On the one hand, the trumpeting by the left about how this harms the Republican party is predictable. A group of people that completely missed the fact that the 2008 election was about the Republican establishment having drifted way too far to the left, not the right, can hardly be expected to grasp the true meaning of the triumph of someone whose views are shared by a solid majority of Americans, not to mention the nation's founders.

On the other hand, Captain Obvious would like to know if these same pundits are able to infer anything from Dede's immediate endorsement of the Democratic candidate. Like maybe that the suspicions held by her Conservative Party opponent's supporters may not have been unfounded after all. Hmm?

With or without a public option, all versions of health reform include the government imposing strict limits on what plans may or may not cover, including what they must cover, as well as dictating how much can be charged and who must be allowed to buy coverage. All of these are things the government is strictly forbidden to do, and that's the bottom line for me. Yes, the government is forbidden from selling health insurance, but they already do that anyway.

I believe that tying the idea of a government takeover to the availability of the public option is a ruse. Get people to buy the connection, and then you can scale down or eliminate the public option and claim that there is no takeover, despite the fact that it is in the government's unconstitutional mandates on the structure, pricing, and operation of "private" plans that constitutes the real government takeover.

If health reform passes in any of it's current forms, it will become a federal crime to sell you any health care not only if it is not approved by the government, but if it is not DESIGNED by the government. This includes the plan you have right now, no matter what it is, because there isn't a plan available on the market today that meets the government's criteria. Sure, it will feel a lot like it already does at first. Your insurance company will tell you how much you have to pay, and what is and isn't covered. The difference will be that the government will be telling them what to tell you, they won't be basing it on any kind of business consideration. And just as importantly, all companies and plans will tell you the same thing. If you don't like what Aetna offers you, you'll still be free to go to Cigna (for the time being), but there won't be any point, because Cigna will offer the same plans with the same coverages for the same prices, because the government will force them to. While "death panels" are not in the bill, and public option may or may not be, all of the above is. And that's bad enough.

What has this to do with my comment?

According to the police report, the citizen who called the police said she saw two black males. Obviously one of them was arrested and one was not. However this can't constitute racial profiling since the two men were evidently of the same race.

However, Gates is claiming racial profiling. He is in effect asserting that a suspect of a different race in fact was on scene and was left alone.

I was actually being sarcastic, because Gates obviously wasn't claiming that the cops took him away and left a white robber in his house. But that's the kind of thing that his rhetoric calls to mind. Looking back it was kind of a lame joke, so I can't really blame you for not getting it.

I for one am inclined to wait for all the facts before commenting, and there is apparently at least one eye-witness report that is missing.

Gates's supporters have said that this was clearly a case of racial profiling. By definition, this means that there was a white suspect on scene who was not arrested, since racial profiling means that two people in the same situation at the same time are treated differently based on their race. Why aren't we hearing from this mystery suspect??

The most salient point in the war between the administration and Fox News Channel is that the things the administration admits to being the most upset about are the things that are undeniably factually accurate that you get out of Fox News and no one else.

I read complaint after complaint from administration talkers. Apparently just this weekend, someone said that Fox couldn't be taken seriously if they were going to report things like that the Obama health care plan and Cap and Trade are going to cost as much as they are. And these complaints, in which Fox is accused of reporting on things that no one disputes are true, are the norm and not the exception.

Compare that to the treatment the Bush administration got from the press. One main stream network that everyone has heard of not only reported false information about Bush's national guard service, they actually put forth quite obviously fabricated documents as evidence. I'd be willing to bet money that a majority of Americans, to this very day, actually believe that there were no WMDs in Iraq on the day in 2003 that we launched our invasion.

Could you imagine the outrage if Bush had responded to CBS, who reported FALSE information about him, in the same way that Obama has responded to FNS for reporting factually?

Hmm. My "Can you imagine the outrage if Bush had..." list is getting longer every week.

I saw the Tampa show at Raymond James a few weeks ago and couldn't agree more. I was also struck by the reference to Africa, although Bono didn't mention George Bush by name in Tampa and I found myself wondering how may people would get the reference. I'm glad me made it more explicit in the show you saw.

I also thought the effect of the lights being dimmed and everyone opening their cell phones was pretty spectacular.

I just watched this last night, and was struck by the fact that if I didn't know the show's politics, I honestly would not have known whether Jack McCoy was the nutty bad guy (he certainly came off like a lunatic) or whether the show was being brutally honest about the lunacy of it's writers.

I was also struck by McCoy's little speech about the distinction between legality and ethics. I found it ironic because I'm pretty sure that it's clear to everyone that those who advocate the kind of prosecution portrayed in the episode are under no illusion that doing so would be ethical, while they clearly do think that it could be legal, in the sense that if you split enough hairs and win enough close calls you could get away with it.

Their motives are ACTUALLY like the motives that they seek to falsely attribute to the Bush administration regarding treatment of terrorists -- they are willing to use legal loopholes to realize a result that is unethical but that they like because it hurts someone else who they don't like. With the obvious, minor difference that Bush administration's actions, even under the manufactured facts used in this episode, at the end of the day still served the greater good.

You may be a bit misinformed. Preventive care like PAP tests, breast exams, and eye exams typically ARE covered in the US.

Also, I may be misreading what you said, but it sounds like you're saying that the only reason you get yearly eye exams is because of your family history, is that correct? In other words, is it true that members of the general population without a specific indicator such as family history do not get annual eye exams? If so, this would constitute a significant shortcoming relative to the US system.

This is something I hear commonly. Senator Obama even said it (unchallenged by the moderator OR his opponent) in one of the debates.

The problem with health care being a "right" is, of course, that by definition a right is something that is an inherent property of all individuals -- something that you are born with. More specifically, a right cannot be anything that someone else needs to produce or pay for. A right cannot be granted, by government or anyone else. I can only be taken away. One implication of something being considered a "right" is that it is a crime to deny you access to it, such as by making it conditional on payment. IE you can't sell a right.

Health care is a product. Someone has to expend effort, time, and/or money to produce it. Inherent in the idea of something being a product is that the producer of that product owns it, and may give, sell, or deny it to whomever he wishes.

These competing implications make rights and products mutually exclusive. Nothing that is a product can be a right, because all products belong to those who produce them, and all rights belong to individuals who possess them. The distinction is perhaps subtle, but is vital to this debate. Health care is not and can not be a right, because it is a product. Any solution that starts from the premise that health care is a right is therefore necessarily invalid. Thus the assertion that health care is a right will hinder rather than further the effort to expand the availability of health care, or anything else we seek to make more available.