President's weekly address:

Helen Thomas asks if the President will offer more than pretty words and concern:

Via John Aravosis, The Hill reports:

Are Democrats dialling down expectations on what can be acheived under the banner of healthcare reform this year? Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) seems to be concerned they are. Rockefeller emerged from the Senate Democrats' weekly luncheon Tuesday afternoon, which featured an appearance by President Barack Obama's communications guru David Axelrod, wondering aloud (perhaps rhetorically) whether the White House's get-it-done message to Congress wasn't bold enough.

"David’s in there -- Axelrod -- saying we’ve got to try to get ‘something.’ So, the new benchmark is, ‘Well, if we can do something, if we can do anything, then we can say we did healthcare reform,’" Rockefeller said.

If that's true, that would provide the answer regarding the efficacy of Obama's Theory of Change. It would be, in the words of Dick Gephardt, a miserable failure.

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Via daily kos:

Jeffrey Toobin has a long article on President Obama and judicial appointments in the new issue of the New Yorker. The object: to ascertain whether Obama is appointing liberal judges. The answer is don't count on it.

First, the numbers:

Just eight months into his first term, Obama already has the chance to nominate judges for twenty-one seats on the federal appellate bench —more than ten per cent of the hundred and seventy-nine judges on those courts.”

Toobin writes Obama played it safe and "post-partisan" in his first choices: [More...]

Here. The Progressive Block must do what President Obama did not, advocate for the public option in THE PRESIDENT's OWN PLAN, not belittle it as he did:

[The Obama Plan] [o]ffers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice. The President believes this option will promote competition, hold insurance companies accountable and assure affordable choices. It is completely voluntary. The President believes the public option must operate like any private insurance company – it must be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.

The Progressive Block must fight for the President's own plan for a public option -- because he won't. In fact, he will fight to have it taken out (See Obama's "advocacy" for HIS public option plan on the flip.) UPDATE - I want to be clear on something - I hope and believe the Progressive Block should go out there and THANK the President for his ringing endorsement and unwavering commitment to the public option and promise the President they will never let him down by letting a bill pass that does not have the public option.

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I will be live blogging the speech of the President of the United States before a joint session of Congress. The speech is scheduled to begin at 8 pm EST.

Pre-Speech Sports Update: Melanie Oudin trails 0-3 to Wozniacki in the first in the US Open Womens Quarters. Serena and Clijsters are through to the semis, where they will meet. USA national soccer team locked in 0-0 draw in a World Cup qualifier at Trinidad late in the first half.

Madame Speaker, the President of the United States!! [Live blog on the flip . . .]

The Hill, one of the local Village papers, reports:

Tide turns against public option on eve of President Obama's address

Political momentum appeared to swing sharply against the public health insurance option prized by liberals Tuesday, on the eve of President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress. . . . Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said it’s time for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi to wake up to the growing opposition to her position. Obama should convince “Speaker Pelosi and others that the [public option] is a distraction and it’s not the main event,” Lieberman said during a television interview on Tuesday.

(Emphasis supplied.) Hey now, Lieberman agrees with the logrolling twins, Joe and Ezra Klein. But it is still up to the Progressive Block and, the irrelevant and impotent one, President Obama:

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). . . said the [President's] speech is likely to decide whether [the public option] is included in a bill. “We can cobble the votes together for a public option if the president says that’s what he wants,” Weiner said. “If he gives it up, there’s no other way to interpret that than as a retreat.”

(Emphasis supplied.) It's Big Wednesday, Barack.

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Via Dave Weigel, Shame on them! BTW, I wonder how much they would want for the web address if President Obama nominates Sunstein for the Supreme Court. Cuz I'd be interested.

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Alex Pareen at Gawker documents the Van Jones resignation story, with some facts. One of his many achievements: He founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which combats over-incarceration, police brutality, and urban poverty and violence. And,

... for both his activism and his charm he was rewarded with a White House job with the Council on Environmental Quality. He was tasked with making sure stimulus money for green jobs actually went to green jobs. And he's a great person to have in this administration—he is a genuine environmentalist and the only special interest he's beholden to is poor people. He is the sort of person we were all praying Obama would bring with him to DC, instead of Larry Summers. And that is one of the reasons he is now being ritually and savagely demonized.

How did the radical right force him out? Read the rest of Alex' post for "...how a smear becomes a meme. Schoolhouse Rock, 2009 style." [More...]

I say this with all due respect to the President of the United States - the Progressive Block made President Obama plan to argue for the public option in his speech before a joint session of Congress Wednesday night:

I had a pretty spirited go around with White House Press Secretary Roberts Gibbs and the latest on this dilemma over the public option. The bottom line: Gibbs says the President will make the case for a public option in his speech to Congress on Wednesday but he won't issue a veto threat if it isn't in the final package.

Of course, this is only a first step. The President is clearly willing to jettison a robust public option if he can. The Progressive Block still needs to make the President do it through a House-Senate conference and the Villagers' insistence in beating up the DFHs (all 77% of the American People.) But this is a good first step.

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magster points this out, via Brian Beutler:

If you weren't already convinced that the House and the Obama administration are on a collision course, you might be now. The latest statement out of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office is unequivocal: "A bill without a strong public option will not pass the House," Pelosi said.

(Emphasis supplied.) At this point, walk back is getting tougher and tougher for the House. Obama needs to deal with this new reality.

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The Obama Administration's Don Draper, David Axelrod, is working on the pitch for the Obama Administration's capitulation on the public option. Here's his first pass:

White House adviser David Axelrod tells ABC News that what remains of Obama's desire for a public option is largely theoretical. "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice."

(Emphasis supplied.) Hmm. Not bad. But needs a little work, Ax. You'll be working on this over Labor Day Weekend I take it? Let's see some artwork on that as well.

Speaking for me only