Clever: “House GOP leaders are ramping up the pressure on centrist Democrats Tuesday by busing to the Hill and meeting with business owners from several Blue Dog districts who are opposed to the president’s health-care reform bill. The meeting with small-business owners is part of the ongoing effort by Republicans to attack what they consider to be a ‘government takeover’ of the country’s health-care system.”

And it all seemed to work: “Democratic leaders have apparently thrown in the towel — telling their Republican counterparts that there will be no health care vote on the House floor before the August recess starts this Friday, according to a Republican memo obtained by POLITICO.”

Not true, says Nancy Pelosi! They may vote after all. (Who gets the dirty work of finally holding the “no vote before the recess” press conference? Maybe they just leave town in the middle of the night like Bob Irsay.) Well, the hitch is that “the list of open issues grew longer rather than shorter.”

And sure enough, Roll Call says there’s no deal.

Clearly the left hand does not know what the far-left hand is doing: “President Obama defended his push for a new public health insurance plan Tuesday, just as key senators were considering leaving it out of their health reform bill.”

Marc Ambinder and TNR think Obama’s game plan is to lie to the Arab Street — get them “convinced that America is truly more neutral than it has seemed.” A foreign policy based on alienating our ally and lying to both sides. Simply brilliant, no? Well, no, actually.

Mickey Kaus: “Here’s a safe political prediction: Despite all the innovative e-mobilization and ad campaigns and town halls, the August recess will not produce any effective groundswell of popular support for Obama’s health care reform. Why? The ’security’ message — which might appeal to the vast middle — is not getting through.” Well, that and the fact that the normal middle-class people they have to reach aren’t going to health-care town halls in August — they are going to the beach and to grandma’s house.

Gov. Jon Corzine in a heap of trouble: “The Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling’s new survey shows Republican Chris Christie leading the embattled Democratic governor 50 to 36 percent with 14 percent undecided. That’s a larger deficit for Corzine than the last time PPP polled the race in June. . . . Corzine’s approval rating is at 33 percent, down a smidge from June’s 36 percent tally.” Will Obama try to throw him a lifeline or steer clear of the race? Unless Corzine gets to single digits, I suspect the latter.

Colin Powell has this wacky idea we should be polite to police officers.

A must-read take on Israel and Iran from John Bolton. “Relations between the U.S. and Israel are more strained now than at any time since the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. Mr. Gates’s message for Israel not to act on Iran, and the U.S. pressure he brought to bear, highlight the weight of Israel’s lonely burden. Striking Iran’s nuclear program will not be precipitous or poorly thought out. Israel’s attack, if it happens, will have followed enormously difficult deliberation over terrible imponderables, and years of patiently waiting on innumerable failed diplomatic efforts. Absent Israeli action, prepare for a nuclear Iran.”

Could be: ”The Democratic agenda in Washington has gone off the rails just as markets are enjoying their best run of the Obama presidency, and there’s a school of thought on Wall Street that it’s no coincidence.”

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