I thought I’d do a quote roundup from various commentaries on today’s Tea Party gathering in D.C.

I want to take a breather for a couple of minutes from bashing Joe Wilson and other stupid Republican claims about our health care legislation and discuss a condition that has bothered me the past several months. For no apparent reason my brain insists I sleep 10 to 12 hours a day. Anything short of that, I feel like I’m hungover but I don’t drink booze. Furthermore, less than that amount of sleep...

Five years after that horrific day in September 2001, the following letter appeared in TIME: Five years after 9/11, our nation ought to be as united as it was on that tragic day. We should have held on to the outpouring of global goodwill and support we received then. We should have remained laser-focused on rooting out and bringing to justice those responsible for the attacks. We should have remained committed...

Our political Quote of the Day comes from the Washington Post’s prize-winning columnist Eugene Robinson, writing about the Republican civility breakdown that he and several pundits say was visible on several levels during President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress on health care reform: House Republicans were particularly ostentatious in showing their disrespect not just for Obama but for the office...

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...

Riber Hansson, Sweden This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Joe G. noted earlier that Joe Wilson scored very poorly on Politifact’s Truth-o-meter. Since that post, there have been five more targeting Rep. Wilson, including Kathy’s moderately titled, Is there a politician lower than Joe Wilson? I’m guessing Kathy has heard of Charlie Rangel. Anyhow, I’m not here to defend Joe Wilson, who most people never heard of until yesterday. I’m here...

Those talk show hosts are awful. They say the most awful things. But it’s the President who runs the country, so I’m much more concerned with his disingenuity. From last night: Instead of honest debate, we’ve seen scare tactics. Also last night: Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close....

Yeah. His name is Joe Wilson. This is not the Joe Wilson who apologized to Pres. Obama last night for screaming, “You lie! Lies!” in the middle of the President’s speech to a joint session of Congress. This is the Joe Wilson who, the day after the speech (that would be today), made a YouTube video using his (in his words) “inappropriate” behavior to ask for money and continue telling...

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

At FiveThirtyEight.com, separate comments by Nate Silver and Tom Schaller — Nate first:

It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but it was close… close enough, I suppose. Alas, President Obama left open the possibility that his preferred public option — which, in my view, should be non-negotiable (see also Krugman on this) — could be replaced with some other alternative to private insurance, such as a non-profit co-op system or a “trigger” (which would kick...

Where is the public place for loss of personal control? Where is the place for ‘fight club?’ The gridiron, the clay court, the roped ring, and other similar, are where that all belongs… there are many many venues for men (and women and children) who ‘cant bear the burden’ one moment longer, to vent their particular pique or outrage. Long ago I knew Chained Lightning Johnson,...

The St. Petersburg Times’ Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact has its Truth-O-Meter look at Rep. Joe Wilson’s shouted “You lied!” to President Barack Obama and finds: Wilson erred. It’s an extensive post that needs to be read in full, but here is the conclusion: The best argument that we find that health reform would help illegal immigrants is that some might be able to purchase...

In an attempt to regain control of the health care debate if not his presidency, President Barack Obama crafted a speech a fifth grader could grasp and Congress could follow allowing all Americans to receive affordable medical services. What struck me was all the goals and specifics outlined by the president seem reasonable enough for Congress to adopt with all sides of the equation giving up some of their hallowed...

This morning, Mid Stream Radio will be back on the air picking through the aftermath of Obama’s health care speech. Cindy and I will be joined by Rick Moran, of Right Wing Nuthouse, to replay a few of the highlights and lowlights and see what it all means. You can listen live at the show’s web site, join in our comments section (if you have done your free registration at the BTR home page) or call...

India’s favourite spiritual book, The Bhagavad Gita, has made a dramatic impact at Harvard, Wharton and other business schools with its universal message of “concentration, consistency, and cooperation”. In a nutshell: “You can’t succeed in business (or war) unless you develop the intellect, which controls the mind and body.” The Gita remains relevant in the conduct of any...

WASHINGTON — After a listless summer during which his opponents dominated the health care debate, President Obama used a dramatic appearance before Congress on Wednesday to seize control of the autumn, the season of decision for the initiative he has turned into the central test of his presidency. Having avoided specifics in order to give the House and Senate room to legislate, he piled on the...

An appointment in L.A. for non-blogging business meant that I’d miss part of President Obama’s speech on health care but I knew I could catch at least some of it on the radio. Switching the dial, I heard always-lively conservative talker Mark Levin talking over Obama’s speech, making sarcastic negative comments throughout. So I switched to trusted news radio KNX for the unfiltered speech —...

If passion, eloquence and moral gravity were the main currency of American politics, Barack Obama would have changed the course of the health care debate tonight. But with Washington as it is, the President could hope for no more than to restore some sanity by calling out the opposition for its “scare tactics,” indicting insurance companies for greed and evoking the “large-heartedness”...

Brian Beutler obtained a copy of the entire email that Ted Kennedy wrote to Pres. Obama after he was diagnosed with brain cancer, with instructions that it be sent only after his death.

There isn’t much commentary up yet, but I saw the whole thing, and it was everything that it had to be to get back control over health care reform. In fact, I thought the speech was overwhelmingly good. It was tight, well organized, superbly paced, impassioned, and convincing. And Obama stood up for the public option.

Tonight, the President of the United States takes to the air again at 8 PM eastern to explain to us why, if we like our doctors, we’ll get to keep our doctors under a public plan, even if our insurance providers who provide coverage through our employers go out of business. Never shirking from my duty here at TMV, I will be joining Rick Moran and Ed Morrissey for live coverage of the event. You will be...

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...

In tonight’s confrontation with Congress, Barack Obama will not be sweet-talking Republicans, who are locked into a long-term temper tantrum, but Democrats and independents who embraced him last November and expected to live happily ever after. Maureen Dowd, as usual, puts it in quasi-sexual terms, complaining that she “always knew he was going to be trouble…He was going to be the kind of guy...