The massacre at Ft. Hood. A pipeline explosion in the Texas Panhandle. A grain processing plant explosion in western Missouri. What the hell? I’m certainly not suggeting these events are related; nor am I suggesting the explosions are comparable to what happened at Ft. Hood — not at all. It just seemed to be a disproportionate morning of bad news, and from such disparate places. UPDATE: And now this.

The money line from Mr. Brooks’ column today: Independents are herds of cats who find out what they think through a meandering process of discovery. While that’s probably not fair to say about all independent voters, it’s a shockingly accurate description of the independent voter writing this post. Of course, despite my decision to headline the “meandering cats” part of Brooks’ column, his primary argument is not about meandering. It’s about how independents...

Eric Zimmermann reports that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is distancing himself from the Feds’ stimulus plan: “I didn’t endorse it.” Um … I think you did.

Earlier, Joe linked to RNC Chair Michael Steele’s ominous warning to GOP Members of Congress who might be thinking about “going rogue” against the party line. Meanwhile, in Palm Beach, Fla., the County Democratic Party organization has practiced its own brand of purging someone who bucks the preferred party line. Granted, the latter case hardly compares to the former, although it starts to resemble a trend when it’s combined with a Democratic punditry that seems to be actively...

“When our party is united, whether you run in a Northern state or a Southern state, our party can win,” said the House Republican whip, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia. “But when you are divided, you can lose a seat that has been in the Republican column for quite a long time.” The Virginia GOP, at least, seems to have gotten the message.

This morning, I don’t entirely understand the crowing and chest-beating from ultra-conservatives, nor the smattering of headlines re: a “wake-up call” for, or “warning” to, Democrats. Sure, governors might comment on federal policy, and they might some day run for federal office. But while governors are governors, they don’t cast votes in the Chambers of Congress on a President’s agenda. What’s more, Virginia’s history suggests that the “fluke”...

Joe already touched on tonight’s HBO documentary. Two other Obama-related items today add some context. The first is Jeff Zeleny’s report for the NYT re: Iowa voter attitudes a year after the election. The second is a Daily Beast exclusive excerpt from David Plouffe’s memoir. The NYT article cites, among others, John Sager a “retired electrical engineer who became a Democrat to support Mr. Obama.” Sager “believes that the president too often blames others...

Via Ezra Klein. At the end of his post, note the link to the full package of charts. The last chart in that package, in particular — see below — caught my eye, begging many questions. Bruce McQuain chimes in. H/t casualobserver.

A fascinating post from a consistently solid writer and thinker. His third point is key. (Apologies if one of my colleagues has already pointed to this post. There has been so much written on this subject that I have not been able to read it all, including what has been written here.)

Per Politico: Republican Dede Scozzafava has dropped out of next Tuesday’s NY 23 special election. She did not endorse either of her two opponents, Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman or Democrat Bill Owens. Scozzafava’s statement here. I think she made the wrong decision, but the statement is pure class. Before this development, the race was neck-and-neck between Hoffman and Owens, polling at approximately 35 percent each. With Scozzafava’s 20 percent now up for grabs,...

Front page of the NYT: Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday that it would not accept a plan its negotiators agreed to last week to send its stockpile of uranium out of the country, according to diplomats in Europe and American officials briefed on Iran’s response. And yet, over at Memeorandum, as of 11:00 am ET, the top three memes were about Congressional ethics inquiries, the race in NY-23, and the deal to restore Honduras’ booted president. In fact, you don’t...

From a Politico email alert: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a health reform bill Thursday that would cost $894 billion over 10 years and includes a public option. It meets President Obama’s goal of not adding to the federal deficit, cutting the deficit by about $30 billion in the first 10 years. And now it gets interesting. Full story here.

I like Steve Benen and used to read his blog, The Carpetbagger Report, regularly. I still occasionally read his posts at his current home, The Washington Monthly’s Political Animal — but I have to seriously question this post from earlier today, bemoaning Democrats’ perceived inability (unwillingness?) to enforce “party loyalty.” An excerpt: Political parties that expect loyalty from caucus members tend to be more effective and have more success advancing their agenda....

This quip is one for the archives, best appreciated if you read the entire (brief) story at NYT. “Kudo to the governor for his creative use of coincidence with his veto message,” the spokesman, Quintin Mecke said in an e-mail message. He added, “We will call it even and start with a clean slate with the governor from here on out.”

Per a breaking news email from Politico: Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) says he will join a Republican filibuster against the Senate Democrats’ health care reform bill unless the public option is removed. More here. From CNN: Also Tuesday, conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska warned that his vote remains uncertain for a bill with a public option. From the same story: [GOP Sen.] Snowe has indicated her preference for a “trigger” provision that would mandate creation...

“This idea that we’re suddenly going to establish litmus tests and all across the country we’re going to purge the party of anybody who doesn’t agree with us 100 percent; that guarantees Obama’s reelection, that guarantees Pelosi as Speaker-for-life.” — Newt Gingrich, defending his decision to back GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election this year.

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan. At the very least, that chart illustrates the trajectory of this individual’s journey through the swamp of the health care debate. That chart might also explain “the answer.” No need to add to more information if confusion already reins.

Q: Mr. President, do you prefer the “trigger” or “opt out” approaches to the public option? A: Yes.

“We’re always putting out these estimates: This is going to cost $1.042 trillion exactly. But you sort of want to add, you know, ‘Your mileage may vary.’ ” – Phil Ellis, senior analyst, Congressional Budget Office ————————- The WaPo article where I saw that quote earlier today is a fascinating read. It reminded me of a central argument of one of my favorite books. That argument: There’s too much to know,...

Look to Britain, per David Brooks. Where the Tories are headed is all very consistent with Barry Goldwater, who advised nearly a half-century ago, in The Conscience of a Conservative, that conservatives’ first priority on fiscal matters is fiscal soundness; that tax cuts should only be considered after spending is controlled. (For Goldwater’s exact words, reference pages 56-57 of this edition of his timeless tome.) British conservatives have apparently listened to Goldwater. Sadly,...

If you see a spade, call it a spade. David Brooks does. The money graph: Over the years, I have asked many politicians what happens when Limbaugh and his colleagues attack. The story is always the same. Hundreds of calls come in. The receptionists are miserable. But the numbers back home do not move. There is no effect on the favorability rating or the re-election prospects. In the media world, he is a giant. In the real world, he’s not. But why do so many Republican/conservative politicians...

Like this one: As a result of the right’s preemptive strike on the racial front, liberals have remained dangerously silent in the face of the most egregious acts of racism against Obama to date. It is for this reason that Representative Joe Wilson could heckle Obama during his Congressional address and only be challenged for his rudeness rather than his racism. Although he has received a formal reprimand from the House of Representatives (the political equivalent of an after-school detention)...

I despise news reports that mention how a particular vote was “almost exclusively along party lines,” but then fail to list the exceptions. Take, for instance, the over-reported “Joe Wilson slap-on-the-wrist” story. I had to dig through multiple reports like this one, before I finally found this one (and to be fair, this one and this one) listing the exceptions, i.e., the members of the House who did not vote the party line on the “resolution of disapproval” for...

After reading David Brooks’ column this morning, I had the same reaction Dave Schuler had: I agree with this Brooks column probably more than any other of his. And the line from Brooks’ column that most captured my attention was this one: [Obama] has opened up many opportunities for intelligent Republicans and moderate Democrats to constructively offer amendments to improve the bill and bring it closer to fiscal sanity. Among those “many opportunities,” Brooks’ identifies...

It appears Ezra Klein is not the only Progressive-inclined pundit who has semi-nice things to say about Sen. Baucus’ proposal. Here’s Matt Yglesias, via Andrew Sullivan: The status quo in the United States is really bad. Baucus’ plan would make it better. That line and this one from Yglesias — “even in its meager Baucusish form, the health reform currently on the table would be the biggest piece of progressive social policy in decades” — sound so much like...