This is Melodee Hanes, Baucus' state office director. Hanes has worked for Baucus in various capacities since 2003.

We were all set to relentlessly mock Baucus for, whatever, being a douchebag, because we have never liked him, but this is actually a pretty lame little scandal. Baucus separated from his wife in early 2008, and, according to his office, he began dating Hanes that summer. Baucus and his wife divorced this last April, and he now lives with Hanes. So... scandal! Old dude's marriage ends and he takes up with someone age appropriate whom he's been close to for some time!

But then, like an idiot, Baucus sent her name to the White House to be considered as a US Attorney from Montana. That was dumb. No one is going to believe you nominated your fucking girlfriend for a plum gig based on her qualifications.

Baucus says he nominated Hanes for the job because they decided, once their relationship became sexy, that she should no longer work in his office. And she now works at the Justice Department.

Anyway! Now Montana has Rabbis and political sex scandals!

Baucus' office is being pretty aggressive in getting out in front of this story, so unless something terribly embarrassing comes out (text messages? nudez? golf club attack?) we don't think this will change the dynamics of the reform debate too much. In fact, let's watch chummy Senators close ranks around their pal Max. Though Michael Steele is trying to make it a thing, but he is a clown.

[Pic via Joe Weisenthal who, no offense, doesn't seem to have a great grasp of the health care process in the Senate. The Reid bill is basically a reworked Baucus bill, with slightly better subsidies and an incredibly weak public option that will probably be stripped out anyway. And the Democrats are certainly not betting full-on on that weakened opt-in public option. There's your health care reform update of the day!]

*Obligatory bitchy aside: Why don't you ever write anything bad about Democrats wah wah wah etc.

This very brief and innocuous-sounding Roll Call story is basically its obit.

Democratic moderates, uneasy with Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) choice of a public insurance option even though it includes an opt-out provision for states that do not want to participate, are looking for an alternative that can garner the 60 votes needed for passage. The public option offered by Reid is strongly opposed by all 40 Republicans.

Carper described Thursday's meeting as productive.

"Among the concerns that centrists have expressed are concerns about an alternative that might be government-run or government-funded, and we had an opportunity to drill down on both of those concerns," Carper said.

Among those who attended all or part of the meeting were Democratic Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska); Kay Hagan (N.C.); Mary Landrieu (La.); Blanche Lincoln (Ark.); Ben Nelson (Neb.); Mark Pryor (Ark.); Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.); Arlen Specter (Pa.); and Mark Warner (Va.).

You know what? That is a lot of Democratic Senators attending this "let's kill the Public Option" meeting. It is also a nice illustration of the way being a Senate moderate works: saying "I can't support this because others might not support it because of the fact that they might not support it."

And then there is today's Washington Post story on the ongoing negotiations, which presents these developments as a positive for a Public Option:

At Reid's urging, various senators have begun exploring alternatives for a public plan that could pass muster with the centrists, and some lawmakers are starting to examine other ways to achieve the same goals of greater competition, better coverage and lower prices. But as the negotiations unfold, liberal Democrats say they are growing increasingly realistic in their expectations.

This means they have already conceded. If they can convince the vile "moderates" to grant them a more subsidies they will drop their insistence on a government insurance program that can actually cover or negotiate with anyone.

So, liberals lose again!

Politicians frequently use props to help the American people understand them if they happen to be watching CNN with the volume down in order to hear when their microwave pizza is done in the next room. In the health care debate, the sheer size of the Democrat's bill itself has made it a popular prop for opponents, and this weekend they dragged out huge blocks of paper in advance of the vote on whether to hear the bill in the Senate. (On Saturday, the Senate voted 60-39 to bring the bill to the floor.) Writes the Washington Times:

The real star of the health care debate this weekend has been the 2,074-page bill - a physical manifestation of the size and scope of what's at stake as senators consider the overhaul of one-sixth of the nation's economy.

"It's a massive increase in government, as shown by this bill," Mr. Ensign told a reporter off the floor later, spreading his arms wide as if to encompass the stack of papers that comes in at more than a foot tall.

Wow, over a foot tall! If only there was some way to make it exactly half that tall... Wait, Mr. Ensign, you did print double-sided, right? Because that's not what New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall says:

"You only have print on one side, which isn't even the way we print them up around here. I've had mine printed up on both sides, so I use both sides of the paper. So they've made an attempt here to make it look a lot higher than it is," he said.

Mr. Udall said when the official print of the bill arrives, the type will be much smaller as well, and said at that point it will amount to "an average-size book."

Republicans here are acting like desperate undergraduates trying to meet a page requirement for an essay about the Sociology of the Bicycle: MARGINS: 3.5"; FONT: 25pt; SPACING: 2.999. GRADE: C-

But still, Udall should really just let the GOP throw out their well-insured backs carrying a millstone they so giddily fashioned from printer paper, looped with twine and hung around their own stupid necks. Don't play the printing game; otherwise pretty soon the whole health care debate will descend into a never-ending stream of tricks meant to make the bill bigger or smaller depending on one's political affinity:

TO: All Democratic Senators
FROM: Sen. Tom Udall
SUBJECT: Health Care Bill Printing

Fellow Senators,

As you may know, Republicans are currently unfairly inflating the size of our health care bill via printing only on one side of the page, and using a ridiculously large font. This is such a good and clever idea that we must fight back.

Allow me to introduce Yiskah. Yiskah—who I met through my Au Pair—is skilled in the ancient Turkish art of rice writing. Tomorrow, each of you will be given a copy of the health care bill written on grains of rice, which should fit in a small Ziploc bag. Please display these grains to the media and constituents to reinforce how efficient, healthful and multi-functional our bill is. Shake the bag around a bit. Throw it high into the air to emphasize the compactness of the bill. If need be, cook the rice and feed it to a homeless person. (Photo op!) Just make sure you contact Yiskah for another copy.

Best of Luck,

Tom Udall

Next week: We will read the entire Senate health care bill twice and conduct an in-depth, 20-year cost-benefit analysis of the proposals contained therein.

In other people-related-to-politicians-who-also-allegedly-drive-drunk news, Sen. John Kerry's daughter Alexandra was arrested for driving under the influence early this morning in Hollywood. These things come in threes, and we're counting on the Kennedy family to step up to the plate.

Robert Byrd, our US Senator from the great state of West Virginia, has been a Senator since January 3, 1959, making him the longest-serving member in congressional history. He is 91 years old (his 92nd birthday is on Friday!) and third in line for the presidency should something happen to Obama, Biden, and Pelosi.

He filibustered against the Civil Rights Act and opposed the Voting Rights Act but in the years since then, instead of jumping to the Republicans like most racist Democrats did, he's made a concerted effort to fit into the mainstream of the Democratic party.

So: probably still an old racist, but the sort of old racist who knows it is not acceptable to be racist anymore.

Oh, he is also a champion of the worst tendencies of the Senate: arcane parliamentary procedure in the service of obstructionism, and intense regionalism. When he dies his colleagues will present him one last earmark, officially renaming the state "West Byrdginia."

Here he is accidentally becoming a '70s Randy Newman song:

And here he is reading a poem:

The House of Representatives more or less proportionately represents the entire country equally. Its vast size provides a decent counterbalance to the extremism or incredible dumbness of a large number of its members. The Senate, meanwhile, provides a really easy and convenient way for industries to purchase political loyalty: you only need to buy a couple people off to completely stall anything at all. Hell, buy Joe Lieberman and you might kill health care altogether!

So. Drudge links to some very wishful thinking by the New York Post calling reform DOA in the Senate. Josh Marshall thinks its passage is more or less a foregone conclusion. Tim Noah thinks the Senate will maybe pass a terribly watered down version of reform.

Honestly the situation is exactly the same in the Senate as it was before the House vote. There are 50 liberals, 40 Republicans, and 10 assholes who are steering the entire process. Those 10 assholes represent a fraction of the populace. They want to make health care reform do less for fewer people because that is their working definition of "centrism." And they talk like this:

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) conceded that movement across the Dome "builds momentum, which is helpful."

But Conrad, a deficit hawk who represents a conservative-leaning state, said Saturday night's vote would not pressure Democratic Senators into embracing specific policies within the House bill or speeding up a floor debate that could take several weeks and stretch into early next year.

"This is the Senate. ... There's no way I know of to move faster. Honestly ... I've never thought this thing would be done before December of this year, and I still wouldn't be shocked if it's not done in December," Conrad said Thursday afternoon. "I think people are very much directed by the constituencies that they represent. I represent North Dakota; I'm not affected by what some colleague in the House from California thinks, frankly."

Hah. Ha! 38 million people live in California. 640,000 people live in North Dakota. Do you know what the population of Nancy Pelosi's Congressional district is? It is 640,000.

Obviously it is not Kent Conrad's job to care, at all, what Nancy Pelosi's constituency thinks, except inasmuch as what they think might be what is best for the people of North Dakota as well. But, theoretically, in a representative democracy, Kent Conrad's constituency shouldn't have immensely more power than Nancy Pelosi's constituency, right?

But the Senate stands where it did before: Harry Reid's bill is being scored by the CBO, and when it is released, there will be a lot of really terrible columns and news stories about how long it is. When we are feeling optimistic, this is how we think it'll go down: the Dems need 60 votes to let it go to debate and 60 votes to end debate (in the event of a GOP filibuster—which we don't think is inevitable but it also seems idiotic to predict that they'd be adults about anything at this point) and then, maybe, hopefully, 50 Senators and Vice President Smilin' Joe Biden will vote for it and the assholes can save face by voting against it without making it actually fail. And then the Senate will have actually done something halfway decent and fairly monumental.

(Meanwhile the House passed a climate bill last June. Did you know this? Don't look for it to become law this year, though!)

Back when establishment Democrats (like Obama!) were trying to convince us loony internet liberals not to campaign against Joe Lieberman, you heard a lot about how Lieberman is only a conservative on foreign policy, and not domestic issues. (How his full-throated support for any bombing campaign against any Muslims anywhere in the world is supposed to be not as big a deal as the fact that he doesn't want to publicly execute gays or whatever has always been beyond us, but that is what we were told.) Now he's pissed that distinction away.

We all know that Vinegar Joe Lieberman is a sanctimonious, thin-skinned, self-satisfied monster. And a pious, amoral scumbag. And a narcissistic, deluded underminer who represents everything that is wrong with the United States Senate. And a war-mongering, concern-trolling religious zealot. And, generally, a bastard. And probably a racist. But why would this weasel-human hybrid who is actually literally slowly receding into his own asshole a little bit every day suddenly pipe up on health care reform with a position at odds with most Connecticut residents and a vast majority of the Democrats he claims to represent?

Because no one had been paying attention to him! (And also because he is owned by the various insurance companies of Connecticut. Like he is literally Aetna's personal offensive Jeff Dunham puppet. Well, they have to share him with AIPAC.)

This is the thing, Joe. The opt-out public option is a conservative compromise. It is a compromise from a non-opt-out public option, which is a compromise from a non-opt-out public option tied to Medicare rates, which is a compromise from a non-opt-out public option tied to Medicare rates and open to everyone, which is a compromise from single-payer. You would like a further compromise, to "no health care reform, at all, unless the Democrats all kneel down and blow me, as I will demand they do whenever they might need my vote, from now until I finally decide to caucus with the Republicans, which will only happen if the Republicans take the majority and the Democrats stop blowing me periodically."

And, obviously, his literal, stated objections to the bill are not based in any way on reality.

So the question basically is, what is his end-game here? What the fuck is he doing?

Whether Joe Lieberman will run for reelection in 2012 is currently a mystery. He has $1.4 million in the bank, which is a lot, but not as much as he had in 2006.

He also is polling rather terribly in Connecticut, where Democrats and independents both prefer real Democrats. He could run as a real Republican, but, as we said, those independent voters he needs to win do not like him, at the moment.

So our "what is Joe Lieberman doing" possibilities are:

• He is just following the golden path of his own of self-delusion, thinking he will be remembered as a mavericky hero who bucked the status quo once he retires in 2012.
• He's going all-in as a Republican in the desperate hope that a 2012 GOP landslide will win him one more term.
• He is just trying to sink health care completely for his insurance company friends, who will give him a lucrative post-Senate job.
• He is just trying to force Harry Reid to pay him fealty once again, because it makes him feel nice.
• He is just a prick.

Weirdly, Lieberman said he'd vote to bring the bill to the floor, and then he'd support a GOP filibuster. A GOP filibuster is decidedly not a sure thing, though it certainly moves one step closer to a sure thing every time Joe Lieberman opens his mouth. Christ, what an asshole.

When beloved former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to Obama's Senate seat, because Burris is black and because Blago could, we all thought, at first, that Blago had selected a competent public official, just to ensure an easy political victory on his way out of office. This Burris fellow is a former Illinois Attorney General! He is well-respected! How boring!

But no, Blago would not do that to us. Blago so loved the United States Senate that he appointed it a crazy egomaniac with a giant stone shrine to himself.

And so, at a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing last week on the subject of "czars," Burris asked a lot of very important questions about the Constitution. Dave Weigel has the full transcript, and all of it is worth your time. But, wow, any portion of it is worth quoting.

[Burris:] Every president's going to go through it. I don't even know how we in the Congress can legally - I mean, I heard the distinguished ranking member say that we passed a law. We can pass a law and say there's going to be a position in there, but I don't think the Congress can tell the president who to put in that position.

I mean, if we do that, then I think that we're violating the separation of powers. I mean, this is what we get into. And you can create a position. What happens if - what happens if the president says, "I don't want to appoint anybody as secretary of state. I'm going to use the undersecretary as an acting secretary"?

Is there a law that would require us or require the president to appoint a secretary of state? Is there? Is there?

CASEY: A law that requires the president to appoint a secretary of state?

BURRIS: Yes.

CASEY: Specifically, there would not be a law requiring him to do that. Now, of course, if he wants the functions that you vested in a secretary of state performed, he - he probably has to do…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: But there is no law that says he has to even appoint a secretary of state, is that - am I correct?

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: There's a statute that says there's a position - a secretary of state position…

CASEY: Right, right - shall be appointed in the following - yes - I'm unaware of any…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: But is there a law that says the president has to make that appointment?

CASEY: Not that I'm aware of.

After admitted cocaine-user and celebrity comedian Al Franken disappointed everyone by turning out to be a smart and serious US Senator, we must rely on Burris even more to entertain us with examples of how broken and useless the United States Senate is.

(Speaking of Czars! The Senate continues to refuse to confirm anyone Obama appoints to anything and then complain when he hires people they didn't confirm.)

[Photo: AP]

There will most likely be a public option in the Senate bill. Harry Reid, who will decide what the bill finally looks like, is leaning toward an "opt-out" public option, so that no one in Mississippi is forced to accept government health care to treat their rickets. Olympia Snowe, who will not vote for the health care bill no matter what she tells you but who might vote to break a hypothetical filibuster, prefers a "trigger" public option. "Triggers" are what Congress does when it wants to avoid creating programs or implementing policies without actually officially voting against them. Max Baucus is still being a dick for the hell of it.

Harry Reid thinks he has enough votes to pass a bill with a strong, opt-out public option, and he is like one or two solid votes away from a cloture vote on said bill.

The White House is skeptical of his vote-counting, though, and in a meeting late last week, they pushed him to keep trying to get Olympia Snowe on-board.

This upset Reid, because he thinks the White House should just get his back and announce that they support the thing he wants to do. But the White House doesn't want to openly support anything until passage looks like a sure thing. They are kinda big political babies about that kinda stuff, as Jon Corzine could tell you.

But it was not Obama "pushing" for a stupid trigger compromise so much as it was the White House wanting to make sure Harry Reid really knows what he's doing, because honestly that is always an open question with that guy.

As the Times says:

In pushing to include a government-run health insurance plan in the health care bill, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is taking a calculated gamble that the 60 members of his caucus could support the plan if it included a way for states to opt out.

Ok. But wait. This is wrong? In including it in the legislation, Reid is just betting that 60 people won't vote to strip it out.

See the options were a) don't include a public option and hope it is added or b) include a public option and hope it isn't removed. If you include it in the bill, it takes 60 senators to strip it out. If you don't include it, it takes 60 to put it in. Reid is heavily tipping the scales in favor of a public option here, presumably because the fact that it's always polled well is news now for some reason and because of White House influence in those closed-door meetings that we talked about before.

So now if you are a "moderate" Senator who was all "I dunno about this public option thing I mean I might be a US Senator but I know the government wants to kill grandma 100% of the time" you are in a tough spot. Your options will be a) vote for a bill with a public option, b) cast a symbolic vote against a bill with a public option but don't do anything procedural to prevent it from passing, of c) kill the whole damn thing.

Snowe claimed she will filibuster(!), but as usual she is just playing games to get people to pay attention to her.

But the House is probably going to pass a strong, Medicare-plus-5% public option by mid-November, so if Centrist Senators want to throw their little fits until they get their way, they will most likely be forcing a compromise that looks a bit more liberal than the Senate Finance Committee bill. Like, the compromise might be the state opt-out provision, so that no one in Mississippi is forced to accept affordable health care, because they would rather go bankrupt and die, thank you.

Here's where we stand: right now Harry Reid is hammering out a final Senate bill that will probably include a public option. Tom Harkin is looking at taking some funding proposals from the House bill. No voting will happen until a final Senate bill is scored by the CBO, which will take a while. Eventually a Senate bill will be voted on and a House bill will be voted on and they will be merged and then we all get free government abortions.

So that's it. There is nothing entertaining to report on, really. And when there is nothing entertaining to report on, like last August, the media just goes nuts. Death panels and angry teabaggers and lies and reporting on lies and reporting on reactions to lies. Polls! Tracking polls! Scary commercials about Canada! Scary news stories about England! Just nonsense. Because no one knows how to report on the legislative process. At all. There are no pictures or snappy quotes to go along with closed sessions of a couple lawmakers making compromises. Television news is structurally incapable of explaining the pros and cons of various funding provisions under consideration without just shouting about taxes.

Everyone should just shut up for a while! The media can move on to climate change, baseball, Afghanistan, and all the other issues they're also incapable of tackling seriously.

Serious and boring reports on the legislative process are still ok, as long as they appear in places like Roll Call. Wonky analyses of the details of the specific provisions that may or may not make it into the final bill are ok on the serious wonky blogs. But no more opining on Obama's wasted moment, or what he should do next, or critiques of his branding of the reform effort. No more town halls. No more Betsy McCaughey. No more comparisons to Clinton. Please. Just leave our legislators in peace for a while. Until the bill gets to the floor. Then everyone can freak out, again, with the calling your congressman and online petitions and what-have-you.

Snowe's announcement that she'll support the bill currently being voted on in the finance committee should, in a rational world, mean nothing: There's no doubt that the bill is going to get voted out of committee. And while obviously one more vote for health care reform in the full Senate is an important thing, Snowe's vote alone doesn't guarantee the 60-vote majority that Senate Democrats are insisting on for passage—there are plenty of wavering Democrats, like Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who remain noncommittal. So why is everyone freaking out about Snowe right now? Because, according to Politico, "Snowe's buy-in could make it easier for Baucus and Reid to sell reform to moderate Democrats." Awesome to know that folks are going to base their votes on how some lady from another state and another party votes, rather than, say, the substance of the bill they're voting on or what their constituents want.

Also: Snowe's vote doesn't matter because she has not committed to repeating it, even if the final Senate bill is precisely the same. "My vote today is my vote today," she said. "It doesn't forecast what my vote will be tomorrow." Who knows how she'll vote tomorrow? This lady could do anything, so whatever you do, don't stop listening to and reporting everything she says.

Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Blanche Lincoln, Thomas Carper, and Bill Nelson voted against a strong public plan in the Senate Finance Committee health bill. Baucus, Conrad, and Lincoln voted against any public plan.* And then Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Blance Lincoln of Arkansas just went above and beyond the call of duty by voting with the Republicans in favor of using the Finance Committee health bill to re-fund abstinence-only education.

Remember: these are the Senators who are on-the-fence on health care reform because they claim to be worried about the cost and its effect on the deficit. So they voted against a strong public option that would save billions of dollars and then they voted to spend extra money on a program that has never, ever worked, ever.

"Moderates" are the worst creatures in politics. We'd take a thousand Michele Bachmanns over any more of these two.

So what's next? Well this bill will eventually have to be merged with the Senate HELP bill, and then merged again with whatever passes the House, which will be a some compromise between their three committee bills, and long story short, there might be a public option thing in it, somewhere, so we needn't be so hopeless! Except for the fact that what those Finance Committee votes proved is that Senate Democrats are so cowardly and dysfunctional that they will not vote for things they claim to support because they're scared no one else will vote for things they support either.

*Baucus keeps insisting he, personally, supports a public plan, but can't vote for it because it couldn't get 60 votes, even though it doesn't need 60 votes unless Baucus thinks Reid can't round up enough votes to break a theoretical filibuster, which wouldn't even be necessary if everyone who claimed to personally support the public plan actually voted for it instead of saying they can't vote for it because other people won't vote for it. Democracy!

[Photo: Getty]

Kirk is a former chairman of the DNC and he was friends with Ted and he would just keep all of Ted Kennedy's staff (the best staff!) and vote for health care and stuff. And then there will be a special election in January that will let the "voters" decide who the senator should be. (Though if the voters kept voting for Ted Kennedy it does not seem like so much of a subversion of democracy to have a guy in there for a little bit who will just vote like he is Ted Kennedy.)

The whole Kennedy family decided that this Kirk fellow was the man for the job and Republicans have basically decided to bitch about it but not do anything about this terrible "appointment" that subverts the will of Massachusetts voters by granting the 6.5 million residents of that state as many Senate votes as the 800,000 who live in North Dakota.

It's the latest in a string of health setbacks for Byrd, who is frankly—to judge by his public performances in recent months—too infirm to serve effectively in the Senate. But he and his staff have clearly made a decision to stay on until he's no longer physically capable of being a senator. He was hospitalized last February after a fall, and again in May after coming down with a staph infection.

Byrd's spokesman told Politico that the senator will not likely be admitted, and that his "caregiver" called 911 out of an abundance of caution after Byrd "stood up too fast" and fell down:

"Byrd apparently stood up too fast this morning in his home and fell down," said Jesse Jacobs, a spokesman for the senator. "To err on the side of caution his caregiver called an ambulance. He was taken to the hospital where he is currently being checked out. At this point in time there is no indication that he will be admitted."

Byrd's health issues are an obvious cause for concern for proponents of healthcare reform: He is a much-needed Democratic vote, and if he doesn't recover in time to make it to the Senate floor in time for the vote, his absence could jeopardize the whole project. If he dies or resigns, West Virginia's Democratic governor Joe Manchin would appoint a replacement.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who sponsored the bill, boiled the issue down to that pesky Second Amendment:

Americans should not have their Second Amendment rights restricted for any reason, particularly if they choose to travel on America's federally subsidized rail line.

Wicker's reasoning, though rational from a right-wing point of view, seems to contradict his past stance on America's safety, like post-9/11 security moves:

It is no coincidence that our country has not been attacked since 9-11. Our initiatives to protect the homeland and aggressively take the fight to the terrorists have been factors in that success.

One of those initiatives was to ban firearms on Amtrak trains.

Considering the amount of vitriol that has infected town halls, awards shows, tennis matches and even Presidential addresses, the addition of guns to travel plans, which often bring out the worst in people, gives us chills. Luckily, the House will have a chance to shoot down this legislation.

McMahon has been stepping up her support of the Connecticut Republican party, having been appointed to the State Board of Education earlier this year. Also in 2000, her husband Vince—shortly after he arranged the kidnapping, and rape of their daughter Stephanie—drugged her with sedatives and had her committed to a sanatorium.

When her son Shane challenged Vince to a public wrestling match later that summer, Linda shockingly emerged from her drug-induced coma just as the live, televised match concluded, and delivered a blow to her husband's groin that helped Shane to win the match.

In 2007, Linda McMahon announced that she'd kicked husband Vince out of their home due to allegations that he'd fathered an illegitimate child.

McMahon formally announced her intention to run for Senate as a Republican this morning, despite the fact that she's donated to sometime Democrat Joe Lieberman in the past. This is known as "turning heel."

[Pictured: Republican candidate for Senate Linda McMahon is Tombstoned by Kane.]

Politico reports that ACORN, a group that was particularly vocal in its support for Barack Obama last year, wants to file a lawsuit against Fox News, Andrew Breitbart's websites and other right-leaning groups for airing the video, which, they claim, was doctored. Or so says ACORN organizer Bertha Lewis:

It is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist ‘filmmaker' O'Keefe and his partner in crime... And, in fact, a crime it was-our lawyers believe a felony-and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators.

Hmmm. Really? Because it seems to us the people in the video were, in fact, trying to help someone commit a crime. And that's fine. Let them pay the price.

The fact that ACORN is coming out swinging only makes the group look more corrupt than it may be. But that's only one chapter in the group's ongoing drama, for the Senate voted yesterday to prohibit the Department of Housing and Urban Development from granting the group any federal funds. Lewis was displeased, of course, and tried to paint the vote as partisan:

We're disappointed that the Senate took the rare and politically convenient step of supporting eliminating some federal funding for a single organization, one that has been the target of a multi-year political assault stemming variously from the Bush White House, Fox News, and other conservative quarters.

Sadly for Lewis, the vote was 83-7, and only a few Democrats voted to give the group all-important federal funds. It's unclear whether the group can weather these latest setbacks, but it is clear that ACORN has found itself in hot water and that its political support has boiled away.

Rather than trying to blame conservative groups for all of its problems, perhaps ACORN should take a good, hard look at its staff, actions and methods and make some changes, because, if it doesn't, there's little chance it can come out on top and not look like a bunch of paranoid activists who are shaking their fists at an invisible enemy.

Image via Michael @ NW Lens's flickr.

Boing Boing came across this recent video of Franken drawing all 48 states (of the continental U.S., geography nerds) from memory at the Minnesota State Fair, and ever the paranoid types, wondered if Franken is faking it: "it would be easy to create indented trace-lines by using a pen with no cartridge in advance." Doubtful given how long and how often Franken's been doing this trick.

The first time I saw Franken draw his map was on Saturday Night Live when he was analyzing presidential election results (I think 1988?) but I can't find a video of it online. But there is a Youtube clip from 1987 of Franken on Letterman drawing his map in under 2 minutes (he starts at about the 7:30 mark). It doesn't look like his technique has changed much since, aside from now adding in Hawaii and Alaska.

Apparently, he did his map-drawing trick regularly at fundraisers during his Senate campaign. Last July, map blog The Map Room posted a video from 2007 and Daily Kos has some pictures from August of last year. Leave it to the U.S. Senate's greatest hope for (intentional) comedy to only give us his wonkiest, two-decade old joke.

While surely the implications of this news are big in the Kennedy context — could it be the family is relinquishing its hand on America's political system? — it also opens the door for a new generation of political dynasties. But, sadly, the prospects are dim.

The most obvious choice would be the Bush's, a family that has produced two presidents and Jeb. Since Barbara's basically a persona non-grata and Jenna's working for Today, the family's brightest star could be George Prescott Bush, President Dubya's attorney nephew who's also a real estate honcho. That combination, plus his good looks, could make him a good candidate to maintain the family's standing as a preeminent political family.

With Bill being a former President and Hillary as Secretary of State, some are hoping Chelsea Clinton will keep the family's lawmaking legacy alive. She seems to have little interest in politics and therefore won't help build a nascent dynasty. Sad.

We're thinking that the Obama girls may be the nation's best bet for political nepotism. Yeah, the girls are still in school, but the First Family has already been compared to the Kennedy clan and their revered "Camelot." If these girls choose — or if the family pushes, as should be done in all political dynasties — Sasha and Malia Obama could carry the torch for a new American royal family.

Perhaps there's another family out there, toiling away to break into the Washington scene. We sure hope so. This country could use more nepotistic clans who ingrain themselves into our democratic system. It seems antithetical to the American dream, yes, but this nation's democratic roots are also long-addicted to the ups-and-downs of political family drama. And we all know addictions must be fed.