I suppose it would be easy to be snarky and funny and dismissive of Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican and evangelical Christian, who is resigning from Congress as part of the fall out from an affair with a staffer.

I will be bigger than that. Sort of. Except for this part, "In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon, often twisted, for political gain."

Any personal failing? I'm sorry Mr. Congressman, but this one is not just "any personal failing." This is one of the big 10, a major transgression, a serious boo-boo. One of those "Shall Nots" that Moses brought down from the mountaintop.

A "personal failing" is forgetting to pay parking tickets, may be, or overdue library books, or being grumpy in the morning before your coffee. An affair with an underling is bigger stuff. One could say that my dislike of guns is a personal failing, or my ability to drone on to hear myself speak is a personal failing.

I don't understand why everyone refers to the debate over health care as one party or the other's "Waterloo."

True, it wasn't a good couple three days for Napoleon Bonaparte, but he was only one of three leading generals on the scene.

For the Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, it was a pretty good weekend's work.

Congrats to my friends and colleagues

You can find the official citation at the LIU site. http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/polk/press/2009.html

A team of Bloomberg News reporters who produced a series of stories that demanded accountability from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board will be honored with the George Polk Award for National Reporting. The late Mark Pittman collaborated with colleagues Bob Ivry, Alison Fitzgerald and Craig Torres to help make transparent the transaction of trillions of dollars toward bank bailouts. Their stories, which kept a running tally of the government’s and the Fed’s commitments to banks, were invoked by legislators on Capitol Hill and were cited on international radio and television. When the Bloomberg staffers’ Freedom of Information Act requests were denied, their employer filed a lawsuit against the Fed. The media outlet won the case, requiring the central bank to make available to the public more detailed information about its loans. The decision has been appealed in court.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=axd4zwYGfdv0

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=armOzfkwtCA4

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7CC61ZsieV4

The real question is not, "How can the Democrats pull out the Massachusetts Senate seat to preserve the supermajority?", but rather, "Why are the Republicans completely unwilling to negotiate a health care bill that is good for the country?"

That the health system in this country is broken can not be argued. By any number of measures -- infant mortality, numbers without access, cost to the individual and society as a whole, outcomes for patients -- the system is in danger of collapsing of its own weight. As a result, even more people will go without coverage and be sicker and cost more to treat. If nothing is done, healthcare costs will rise by about a third again to $3.1 trillion by 2012, or more than one fifth of U.S. GDP.

So, I ask, why is the GOP willing -- nay, eager -- to see this bill, or any health care bill, go down to defeat? Can it be that they are so enamored of power and control that the good of the country has no merit? Is no one among them willing to put the good of the nation before their desire to "see Obama fail?" How can it be good for a nation for a significant minority wish ill on their president solely for the perceived benefit to their party?

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