I found Ted Kennedy's funeral and all the events and memorials surrounding it very moving. But at the time and since it's been this passage from Ted Kennedy, Jr.'s remarks at the funeral that I find most moving and most emblematic of the man ...

During the summer months, when I was growing up, my father would arrive late in the afternoon from Washington on Fridays and as soon as he got to Cape Cod he would want to go straight out and practice sailing maneuvers on the Victura in anticipation of that weekend's races. And we'd be out late and the sun would be setting and family dinner would be getting cold and we'd still be out there practicing our jibes and our spinnaker sets long after everyone else had gone ashore.

Well, one night, not another boat in sight on the summer sea and I asked him, 'Why are we always the last ones on the water?'

'Teddy,' he said, 'You see, most of the other sailors that we race against are smarter and more talented than we are, but the reason that we are going to win is that we will work harder than them and we will be better prepared.' And he just wasn't talking about boating. My father admired perseverance. My father believed that to do a job effectively required a tremendous amount of time and effort.

"No wonder Americans are scared" about health care reform, say the Republicans -- which makes a lot of sense, since the GOP are the ones who have scared people. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

How many Democrats of good will would agree to endorse Chris Christie if he just agreed to stop driving?

NJ Gov. candidate Chris Christie, when asked for comment about the 2002 accident in which he hit a motorcyclist while driving the wrong way on a one way street.

"First of all, the motorcycle hit me. He was injured at the scene, he was taken to the hospital but I understand that he's fine now."

In case you missed it, here's Eric Kleefeld's post on the police report. And here's the account of Christie denying the victim filed a lawsuit before a reporter for NJN found a record of the lawsuit at the county courthouse.

As noted earlier, we sent Eric Kleefeld down to the Elizabeth, New Jersey police department headquarters to get the police report on gubernatorial Chris Christie's wrong-way collision with a motorcyclist back in 2002. And here's Eric's write-up on the report.

But just a few moments ago, another big development surfaced -- an apparent lie about the accident Christie was caught in by New Jersey public television station NJN.

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Can you be the heckler at your own health care town hall? Sounds like a zen koan. But Michael Steele gave it a try.

Video: Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) talks down a gaggle of Tea Partiers at state fair.

Fmr. US Atty Chris Christie

Earlier today we reported about NJ Gov. candidate Chris Christie's latest traffic incident in which he mentioned being US Attorney and didn't get a ticket.

We wanted to get more information on the accident -- since the initial reports suggested a high degree of negligence (i.e., driving the wrong way on a one-way street) and didn't go into specifics on the motorcyclist's injuries. So we sent Eric Kleefeld down to the police station in Elizabeth. And I just got off the phone with Eric after he took an initial look at the police report.

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Charlie Cook is out with another ominous political analysis/forecast for the Democrats, particularly when it comes to continued Democratic control of the House. The key issue for Cook is Obama's dramatic decline in support among political independents over the course of the summer. By Cook's reading, the economic bite of the recession only really kicked in in the early months of Obama's term and smacked right up against Obama's ambitious domestic agenda. But the part of Cook's analysis that jumped out at me was the last part of this graf ...

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Rep. Bachmann (R-MN): Dems are after me because they fear I'll become president.

Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly

Because of the state's size and statewide standards, Texas's choice of school books is often adopted by state's and school districts around the country. And the state is about to adopt a policy only to adopt textbooks which teach students to "identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly, and the Moral Majority."

An earlier proposal to de-emphasize the American founding fathers in favor of biblical precepts didn't make the cut. But a new emphasis on the teachings of Newt Gingrich may be coming to a high school near you.

Barack Obama definitely the first black man to get attacked by the right for telling kids to study hard and stay in school.

John Ashcroft DOJ Chief of Staff and current business partner David Ayres apparently plans to take the fifth at the trial of accused Team Abramoff operative Kevin Ring.

Fmr. US Atty Chris Christie

Looks like more evidence that New Jersey governor candidate Chris Christie put his job as US Attorney to good use as a get-out-of-ticket or even get-out-of-jail free card back in the glory days of the Bush era.

The latest example: In 2002 he struck a motorcyclist while driving in the wrong direction on a one way street. Christie got off without even a ticket after mentioning his job title. Did Christie's status figure in to the cushy resolution? The local police director says: "I don't think I want to make that kind of deduction, but I think the facts speak for themselves."

I would say so.

I must say, not having paperwork is something that probably happens to a lot of people. And lotsa people speed. But this is pretty far out there. And when you put it all together it does seem to reach beyond the normal level of political chop busting. Hit a motorcyclist going the wrong way on a one way street? No ticket?

Sec. of Defense Robert Gates understands the public's fatigue with Afghanistan. "I don't believe that the war is slipping through the administration's fingers," said Gates. "The nation has been at war for eight years. The fact that Americans would be tired of having their sons and daughters at risk and in battle is not surprising." That and other political news in today's TPMDC Morning Roundup.

TPM Reader JF's lament ...

How long did it take the right to go from: "if you criticize the President you are a traitor" to "School children should not trust the President."

In all the rush of news on health care reform and bitten fingers today, I'd missed the news that an original Opera has been composed based on the transcripts of the Alberto Gonzales hearings from the US Attorney Scandal.

The "Gonzales Cantata" will be performed for the first time this weekend in Philadelphia. More details here -- with preview video.

"I see Gonzales as a tragic figure who's also simultaneously irredeemable," says the composer.

Nancy Pelosi: "A bill without a strong public option will not pass the House."

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) tells TPMDC: "We're not going through this to write some namby pamby bill so we can check a box and say we did health care reform."

This and other special moments from our TPM Levi Johnston Slideshow.

The latest we hear is that finger bite victim, William J. Rice, will likely not be charged, despite throwing the first punch in the altercation. But the pro-reform biter, who remains at large, will likely face felony mayhem charges.

Sounds about right. As Capt. Ross Bonfiglio told TPM's Ben Frumin ...

"He's more a victim at this point," the captain said, even though "he was admittedly the primary aggressor."

"Nothing's black and white in a case like this," he said, noting that proportion can matter just as much as the order of events.

"If Rice was the initial aggressor and the guy cut his head off, it doesn't mean it was justified."

Late Update: It seems this story has taken a somewhat more serious turn. The initial AP report had it that Rice's finger had been reattached at a local area hospital not long after the incident. But a short time ago, Rice appeared on FOX and said that the finger was not reattached. So TPM's Ben Frumin talked to the hospital spokesperson who explained that there was a miscommunication between a nurse and the hospital spokesperson this morning. And she confirmed that the finger was in fact not reattached.

Robert Reich on what he thinks Obama must demand from Congress on Health Care.

If you're jonesing for a Levi/Palin spat fix, Eric Kleefeld has gotten hold of the new copy of Vanity Fair and gives us his comprehensive analysis of the juiciest morsels.

We just talked to an eyewitness to the rapidly becoming notorious finger-biting incident at the health care rally in California last night. According to the eyewitness the anti-health care reform guy punched the reformer in the face before having the reformer bite off his finger.

And in a crowning bit of poetic justice (moral victory?) for the reformers, the anti- guy had his finger reattached under Medicare.

Jon Taplin sees hints that Joe Biden may not be fully on board on our Afghanistan policy.

Biden on health care: We're "gonna get something substantial" on health care reform. But "it's going to be an awful lot of screaming and hollering before we get there."

From TPM Reader PB ...

The administration needs to not only make the affirmative case for the stimulus, but to remind voters of what the alternative might have been. If McCain had gotten elected and somehow managed to get his agenda enacted (remember he was calling for a government spending freeze) we would not be talking about a recovery from a bad recession, we would be in the throes of a very deep depression.

At True/Slant, Ryan Sager has a very apt post noting that the real and overwhelming factor behind President Obama's sagging approval ratings is the economy. What I'd been wondering though was why the White House was not moving more aggressively to convince voters that the early signs of a stabilizing and rebounding economy are due in large measure to the Stimulus Bill President Obama pushed through just after he was elected. But it appears they're kicking that into gear. Today, Vice President Biden and cabinet secretaries Vilsack, LaHood and Salazar are each giving speeches on the Stimulus.

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There's a backdraft of chatter about the fact that the president's joint address to Congress next week will come uncomfortably close to the anniversary of the speech President Clinton gave at the same lectern on the same subject in September of 1993. But it's worth remembering just what happened in 1994.

First it is important to remember how much of what happened in 1994 had little to do with the health care debacle. The pre-1994 Democratic majority was heavily represented by long-term incumbents from what had over time become heavily Republican states and districts. Incumbency masked the vulnerability. But so did the fact that the Democratic Congress had gone so long without having to face those inherently skeptical electorates when a Democratic president, with big plans, was in office. That configuration was bound to create cross-cutting wave that would sweep away many of those office-holders. For all the myriad factors that went into that disastrous mid-term, and there were many, I've always thought these were the key factors.

Still though, the health care debacle, coming just before the election (really catastrophic timing) played a big role. So why?

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From EJ Dionne ...

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?

There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television's point of view "boring") encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.

...

Over the past week, I've spoken with Democratic House members, most from highly contested districts, about what happened in their town halls. None would deny polls showing that the health-reform cause lost ground last month, but little of the probing civility that characterized so many of their forums was ever seen on television.

"I think the media coverage has done a disservice by falling for a trick that you'd think experienced media hands wouldn't fall for: of allowing loud voices to distort the debate," said Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, whose district includes Columbus, Ohio.

If the sketchy initial reports are accurate, a pro-reform demonstrator bit off the finger of an anti-reform protester after a scuffle at a rally last night in California.

Tom Daschle: If the choice is between "complete legislative failure" of health care reform and bypassing Republicans through reconciliation, it's a no-brainer. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Uber-Democratic donor Hassan Nemazee's legal woes are multiplying. As you may recall, the day after Nemazee was confronted by the FBI last month about his alleged $74 million fraud of Citibank, he repaid his outstanding obligation to the bank in full. But now prosecutors allege that Nemazee defrauded another bank to obtain the money to repay Citibank.

Department of Education removes "Help The President" language from classroom materials for Obama speech.

Pat Buchanan: Hitler didn't want war.

Sen. Schumer's statement ...

"The President is clearly not running away from this battle, but rather confronting the challenges we've encountered these last few weeks head-on. He's pulling out all the stops, and this level of involvement from the President could well be a game changer. There is no better way to turn public opinion around than to have someone as popular as President Obama addressing the American people directly, without intermediaries interpreting - or misinterpreting - his ideas."

There aren't many current affairs or memoir type books I'm really eager to read. But I really can't wait to read the Kennedy memoir. The folks at the Times have a copy.

Tom Ridge on when untrustworthy book covers happen to trustworthy books.

TPM Reader SG's Lament ...

This "outrage" over Obama speaking to schoolchildren is the last straw. The Swiftboating -- and that's what this is -- of Obama must be dealt with.

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U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke waves off the "irregularities" in the Afghanistan election as similar to the protracted Minnesota Senate election.

Guess that makes the incumbent Karzai, our ostensible ally there, the Norm Coleman of Afghanistan.

Coleman, um, lost.

There's a lot of commotion and confusion right now on where the state of play is on health care reform, especially with the news emerging over the course of the day that the president will start a new roll out next week.

First, literalism in a situation like this will only get you so far. Sen. Blanche Lincoln appeared to say yesterday that she was ruling out a public option. Politico and others reported it that way. What she actually said was: "I would not support a solely government-funded public option. We can't afford that."

The only problem with that is that there's no version of the public option that is "solely government-funded." It's fundamentally premium-based, with more or less subsidies either at the front end to get it started or to defray costs for middle and lower income consumers. So on the face of it, it's a nonsensical statement -- like, I'll vote down every death panel.

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The press secretary for the Florida GOP, which sent out a press release calling an Obama address to schoolchildren nationwide an exercise in socialist indoctrination, piles on in an interview with TPMDC:

Well, I know that a lot of the President's ideas don't reflect my values and don't reflect the values that I would be teaching my children. And to be quite honest, there are a lot of the President's ideas that I wouldn't want my children discussing in a public school. It's not appropriate, the place for that is in the home.

Eric Kleefeld has more.

Bernie Madoff claimed he was on the "short list" to be appointed chairman of the SEC. Maybe just a boast to keep SEC investigators off his trail, but a scary thought anyway.

TPM Reader FC pleads, "Stop the madness!":

You're part of the problem. I don't expect much from Politico or AP because they're shills for the Republican Party. But I hold TPM to a higher standard. You're getting your readers worked up about some anonymous sources and Axelrod's language (I can't believe you're deconstructing the word "spirit") in order to start the whole hyperventilating-of-progressives cycle again.

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Obama to address joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Topic: Health Care Reform.

According to Jonathan Weisman at the Journal, President Obama is going to unveil his newly revamped health care reform strategy at the AFL-CIO's annual labor day blowout picnic in Cincinnati, along with John Sweeney and Richard Trumka.

If that's true and it's also true that the White House is essentially jettisoning the public option, that could be an awkward day in the park.

There's a lot of shadow boxing now. But the gist of the articles out today about the White House's new initiative on the health care front is that the president thinks it's time to put his cards on the table, say what has to be included and get a bill through Congress. And a public option does not appear to be one of the cards he's planning on putting on the table.

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Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas yesterday appeared to flatly rule out supporting a public option. But she did so in some funny language which may amount to something of a hedge.

What if the version of the public option that emerged in the House (which has to be seen as the maximal version of what's possible) is so constrained and anemic that it wouldn't really accomplish anything anyway?

The Washington Monthly is celebrating its 40th birthday. And they seem to be rolling out a new site design too.

According to Rep. Phil "I'm All For Guns at Town Halls" Gingrey (R-GA), who was on MSNBC this morning, true bipartisanship would be Obama threatening to veto his own public option plan.

Former Rep. James Traficant (D-OH) was released from prison this morning after serving a seven-year sentence for corruption. Traficant walked out of the joint with "his famously wild hair pulled back," the AP reports.

Having disappointed many Christian conservative voters with the revelation of his philandering ways, Gov. Mark Sanford (R) of South Carolina has a new angle on why he should stay in office and not be impeached: God wants me fighting for liberty as governor.

"I feel absolutely committed to the cause, to what God wanted me to do with my life. I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened."

It may not be a tell-all book. But it does look like a tell-all Vanity Fair article with estranged Palin would-be son-in-law Levi Johnston. Among young Levi's claims -- a secret plan to cover up Bristol pregnancy by having Palins adopt the son and Palin's plan to resign after the 2008 election to "triple the money." More details here.

Sort of reminds me of the richly symbolic laying on of hands moment with McCain and Levi on the Tarmac in St. Paul last year. Good times ...

Is Justice Stevens' retirement imminent? That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Ridge on Maddow last night: Don't believe everything you read -- especially on my book jacket.

Let's get out ahead of this. Republicans are saying that if Democrats go the 'reconciliation' -- i.e., 51 votes rules -- route there will be a "minor revolution." That's fine. Hyperbole is a bipartisan indulgence.

But I'm seeing more and more reporters referring to reconciliation as the "nuclear option." The reference is to the 2005 cycle in which Republicans threatened to abolish the filibuster to push through their Supreme Court appointments. As an aside, the Republican leadership didn't just threaten. They used the threat, in essence, to force the Dems to give away and accept President Bush's nominations.

In any case, the comparison is baseless.

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It really shows how deep we are in the bamboozlement when even the bamboozlers get tripped up in the nonsense.

Here's CNBC's Maria Bartiromo asking 44-year old Rep. Anthony Weiner: "If Medicare's so good, why aren't you on it?!"

Who's on the invite list for the White House Ramadan Dinner?

Remember back in 2006 when things in Iraq were at rock bottom and a would-be GOP congressman from California went to Iraq and came back with pictures showing how everything was peaceful and great in Baghdad?

Only the picture was of downtown Istanbul ... So close, but yet so far, and all that.

Yeah, those were great days for Howard Kaloogian, along with the fact-finding trip of talk radio hosts he went to Iraq with who turned out to be funded by a bunch of Iraqi and Kurdish foreign lobbying money. But now Kaloogian has resurfaced as ... drum roll, please ... the guy funding the Tea Party Express!

The "Tea Party Express" is a conservative PAC-organized cross-country bus tour tapping into the grassroots movement to line-dance to Frank Sinatra. Or something like that. Think American Idol meets A Chorus Line. See it for yourself.

We'll have more on the folks behind this PAC soon ...

Take thirty seconds and become a fan of TPM on Facebook. We really appreciate it.

Gonzales backs torture probe.

A voice from far on the left of the Israeli peace camp on why a boycott of Israel would be neither moral nor effective, and why Israel is not South Africa.

It's a big potential hang up that could make a senate health care bill much better for progressives or kill it entirely. In most conversations, the question of whether to push health care legislation through 'reconciliation' in the senate (which requires 51 rather than 60 votes) is being treated largely as an issue of how tough Senate Dems are willing to get.

But there's a catch -- a dynamic interaction between senate procedures and the substance (and thus the politics) of the bill. In short, to make a health care bill pass muster under the fairly arcane 'reconciliation' procedures, you may need to make the public option substantially more robust than what many Senate Dems are now envisioning.

In other words, maybe you have 55 votes for health care reform, but not 60. So you go for reconciliation. But you could have a situation where the Dems decide to pull the trigger on reconciliation (which needs 50 votes plus Joe Biden). But to meet the reconciliation guidelines you may need to include a public option that only 48 or 45 Dems will vote for.

Confused? We have the story here.

A new poll shows Democrat Creigh Deeds has closed to within 7 points of Republican Bob "Keep Women in Their Place" McDonnell. A month ago McDonnell had a 14-point lead.

Who kidnapped Tom Ridge's dog and took him to a secret prison in Albania?

I'd been thinking alone the same lines. The 2007-2008 Mike Huckabee was the warm and fuzzy face of the Christian right, more morals than intolerance and even a backdraft of social justice on the economics front. But he seems to have decided that there's an opening for a hate-fest candidate in 2012. And he's auditioning for the role.

President Obama chats with physicist Stephen Hawking at the White House where Hawking was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. This and other behind the scenes images from our August at the White House slideshow.

Reich on what we can learn from August.

Michael Steele takes to the airwaves in a new ad opposing all manner of things that are not actually in the health care reform bill. That and the day's other news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

I must confess I'm surprised. The new Quinnipiac poll is out this morning. And despite a few other polls that had shown this race nearing a tie, they have Christie still up by 10 points: 47-37, with the independent drawing 9%. In other words, at least according to this poll, the last several weeks of terrible (or seemingly terrible) news for Christie, hasn't had much of an effect. Unless this poll turns out to be a real outlier, that's really bad news for Corzine.

Late Update: It turns out that there's a second Christie v. Corzine poll today. This one's a bit better for the incumbent, with a 5 point spread. But that's about in line with the last FDU poll. So the big picture seems to be the same: little change even after a very rough month for Christie.

In another sign that the Gang of Six is fast becoming the Deep Six, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus today told the AP that while he still has hopes for a bipartisan deal, health care reform is happening this year with or without the GOP.

What caught my eye though this passage down in the story (emphasis added) ...

"I think the chances are still good," Baucus told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. "I talked to them, and they all want to do health care reform. But the sad part is a lot politics have crept in. They are being told by the Republican Party not to participate."

If it falls apart, Democrats will have to turn to the "nuclear option" -- forcing through an inferior bill through a process that only requires 51 votes instead of 60, Baucus said.

I don't want to jump to the conclusion that this was some weird editorial gloss by the AP. Perhaps this is what Baucus said, and he meant that it would not be the ideal outcome, etc. But why would a bill passed through reconciliation be 'inferior'? And, that's only half a rhetorical question.

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This is a pretty big bummer.

I was getting excited to see retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré get into the Republican primary to challenge incumbent/disgraced Sen. David Vitter (R). But he now seems to have definitively shot down the idea.

Late Update: Sigh, it gets worse. Now Honoré's saying he's not even a Republican and never met the consultant he'd reportedly met with to discuss getting into the race. Really knows how to ruin a guy's day.

Joe Klein bids Sens. Grassley and Enzi adieu. Or adios, in his words.

You know Virginia governor candidate Bob McDonnell called for a "God-ordained Government" back in his 1989 graduate thesis at Regent University. We pick out some of the other choice morsels from McDonnell's manifesto.

More evidence the Gang of Six nonsense is drawing to a close.

VA Dems pounce on Republican candidate's earlier endorsement on legislating from the bible.

With the summer winding down, it's time to take stock of where the legislative track is likely to pick up in what is likely to be the breakneck pace of September.

First, with two of the three Republican members of the so-called Gang of Six openly embracing some version of the "death panel" canard, it's probably worth writing off the Finance committee negotiations for a bipartisan bill. But that doesn't mean it's all down to pushing reform through budget reconciliation, which is to say using procedures which allows you to do it with 50 rather than 60 votes.

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On Friday I noted the raft of recent (though all partisan) poll showing the Christie v. Corzine race drawing even. Quinnipiac just announced that they're going to be releasing their latest poll of this race tomorrow morning at 9 AM.

Grover Norquist says the Holder probe into Bush-era torture practices is a good thing since future Republican administrations will now be able to open probes into the Stimulus Bill.

The Secret Service says they're aware of the latest out of Arizona and "appropriate follow up will be conducted."

Steven Anderson, the Arizona pastor who says he's praying for President Obama's death has now thrown in some helpful specificity. He wants him to get brain cancer like Sen. Kennedy. Also of note, Chris Broughton, Anderson's parishioner, who brought the assault rifle to the Obama event a few weeks ago now says he's praying for Obama's death too and is now hedging on whether he's suggesting that someone take matters into their own hands and end the president's life.

The metal contraption, the robotic pose, where to start? What's the caption? Here are some more bracing photographic evidence of Tom DeLay's start at Dancing with the Stars.

Lawyers for indicted former Republican congressman Rick Renzi of Arizona are trying to have the federal government held in contempt on the grounds that the Justice Department leaked to the media about his public corruption case for political reasons.

It's an interesting twist because we now know that Harriet Miers, as White House counsel, asked DOJ to leak in Renzi's favor right before the 2006 midterm elections. And while DOJ apparently resisted her request, a later leak -- of still unknown origin -- favorable to Renzi made it into press in time for the election and Renzi was re-elected.

Who might fill Ted Kennedy's seat? That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

At Main Justice, Mary Jacoby notes that in his appearance today on Fox News Sunday, former Vice President Cheney referred to President Obama as the chief law enforcement officer of the land, with Eric Holder merely a political appointee who executes his policies.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, when asked whether he'd support retired Gen. Russel Honoré if he gets into the Louisiana Senate race as a Republican, "Oh, man, I'll support that guy any way he goes."

From WaPo ...

At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

The 93-page document, which is publicly available at the Regent University library, culminates with a 15-point action plan that McDonnell said the Republican Party should follow to protect American families -- a vision that he started to put into action soon after he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.