected to work with the discredited minority as if they were serious about addressing the nation's challenges?

REFUSING TO TAKE 'YES' FOR AN ANSWER.... OK, so Republicans want health care reform to be shaped entirely by their ideas. But would they tolerate a plan that includes some of their ideas? Apparently not -- the existing proposal already does that.

Ezra Klein highlights an often-overlooked point this morning, noting that a surprising number of Republican proposals have already been incorporated in the reform plan pending in Congress. The Republicans' "Solutions for America" page lists four planks -- purchasing insurance across state lines, pooling customers together to lower prices, encouraging state innovation, and developing new malpractice systems -- and literally all four are included in Democratic proposals.

On Sunday, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell responded to Barack Obama's summit invitation by demanding Obama scrap the health-care reform bill entirely. This is the context for that demand. What they want isn't a bill that incorporates their ideas. They've already got that. What they want is no bill at all. And that's a hard position for the White House to compromise with.

Now, some of you are probably reading this and thinking, "Then why is the White House going to bother with a bipartisan summit in a couple of weeks? If Republicans refuse to be reasonable, what's the point of reaching out?"

I'm not unsympathetic to the concern. The existing Democratic plan gives Republicans a great deal -- no public option, no Medicare expansion, no "government takeover," a huge reduction in the long-term budget deficit, and a wide variety of GOP ideas that have been incorporated into the plan. Republicans insisted Dems had to move to the middle with a centrist plan, and Democrats did exactly that.

And yet, the GOP refuses to take "yes" for an answer.

So what's there to talk about on Feb. 25? If the summit is really about striking a new compromise, this would seemingly be pointless. But if the summit is about delving into these plans, exploring what is and isn't in the proposal, and making it clear for all to see that Republican ideas have been considered -- and in several instances, embraced -- the gathering has the potential to change public attitudes and score a key public-relations victory.

Indeed, I can imagine a scenario in which the president spells all of this out explicitly -- writing out which provisions are included that make Dems happy, which provisions are included (and excluded) that make Republicans happy, and declaring the whole package a triumph of bipartisan compromise. The GOP will still almost certainly balk, but the result will give Democrats cover and put Republican intransigence on full display.

UNDERSTANDING 'BIPARTISANSHIP'.... As recently as 2006, when Republican policymakers controlled the levers of power, it was the duty of elected officials to stick to their principles and work on the agenda they presented to voters. In 2010, with Democrats controlling the levers of power, it is the duty of elected officials to compromise on their principles, scale back the agenda they presented to voters, and govern in such a way as to make the rejected and discredited minority party happy.

Take health care policy, for example, the signature domestic policy effort of the Democratic Party. For about a year now, Dems have been making concessions and moving its reform plan closer to the middle. Medicare for all was considered, and taken off the table. Expanded Medicare eligibility was considered, and then taken off the table. A public option was considered, and then taken off the table. All the while, conservative Republicans were unwilling to make literally any concessions at all.

As of today, the latest GOP offer to Democrats is pretty straightforward: the "only" health care plan Republicans will consider is the Republican plan.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has been hinting at this, but made the point quite explicitly this morning. Cantor's office told Greg Sargent "there's not much to talk about" with the White House unless Democratic policymakers completely "scrap their government takeover" and agree to embrace the Republican policy in its entirety.

Republicans believe the status quo is unacceptable, but so is any health reform package that spends money we don't have or raises taxes on small businesses and working families in a recession. To that point, House Republicans have offered the only plan , that will lower health care costs, which is what the President said was the goal at the start of this debate.

So, "bipartisanship" is defined as giving Republicans exactly what they want -- period.

Remember, as recently as September, Cantor said he agrees with "80%" of the Democratic reform plan. Now, he's willing to tolerate none of it.

I do hope the David Broders of the world are paying attention, noticing why bipartisanship is impossible with congressional Republicans who are completely out of control.

The incessant talk about "bipartisanship" is itself suspect -- I tend to think a governing majority should be able to give their agenda a shot, whether or not the minority approves -- but even if we put that aside, how, exactly, are responsible officials supposed to work with a rival who demands nothing short of 100% satisfaction, despite being part of a failed minority?

Post Script: By the way, Cantor has never been the sharpest crayon in the box, so it may be unfair to ask him to back up his own rhetoric with substance, but maybe the next time he's on TV, someone can ask him to explain what he thinks a "government takeover" is.

He keeps using that phrase, but I don't think it means what he thinks it means.

MONDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* As expected, Arkansas Rep. John Boozman (R) officially kicked off his Senate campaign over the weekend. Two of his GOP primary opponents, Tom Cox and Buddy Rogers, dropped out.

* The open Senate race in Ohio continues to look competitive. A new Rasmussen poll shows former Bush budget director Rob Portman (R) with four-point leads over his Democratic challengers, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

* Democrats looking for a top-tier gubernatorial candidate in Michigan may be pleased to know Lansing Mayor Virgil Bernero (D) announced his campaign this morning.

* With state Sen. Don Benton (R) throwing his hat in the ring, there are now seven Republicans running to take on Sen. Patty Murray (D- Wash.) in November. The two most credible GOP candidates in the state -- Rep. Dave Reichert and former state senator Dino Rossi -- have not yet decided whether to run.

* The Pennsylvania Democratic Party formally endorsed Sen. Arlen Specter's re-election bid over primary challenger Rep. Joe Sestak over the weekend. Given that Specter is the incumbent, this did not necessarily come as a surprise.

* In New Hampshire, the latest Research 2000 poll shows Kelly Ayotte (R) leading in this year's Senate race, but her primary campaign appears surprisingly competitive.

* Former Sen. Dan Coats (R), hoping to make a comeback by running for his old job again in Indiana, told North Carolina voters not too long ago that their state is a "better place" to live than Indiana. Coats also apparently worked as a lobbyist for a variety of foreign countries, including Yemen.

* And Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu (D) was elected New Orleans' new mayor over the weekend.

SHINING A BRIGHTER LIGHT ON THE SENATE.... Paul Krugman offers readers a brief history lesson.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting "I do not allow!" This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison. [...]

Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation's major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm -- in fact, political dividends -- in making the nation ungovernable.... The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government.

The thrust of this argument will no doubt be familiar to those who follow such matters closely, but columns like these are important in shaping the perceptions of the larger political world. Krugman is, by some measures, the most influential commentator in the country, so his efforts in shining a light on the dangerous dysfunction of the Senate carry weight.

The key is to get folks to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, because even many political reporters think the status quo is somehow routine. It's not.

Some societies can't recognize when they have a problem, while some societies recognize their problems but can't identify solutions. Ours is a society that can recognize problems and craft effective solutions, but can't act -- on health care, on energy, on education, on the judiciary, etc. -- because a discredited Republican Senate minority opposes the ability of the majority to govern.

The more people realize that a functioning government is dependent on either a) reforming the Senate; or b) an even larger Democratic majority, the better.

BRENNAN SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT.... John Brennan, President Obama's senior counterterrorism adviser, offered a rather forceful response to Republican criticism of the Abdulmutallab case, and GOP demands that the attempted terrorist be treated as an enemy combatant.

Brennan said that on Christmas night he had briefed four senior House and Senate Republicans about Abdulmutallab, who was "in FBI custody" and at that point "talking" and "cooperating." He said that at no point did any of the four -- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate Republican minority leader; Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), ranking GOP member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader; and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), ranking minority member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- raise concerns about Abdulmutallab being placed in military custody or being Mirandized.

Brennan said "quite a bit of an outcry after the fact" led him to be "concerned on behalf of the counterterrorism professionals" that politicians are using the issue for partisan purposes, whether they be Democrats or Republicans.

Republicans conceded that the administration alerted GOP officials to developments just hours after the incident, but they raised a new complaint -- just because they knew Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody didn't mean they knew that Abdulmutallab would be treated the way the FBI has already dealt with attempted terrorists.

In other words, Republican leaders are outraged because they weren't entirely sure what happens after someone gets arrested, and assumed without reason that the FBI would handle the Abdulmutallab case differently than every related and similar case in recent memory.

It's an extremely odd argument. Republicans are angry because they're ignorant? In reference to GOP leaders Boehner, McConnell, and others, Spencer Ackerman added, "Apparently these men, who claim leadership on national security, know less about FBI procedure than the average movie-goer. Obviously the FBI Mirandizes suspects in their custody."

LAYING DOWN THE MARKER.... Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, makes note today of what Republicans are doing to the public discourse related to national security.

Recent months have seen the party out of power picking fights over the conduct of our efforts against Al Qaeda, often with total disregard to the facts and frequently blowing issues totally out of proportion, while ignoring the more important challenges we face in defeating terrorists. [...]

It has been hard to escape the conclusion that the goal of these critics is to discredit the President's handling of terrorism for political advantage, whether or not the administration is actually doing a good job. Indeed, they seem to be posturing themselves simply so that if there is a successful terrorist attack on America, they can say "I told you Obama doesn't know how to fight Al Qaeda."

Clarke added that the Republican/Fox News attack dogs don't "bother to learn the facts" and are "wrong morally to attempt to make political gain on the damage inflicted by terrorism." If an attack occurs, "let us hope the American people will reject any attempt to make it a partisan issue. It is not conduct worthy of real patriots."

This is certainly true, and it's also been a political dynamic playing out for over a year.

Just 48 hours after President Obama's inauguration, Marc Thiessen, George W. Bush's former chief speechwriter, argued, "If Obama weakens any of the defenses Bush put in place and terrorists strike our country again, Americans will hold Obama responsible -- and the Democratic Party could find itself unelectable for a generation." Jason Zengerle noted at the time, "You almost get the sense guys like Thiessen are hoping for an attack so that they can blame Obama when it happens."

That was 13 months ago, and it's only gotten worse. In May, after a loathsome speech by Dick Cheney, Jeffrey Toobin explained:

Even worse than Cheney's distortions was the political agenda behind them. The speech was, as politicians say, a marker -- a warning to the new Administration.... Cheney's all but explicit message was that the blame for any new attack against American people or interests would be laid not on the terrorists, or on the worldwide climate of anti-Americanism created by the Bush-Cheney Administration, but on Barack Obama.

For many months after the 9/11 attacks, Democrats refrained from engaging in the blame game with the Bush Administration. Cheney's speech makes it clear that, should terrorists strike again, Republicans may not respond in kind.

This generally goes unsaid, but it's a key aspect of the Republican crusade -- if something horrible happens, we're not supposed to blame the team that left a mess for Obama to clean up, we're supposed to blame Obama himself. If only the president kept torturing people like Cheney wanted, we'd all remain safe indefinitely.

Should tragedy strike, a few too many on the right will want to tear this country apart, and they've been laying the groundwork for quite a while.

SHELBY SHAKEDOWN SHUT OUT?.... Mark Kleiman raises a good question, which I was curious about, too.

I don't watch the Sunday talk shows. But did anyone ask anyone about the Shelby Shakedown?

It was a pretty big political development last week -- there's no recent precedent for a senator placing a hold on 70 presidential nominees, holding them hostage until the senator is paid off in pork. The White House raised a fuss about Sen. Richard Shelby's (R-Ala.) scheme, and the Senate Majority Leader raised a fuss, so maybe the Sunday shows would devote at least some time to the subject?

I checked the transcripts, and found:

* NBC's "Meet the Press" ignored the story.

* CBS's "Face the Nation" ignored the story.

* ABC's "This Week" ignored the story.*

* "Fox News Sunday" ignored the story.

CNN's "State of the Union," to its credit, was the only Sunday show to mention the story at all, though host Candy Crowley described the controversy as "a little arcane." The discussion lasted about a minute, and concluded with CNN's senior congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, telling viewers:

"I think, politically, the reason why you heard Robert Gibbs go crazy at -- at the White House on Friday, because this is like political manna from heaven for -- for them, you know, of course they say they would rather have their nominees, but because the point that they have been trying to make, the point that the president has been trying to make since Scott Brown was elected is, wait a minute, Washington is frozen because all of a sudden we need 60 votes to do anything in the Senate, you know, never mind the fact that Democrats did the exact same thing when -- when Republicans were in the White House."

Bash's claim is false, and she should know better. Democrats didn't do "the exact same thing" -- not only did Dems filibuster far less often than Republicans, but at no time during the Bush/Cheney era did a Democratic senator put a blanket hold on all administration nominees, holding them hostage until the senator was paid off in earmarks. The media's reflexive "both sides do it" is a real problem for American journalism, and does a disservice to the electorate.

Nevertheless, to answer Mark's question, there are five Sunday public affairs shows, and three blew off the controversy altogether. One mentioned it, but suggested to viewers that the story isn't especially important.

Your "liberal media" at work.

Update: I was mistaken about one of the four. I thought I had checked the full "This Week" transcript, but the one I referenced was not the entire episode. Host Jake Tapper did bring up the controversy, and to his credit, covered the story better than the four hosts of the Sunday shows.

Here's the full transcript of the program. Three of the five blew off the story, not four. My apologies.

SCOTT LEE COHEN, WE HARDLY KNEW YE.... Illinois has had its share of political troubles, but the story of millionaire pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen was just bizarre, even for the Land of Lincoln.

Cohen inexplicably won the state's Democratic primary for lieutenant governor recently, despite lacking any official party support. Cohen, a political neophyte, succeeded by spending $2 million of his own money on the primary, winning the six-way primary with 26% of the vote.

Yesterday, after intense pressure from a wide variety of officials, Cohen quit.

A tearful Scott Lee Cohen, the pawnbroker who won the Democratic lieutenant governor nomination, only to have his scandalized past surface and threaten the ticket, said Sunday he would step aside, giving Democratic Party leaders a chance to pick his replacement.

"For the good of the people of the state of Illinois and the Democratic Party, I will resign," Cohen said.

That was undoubtedly the correct call.

If you're just joining us, Cohen's troubles began the day after his primary victory, when voters learned that Cohen was arrested in 2005 for holding a knife to his girlfriend's neck, and his girlfriend at the time also happened to be a prostitute.

As if that weren't quite enough, we also learned that Cohen illegally abused anabolic steroids, allegedly abused his ex-wife, was allegedly behind in child support payments, and has had "troubles" when it comes to paying his federal taxes.

It wasn't long, then, before, practically every Democrat in Illinois -- including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Gov. Pat Quinn -- was publicly calling on Cohen to withdraw. (Under state law, Quinn and Cohen had to run as a ticket, making it almost impossible for Quinn to win in November.) Cohen rejected those calls last week -- Cohen repeatedly referred to himself as "electable" -- before realizing yesterday what had to be done.

The state party will select a new nominee, ending yet another strange chapter in the storied history of Illinois politics.

A NEW ROUTE TO THE SAME DESTINATION?.... Most observers of the health care reform debate thought they saw the road ahead: House would pass the Senate bill, and the Senate would approve improvements through reconciliation. Yesterday, President Obama announced he's taking a detour, which may or may not reach the same destination.

President Obama said Sunday that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health care session at the White House to be televised live this month, a high-profile gambit that will allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to break their political impasse.

Mr. Obama made the announcement in an interview on CBS during the Super Bowl pre-game show, capitalizing on a vast television audience. He set out a plan that would put Republicans on the spot to offer their own ideas on health care and show whether both sides are willing to work together.

"I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library.

The president previewed the kind of questions he'll encourage GOP leaders to answer at the Feb. 25 meeting: "How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so that people with pre-existing conditions, for example, can get health care? How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don't have health insurance can get it? What are your ideas specifically?"

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) both accepted the invitation, though they said they'd like to see the reform discussions start from scratch, with the existing proposal thrown out altogether. The president said that's not an option, and that the talks will be focused on considering improvements to the work that's already been done. "This is not starting over," one White House official said. "Don't make any mistake about that. We are coming with our plan. They can bring their plan."

It is, by some appearances, a call-the-bluff moment, with the president daring Republicans to put their cards on the table. There will be a big, detailed policy discussion, aired on C-SPAN for all the world to see, and GOP solutions will be considered, scrutinized, and weighed against Democratic proposals.

The approach is not without risk. The public's appetite for a prolonged health reform debate may be limited, and it's extremely likely that Republicans will simply continue to reject any Democratic idea, regardless of merit, leading to a summit that brings us right back to where we are now.

But that wouldn't necessarily be an awful outcome.

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (45)

LEAVE THE GOALPOSTS ALONE.... Dahlia Lithwick had a terrific item the other day noting one of the key problems with the discourse surrounding national security policy: what was considered "tough" up until very recently is now considered "weak." As of January 20 of last year, the right moved the goalposts and the political establishment didn't notice.

[E]ach time Republicans go to their terrorism crazy-place, they go just a little bit farther than they did the last time, so that things that made us feel safe last year make us feel vulnerable today.

Policies and practices that were perfectly acceptable just after 9/11, or when deployed by the Bush administration, are now decried as dangerous and reckless. The same prominent Republicans who once celebrated open civilian trials for Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber," now claim that open civilian trials endanger Americans (some Republicans have now even gone so far as to try to defund such trials). Republicans who once supported closing Guantanamo are now fighting to keep it open. And one GOP senator, who like all members of Congress must take an oath to uphold the Constitution, has voiced his concern that the Christmas bomber really needed to be "properly interrogated" instead of being allowed to ask for a lawyer.

In short, what was once tough on terror is now soft on terror.

That does complicate matters. For President Obama and his allies, there was probably a sense that if they stuck to some of the same policies Bush/Cheney embraced by the end of their second term, the right would have to find something different to complain about. But this is predicated on the notion of intellectual seriousness and consistency -- qualities in short supply among the president's conservative, hypocritical critics.

But it should offer journalists a chance to ask some fair and pertinent questions of those who are on the attack now. Indeed, major media outlets are already presenting the Republican arguments as legitimate; it's not unreasonable to recommend an obvious follow-up.

* Bush/Cheney read Miranda rights to attempted terrorists. Did you publicly criticize this at the time?

* Bush/Cheney put terrorists on trial in civilian courts on American soil. Did you publicly criticize this at the time?

* Bush/Cheney locked up terrorists in American prisons on American soil. Did you publicly criticize this at the time?

* Bush/Cheney endorsed closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Did you publicly disagree at the time?

This isn't complicated. If a conservative critic of the president can honestly answer "yes" to any of these questions, he/she is at least on consistent ground. It's substantively foolish, but those who argued publicly that Bush/Cheney's national security policies represented "weakness" on counter-terrorism have a credible foundation from which to launch their arguments now.

But therein lies the point: identical practices are not generating identical reactions. Presidents with Rs after their names can applauded for embracing one set of policies, while presidents with Ds after their names are condemned for embracing the same policies.

It's so transparent as to be obvious: those who answer "no" to the questions above, but who are now trashing the Obama administration, are shameless and dishonest hacks. Period.