I knew the second that blonde reporter brought the Gates incident into a press conference about a desperately urgent but complex problem, that the nation would be set to talking about the simpler gut issue, relieved not to have its nose rubbed any further in the mess that is our health-care delivery system. Oh, I know, we're still going to work on health care reform, and even probably get it; but it's still not funny how easily we're manipulated into gnawing on bones that are tossed our way as a distraction.

The layers of bullshit in the argument for preventive detention are fathomless. The one that does it for me is this: dangerous -- highly dangerous -- people are released every day from U.S. prisons, having served their terms, and with a statistical near-certainty that they will commit new violent crimes in fairly short order. End of argument.

"There is enormous anger out there about government spending, the increased debt, the bailouts and the fact that Washington is still taking orders from special interests. This is not the change people signed on for."

Special interests work hard and spend hard to get the attention and sympathy of "Washington." Voters, on the other hand, stakeholders--the owners, trustees and heirs of the country and all its wealth and potential--would mostly rather sit on their asses and complain. You don't just "vote for change," people, you have to insist on change. It means picking up the phone, getting off your wallet, DOING SOMETHING!

From an anonymous reader/poster at TPM:

"Tonight sums up where we are in America: the headlines are all about, not how to get to secure and affordable health care, the preeminent social inclusion issue relevant to millions of American families, but about African American Obama defending his millionaire friend Skip Gates on the race issue! (Yes, the Cambridge police were stupid, but so was arrogant Skip, who lost his temper and is turning it all into self-promoting race fiction.)

"Race trumps social-economic justice: just what the right wing wants, and just what has repeatedly derailed possibilities for redistributive reform since the 1960s.

"This was Obama's best chance to get through to millions of ordinary Americans on health care -- and he blows it, with self-obsessed Skip Gates, the race-obsessed press aiding and abetting all the way."

Is here.

If enough of the American people don't want health care reform enough to pick up the phone and call their representatives, to clamor for it out loud -- then the well-organized and -funded forces at work to kill it will win.

Obama's only an executive, not God.

Obama is herding cats at best. He's made it clear what he'd like to see as part of a reform package, but what he wants is only an influence on -- not the determiner of -- what we end up with ultimately.

IMO, the public needs to become a lot more vocal. This is our health care, our government, our country. People go about their daily lives expecting "leadership" to handle everything, make all the decisions, run the show. Which is exactly why highly motivated, focused and bankrolled special interests so often get their way even when it runs completely counter to the best interests and desires of the majority -- the largely silent majority that can't be bothered to call up a congressperson or make a contribution but is happy to complain about how "politicians are screwing everything up."

It's honesty enabled by freedom from corporate bondage.

I agree with Glenn and all those who get a chill from this news. It's a far-from-ideal situation, not at all what we thought an Obama presidency was going to look like. But were our expectations realistic?

Rather than the "24" scenario of the ticking bomb, which has been thoroughly discredited as a rationale for torture, let's posit a different one that I think is realistic. A killer is arrested and tried, but while everyone knows he committed the specific crime, crucial evidence against him is tainted and a conviction can't be won. The killer tells his lawyer he'll kill again, he tells fellow inmates he'll kill again -- for all I know, he tells the judge he'll kill again -- the point being that he can't be held for a crime he hasn't committed yet and he can't be held for the crime he already committed, so he is allowed to go free. Don't we all agree that the family of his next victim would have preferred the judge have some power to exercise prior restraint? In the big picture maybe it's better to sacrifice that victim than to alter our legal system in a way that opens up so many possibilities for abuse, but it's undeniably a sticky question with no easy answer.

I've been accused of being a blind Obama-lover and maybe that's what I am. I put so much hope in the guy I just can't let go of a rosy-outcome scenario. But I believe that once this particular mess, created by BushCo (possible actual terrorists who will commit new acts of terrorism if given the chance but who cannot be convicted in a court of law because of torture-tainted evidence) has been cleaned up, Obama will rescind any and all executive powers to continue to imprison those who have been acquitted of any crime.

A teacher who laments disinterest in education but who can't be bothered with punctuation. All is lost!