General, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.

GEN. GEORGE CASEY: Thank you, David.

GREGORY: I want to express my condolences for our fallen troops and their families this morning.

GEN. CASEY: Thank you very much.

GREGORY: I want to ask you about the investigation, though I know that you can't say very much. The key piece, as The New York Times is reporting this morning, was Major Hasan acting alone or was this part of a larger plot?

GEN. CASEY: I, I can't discuss, as you, as you said, I can't discuss the ongoing investigation or the suspect's possible motivations. The--there was a briefing by the investigators yesterday, and I think you'll see--you'll continue to see updates on the investigation as we, as we go forward. And I--although they have concluded to this point that he was the only one involved, when investigations like this start, they can go anywhere.

GREGORY: There were warning signs about Major Hasan along the way, and some of the reporting is bearing this out. Also from The New York Times reporting this morning, I want to put something up on the screen for our viewers and you to see. "Investigators, working with behavioral experts, suggested that he might have long suffered from emotional problems that were exacerbated by the tensions of his work with veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who returned home with serious psychiatric problems. They said his counseling activities with the veterans appear to have further fueled his anger and hardened his increasingly militant views as he was seeming to move toward more extreme religious beliefs, all of which boiled over as he faced being shipped overseas, an assignment he bitterly opposed." How did the Army miss this?

GEN. CASEY: I, I, I, I don't want to say that we missed it. I, I think we, we're starting to see anecdotes like this come out, and we're encouraging all of our soldiers and leaders that have information about the suspect to give that information to the Criminal Investigation Division and to the, the FBI. I'll tell you, I, I worry a little bit about speculation like this based on anecdotes. There's professional investigators looking at this. They've got over 170 interviews now and, and they'll look at all this and they'll help us form a judgment. But right now it's way too soon to be drawing any conclusions about what happened or what his motivations were.

GREGORY: All right. So in other words, the idea that he had hardened political or religious views against the United States, against our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, those are not true? Those are not conclusions that should be drawn?

GEN. CASEY: As, as I said, you--that's anecdotal evidence. I think those things will be confirmed or denied over the course of the investigation.

GREGORY: Did he express concerns, though--you say that there--you don't think signs were missed. He wanted to be discharged from the Army, he had a poor evaluation from Walter Reed. There were signs that this was somebody who was disaffected. And as a psychiatrist, there are too few of those, he was not let out.

GEN. CASEY: The--all those things could add up to a conclusion by the investigators that, that we should have seen something. Now, I will tell you that, that we will take a hard look at ourselves as an Army, because we want to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. And, and it's our ethos here to, to look hard at things, ask ourselves the hard questions and then adapt and adjust based on that.

GREGORY: Let me ask you...

GEN. CASEY: But it's just too early right now, David.

GREGORY: ...let me ask you the larger question about how the military is handling this mounting toll on our troops of multiple deployments, combat deployments and, and what the psychological toll is. Bob Herbert, in his column in The New York Times, put it this way: "We can't continue sending service members into combat for three tours, four tours, five tours and more without paying a horrendous price in terms of the psychological well-being of the troops and their families, and the overall readiness of the armed forces to protection the nation." He also points out that the secretary of defense talked about that stigma associated with psychological problems that our troops have.

GEN. CASEY: Mm-hmm. This is something we, we are keenly aware of, and then--and you have heard me talk about the Army being out of balance for two and a half years. And, and we have been working very hard to bring ourselves back in balance. And balance being a point where the soldiers are deploying at sustainable rates. We've made progress toward that, but we have, we have--still have a way to go. We've also worked very, very hard to enhance what we're doing to--for the mental fitness of the force. We started in 2007 with a major stigma reduction program that, frankly, has resulted in about a 40 percent increase in soldiers willing to come forward saying they have some symptoms of post-traumatic stress. We are going very hard after our suicide rate. As you know, last year we exceeded the civilian rate for the first time. We, we've, we've contracted a $5 million, a $5 million study with the National Institute of Health to look hard at our suicides, and this is something that is not only going to help the Army, it's, it's going to help the country. And most recently we've instituted a program called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, where we intend to give our soldiers the skills to build the resilience to deal with some of the challenges that they're facing.

GREGORY: What about your concerns about backlash against our Muslim soldiers who are in the Army, as a result of this incident?

GEN. CASEY: Yeah. I think those concerns are real and I, and I will tell you, David, that they're, they're fueled partially, at least, by the speculation about--based on anecdotal evidence that people are presenting. I think we have to be very careful with that. Our diversity not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse.

GREGORY: Do you have any reason to believe that having Muslims in the Army puts them in a very difficult position and makes the more conflicted fighting a war against Muslims in Afghanistan or Iraq?

GEN. CASEY: I think that's something that they have to look at on an individual basis. But I think we as an Army have to be broad enough to bring in people from all walks of life.

GREGORY: Before you go this morning, there are reports about the president narrowing down a choice, about 34,000 additional troops for Afghanistan. Can you say if he's moving in that direction?

GEN. CASEY: I, I can't. Those--we'll have some discussions with him I think over the course of the next weeks, and he'll make his decision, and then I'll give him my best professional advice.

GREGORY: Are you a proponent of additional forces?

GEN. CASEY: I, I believe that we need to put additional forces into Afghanistan to give General McChrystal the ability to both dampen the successes of the Taliban while we train the Afghan security forces.

GREGORY: And the 40,000 you think is appropriate, that level?

GEN. CASEY: I'm not going to comment on any specific number.

GREGORY: All right. General, again, our thoughts and prayers with the fallen and their families...

GEN. CASEY: Thank you very much, David. I appreciate it.

GREGORY: ...at Fort Hood. Thank you very much for being here.

Want to turn now to another big story, and that is the sweeping healthcare bill that has passed the House of Representatives. It passed late last night by a vote of 220-215, with 39 Democrats voting against the measure and one Republican voting for it.

(Videotape)

REP. PELOSI: The bill is passed.

(End videotape)

GREGORY: That victory represents a hard-fought victory for the president, who made a personal appeal to House Democrats at the Capitol yesterday afternoon.

We are joined here now by two governors on the front lines of this political debate, Republican governor of Mississippi and the chair of the Republican Governors' Association, Haley Barbour; and Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ed Rendell.

Welcome, both of you, back to MEET THE PRESS.

GOV. ED RENDELL (D-PA): David.

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR (R-MS): (Unintelligible)

GREGORY: Good to have you here. Let's talk about this news. Governor Barbour, I'll start with you. The House has passed healthcare reform. Is the president over the hump on this now? Will he get overall, sweeping reform?

GOV. BARBOUR: Oh, I doubt it. I think that the closeness of the vote in the House, the fact that the leadership had to break arms and still lost almost 40 Democrats argues what real trouble they're going to have in the Senate.

GREGORY: Governor Rendell, to that point, one Republican. It can't make the White House very happy this morning that they don't have much of a centrist coalition on which to build healthcare reform.

GOV. RENDELL: Sure, it can't, but I think that's something we've just got to look beyond. This country needs healthcare reform. Everybody agrees on that. The things that are agreed upon by Republicans and Democrats, 80 percent of the bill, we're going to get those in a healthcare bill that's going to pass the Senate, it's going to--it's passed the House already. The conference committee will iron out some of the problems and it'll be a huge step forward for Americans.

GREGORY: What...

GOV. RENDELL: Not just Americans who don't have health care, David, but Americans who do have it and are worried that if they change jobs and they have a pre-existing illness they won't be able to get health care.

GREGORY: But look at the Senate. You had said this week, talking about it after the election this Tuesday, it's going to be harder to be a conservative, moderate Democrats, the so-called Blue Dogs, to support something that's broad and visionary. We see--we've seen what's happened in the House. On the Senate side, there's more conservative Democrats. Are they going to feel like this is a safe vote cast in favor of healthcare reform?

GOV. RENDELL: Yeah. I think if you look at the polls--I saw an interesting poll in Arkansas. The public option is supported 57 to 23 by the citizens of Arkansas. Now, I know Senator Lincoln has a tough vote to weigh. I think there'll be a compromise on public option, maybe a phase-in or a trigger, or maybe the opt-in or opt-out. But I think we're going to get basic health care, because we need it. There are people all over this country who have health care, who are afraid they're going to lose it.

GREGORY: Governor Barbour, is it a problem politically for Republicans to be the party of no on this legislation, given what's happened now in the House? Is there a danger that Republicans aren't getting on board with something that could be more popular down the road?

GOV. BARBOUR: Well, I think first of all, most people in America don't want this, so to be the people that defeat it will be popular. But Ed said something very important. Sixty, 80 percent of the things that we talk about in health care could've passed the House last night 400 to 20. But instead the Democrat leadership chose not to stop there, but to try to cram down the country's throat a government-run healthcare system that GAO--I mean, CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, says is going to drive up health insurance premiums. The American people thought the idea here was we were trying to get control of the costs. Five hundred billion dollar cuts in Medicare. States like Mississippi and Pennsylvania are going to be forced to raise our taxes, because part of the cost of this is being dumped on us. There are lots of things in here that most Americans don't want, I don't believe the Senate will pass. But yeah, we could have a very good healthcare reform bill that would pass overwhelmingly, but about 10 things in here wouldn't be included.

GREGORY: Governor Rendell, if you talk in terms of what health care means--if premiums do go up, if the middle class does feel a tax hike with a, an individual mandate, you've got to buy insurance if that's held up--is this going to be healthcare reform that delivers to--for the middle class?

GOV. RENDELL: Sure it is. David, look, most people in the middle class do have health care and the mandate's not going to affect them. Small businesses are exempted from any of the mandates on business itself. Look, there's no perfect bill out there, but this bill is what we need. The problem with what Haley says is, yes, we could pass a healthcare bill that 80 percent--we agree on 80 percent of the things, but it wouldn't increase access for Americans, it wouldn't solve some of the basic problems of health security. That has to be done in this country and it has to be done now, and people understand that. Is--are there ways to do it that limit the things that Haley talks about? Absolutely. I'd like to see more cost controls in the bill. We've cut costs in Pennsylvania, Mississippi's cut costs, states have cut costs. We can do this, but we've got to pass a bill.

GREGORY: All right, let me talk about the political landscape here that is affected by health care, is affected by the jobs numbers, which we'll get to in just a moment. First of all, what happened this week, different views among Democrats, and we'll play some of them. This is the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

(Videotape, Wednesday)

REP. PELOSI: From my perspective, we won last night.

(End videotape)

GREGORY: Senator Mark Warner had a different view. "We got walloped," he said. How about former Senator Bob Kerrey? He said, "Every Democrat who is up in either 2010 or 2012 knows that last night was big. ... The electorate appears restless and angry." And Tennessee Democrat Congressman Jim Cooper said it's "a wake-up call for Congress. A tidal wave could be coming." Governor Barbour, is this a revival for the GOP?

GOV. BARBOUR: Well, it was a great night for Republicans. I think we should've go on and say what David Broder said in The Washington Post, that the research showed the polling--the more people were concerned about losing their job or trying to find a job, the more heavily they voted Republican; even more than independents, who voted 2-to-1 for the Republicans, people who had jobs and the economy on their mind. And that's what the American people want. You see Democratic congressmen like the--Jim Cooper from Tennessee, Michael Michaud from up in, up in Maine. The American people want Congress focused on jobs; instead, they see Congress focused on a healthcare reform bill that's going to drive up taxes for small businesses, the biggest employers in the country. NFIB, the spokesman for small business, say it'll cost $1.6 million jobs. No wonder people are mad that they're out here passing a healthcare reform bill like this when what the public want is job creation. Bob McDonnell won in Virginia because he talked about jobs, economic growth, taxes and spending.

GREGORY: If this wasn't, as the White House claimed--they said it was not a referendum on President Obama, it does say something about the mood in the country, Governor.

GOV. RENDELL: Well, there's no question, there's an anti-incumbent mood in the country. I'm happy I wasn't running this year, I don't know about Haley. But it's an anti-incumbent, and that's natural. When things are bad, incumbents are held responsible for them. But it wasn't about President Obama. Look at the Virginia exit poll, David; 24 percent said they came out to vote against President Obama, 20 percent said they came out to vote for him, but 60 percent, almost 60 percent said they voted on state issues. Governors? elections are about leadership. That's how people make their decisions. Congressional elections reflect more what's going on in Washington. And the one big one, the one mega one, Democrats won a seat that they haven't held in 100 years. So I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions, but I am sure of one thing: a year in politics is light years, is light years.

GREGORY: And, and, and when we talk about coalitions or the, the mood of voters, that can change. But for the moment those independent voters, which were so important for President Obama, to the Democrats, are saying something pretty loudly. This was The Washington Times reporting on the results on Wednesday: "Independents fuel GOP victories." Look at our own polling and look at how the independent sentiment has changed for President Obama. Back in March he had approval of 58 percent, now it's 41; disapproval up to 52 percent. And Politico reported something that was interesting on Thursday about, again, the sentiment of independents: "Many Democratic politicians and operatives publicly and privately say Obama's `big bang' strategy--trying to move several major policy initiatives in his first year--has also caused independent voters to question whether he is sufficiently focused on their primary concern, reviving the stagnant economy." Is he going too fast when you've got 10.2 percent unemployment?

GOV. RENDELL: Well, it's interesting; even in Virginia, where we lost the election big, his favorable rating was 57 percent. At the same time...

GREGORY: But it's a different question of whether he's taking on too much.

GOV. RENDELL: Is he taking on too much? He's taken on too much, David, because there are crises. He inherited these crises. He didn't go looking to take on these problems.

GREGORY: But you think he should slow down.

GOV. RENDELL: No. I...

GREGORY: You said that.

GOV. RENDELL: I think we should focus on the economy.

GREGORY: Right.

GOV. RENDELL: And we can focus on the economy. I think the stimulus is working. It's working in Pennsylvania, it's working in many states around the country. I think we ought to up front transportation spending, because infrastructure has the biggest return and that's a Republican and Democrat issue that we agree on.

GREGORY: Right.

GOV. RENDELL: Infrastructure produces construction jobs.

GREGORY: You've got 7,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania because of the stimulus. Is that enough?

GOV. RENDELL: And, and, and plenty of retained jobs that we would've lost. We have $2.6 billion of federal money in our budget. Without that money, teachers, policemen, municipal workers, county workers all would've lost their jobs.

GREGORY: But if you say focus on the economy, does that mean you think he should avoid taking on some other issues?

GOV. RENDELL: I think we should emphasize infrastructure through a speeded up transportation bill. Infrastructure produces construction jobs, manufacturing jobs. That's exactly what this country needs. I think the president's thinking about that.

GREGORY: Governor Barbour:

GOV. BARBOUR: David, we shouldn't confuse the president being personally unpopular. Americans want our presidents to succeed; and particularly the first time we ever elect an African-American president, I think there's great sentiment in favor of him. It's his policies that are unpopular. His policies about energy policy is very unpopular. His policy about healthcare policy is very unpopular. People think Washington's spending money could give drunken sailors a bad name. I mean, what they're seeing here is you can't spend yourself rich. Americans know that. But the government keeps spending and spending and spending. And instead of focusing on jobs, like Congressman Gerry Connolly from--new Democrat from Virginia said, they see focus on health care, focus on energy.

GREGORY: Let me ask you about New York 23, the upstate race where a Democrat won after there was this internecine warfare among Republicans. Is the view of the Republican Party that moderates need not apply? That's a position taken by David Axelrod in the White House and others.

GOV. BARBOUR: Well, look at the New Jersey governor's race, where we had a conservative Republican mayor run against a moderate Republican, Chris Christie. Chris Christie is a moderate, was attacked as being a moderate, quote/unquote. He got 94 percent of the Republican vote on Tuesday. In New York, instead of having a primary and letting the voters decide, a handful of county chairmen picked, picked a candidate by a vote of 7-to-4. Now, how do you expect a district with 45,000 more Republicans than Democrats to stand for that? They should have had a primary, and it'd have been just like Chris Christie in New Jersey; if the moderate won the primary, Republicans would have saluted and voted for him 95 percent.

GREGORY: Sarah Palin got involved in that race, she endorsed the independent conservative. What role does she play right now in the Republican Party?

GOV. BARBOUR: Well, she doesn't play any official role in the Republican Party, but a lot of people care about her, a lot of people are fond of her and she's like a lot of other politicians who are very well-regarded in our party.

GREGORY: What, what do you think of her?

GOV. BARBOUR: I like her.

GREGORY: Is she...

GOV. BARBOUR: Don't always agree with her. But, you know, my wife doesn't always agree with me, either.

GREGORY: But is she, does she an important Republican leader, in your book?

GOV. BARBOUR: Oh, I think she is. I think she's got something to offer. One of the great things...

GREGORY: Right. Do you think she could be president?

GOV. BARBOUR: One of the great things about when your party's out of power, you don't have a spokesman.

GREGORY: Right.

GOV. BARBOUR: You have a lot of--I don't want to say let a thousand flowers bloom, but you have a lot of different people, and that's healthy for your party.

GREGORY: Do you, do you...

GOV. BARBOUR: The Democrats do that when they're out.

GREGORY: But does she--do you think she speaks for the party?

GOV. BARBOUR: I think she speaks for herself, just like I speak for myself.

GREGORY: Do you think she could be president?

GOV. BARBOUR: Look, it's a long way away from there. Every time, every time people ask me about president, I remember them, David, any Republican who cares about the future of our country needs to be focused on the elections of 2010. Those are the elections that matter. We'll worry about president after 2010.

GREGORY: What about, what about you?

GOV. RENDELL: David...

GREGORY: Would you like to run for--in 2012?

GOV. BARBOUR: I would like for us to win in 2010.

GREGORY: And then you'll consider it.

GOV. BARBOUR: Well, I don't have any plans to, but I wouldn't consider it until the elections of 2010 are over.

GOV. RENDELL: David, I want to say one thing. Haley said that his wife doesn't agree with him all the time. But I, I know his wife, and he agrees with her all the time.

GREGORY: Yeah. I want, I want to get to a couple of other issues before we run out of time. Jobs, the unemployment rate at 10.2 percent. Governor Rendell, can there be economic recovery while there is dudget--double-digit unemployment?

GOV. RENDELL: Full economic recovery, no. But it's interesting to note that the GDP increased by 3.5 percent after four quarters of going down. In Pennsylvania we're started to see a little bit of an uptick in jobs being created now, more jobs being created than jobs lost, and that hasn't happened for over a year. So I think there is going to be an economic recovery, I think we're in the midst of it. Jobs, as you know, David, is the last thing to recovery. But interestingly, before you make any conclusions about 2010, tell me what the job picture is going to be. If the job picture turns over the last spring or summer, I think 2010's going to be a wholly different result.

GREGORY: If it's double-digit unemployment?

GOV. RENDELL: It would be difficult...

GREGORY: Difficult. Yeah.

GOV. RENDELL: ...difficult for incumbents. Difficult for Republican incumbent governors, difficult for Republican incumbent senators as well as Democrats.

GREGORY: Is there a message? If you look back at 1983, as I looked, and the peak of unemployment at 10, 10.4 percent in January, by July of that year it comes down to single digits; within a year it's down, I think, almost 2, 3 full points. What are the differences between Reagan's leadership on the economy and what you're seeing out of President Obama so far?

GOV. BARBOUR: What you see today is that Wall Street is doing great and there's never been a bigger disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. All this money that the government gave the big financial institutions, they're not lending down to middle sized and small businesses. They're trading. They're buying assets and selling assets and making huge profits. We're not seeing any positive effect. I don't know about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where we haven't been hit nearly as hard by this recession, it started for us later, we don't see how our economy can grow when you have--employment's going down, people can't borrow money against their, their house equity anymore, credit card debt is shrinking because the rates are going up and the, and the standards are tightening. Now, how do we have a, a, a recovery when 71 percent of the economy is lead by consumers who have fewer jobs, lower income, less credit? That's what bothers me. Yet some people think as long as Wall Street's doing well, well, small business is where the jobs in America are created, not Wall Street.

GREGORY: The question, Governor Rendell, should there be a second stimulus pursued by this administration?

GOV. RENDELL: Well, first, I agree with Haley. I think one of the mistakes made first by the Bush administration and, and went along with by us, is that we should have required those banks to lend out a certain percent of the TARP money that went into them, that was given to them. And that's the reason we don't have enough credit. It's starting to come back. Should there be a second stimulus? I don't think we need a second stimulus. I would like to see our transportation infrastructure spending...

GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

GOV. RENDELL: ...which is the best job producer, I would like to see that front-loaded and start in January or February of this year.

GREGORY: What grade would you give the president on the economy, on his handling of the economy?

GOV. RENDELL: On the economy? I'd give him a solid B because of the stimulus. The stimulus is starting to work state by state, and you can see it, David, with the projects, the people on the jobs and the orders coming into factories. Factory after factory in Pennsylvania tells me they're bringing workers back to work because the orders that are coming in from stimulus.

GREGORY: Let me get you both to comment on some news that was made here this morning. You heard General Casey saying that he thinks there ought to be more troops committed to the war in Afghanistan. This is a major leadership test for the president, a question of policy. Governor Barbour, react to, to that news. Here you have the chief of staff of the Army, former commander of our forces in Iraq saying more troops are needed here. Some additional pressure, I think, on the president to move.

GOV. BARBOUR: David, I don't think that's news. I think everybody in the country knows we need additional troops. And I will tell you now, for myself and I think a lot of Republicans, if the president will stand up, make the tough decision to send more troops, Republicans like me will stand up and say the president's doing the right thing. He doesn't have to worry about Republicans trying to politic this. If he stands up and does the right thing that the military's asked for, we will say good for you, Mr. President.

GREGORY: And if he doesn't? Are you saying the opposite is true, that it'll become a political issue?

GOV. BARBOUR: It shouldn't become a political issue.

GREGORY: At all? Even if he doesn't?

GOV. BARBOUR: I don't think it should become a political issue.

GREGORY: Because implicit in that is if he doesn't do the right thing it will be.

GOV. BARBOUR: I'm one of those who believes in foreign policy, the politics ought to stop at the border's edge. And I've always believed that. I believed it when I was in Ronald Reagan's White House and I believe it no matter who the president is. Now, when the presidential comes--presidential campaign comes; but right now, if the president does the right thing here, I'm going to applaud him. If he doesn't, I'm not going to criticize him.

GOV. RENDELL: Well, one of the biggest problems, and I think you touched on it in your discussion with General Casey, is our troops are tired and worn out. Pennsylvania National Guard, most of our guardsmen have been to either Iraq and Afghanistan, over 85 percent, and many of them have gone three or four times and they're wasted. And where are we going to find these troops? That's what I want somebody to tell me. Where are we going to be able to keep our troops in Iraq, keep our troops in Afghanistan? Who's going to do it? Where are the troops going to come from?

GREGORY: We are going to leave it there. Governors, thank you very much. Much more debate on this ahead.

Do you think, at this point, Senator Reed, that there are the votes in the Senate to pass the bill that the House passed?

Because it does include the so-called public option, this government health care insurance program that would be run by the government. Do you think it's -- that's going to pass the Senate?

REED: I believe we're going to pass health care reform. I believe we must do this because it's essential to not just the quality of life, here, but our economic success in the future.

Senator Reid, Harry Reid , has introduced a public option. There's strong support there. But we are far from the end of the debate in the Senate. It will take time. It will be careful, thorough and deliberate. I hope that a public option is part of the final bill.

SCHIEFFER: But, candidly, right now, you don't have the votes in the Senate for that. Am I not correct in saying that?

REED: I think there's a discussion about, as Senator Snowe suggested, a trigger to the public option. Senator Reid has suggested an opt-out by the states. There is a debate, or an active debate, about how the public option might come about.

But, overwhelming, 60 percent of the American public want a public option. And I think we should be listening to them as much as listening to ourselves.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let's get the take from Senator Graham. Senator Graham, your friend the independent Democrat Joe Lieberman, on this broadcast last Sunday, said no health care reform legislation is better than health care reform with the public option.

Where do you think this is going in the Senate?

GRAHAM: Well, let's start with the House bill. The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. Just look at how it passed. It passed 220-215. It passed by two votes. You had 40 -- 39 Democrats vote against the bill. They come from red states, moderate Democrats from swing districts.

They bailed out on this bill. It was a bill written by liberals for liberals. And people like Joe Lieberman are not going to get anywhere near the House bill. It cuts Medicare about $500 billion. It's over $1 trillion in new spending. It does have the public option. So the House bill is a non-starter in the Senate.

SCHIEFFER: Senator Lieberman also said, on that, that, if it came to filibustering to keep that bill from passing in the Senate, he'd join in that. Would you also be planning to do that if it looks like the public option thing's going to pass? GRAHAM: And let me tell you why Joe feels that way and I do. I think the public option will destroy private health care. Nobody in this country in the insurance business can compete with a government- sponsored plan, where the government writes the benefits and politicians will never raise the premiums. It will be a death blow to private choice.

And all of these bills depend on reducing Medicare $400 to $500 billion over 10 years. Seniors are not going to like that. That's unnecessary. So I just think the construct out of the House and what exists in the Senate is not going to pass. And I hope and pray it doesn't because it would be a disaster for the economy and health care.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, we're going to shift now to the situation in this awful thing that happened down at Fort Hood.

Congressman Skelton, you're chairman of the Armed Services Committee. I've got to ask you. Here we have a man who was trying to get out of the Army, who had ranted about the U.S. war on terrorism, whose contemporaries had reported him to their superiors as, what is going on here?

And yet somehow he winds up being the doctor that's sent down to Fort Hood to counsel our soldiers going to Iraq and Afghanistan and coming back. Who dropped the ball here?

SKELTON: Well, it's very difficult to say. We had a briefing two days ago by the Army, and they went through all that they knew at the time. And they did say to us that they are investigating it. As you know, the Army has its investigators. The FBI is investigating. And, Bob, the truth will out.

SCHIEFFER: But should someone have caught this, Congressman?

SKELTON: That's -- that could very well be true. But let's wait until the investigation is over. If that is the case, they'll be front and center. But right now, let's give them a few days to find out just where the ball was dropped, if that's the case.

SCHIEFFER: Do you plan to investigate?

SKELTON: I'm going to wait and see what they do. If they are not thorough -- we will, of course, have additional hearings, briefings on this. It's a tragedy of the first order. It's a tragedy not just for the soldiers and their families that were there. It's a tragedy for all of the families that wear the uniform.

You see, it was not just a -- a fellow soldier that did this. It was a fellow soldier whose job it was to help people. And I can imagine how traumatized the average military family must be.

SCHIEFFER: Well, I don't think there's any question about that.

Let me go to the senators now. Senator Lieberman -- I mean, this broadcast seems to be talking a lot about Senator Lieberman and what he thinks about things.

(LAUGHTER)

But he said this morning on Fox there should have been a zero tolerance for the kinds of things that -- that were being said. And as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, he says he is going to open an investigation.

Do you think that's the right way to go, Senator Reed?

REED: Well, I think we do have to look closely at what the Army has done, what the whole armed services has done. But Chairman Skeleton has put it in the right context. We have to wait for their careful deliberations. There's a criminal investigation going on.

But we have to look at the broader issues, not just this incident but are we taking adequate care of these soldiers? Are we providing the adequate support systems for the families? Are we also -- have appropriate command responsibilities for all of our soldiers, including our medical personnel?

And these are issues that go beyond this incident, and responsible for the Congress to look at them.

SKELTON: It brings to the top of the table the issue of the post-traumatic system disorder (sic). And we in our committee, we in Congress, have addressed this now for three years. And the bill we just passed, it increases the mental health providers. It also requires additional research into this. But that is being dragged to the front and center because of this incident.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me go now to Senator Graham. Senator graham, I think all of that is true. But after all, this doctor had not gone to Afghanistan. I mean, he hadn't gone to Iraq. He was fighting to not go there.

The question I have is, what happened here that this man who had a very poor performance record at Walter Reed was somehow shuttled off down to Fort Hood, and he winds up being the one talking to these soldiers?

It's not clear to me how this could have happened. And, clearly, it should not have happened. Senator?

GRAHAM: Well, Bob, I'll be -- yes, sir. I'll be honest with you. I think, as Ike said, we're doing a lot. I'm on the personnel subcommittee to address post-traumatic syndrome, the wounded warrior program. We've thrown a lot of money; we've put more medical personnel on the front lines of evaluating people.

But, about this case, you know, it's easy to second-guess. And I want to -- you know, I'm not going to go down that road yet. I mean, does every soldier who shows discontent with the war and every soldier that has a bad performance report -- what are we going to do with those folks? So, at the end of the day, let's see what the evidence trail suggests here and not overreact. Because we live in a free and open society. You can be in the military and disagree with policy.

What did his co-workers say about his behavior? How strong were the warning signals?

At the end of the day, maybe this is just about him. It's certainly not about his religion, Islam. It's not about the Army; it's not about the war. At the end of the day, I think it's going to be about him. And if we missed some signals, some clear signals, we've got to fix that. And I trust the Army to want to fix it, because it means more to them than any politician because it happened within their ranks.

SCHIEFFER: Well -- Senator Graham, let me just, kind of, cut to the chase here. Do you think that the fact that this man was a Muslim -- obviously he was either part of some terrorist plot -- and I think most suggestions are that he wasn't. It's looking more and more like he was just, sort of, a religious nut.

GRAHAM: Yes.

SCHIEFFER: Islam doesn't have a majority, or the Christian religion has its full, you know, full helping of nuts too. But do you think the fact that he was a Muslim may have caused the military to kind of step back and be reluctant to challenge him on some of this stuff for fear that they'd be accused of discrimination or something like that?

GRAHAM: I hope not. I hope -- I hope that is not the case. But to those members of the United States military who are Muslims, thank you for protecting our nation, thank you for standing up against people who are trying to hijack your religion.

I hope that's not the case, Bob. But we need -- his actions do not reflect on the Islamic -- Muslim faith...

SCHIEFFER: I'm not suggesting that they do.

(CROSSTALK)

GRAHAM: I know.

SCHIEFFER: I'm just suggesting...

GRAHAM: But some people are. Some people are, and I want to say, as a United States senator, that I reject that. This man's actions reflect on him. And if we missed some signals about him that we should have known, great. But let's don't take this to a level that we should not. Let's don't accuse people of basically giving him a pass because he's a Muslim. Because I don't think there's any evidence of that.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Senator Reed, what's your thought on that?

REED: Well, there are approximately 3,000 Americans, men and women of the Muslim faith who are serving in the Army. They've been wounded. Some, I have been told, have been killed in action. Their record is one of service and dedication to the nation and selfless service.

So I agree entirely with Senator Graham. This is not about theology. This is about doing your duty as a soldier.

And also, I think we have to be careful not to leap beyond the current investigation. And I think, again, what we will find is that someone who has deep psychiatric problems. They're not unique to the Army. We've had terrible shootings in college campuses and office buildings, and those things are the result of ultimately of one person's psychological, psychiatric difficulties.

The irony here is, is he was a psychiatrist. The irony here is he joined the Army as ROTC, at Virginia Tech, came through the Army. He was not just here as a transient...

SCHIEFFER: Let me just interrupt you, because I have one final comment. The irony also is that why did he wind up there in that particular job? Do you think this is a sign that the military is simply overextended, Congressman Skelton?

SKELTON: The Army is strained. I've been saying that for some time. That's why we increased the size of the Army this year.

But let me say this, Bob. We should not rush to judgment. I'm an old prosecuting attorney and I know that it takes time to investigate. We have excellent Army investigators. We have the FBI, and they're as good as they come in investigating this whole issue.

The truth will out. We will soon find out answers to the very questions that you're asking. And the chips will fall where they may. Right now, I think our sole concern should be those families, the military families, the Army families, and those that suffered injuries and death.

SCHIEFFER: Well, gentlemen, I want to thank all of you for being here to talk about this this morning.

Health care reform reaches a critical point in the House. We'll get the latest from two key congressman, Democrat Chris Van Hollen and Republican Mike Pence . Then, could anything have been done to stop an Army major from going on a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood? We'll sit down with Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security.

Plus, Republicans win two important elections Tuesday. We'll ask Virginia's governor-elect, Bob McDonnell, about his strategy for a GOP revival.

Also, what does double-digit unemployment mean for the Obama agenda? We'll ask our Sunday panel -- Hume, Liasson, Kristol and Powers.

And our Power Player of the Week, from national scandal to a second chance, all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And hello again from Fox News in Washington. We are following two major stories this Sunday. We'll get to the deadly massacre at Fort Hood in a few minutes.

But first, late Saturday night, the House approved its version of health care reform with just two votes to spare, by a margin of 220- 215. Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle has the story from Capitol Hill.

Jim?

JIM ANGLE: Hello, Chris. Democratic leaders spent the last three days in furious behind-the-scenes negotiations because anti- abortion Democrats were threatening to vote against the bill, which would have killed it.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew she wouldn't get any Republican support, so she needed all 40 of the Democrats, who insist no federal money be spent on abortions. Bart Stupak of Michigan and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, among others, refused to back down, so Ms. Pelosi had no choice but to allow a vote on their amendment to permanently prohibit any federal funds for abortion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BART STUPAK: The speaker recognizes that members deserve the chance to vote their conscience and have their voices heard on this most important matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ANGLE: But that angered abortion rights Democrats and risked losing their votes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIANE DEGETTE: To say that this amendment is a wolf in sheep's clothing would be the understatement of a lifetime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ANGLE: The anti-abortion amendment passed 240-194, with one member voting "present."

President Obama went to Capitol Hill Saturday in hopes of persuading any wavering Democrats, though Democratic leaders said he changed no minds. Republicans had a long list of objections.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOEHNER: It's going to raise taxes. It's going to raise insurance premiums for those who have insurance. It's full of mandates and, not enough, we're going to cut Medicare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ANGLE: One member brought his chief of staff's 7-month-old baby to complain about costs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN SHADEGG: Maddy (ph) wants patient choice. Maddy doesn't want her mom's premiums to go up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ANGLE: Speaker Pelosi did not address the criticisms of new taxes but instead laid out the new benefits in the most glowing of terms.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: No dropped coverage if you are sick. No co-pays for preventive care. There's a cap on what you pay in, but there is no cap on the benefits that you receive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ANGLE: Democrats won the day, though just barely, losing 39 Democratic votes but winning one Republican.

Now the action shifts to the Senate where a single bill has yet to emerge from Majority Leader Harry Reid . It's clear any Senate bill will differ substantially from the House, which means the two bodies will have to get together and try to shape a bill both houses can embrace.

Chris?

WALLACE: Jim Angle reporting from the Capitol.

Jim, thanks for that.

Joining us now to discuss the battle over health care reform and to look ahead to the 2010 elections are two top members of the house, Democrat Chris Van Hollen , who is running his party's campaign for the next Congress, and Republican Mike Pence , the GOP's number three man in the House.

And, Congressmen, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

VAN HOLLEN: Thanks, Chris.

PENCE: Good to be with you.

WALLACE: Congressman Van Hollen, what's the message from the vote last night? The House, for the first time in history, passing a major overhaul of health care reform, but with only one Republican voting for it and 39 Democrats voting against it?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the message was clear. It's time to begin to fix what has been a broken health care system for millions of Americans. Between the year 2000 and 2008, we saw premiums double for Americans during that period of time.

Insurance company profits were over 400 percent. So we've had a great system for insurance companies. They get to say no to you based on your pre-existing condition. They get to dig into the fine print of your insurance policy when you need it the most and say you're not covered. They've enjoyed an antitrust exemption that we eliminated.

So this is a message to the American people. It's time to bring down your costs, which will allow more people to afford health insurance.

WALLACE: Congressman Pence, what's the message from last night? And what about those Democrats from conservative districts who ended up voting for the bill? Are you going to make them pay in the next election?

PENCE: Well, Chris, I think the message from last night is that the Democrats didn't get the message in August or last Tuesday.

I think from this past summer we saw the American people express overwhelming opposition to a government takeover of health care. They attended town hall meetings, rallies across the country, and then this last Tuesday.

I mean, the historic reversals that Democrats saw in just 12 months in New Jersey and Virginia, again, was an effort by the American people to send a message to this party that they're tired of the borrowing, the spending, the bailouts, the takeovers.

But last night on a narrow partisan vote the Democrats put their liberal, big government agenda ahead of the American people.

WALLACE: So are you going to go after those conservative Democrats, moderate Democrats, in Republican-leaning districts who voted for this bill?

PENCE: Well, look. I don't -- I don't know if it's about -- I think the American people are deeply frustrated with a liberal establishment in Washington, D.C. that is ignoring their will.

Nancy Pelosi last night said that they were answering the call of history. Well, I -- I've got to tell you, if Democrats keep ignoring the American people, their party's going to be history in about a year.

WALLACE: Congressman Van Hollen, I'd like you, first of all, to respond to that, but also -- yes, you did pass a bill, but the Senate is considering a very different bill, with a very different public option, and very different taxes -- a number of measures.

So how much have you really moved the process forward?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, first, just in response, the message from the last election was loud and clear. The American people were tired of us pushing big issues under the rug, not dealing with the major challenges...

WALLACE: You're talking about 2008 or 2009?

VAN HOLLEN: I'm talking about 2008 election, the 2008 elections, when President Obama and the larger majority went into Congress. You know, with all due respect to Mike and his party, when President Bush -- and they had a lock on the Congress.

They did nothing about these issues, these rising costs, the fact that insurance companies could essentially abuse consumers. They did nothing about it.

And people back in 2008 said it's time to step up on some of these issues. And that's what we did last night.

And I would point out that in terms of the elections last Tuesday, there were only two races in the country where what we're doing in Congress at the federal level was at the center of debate, and those were the two congressional races. Both members of Congress won. Both of them voted yes last night on health care reform, so...

WALLACE: How about this question of the Senate, though, the fact that the Senate bill is a very different bill, very different on the public option, very different on the taxes to pay for all this?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, as you well know, this is just one step, a very big step, on a long journey. And we're going to have to work with whatever the Senate comes up with to reconcile the differences, and we will.

I know the Senate's committed to moving ahead and we will put the pieces together. As you know, Harry Reid on the Senate also proposed a public option as part of the bill he intends to bring to the Senate floor -- again, a voluntary option to try and hold insurance companies accountable.

I would point out that Consumers Union and Consumers Reports, those reports that everybody looks at -- they endorsed this bill because they understand it will provide more...

PENCE: Chris, if I could -- Chris...

WALLACE: Let me just ask you... PENCE: But I think this really illustrates the fact that Democrats didn't get the message. Republicans -- I mean, let's be honest here. You know I fought against members of my own party in these battles.

Republicans doubled the national debt in the first six years of this decade, and the American people showed them the door in 2006 and again in 2008.

But the Democrats took runaway federal spending under Republican control and put it on steroids, and the American people are tired of the borrowing, the spending, the bailouts, the takeovers.

And I think -- you know, I appreciate Chris pointing out the congressional elections, but the truth is a Republican running on a third party ballot almost beat the Democratic candidate in New York.

And when you look at New Jersey, the president won New Jersey by 16 percent 12 months ago. He won Virginia by 7 percent 12 months ago. Republicans won in a landslide in Virginia, won narrowly in New Jersey.

Now, I'll stipulate, Chris, that all politics is local. People are voting on local issues in those races. But every single one of those voters were also Americans who were responding to the profound frustration...

WALLACE: Let -- let me...

PENCE: ... the American people feel with the liberal...

WALLACE: Let me...

PENCE: ... establishment in Washington.

WALLACE: Let me as you about another factor in all of this, and that is we learned on Friday that unemployment is now 10.2 percent -- almost 16 million Americans unemployed.

Let me start with you, Congressman Van Hollen. Can we afford a trillion-dollar health care reform bill with billions of dollars in new taxes and new mandates for small business when we've got 10.2 percent unemployment?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, let me first point out, in response to both what Mike said and your question, that the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, who we've all been looking to for the numbers, looked at the bill that passed the House and said it reduces the deficit over a 10-year period by more than $100 billion.

In fact, it reduces the deficit over that period of time more than the alternative that the Republicans put on the floor, and also reduces the deficit over the following 10-year period.

When it comes to health care and economics, one of the things we've got to do is make sure that we reduce the costs of health care. They're eating businesses and individuals and families alive. And so for our own economic competitiveness, we've got to address this issue.

Now, with respect to the economy, when President Obama was sworn in, as we all know, the economy was in total collapse, free fall. Seven hundred thousand people lost their jobs in January. Last month we saw about 150,000 people lose their jobs. Unacceptable.

We need to get the economy going forward again, but we did see positive economic growth last quarter, 3.5 percent, for the first time in a long time.

WALLACE: But -- but -- but Let me, Congressman Pence -- hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes, new mandates on small business -- is that what you want when you've got 10.2 percent unemployment?

PENCE: Well, the truth is, you know, when you're in a hole, Chris, first rule is stop digging. Chris is absolutely right. The economy was in shambles when this president came to power.

They passed a so-called stimulus bill that was nothing more than a liberal wish list of spending priorities that has now taken us from 7.5 percent unemployment to a heartbreaking 10.2 percent unemployment nationally.

But they're -- the Democrats in Washington are still, again, ignoring the American people. They're unwilling to reconsider this approach. They think we can borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

But on top of this, they drop a massive national energy tax they passed along party lines. But to your point, $729 billion in tax increases -- Congressman Boren, one of his Democrat colleagues, said, quite, "The last thing you do in a recession is raise taxes and that's just what this health care bill does." It was the wrong thing to do and the American people know it.

WALLACE: Gentlemen, we're going to have to cut it off there. I want to thank you both for coming in, Congressman Van Hollen, Congressman Pence. Thanks for coming in. It was a long day and night on the House floor, and there's going to be lots more to debate as this process continues forward. Please come back, both of you gentlemen.

PENCE: Thanks, Chris.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you.

WALLACE: Now to our other top story, that terrible shooting spree at Fort Hood Thursday. There are still more questions than answers about the worst attack ever at a U.S. military base.

Did the gunman, Army Major Nidal Hasan, work alone? What was his motive? And should the tragedy have been prevented? For answers we turn to Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. And, Senator Lieberman, welcome back, sir.

LIEBERMAN: Chris, good to be with you.

WALLACE: In the briefings that you and your staff have received, have you learned any more about Major Hasan's motives, his actions, and whether or not that he had any links to Islamic radicals overseas?

LIEBERMAN: It's -- first, this was a terrible tragedy. Second, it's too early -- it's premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan. But it's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism.

And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.

But I want to say very quickly we don't know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act.

WALLACE: I'm going to pursue that in a second. But any evidence so far that what you or your staff have heard in briefings that he -- because we know he was on some radical Islamic Web sites...

LIEBERMAN: Right, right.

WALLACE: ... that he was exchanging communications either in this country or overseas with other Islamic radicals?

LIEBERMAN: Yeah. Nothing I can confirm at this point. I think it's very important to let the Army and the FBI go forward with this investigation before we reach any conclusions.

But what we do know on the record from third parties reporting over the last two or three years -- that he made a series of statements justifying suicide bombing, comparing it to the bravery of an American soldier who would throw himself on a grenade to protect his colleagues, that he said that -- well, he shouted out, according to bystanders at that -- while killing the other day at Fort Hood, the words Allah Akbar, an expression of faith in Islam which the Islamist extremists have corrupted.

And the fact that he did that at the moment of these murders -- if that's confirmed, of course -- raises genuine concerns that this was a terrorist act.

I will add to this, Chris, this is not the first attempt by Islamist extremists to strike at American military bases. We've broken up plots to go after Fort Dix, Quantico Marine base in Virginia.

In fact, the one successful, if I can put it that way, terrorist act that was done in recent years was the individual in Little Rock, Arkansas who walked into an Army recruiting station and killed a recruiter.

And there is testimony that Dr. Hasan actually said that he understood that and supported that act.

WALLACE: A lot of people are wondering -- you talk about all the statements he made. There were a lot of warning signs out there. I know hindsight is 20/20, but were there enough signs that -- enough red flags that authorities should have stepped in?

LIEBERMAN: Well, that's a very important question. And I would say, Chris, that while the Army and the FBI are conducting the criminal investigation about exactly what happened and what Dr. Hasan should be charged with, the U.S. Army -- the Department of Defense has a real obligation to convene an independent investigation to go back and look at whether warning signs were missed, both of his -- the stress he was under, but also the statements that he was making which really could lead people to believe that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist.

A couple of years ago, after a two-year investigation, my committee put out a report that said the new face of terrorism in America would not just be the attacks as 9/11, organized abroad and sending people in here. It would be people within this country, home- grown terrorists, self-radicalized, often over the Internet, going to jihadist Web sites.

And there's concern from what we know now about Hasan that, in fact, that's exactly what he was, a self-radicalized home-grown terrorist.

WALLACE: I've got a couple of questions I want to get in, so...

LIEBERMAN: Please. Go ahead.

WALLACE: As chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, do you intend -- with all these questions out there, do you intend to hold hearings?

LIEBERMAN: I intend, working with my Republican ranking member Susan Collins , to begin an investigation. I think the first steps that should be taken in this regard should be taken by the U.S. Army, because this was an attack on American troops. You've got to see it as if 12 American troops were killed in Afghanistan.

WALLACE: But you're intending to hold your own congressional...

LIEBERMAN: I am intending to begin a congressional investigation of my Homeland Security Committee into what were the motives, what were the motives of Hasan in carrying out this brutal mass murder, if a terrorist attack, the worst terrorist attack since 9/11, and to ask whether the Army missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him.

Really, in the U.S. Army, this is not a matter of constitutional freedom of speech. If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone.

WALLACE: Finally -- we have less than a minute left -- the House passed health care. What do you think of the bill they passed? And do you still intend, if there is a public option and if there's this tax on so-called Cadillac health plans...

LIEBERMAN: Right.

WALLACE: ... will you support a Republican filibuster on final passage in the Senate?

LIEBERMAN: Well, there's some good things in the House-passed plan. You know, I'm -- I think we ought to do health care reform this year to deal with the two great problems that President Obama and others have talked about.

There are unsustainable continuing increases in the cost of health care. We've got to -- we've got to stop that. And there are millions of Americans who don't have health insurance.

But I'm afraid our colleagues in the House added a lot onto that that subtract from the genuine purposes of health care reform, and one was to create a public option plan.

The public option plan is unnecessary. It has been put forward, I'm convinced, by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance. They've got a right to do that. I think that would be wrong.

But worse than that, we have a problem even greater than the health insurance problems, and that is a debt -- $12 trillion today, projected to be $21 trillion in 10 years.

WALLACE: So at this point, I take it, you're a "no" vote in the Senate.

LIEBERMAN: If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote, because I believe the debt can break America and send us into a recession that's worse than the one we're fighting our way out of today. I don't want to do that to our -- to our children and grandchildren.

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman, thank you. Thanks for coming in today and joining us.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Chris.

WALLACE: And we'll be following your congressional investigation, sir.

LIEBERMAN: Good.

WALLACE: Up next, Republicans win governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey. In Virginia, Governor-elect Bob McDonnell talks about his ideas for a GOP revival, right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: This week the result of the Virginia governor's race was striking. Last November Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry the state for president in 44 years. But Tuesday Republican Bob McDonnell took back Virginia for the GOP in a landslide. The governor-elect joins us now from his alma mater of Notre Dame.

Congratulations on the election, if not on yesterday's football game, sir, and welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

MCDONNELL: Well, thanks, Chris. It was a great week for us. We're very honored, and nice to be back on with you.

WALLACE: After your landslide victory on Tuesday, a number of top Republicans across the country say that your election campaign is a model for how Republicans can and should run in 2010 and 2012.

What parts of your campaign do you think can be replicated across the country?

MCDONNELL: It's very flattering people would say that. We tried to focus on the issues we knew people cared about. It was jobs, the economy, economic development, transportation, the things that the citizens overwhelmingly said they wanted government to fix.

Secondly, we kept it overwhelmingly positive, giving people an uplifting alternative for the future. And thirdly, we, I think, tapped into some of the sentiment at the national level on the issues of card check, cap and trade, and some under-funded mandates and things like that that were not resonating well with Virginia businesses and families.

And together with a lot of hard work, I think it was a winning strategy.

WALLACE: So what do you think there is a message, if there is a larger message, for Republicans looking to get healthy again in 2010?

MCDONNELL: Stick to your conservative principles but focus on the quality-of-life issues that the citizens are most concerned about, and focus on getting results.

People see that there's this massive spending at the federal level, at the state level. They want a better bang for their buck out of government. And fiscal conservatism is the way to deliver that -- is the way to deliver that message.

WALLACE: I want to run a clip from the news conference you held the day after your election. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCDONNELL: I just want everybody in Virginia to know that I intend to govern the same way I campaigned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Governor-elect McDonnell, experts say that while you obviously have a long record as a social conservative, you largely stayed away from that and, as you say, campaigned primarily on kitchen-table issues like education, like jobs, like transportation.

Is that what you mean when you say that you're going to govern the way you campaigned?

MCDONNELL: It's going to mean that I'm going to put the priorities that I outlined during the course of the campaign as the first order of business.

With our high unemployment rate and our budget deficits, the fiscal issues, Chris, have got to be the first order of business.

But I was completely clear during the campaign that I -- I am pro-life, I am pro-family, and I'm going to support those issues in the general assembly. But I'm going to focus on getting results on those campaign promises. I think that's the way you keep trust with the people.

WALLACE: But one of the issues in other races, especially that congressional race in upstate New York, was conservative activists, especially social conservatives and tea party activists, saying they want attention paid to their issues.

How do you balance their concerns with the concerns of a lot more moderate voters who just want to focus on jobs?

MCDONNELL: Well, I ran very specifically on the fact that I'm going to make government work better. We're going to find ways to cut spending out of state agencies and retool government to find ways to keep taxes low, whether it's -- and when the economy returns, find ways to reduce the tax burden on working families, use tax cuts as a way to promote economic development.

These are clearly things that my friends in the -- my conservative friends and I are very interested in doing, and then to make sure that these important issues are protecting families, promoting fatherhood, looking for options in education, like charter schools and merit pay.

These are things that I ran on as part of the overwhelming -- the overarching theme of the campaign, and I intend to pursue those as well. So I think that the overwhelming conservative message with a focus on practical results is exactly what people have elected me to do.

WALLACE: But let me ask you about some of the issues that some of the right-wing activists are now saying they want you to focus on. One, will you move to make Planned Parenthood ineligible for state funds?

MCDONNELL: I've said that state policy ought to be the same as the Hyde Amendment. In fact, in the federal health care bill last night, as you see, both Democrats and Republicans joined to make sure that there was not federal funding for abortion services in the health care bill.

I think that's the right policy. Across the board, people don't want taxpayer funding to go for those kinds of services. And so I think that ought to be the state policy as well.

WALLACE: Will you work to expand Virginia's death penalty to not only the person who pulls the trigger but also to anyone involved in a murder?

MCDONNELL: Yes. I've supported that from my early days as a prosecutor through the general assembly. Those bills have gotten to the governor's desk the last couple of years and been vetoed, and I'll sign that bill.

WALLACE: Let's talk about a few national issues. As you well know, the U.S. House late last night passed a major overhaul of health care reform.

MCDONNELL: Right.

WALLACE: If that bill as it was passed by the House should become law, what do you think that would do to the nation's economy and to the nation's health care?

MCDONNELL: I'm very concerned about the bill -- 1,900 pages, 3,400 uses of the word "shall." There are clearly great mandates on businesses, families and the states.

Now, I have not read all 1,900 pages of it, but I think that with about a $1.2 trillion price tag, tax increases, $400 billion or so taken from Medicare, that it will ultimately increase costs and reduce choices for families.

Across Virginia, Chris, I heard people's concern about that. And we're obviously going to have to see the way it passes, what the Senate does with it, before I can give you a final opinion. But I'm very concerned about what I -- what I saw in that bill.

[@promo@transcripts@}

WALLACE: There's been quite a debate about what Tuesday's elections, not only in Virginia but across the country, meant. Do you think that voters were sending President Obama, if only directly, a message?

MCDONNELL: I'm going to leave that up to a lot of other experts to decide. I will say this. I ran on Virginia issues, the kitchen- table issues that were based on our conservative principles, and I think that's largely what got people to support our campaign.

A lot of independent voters, though, and Republicans as well, clearly told me that they were very concerned about the direction of the country, the spending, the taxes, card check, cap and trade, unfunded mandates, intrusions into the free enterprise system.

And I think that's, in part, why some of the folks came back and voted for me this time. I made cap and trade in particular an issue.

So the answer is yes, I think, in part, Virginians said, "We're concerned about what's going on at the federal level, we like your fiscal conservative message in Virginia on taxes and spending, and that's why we're voting for you."

WALLACE: I'm going to turn subjects on you now. It sounds silly to bring up less than a week after your election, but some political junkies here in Washington, some very powerful ones, are already saying that you will be on the short list of vice presidential candidates come 2012 for the Republican Party.

Do you harbor any national ambitions, sir?

MCDONNELL: No, I really don't. I mean, I love Virginia. I've served in the state government now for 18 years. I've got a very ambitious set of policy initiatives, Chris, that I'd like to get accomplished.

It's very flattering to hear people talk in those terms, but I really -- I'm going to focus 100 percent of my time on Virginia. We have a great state, but we've got some challenges. I've committed to fixing some of those problems, and I'm going to get right to work on that this week.

WALLACE: Well, Governor-elect, you can put all of that chatter to rest right here, so let me be the very first one to ask you. Will you promise to serve a whole full four-year term into 2014?

MCDONNELL: Yeah. I've said that I would. I mean, other governors have looked at those kinds of things in the future. But I don't have any aspirations beyond being governor of Virginia at this point.

WALLACE: So four full years.

MCDONNELL: That's my pledge.

WALLACE: Governor-elect McDonnell, we want to thank you so much. Congratulations again. Thanks for joining us, and good luck in your new job.

MCDONNELL: Thank you, Chris. Great to be back on with you. I appreciate it.

WALLACE: Thank you.

Up next, last night's historic vote in the House on health care reform -- we'll talk with our Sunday panel about the Democrats' big victory and what it may cost them. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT ANDREWS: It has been said that this is a government takeover of health care. That is false. This is a consumer takeover of health care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOUIE GOHMERT: This is a declaration of dependence that pledges Americans' lives, Americans' fortunes, and there is no honor in that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Just a taste of the debate that took place Saturday before the House's historic passage of health care reform.

And it's time now for our Sunday group -- Brit Hume, Fox News senior political analyst, and contributors Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and Kirsten Powers of the New York Post.

So after the House vote last night passing health care reform, Brit, where are we now?

HUME: Well, 18 House Democrats from districts carried by John McCain voted for this measure. I would say some of them were from safe seats even though they were carried by McCain, but a lot of them weren't.

And they are, as of this morning, I think it's fair to say, vulnerable in the upcoming election. Everything will depend, though, Chris -- everything will depend -- on the economy. If the economy improves, those people may be all right.

As for the health care measure itself, it still has a very long way to go. As you pointed out in earlier segments, what is being worked on in the Senate is quite different, markedly different in some ways, and may not pass the Senate.

So those votes cast over there by those people in those districts may end up going to waste, much as their votes on cap and trade are likely to end up going to waste. WALLACE: Mara, where do you think we are in terms of the whole process of either getting or not getting health care reform?

LIASSON: I think we're one step closer to getting it. I mean, this thing has moved forward step by difficult step.

I think what's interesting is that every step of the way, it has gotten slightly more centrist. What Nancy Pelosi had to do to get the votes -- and she lost 39 Democrats. She had to move the bill to the center on the public option and, in the final fight, on abortion, because I think in the end -- and you saw this on the vote in the House -- that liberals held their nose, voted for the bill.

They'll do that in the end because there is no liberal in Congress who would lose their seat if the abortion language that passed last night is in the final bill or if a public -- vigorous public option isn't.

But it's also true that some conservative Democrats could lose their seats if the public option was in it or if the abortion language wasn't. So I think that is the dynamic now. It's moving slowly forward and it's getting more centrist.

WALLACE: Bill, you've been nothing if consistent on this. You have doubted all along that any major health care overhaul is going to get passed. Did the vote in the House yesterday change your mind?

KRISTOL: No. I would say the vote in the House -- if you had said six months ago this bill would not pass until just before Thanksgiving and would have -- lose 39 Democrats, and the Senate would now have to deal with a bill that passed the House on a purely partisan vote with 220 votes, I think people would say, "Gee, it was supposed to pass by a lot more than that, and it was supposed to put all this pressure on Republicans resisting health care reform."

The opposite is the case. The Senate will not pass this bill. Nancy Pelosi has now pushed through -- I give her credit for this. She has been -- for what she wanted to do, she has been an effective speaker. Republicans should not underestimate her.

But she has now pushed through cap and trade with 219 votes and a massive Medicare-cutting, tax-hiking, premium-reducing so-called health care reform bill with 220 votes, neither of which is going to pass the Senate.

So I don't think either passes the Senate, and I think she's done a lot of damage to her own members in the House.

WALLACE: Let's talk about that -- and Brit brought it up, Kirsten -- which is the possible cost of this victory for Democrats. Forty-nine so-called McCain Democrats, Democrats who were elected in districts last year, congressional districts, that also voted for John McCain -- when you consider Tuesday's election, which I think is seen as generally positive for Republicans, when you consider the news on Friday about 10.2 percent unemployment, how much of a problem is health care and cap and trade and the rest of the Obama agenda for these conservative to moderate Democrats?

POWERS: Well, I mean, there are also eight "nos" in districts that Obama won but barely. So that shows that people are concerned about that, but I think ultimately it's going to rise and fall on what Barack Obama does in the next -- you know, next year, essentially.

If you look at -- is he going to be a Clinton or is he going to be a Reagan? And you know, you had -- you had Reagan with a very clear vision. You had people feeling that he was somebody that he could trust -- they could trust and move in that direction with him.

And I think that one of the things Obama is facing right now is really convincing people that "I have a big vision for the country, get on board with me, remember, you didn't like it the way they used to do it, and stick with me because I have a plan."

And instead he's been playing kind of small ball. And if it wins, if he passes health care...

WALLACE: You think it's small ball even with health care reform?

POWERS: I think -- I think on the day-to-day stuff it's been a lot of small ball, and I think health care has been a distraction from things that most Americans are really focusing on, such as the economy and jobs.

But I do think -- I think it's actually going to end up passing. And I -- if it passes, then America -- you know, success begets success in politics. And so if it passes, he's going to have a big win under his belt. And then I think it's just basically saying, "Stick with me, I have a vision," you know, "Don't change mid-course."

HUME: Chris, remember this about this bill if it passes. This is not the country's top priority.

Now, the discussion about it has elevated to some extent and made it a higher priority than it was as Obama took office. The overwhelming priority in this country today -- and it's going to continue all through next year -- is the economy.

All the president, though, has done on the economy is the stimulus bill, which by the time it passed was notorious for its waste. And now, as unemployment continues to climb, it is notorious for its ineffectiveness to date.

You put those two things together, and he adds to it now this very costly health insurance reform program, which is going to burden business and will burden the economy. I think it is a formula for even greater trouble for the Democrats if it passes than if it doesn't.

LIASSON: I actually think that the president's determined to be Reagan, not Clinton, and I think you're going to see them pivoting right after this health care bill passes to the economy, the economy, the economy. Next year you're not going to hear them talk about anything else but jobs and the economy. And I think their hope is to get -- the first things that are going to happen to American people because of the health care bill are hopefully going to be the good things, not the bad things.

WALLACE: But you know, you keep on talking about Reagan. I covered Ronald Reagan in 1982 when unemployment was last at 10 percent-plus. It was politically toxic. The fact is that he in the ‘82 elections lost 26 seats in the House.

So I mean, it was interesting, Chris van Hollen, Bill, in the first segment, you know, was making the old argument, "Well, we inherited a mess and we're turning things around." If unemployment -- and by all accounts it's going to be 10, 10.5 percent into next summer. Isn't that an awfully heavy burden for Democrats going into a congressional election?

KRISTOL: I mean, Reagan in ‘82 held the Senate and half the 26 seats he lost were because of reapportionment, so he did better than you might have expected given that unemployment was above 10 percent. Why? He had bipartisan support for his tax cuts and his defense buildup, and people had confidence he was going in the right direction.

This health care bill burdens the economy. That is going to be the core argument next year. And it is going to be next year. This bill's not going to pass before Christmas. There's no, "Well, we're going to pivot." I mean, the Obama White House thinks it's all talk. "We're going to pivot from health care to talking about the economy."

They can pivot all they want. Unemployment is going up. The economic rebound, I think, is going to -- is going to sag, and we're going to have health care and cap and trade as the two great Democratic pieces of legislation, both of which burden the economy.

WALLACE: All right. We have to take a break here.

But when we come back, we'll continue the discussion about health care, unemployment and the election. And we'll ask the question: Did political correctness play a role in the mass killing at Fort Hood? Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 1994, the Republican Party won control of both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. Led by Newt Gingrich, Republicans held onto both houses of Congress through 2006.

Stay tuned for more from our panel and our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: And we're back now with our panel.

And I've got to tell you for the entire time that you were away, we were away and you were watching commercials, the gang here was all arguing.

And I'm going to just continue the conversation, Kirsten. Is there something -- if we're looking at a pretty bleak picture on unemployment well into 2010, double-digit unemployment, is there something beyond just talking about it when the president says or the White House says they're going to pivot to the economy -- is there anything they can do?

POWERS: Well, they can do, you know, what he talked about during the election, doing tax credits, doing things focused on the middle class.

I mean, most of his tax hikes go towards millionaires, you know, high-end people, which is exactly what he said. But I do think that, you know, this has become kind of a broken record.

But unemployment is a lagging indicator, and I think that it's the last thing that will turn around. And we don't know when it's going to turn around.

You were referencing midterm elections with Reagan. I mean, right before the midterm elections, unemployment was at its highest. And there's nothing to say that it's not going to continue to go a little bit higher before it goes down again.

And I think -- that's why I think the vision, the speaking to Americans, saying, "Here's my vision, stick with me, this is -- this is the -- this is the train you want to be on," is what he's got to do.

WALLACE: Bill, you were the only person I know who thought that losing 26 seats in the House in 1982 was good for the Republicans. I mean, I remember the message was stay the course. The American people didn't buy it.

Can he substantively and politically turn around the unemployment picture, Obama?

KRISTOL: Most economists would be doubtful that anything much that gets passed next year is going to change unemployment in 2010.

He's given us his priorities. This notion which I think some people have in Washington that you just magically, as president, show up and say, "Oh, forget about that health care bill, that cap and trade. You know, those things were like last year. Now I'm doing tax credits to encourage business investment."

It will be farcical. He has staked himself on the stimulus, health care, cap and trade, three huge pieces of legislation jammed through on -- with partisan votes in the House of Representatives by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi.

If those -- if he's not willing to go to the country and defend those in October of 2010 he's in deep trouble.

LIASSON: Right, and...

WALLACE: Let me -- let me turn, if I can, because we're going to run out of time, to the terrible events at Fort Hood this week.

Brit, you heard Senator Lieberman earlier. Was the massacre by Army Major Hasan an act of Islamic terrorism?

HUME: It certainly looks like that. Senator Lieberman was absolutely right. Now, it may -- we may learn more about this man and it'll turn out that he snapped and it was all an emotional disturbance that caused this.

But on the face of it, when you consider what we know about what he'd been saying and apparently thinking about the -- about the American enterprises overseas, the two wars and the approach toward Islam, this -- it looks like this guy was alienated by that, became more intentionally Islamist as time went on.

And if it turns out to be true that he's screaming Allah Akbar as he starts massacring people, that's an act of terror, no doubt about it...

WALLACE: So why the reluctance...

HUME: ... an act of Islamist terrorism.

WALLACE: ... why the reluctance to call it that? Is it because we don't have all the facts? Or is something else going on here?

HUME: Well, I think it's -- well, first of all, if the -- if it became clear that the Army had in its midst someone who was looking and acting like someone with these tendencies, and they did as little as they did about it, that's a much greater embarrassment.

I mean, for the Army -- what the Army needs, having done so little to deal with this man, is for it to come out that he's just some guy who just snapped. But that isn't how it looks right now, and if it continues that way, the Army has a lot of explaining to do.

But I think that's the source of this effort to be so -- to pussyfoot around what appears to be the likely reason here.

WALLACE: Mara?

LIASSON: Look, we don't have all the facts, and it could be that he snapped and also was someone who expressed sympathy for suicide bombers and -- you know, if he, in fact, wrote on these Web sites the things that he's alleged to do.

Now, that's quite different than saying this was part of some kind of a planned terrorist attack. We don't know if he worked with anybody else. It sounds like so far we think he acted alone.

But I don't think -- it's clear that the Army missed some red flags, but the question is going to be why. Many big institutions miss red flags, not because they bent over backwards to ignore them.

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you about that, Bill, because obviously everybody agrees there were a lot of alarm bells that went off. Major Hasan was not keeping quiet his opposition to the U.S. foreign policy, calling the war on terror a war on Islam.

Of course, the fact that it seems -- we don't know for sure, but someone named Nidal Hasan was posting messages sympathetic to suicide bombings on radical Web sites.

Some conservatives are now making the argument that what's -- that the reason they missed these was that the Army was involved in political correctness. Do you believe that?

KRISTOL: The Associated Press, not a conservative news organization, is reporting that at Walter Reed, fellow medical officers of Hasan who heard him say these things -- I'm going to quote the Associated Press, "A fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal complaint." That's the Associated Press reporting, presumably, on officers they have spoken to there.

So I think it's not a theory. It's a fact. Maybe they should have -- obviously, they now wish, I'm sure -- these officers -- they had filed a formal complaint.

And General -- so yes, political correctness, I believe, in the Army was partly responsible for keeping this man in the military when anyone else who had done this kind of thing that didn't have a Muslim patina -- if someone had just screamed, "I hate the military, I want to kill the military, I'm on neo-Nazi Web sites," he would have been disciplined and kicked out, I believe.

And secondly, General Casey, the chief of staff of the Army, said Friday, "You know what we needed to look at? Greater force protection measures at our bases." That's the Army's response, that we're going to -- soldiers have to be protected against other soldiers picking up -- going out, buying extremely lethal weapons and killing their fellow soldiers?

So I am very worried, and I welcome -- I think we need to have an investigation. We shouldn't pre-judge. These things are hard to do. I don't want to sit here and second-guess everyone in the chain of command. But something went very wrong and it needs to be looked at with honest -- honestly, not politically correctly.

WALLACE: Kirsten?

POWERS: Well, I think, you know, he was a Muslim and he did something horrific. He -- I think it's more that he probably snapped. Was there political correctness? That's a separate issue of whether this was an act of Islamic terror, in my opinion.

It's kind of like saying a person who goes to a right-wing Christian church who goes -- then goes to an abortion clinic and kills somebody, then we should extrapolate from that that Christians do something.

There's about 1,000 Muslims in the military. I don't think because one Muslim person does something who was clearly unstable that you can necessarily extrapolate that that's Islamic terror.

HUME: Extrapolate what?

POWERS: Just that -- what a lot of conservatives are saying, that this is an act of Islamic terror.

HUME: Well, why...

WALLACE: You know what? Keep that thought. Guys, you're going to want to go to our Web site to check out our "Panel Plus." Thank you, panel. See you next week.

And don't, as we say, forget to check out the latest edition of "Panel Plus" where our group here continues the discussion on our Web site shortly after the show ends. Foxnewssunday.com. In addition, you can send us your comments there as well.

Up next, our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: You won't recognize him and you may not remember his name. But back in 2003, he was at the center of a national scandal. Here's our Power Player of the Week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLAIR: I know I'm telling the truth to the best of my ability and my knowledge. But it's really up for people to take that information that I offer and come to answers for themselves.

WALLACE: Jayson Blair, talking about the truth, the central issue in his life. Six years ago he resigned as a reporter for the New York Times after it was revealed he had plagiarized or simply made up facts in dozens of stories.

The scandal brought down the paper's top two editors and shook the nation's media.

BLAIR: I think that most people initially, when they hear the idea of me being a life coach, they kind of laugh at the notion, but when they think about it and they think -- and they -- if they can buy into the idea that I did actually learn and grow from my experience, it makes perfect sense.

WALLACE: We caught up with Blair this week at a small psychological counseling business in Virginia where he now works.

Having spent years in treatment for bipolar disorder, manic depression, as well as alcohol and drug abuse, he now teams up with health professionals to counsel people in crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLAIR: What are dad's prospective roles, mom's prospective roles, and what are the things that the girl wants?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Blair says at age 33 he's turned his life around...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLAIR: I was hesitant about reopening an old wound of mine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: ... and can now give people the benefit of his terrible experience.

BLAIR: If I wasn't the youngest reporter, I was the second youngest reporter in the building. I think I was.

WALLACE: Fair to say that you were on the fast track?

BLAIR: Yes. Yeah. I think it certainly is fair to say.

WALLACE: Blair joined the Times in 1999. He says he started out wanting to help people but eventually convinced himself that meant he had to be a star.

When did you start lying?

BLAIR: That's a really good question.

WALLACE: Blair says he got a quote from someone he knew was giving him a fake name. He put it in the story anyway.

BLAIR: Once I had crossed that ethical line, like so many ethical lines, it was so much easier to jump across.

WALLACE: By the end, Blair was supposedly writing stories from around the country without ever actually leaving his New York apartment. BLAIR: At its core, to me, you know, it's theft and it's lying and it's, you know, conniving behavior.

WALLACE: While Blair now says he was suffering from undiagnosed mental illness, he refuses to use that as an excuse.

BLAIR: Ultimately, all of that stuff aside, the one thing that I can say for sure played a role in it happening was my character, that there was a problem with who I was.

WALLACE: How do you feel about where you are today?

BLAIR: I feel good. The medications don't work all the time, so there are periods where, you know, I am sick briefly for a while or I am feeling down. So it is hard. It's hard to do. It's difficult to do.

But I feel much better about it than I felt about my life two, three, five or even 10 years ago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Friday night Jayson Blair spoke to journalism students at Washington and Lee University, and he told them the big ethical decisions in life don't come with trumpets blaring but in small daily choices about what compromises you're willing to make.

You can see more of the interview at foxnewssunday.com.

And that's it for today. Have a great week and we'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."

But we begin with the latest on last Friday's mass killing at Fort Hood. Flags at the White House and all government buildings remain at half staff today. The Obamas will attend a memorial service at Fort Hood on Tuesday. And we are joined here in the studio this morning by the Army's chief officer, General George Casey.

Welcome to THIS WEEK.

GEN. GEORGE CASEY, ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF: Thank you, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And let me begin by offering our condolences to you and all of the families at Fort Hood. I know you just returned...

CASEY: Thank you very much.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... from there. And you were able to spend some time with the wounded. What were you able to learn about what they saw and what they did when the shooting broke out?

CASEY: I'll tell you that my trip there on Friday with secretary of the army, John McHugh, was at once gut-wrenching and uplifting. And in talking to the wounded soldiers and in talking to the medical providers and soldiers who are at the site, I came away with what a horrific experience it was for them.

But also I was uplifted by the -- by what they did for each other. And when you talk to the wounded soldiers, the one thing that they all stress was how -- was their reaction, and their reaction in support of each other.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It was immediate.

CASEY: It was immediate. And just stories like medics who were next -- in another building next door at a graduation, their graduation, running from the building toward the crime scene in their caps and gowns, ripping them off as they went so they could get there to support their fellow soldiers.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's also get to the latest on the investigation. It's my understanding that Army investigators have concluded that Major Hasan was the only gunman?

CASEY: That is where they are now. But I don't -- I mean, I don't -- I think as the investigation continues, other things could evolve. But I think that is where they are today.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you believe it was the only gunman right -- at least for right now, not conclusive, are you confident that he acted alone, that there were no other co-conspirators?

CASEY: George, I can't comment on the ongoing investigation. And those facts will come out over time here. We need to let the investigation take its course. And as I said, that will evolve over the coming days and weeks here.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But do you have any better understanding of why the first reports suggested there were two or three attackers?

CASEY: My understanding from being down there and talking to the investigators and General Cone was there were two or three soldiers that were seen running from the area, and people assumed that they were running from the police. And they just checked them out and have since decided that they weren't part of this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And that's why they were released.

CASEY: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say you can't talk too much about the investigation, but we are learning a fair amount about Major Hasan in the last couple of days. And it appears that there were several warning signs they either could have or should have been caught.

His fellow students and here in Bethesda, Maryland, say that he had anti-American rants at various presentations. The FBI has found some Internet postings by a man with Mr. Hasan's name, very inflammatory, praising suicide bombers.

And one of the major's fellow students has been especially concerned by what he said. He said that it was very clear to him, and his name is Val Finnell, that -- and that he had complained to administrators at a military university about these anti-American rants. And the AP story that quotes him goes on to say that Hasan's fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan's anti-American propaganda, but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept off the students from filing a formal complaint. Is that true?

CASEY: I think we need to be very careful here about speculating based on anecdotes like that. We are encouraging all of our soldiers and leaders that may have information pertaining to the suspect to come forward with that information to the criminal investigation division and to the FBI. So, I realize there is a lot out there. We all want to know what happened and what motivated the suspect, but I think we need to be very, very careful here in these early days to let the investigation take its course. These are professionals and they will sort through this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So it's fair to say that right now, you can't rule out anything. We don't know if this was an act of premeditated political terror, or if this was a case of someone who just snapped.

CASEY: I think you are exactly right, and I don't think we should speculate on one or the other or any other possibilities.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the things this does raise, though, is the special challenge paused to all of you by Muslims in the military. There are only about 3,000 Muslims in the military right now, and on the one hand, you want to recruit Muslims. There is a great need for Muslims in the military right now. On the other hand, this is not the first case we've seen of fratricide by someone with a Muslim background in the military. How do you deal with this challenge?

CASEY: Again, I think that's something else we need to be very careful about, and I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here. And it's not just about Muslims. We have a very diverse army. We have a very diverse society. And that gives us all strength. So again, we need to be very careful with that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say it gives us strength. We also have more and more signs that the military right now is under great stress, and military families under great stress, with repeated deployments both to Iraq and Afghanistan. It was pretty clear that one of the things on Major Hasan's mind was the fear of being sent, as he would be, for the first time, to Afghanistan. But is this something we're going to -- and I know you are addressing it every single day -- but is this something that we're going to be paying more attention to? And what more can be done to prevent something like this in the future?

CASEY: I'd say two things to that. First of all, we in the Army will take a very hard look at ourselves and ask ourselves the hard questions, because we want to, as everyone else wants to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.

The second thing you asked, can we do more to help the stresses and strains on the soldiers and families. And I can only say we will continue to do whatever it takes. And we've made great strides in the last several years in increasing what we're doing from -- the mental fitness of the force. In 2007, we had an Army-wide stigma reduction campaign, that actually we saw the benefits right away in the 40- percent increase in the number of soldiers who came forward and said they were suffering from post-traumatic stress. We have gone after the suicide problems they were having very hard. We've contracted with the National Institute for Health for a five-year, $50 million study of suicides. It's not only going to help the Army, it's going to help the country. And recently, we just implemented a program called comprehensive soldier fitness, which is designed to work on the front end of this, to give our soldiers, civilians and family members the resilient skills they need to make it through these tough times, and that's a $125 million program here that's going to unfold here over the next several years.

Tomorrow, 150 sergeants and family members will begin a master resilience trainer course at the University of Pennsylvania, and we -- our goal is by this time next year to have a master resilience trainer in every battalion in the Army.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, General Casey, thanks very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and all Army families this weekend.

CASEY: Thank you, George. STEPHANOPOULOS: We're going to go straight to our exclusive debate with the party chairs. As they take their seats, here is a sampling from yesterday's House debate on health care. Seemed like kiddie's day in Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): This is Mattie. Mattie believes in freedom. Mattie likes America because we have freedom here, and Mattie believes in patient choice health care. She asked to come here today to say she doesn't want the government to take over health care.

(UNKNOWN): I encourage each of my colleagues to join me in voting yes, and I can assure you these guys aren't going to have to pay for it in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: I am pretty sure we have no kids on the set this morning, but we are joined by the two party chairs, Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia, Republican Michael Steele.

Welcome to both of you.

STEELE: Great to be here.

KAINE: Great to be here, George. Thanks.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And thank you for not bringing any props.

(LAUGHTER)

And, Governor Kaine, let me begin with you because it appears that the Republicans -- and a lot of Republicans I talk to are saying that this is going to be a Pyhrric victory for the Democrats, that what you have here on the health care bill is $400 billion in tax hikes, $400 billion in Medicare cuts. And that's going to spark a backlash that's going to haunt Democrats at the polls next year.

KAINE: George, of course, Republicans are saying that. They've been trying to block this all year. They've said that they want to beat health care reform as a way to break the president.

But there's no denying that this was a historic passage last night, on an issue that President Teddy Roosevelt, the Republicans started 100 years ago, that now is moving forward in all the committees, and now, with the House vote of historic importance.

And what this bill does is it provides security for the four- fifths of Americans who have health insurance so that they can't get abused by, really, predatory insurance company practices.

It provides a path to affordable coverage for uninsured Americans for the first time in the history of this country. And then it does significant work to start to break the unsustainable growth in health care cost that is breaking the bank for families and businesses.

We think this was a big and historic win into the week in a great way.

STEPHANOPOULOS: When you hear Governor Kaine talk about, it sounds... STEELE: Well, it sounds...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... only one Republican voted for it.

STEELE: ... not. No, look, you know, Teddy Roosevelt probably didn't have this in mind. And certainly, this would have been one of those things he would have hunted on the big -- big range and shot dead.

(LAUGHTER)

KAINE: Teddy wouldn't have wanted insurance companies to be running...

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: The reality of it is we don't want the government running things, either. And so -- and that's what this amounts to. This is a government takeover of our health care system. It is unnecessary. Republicans have not blocked -- tried to block this for the purposes of saying no to health care reform. We've been trying to block it to bring some common sense, and so we could sit down and have a discussion.

Republican leaders, in a letter to the president in April of this year, requested a sit-down, face to face, let's talk about your agenda and ours and where we can find consensus.

They're still waiting for that meeting. They've been blocked from putting, I think, real form, into this bill. All their amendments were rejected in committee.

They didn't have the chance to really debate this last night. You're doing this at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night? America's watching?

STEPHANOPOULOS: The debate did stretch...

KAINE: Yes, I mean, George, the debate stretched on -- the debate stretched on for months. The Republicans had plenty of advance notice.

This isn't a government takeover of health care.

STEELE: It is -- it is very much a government takeover.

KAINE: What it is -- it is an effort by the Republicans to just basically shill for the insurance companies.

STEELE: Oh, please. You know that...

KAINE: The issue -- no, just -- the issue in this bill that is so important to most Americans is that you're not going to get your policy pulled out from under you when you get sick. And when you change jobs, which a lot of Americans do, seven or eight times in life, you won't get turned down for a pre-existing condition.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's until 2013.

KAINE: When the Republicans...

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: Just hold on. When the Republicans put their own plan on the table this week, they didn't tackle pre-existing conditions. We're starting right away...

STEELE: They did -- we did, too.

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: ... pre-existing conditions. Where's your tort reform? Where's your portability? Where's your -- where's your small-business pools? Where's your program for health savings accounts?

Where are the various programs that you don't need 2,000 pages to get done? You don't need to overhaul the entire system the way the Democrats have put forth last night.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Mr. Steele, aren't you concerned now?

You've got the -- the stimulus bill earlier this year, no Republican votes in the House, three in the Senate; one Republican vote in the House, here, that, to a lot of people who are hurting right now, that this is going to seem like the party -- the Republican Party is the party of no?

STEELE: Look, we -- I appreciate that perspective, and that's the image that the Democratic Party would like to have us see. But the reality of it is, and I go back to this point, that Speaker -- Speaker...

(LAUGHTER)

... Leader Boehner and Leader McConnell both have had opportunities to put bills out there, to make amendments, all of which have been rejected.

So the reality of it is, now we've got an opportunity to compare and contrast their bill to our alternative.

(CROSSTALK)

And the reality -- the reality still remains -- the reality still remains that, at the end of the day, this thing grows the size of government; it inserts the government between the doctor and the patient. It now requires mandates on states that can't afford, and it cuts $500 billion from a Medicare program that everyone in this country knows is on the road to bankruptcy.

And the final point is, all of this is prepaid by taxpayers today for a program that they won't even begin to access for four years. Now, let me ask you this.

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: George, I've got to...

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: No, no, let me make my one last point, here; then you can...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Ask the question. Then you can respond.

STEELE: Let me ask you this. Would you buy a car today -- put the money on the table today and take deliver four years from now? Because that's exactly what you're doing with this health care system.

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: And this is not a great car.

KAINE: I'm going to let Michael be the used car salesman. I'm going to talk about health reform.

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: ... overwhelming majority of Americans want to see this. And what the Republicans are doing -- party of no on the stimulus.

KAINE: They were letting the economy go into a free-fall, not willing to do a single thing about it, losing 800,000 jobs a month, GDP down by 6.5 percent at the end of the Bush administration. They stood back, they were going to let it collapse.

Thank goodness the Democrats and the president put a Recovery Act in place that has GDP growing again. Party of no on health care, only one vote...

STEELE: Well, look...

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: I'm not done. Only one vote...

STEELE: I'm not going to let you do...

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: Only one vote.

STEELE: Sorry, Governor...

KAINE: Ninety percent of them voted against equal pay for women.

STEELE: ... you may be a governor but you're not going to filibuster this issue here, I'm sorry.

KAINE: Ninety percent of them voted against expanding health insurance for youngsters in the SCHIP re-authorization.

STEELE: You can check off the talking points...

KAINE: These guys are getting excellent at the no game.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I've heard from both of you on this issue. I do want to move on to the elections, because Michael Steele had a bit of a Freudian slip there where he called -- said "Speaker Boehner." Maybe he was looking out at the election returns on Tuesday, forecasting it into next year...

KAINE: Well, we won two House seats on Tuesday, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Two House seats on Tuesday, the margin...

KAINE: Five for five.

STEELE: And you lost...

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... of victory last night. But let me look -- dig into the numbers a little bit more from Tuesday night. One of the things you saw in both Virginia and New Jersey is those new voters that President Obama brought to the polls last year in Virginia and New Jersey, under 30s, way down, half the share of the electorate that they were in 2008.

And then on independents, look at these numbers, first of all, in Virginia. President Obama last year, Democrats won 49-48. This year Republicans two to one, 66-33 among independent voters in Virginia. New Jersey much the same story, 51-47 last year under President Obama, this year Republican Chris Christie gets 60 percent of the independent vote, Democrats get only 30 percent of the independent vote.

That is a huge flashing light for next year, isn't it?

KAINE: Well, George, let me tell you something, you know, and your viewers probably do too that for 24 years, the way the White House goes, both of these governorships go the other direction. In Virginia it has been 32 years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: True, but that is a massive swing among independent voters.

KAINE: But it's not a swing away from the president. The president is popular with independents nationally, Washington Post/ABC poll a week ago, 55 percent approval -- job approval among independent voters. That's north of where he was on Election Day last year.

His job approval in New Jersey, 61 percent, in Virginia, 57 percent. So it is the case that the historic trend in these governors races was cutting against us. And it is the case that independents supported Republican candidates.

But independents nationally and independents in both of these states are strong for their president. That's why we...

STEPHANOPOULOS: So nothing to worry about.

KAINE: Well, no, we're going to look at everything. We wanted to win those races...

STEELE: They have a lot to worry about, George...

KAINE: But -- no, let me finish.

That's why we won the two congressional races. The only national races Tuesday, on national issues were the races in Congress. We won them both.

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: And we are five for five in congressional races. STEELE: OK. We are 18 of 29 in special elections this year...

KAINE: Not in Congress, you haven't won a congressional race.

STEELE: Of all special elections, all special elections.

KAINE: But none in Congress.

STEELE: Well, look, it's -- that's not the point. When you lose the governorship of New Jersey, you had better be paying attention. And there is a reason why you lost, and it has nothing to do with the president's popularity. Independents came to Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell because they had something to say. They talked about the issues that they were confronting every single day.

They were concerned about how you leverage what is happening here in Washington with what is going on in my state. You're talking about health care, there is a downward pressure on my economy, in my neighborhood, in my household. So people made this convergence, this connection between the so-called national issues and the kitchen table issues. That's number one.

Number two, the Democratic Party had better pay attention to what the people out here are saying. You can no longer dismiss people by sitting on your cell phone when they're talking to you or calling them un-American or making them feel like you don't give a heck about what they're concerns are.

That's what the voters laid on the table this year. And you walk into 2008 thinking you're going to wrap it all around the president's popularity, call Speaker Boehner Speaker Boehner now, because it's going to happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you think independents were saying? There is an awful lot of evidence, the polls that I've seen, that they were concerned about the economy and that they were concerned that there -- that the deficit is going to grow and cripple the economy even more in the future.

KAINE: George, what I think independents were saying is what they said in exit polls, which is, in governors' races, they view them as local and state races. They don't nationalize them. Even with the strong independent approval of the president, they said they cast these votes in these state races based on state issues.

But again, all of the races and all of the changes in Congress this year, where they are federalized, we've won five congressional races. Every special election since Inauguration Day in the House has gone to a Democrat, including in some very tough Republican areas.

And we picked up two Senate seats. Chairman Steele and others chased Arlen Specter from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, and we won the recount for Al Franken and he took over Norm Coleman's seat. Every change in the Hill has gone to the Democrats since President Obama came into office. STEELE: And that hasn't made things any better for the American people. So you can tout bringing all of these Democrats to Washington and look what you get. You get a 2,000-page bill with 2,000 reasons to vote against it. You're talking about your...

KAINE: You get GDP growing again for the first time in two years.

STEELE: You talk about a national -- you talk about -- look, that's a blip on the screen. Let's see what happens as we go forward because all of this -- all of this infusion of trillions of trillions of spending by this administration and this Congress comes home to roost.

And you know where it roosts, George? It roosts in the back pockets of small business owners in this country, which this administration has done zip for.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there was a warning...

KAINE: Now that's complete...

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: That's completely inaccurate.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... sign for Republicans...

STEELE: What jobs are small business owners creating right now? We have a 10.2...

KAINE: I'll talk about it. Let me answer it...

STEELE: Excuse me, no. We have...

KAINE: You just asked me a question. Let me answer it.

STEELE: I am going to answer it for you...

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's the question you answered...

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: We have a 10.2 unemployment rate right now. Where do you think that comes from?

KAINE: Let me answer.

STEELE: That comes from small business owners who can't hire. That comes from small business...

KAINE: OK, now do I get to answer the question?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let him answer the question.

STEELE: No, wait, Governor, you filibustered on the federal stuff. Let me talk about where (ph) the real people are.

KAINE: OK, I'm going to answer. George, I'm a governor.

STEELE: The reality of it is...

KAINE: I am a governor, and we have got small businesses all over...

(CROSSTALK)

KAINE: ... small businesses all over Virginia that are doing infrastructure projects because of this stimulus bill. Water and treatment, water and sewage treatment plants, roads. A great example...

STEELE: A government contract work. That's not creating jobs!

KAINE: Are you kidding me?

STEELE: That's not...

KAINE: Innovation and construction is very, very important to the economy. GDP is growing again...

STEELE: What about the brother on the corner with his...

KAINE: GDP is growing again...

STEELE: ... grocery store?

KAINE: ... for the first time in two years. At the end of the Bush administration, fallen by 6.5 percent a year. Now it's going up by 3.5 percent a year. I know Michael wants to explain it away, but that's a good thing.

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to ask Michael Steele about this race up in New York, the special election where Republicans did lose. And that seemed to be a race where Republicans pushed their candidate out of the center, (inaudible), the Democrat, Bill Owens , is a member of Congress today. How concerned are you by this dynamic that seems to be developing not only in that race but a lot of Senate primaries around the country, where conservative candidates are pushing moderates out of the middle?

STEELE: Well, my concern in New York 23 was a process. I mean, it was a failed process from the very beginning. The reality of it is, this was a play to grab a state Senate seat. It wasn't about electing a Republican or a Democrat necessarily to the United States Congress. The local party, 11 county chairmen, made the decision who they wanted. They drew Senator Owens out into the race. He ran, and then that opened up the Senate seat. The reality of it was, it was not a reflection of what the people in that community wanted. You saw the primary eventually played out between the moderate and the conservative Republican in that district... STEPHANOPOULOS: And they elected a Democrat.

STEELE: And they elected a Democrat. And guess what, we'll get the seat back, because this Democrat in the first 24 hours of taking office has broken four of his pledges, first starting by saying he wasn't going to support this monstrosity of a health care bill. The reality of it is, with a better, cleaner process there, where the people actually get to make the choice of who they want and you don't have back-room bosses making those decisions, you'll get the kind of results that will sustain us in that seat.

KAINE: George, let me talk about New York 23, because it is a gift that keeps on giving and it's going to play out forward. The year for the GOP started when the chairman said he was going to come after any Republican that voted for the stimulus. Senator Specter said I'm not going to wait, I'm going to join the Democrats right away. The year is ending with Dede Scozzafava, a Republican elected official that the party unified behind, the party, the DNC and the RCC, gave her $800,000. Then they let right-wing radio and talk show hosts chase her out of the race, with Sarah Palin , and she ended up supporting us. That's the first time I've been happy that they're good fund-raisers.

STEELE: No.

KAINE: She put that money behind our candidate. We won for the first time since 1870 in that district.

STEELE: The reality...

KAINE: And you're seeing the same dynamic play all over the United States.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You got the first word, you get the last word.

STEELE: The reality of it is, you know, hang your hat on that hook. I take the hat back come next November. Your problem right now, Governor, is that you lost New Jersey, you lost Virginia -- your home state. You could not deliver. And the Democrats can't deliver and that's what the American...

KAINE: We delivered in every congressional...

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: I had the last word, Governor. I had the last word.

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: You've got to deliver something. And what you delivered is a 2,000-pound baby that nobody wants.

So, all is lost. The chances of a comprehensive and binding treaty are approximately nil.

The fourth of five parlays preparing for Copenhagen occurred in Bangkok from Sept. 28 through Oct. 9, with delegates from about 180 nations participating. Remember diplomat George Kennan's axiom that the unlikelihood of reaching an agreement is the square of the number of parties at the table? The meeting adjourned with, as usual, essentially no progress toward an agreement on reduced emissions by developed nations or on the money such nations should pay to finance developing nations' efforts against global warming.

The New York Times reports that "the United Nations Adaptation Fund, which officially began operating in 2008 to help poor countries finance projects to blunt the effects of global warming, remains an empty shell, largely because rich nations have failed to come through with the donations they promised." The fund has a risible $18 million, which might not cover the cost of the Copenhagen conference.

There conferees will experience more futility because of, among other things, two stubborn facts -- the two most populous nations. On Oct. 21, China, the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and India, which ranks fourth -- together they account for 26 percent of emissions -- jointly agreed: They, with their combined one-third of the world's population, will not play in what increasingly resembles a global game of climate-change charades. Neither nation is interested in jeopardizing its economic growth with emissions caps of a sort that never impeded the growth of the developed nations that now praise them.

But do not really embrace them. Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives took time out from fending off the world and exempted large cattle-, dairy- and hog-producing operations from an Environmental Protection Agency requirement for reporting greenhouse gas emissions. And 13 Great Lakes cargo ships were exempted from a proposed mandate requiring the use of low-sulfur fuel. When constituents' interests conflict with global grandstanding, Congress's rule is "act locally, think globally tomorrow, maybe."

In their new book, "SuperFreakonomics," Steven D. Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, and Stephen J. Dubner, a journalist, worry about global warming but revive some inconvenient memories of 30 years ago. Then intelligent people agreed (see above) that global cooling threatened human survival. It had, Newsweek reported, "taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average." Some scientists proposed radical measures to cause global warming -- for example, covering the arctic ice cap with black soot that would absorb heat and cause melting.

Levitt and Dubner also spoil some of the fun of the sort of the "think globally, act locally" gestures that are liturgically important in the church of climate change. For example, they say the "locavore" movement -- people eating locally grown foods from small farms -- actually increases greenhouse gas emissions. They cite research showing that only 11 percent of such emissions associated with food are in the transportation of it; 80 percent are in the production phase and, regarding emissions, big farms are much more efficient.

Although the political and media drumbeat of alarm is incessant, a Pew poll shows that only 57 percent of Americans think there is solid evidence of global warming, down 20 points in three years. Gallup shows that only 1 percent of Americans rank the environment as their biggest worry. Two reasons are:

They are worried about their wages, which will not be improved by clobbering a weak economy with the costs of a cap-and-trade carbon-reduction regime. And climate doomsayers are learning the wages of crying "Wolf!"

In 2005, global warming worriers warned, as they tend to do after all adverse or anomalous environmental events, that Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming and foreshadowed an increase in the number and destructiveness of hurricanes. As this year's Atlantic hurricane season ends, only three hurricanes have formed -- half the average of the past 50 years -- and none has hit the United States.

     (c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

If you were a cavalryman with Custer at the Little Big Horn on the afternoon of June 25, 1876, it was a little late to be asking this question.

But if you're one of the 84 Democrats who represent districts carried either by George W. Bush in 2004 or John McCain last year, the time to ponder this is before casting a potential career-terminating vote on health-care "reform."

The gubernatorial elections Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey were, for Democrats in swing districts, either a nightmare or a wake-up call, depending upon their state of wakefulness.

In Virginia, a "purple" state Barack Obama won by 7 percentage points last fall, Republican Bob McDonnell crushed Democrat Creigh Deeds by nearly 18 points.

In New Jersey, a deep "blue" state Mr. Obama won by 15 percentage points, Republican Chris Christie ousted Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine (who outspent him by more than three to one), 49 percent to 45 percent, with independent Chris Daggett winning 6 percent.

The White House says both races were decided by local factors, that neither should be seen as a referendum on the president or his policies.

But you, swing-district Democrat, you know that's just spin. You remember that four years ago, when Democrats won the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, Rahm Emanuel, now the White House chief of staff, heralded them as the beginnings of a national trend toward the Democrats (which they turned out to be).

Mr. Corzine was arguably the most unpopular governor in the country, quite capable of losing in a heavily Democratic state all by himself. In the end, that's what I think happened. Mr. Obama shouldn't be blamed for his defeat.

But Mr. Obama didn't help, either. He campaigned hard for Mr. Corzine, appearing with him three times in the final two weeks of the campaign. Mr. Corzine lost by a slightly larger margin than he was trailing in polls at the time the president began his campaign push.

So if you get in trouble with your constituents, swing-district Democrat, can you count on the president to bail you out? The evidence from New Jersey suggests no.

But it's the results in Virginia that more greatly concern you. That' s because the Old Dominion is a swing state, like the district you represent.

Mr. Deeds had been sinking like a stone in the polls for a month and the White House publicly washed its hands of him two weeks before the election. Mr. Deeds was losing, two "senior White House officials" told The Washington Post, because he didn't tie himself closely enough to the president and his policies.

Whatever Mr. Deeds' shortcomings might be, he wasn't the only Democrat in Virginia who suffered. For the first time in modern history, one party, the GOP, now controls all statewide offices. And the Republicans gained six seats in the House of Delegates, to take a 59-39 edge. (Two independents usually vote with the GOP.)

The economy was the biggest concern for voters in both New Jersey and Virginia, according to exit polls. But in Virginia health care was the second-largest issue.

Three freshmen Democrats were elected in Virginia last year. In the 2nd district, Glenn Nye won by 5 percentage points. Mr. McDonnell won there by 24 points Tuesday. In the 5th, Tom Perriello won by two- tenths of one percentage point. Mr. McDonnell won there by 22 points. In the 11th, Gerry Connolly won by 12 points, Mr McDonnell by 10. And in the 9th, represented since 1982 by Democrat Rick Boucher, Mr. McDonnell won by 34 points.

Even Mr. Boucher has to wonder how often he can vote for something his constituents strongly oppose and expect to be re-elected.

Scott Rasmussen was the pollster who most accurately predicted the result in New Jersey. His polling indicates 42 percent of Americans favor Obamacare; 54 percent oppose it.

Politicians tend to prefer their perpetuation in office to passage of any particular bill. The Chicago Way is to get the votes necessary through bribery and intimidation. But congressmen cost more than aldermen, and scrutiny is greater on the national stage.

Besides, it is both unseemly and ineffective to bully from a position of weakness.

We were wrong, dead wrong, tragically wrong, about all of it, because we did what great powers always do when they are engaged in great contests. We thought that if only we could get through the Cold War (or World War I, or World War II) we would enter the sunlit uplands, where serenity and prosperity reigned, purchased effortlessly by (and this was the phrase that was brandished in the capital and from coast to coast two decades ago) the peace dividend. To paraphrase Churchill: Some peace. Some dividend.

The realists and pragmatists would deny us these reveries, but great struggles require great hopes and they almost always inspire great myths, and if you do not believe me, consider how bright a world was forecast by the abolitionists during the Civil War or by Woodrow Wilson during the Great War, whose sad centenary we are only five years from commemorating. The peace is never as bright as the one we yearn for in the darkness of the storm.

All of this brings us to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which began 20 years ago tomorrow, and to an unrecognized truth:

Even though things have not turned out as we hoped they might in November 1989 -- the eagle has not laid down beside the bear, for example -- this is still a world far preferable to the one we occupied at various points in the 20th century, when angry nations seethed at each other across militarized borders separating South and North Korea, and Vietnam, or across the Oder-Neisse Line, the Curzon Line and multiple other lines in Europe's sand.

Today we face frightful challenges, some involving the economy (the recovery of 2009 still seems elusive) and some involving national security (global terrorism adds a new form of instability to world affairs), but we ought to remember 1989 as one of the great divides in modern history.

It effectively brought to an end a world struggle, beginning with the Russian Revolution in 1917, between two competing economic systems and ideologies whose adherents believed were irreconcilable. This struggle was the leitmotif of almost all of 20th-century history, even if it was repressed between 1941 and 1945, when for reasons that were nothing more than opportunistic, the two systems united to fight a third system so odious that the world had not seen its like before or since.

Indeed, from our vantage point in 2009, it is possible to say that all of history between 1917 and 1989 -- the short 20th century, you might say -- was preoccupied with this struggle.

It was a large motivation behind Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points; he wanted to offer the world a utopian vision that could compete with Lenin's. It was an important subtext in World War II; Churchill warned of an ascendant Soviet Union even as Franklin D. Roosevelt was cozying up to Stalin at Tehran and Yalta. And it dominated the life of nations big (the two Germanys) and small (Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Angola, Nicaragua, Grenada) for a half century after World War II.

We still have much to learn from the Cold War. Did we learn the lessons of Munich and appeasement well, or too well? Did our dedication to winning the Cold War allow us almost to lose the best part of the civil rights movement, many of whose leaders were pilloried for being Moscow sympathizers? Did our zeal to protect freedom in a world where our rivals wished to destroy freedom help to erode our own freedoms? (This last is a question we still might ask.)

In those decades after Bernard Baruch first used the expression "Cold War" -- in a speech written by Herbert Bayard Swope -- tens of millions of people lived in danger or in fear. A younger generation may giggle smugly at the Civil Defense videos (all that diving under flimsy school desks), the crumbling and rotting supplies of government-issued biscuits (some of them no doubt still in the basement of post offices and courthouses) and the moral questions of the time (what to do when your neighbor bangs at the door of your fallout shelter?).

But in those days Americans had more to fear than fear itself.

The Cold War contaminated the nation's politics, transforming a two-bit Wisconsin politician from an insignificant man into a devastating noun. It warped the country's economy, stifled its artistic life and stunted its cultural growth. All that, mind you, in the country with by far the better claim on the moral high ground.

Abroad, the Cold War fed the paranoia of one of the great dictatorships of history and gave a bad name to the liberation movements of dozens of colonial nations whose causes Americans might have embraced in a more rational world.

This is by way of saying that the end of the Cold War was truly one of the beautiful moments of history, even if we awoke to a world full of irredentism and post-ideological struggle that took the form of flames rising from Manhattan skyscrapers, a smoldering gash in the Pentagon and a hole in a Pennsylvania farm field.

So much of this struggle is in the memory of those who live among us -- memories of episodes like the Berlin blockade, the Berlin airlift and the construction of the Berlin Wall, among many others. We remember these specifics but such memories crowd out the larger triumph, which is far bigger than the victory against Communism.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall brought an end to one of the most terrible eras of history, the time of the tyrants. We have more to celebrate than we think.

Copyright 2009, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Well, perhaps the Republican Party can test that thesis for the rest of us. Forty-five years ago the Republicans in convention -- the convention that nominated Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater for president -- tried to boo New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller off the stage when he said:

"These extremists feed on fear, hate and terrorism. They encourage disunity ... The Republican Party must repudiate those people."

It was no tea party, that one. Angry Goldwater delegates began booing and chanting, "We Want Barry!" Many of the people in the hall wanted Rockefeller out of the party at least as much as they wanted Goldwater in the White House.

"Rockefeller was the enemy!" said Richard Viguerie, who was one of the most enthusiastic chanters in the balcony. He was 30 years old then and was soon to become an important figure in the "New Right," the branch of the party that wanted liberals, and moderates too, out so that the Grand Old Party would be a pristine conservative vehicle. Maybe a Model T.

Goldwater, of course, went down in one of the greatest landslides in the history of presidential elections. Many raw conservatives ended up more or less in the wilderness or underbrush until they felt free to come out into the open again during Ronald Reagan's run for president in 1980.

It seemed to me then that the big story of last Tuesday's cluster of elections was not the Democratic defeats in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, but the amazing race in the 23rd Congressional District of New York, a relatively poor area where trees greatly outnumber residents. Most of that area -- congressional district lines have changed over time -- has sent only Republicans to Washington since 1871. On Tuesday, a Democrat named Bill Owens was elected over a moderate Republican and a Conservative Party candidate named Douglas Hoffman.

How could that happen? Well, conservatives were out of the woods again. Local Republican leaders in 11 counties had given the nomination to a state assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava. National Republican trumpeters, led by radio talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, proclaimed that Scozzafava was too liberal on social issues, particularly abortion and gay marriage. Sarah Palin and money from conservatives all over the country poured in, and Scozzafava was effectively marginalized and quit the race, throwing what support she had to Owens. National party leaders were humiliated, but they quickly joined the push for Hoffman. In the name of party unity, they abandoned their own nominee.

Owens defeated Hoffman in a race close enough that national conservatives probably found encouragement in their drive to marginalize all moderate Republicans. (There are no liberal Republicans of the Rockefeller type to eject anymore. The last ones standing, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Leach, were defeated in 2006.)

The new New Right, I suspect, will be a major factor in the 2010 congressional election. Establishment Republicans are celebrating party victories in Virginia and New Jersey -- good for them -- but it is no longer a joke when folks say Limbaugh is the real leader of their party. The radio conservatives will almost certainly be challenging establishment Republicans across the country. When the new New Right cannot choose the Republican candidate, which is what happened in upstate New York, they are going to use or try to create third parties. That was easy under New York election laws because the state has had a small but real Conservative Party on the ballot since the early 1960s.

Santayana's quote about history is not the only relevant thought about what these off-off-year elections showed. It was Henry Clay who said he'd rather be right than be president. Clay was exaggerating more than a bit, but conservatives are going to demand that Republicans be Right before they can be president -- and history will repeat itself in defeat.

Copyright 2009, Universal Press Syndicate

Kurt Campbell, the State Department's top Asia official, traveled to the isolated military dictatorship to talk with its corrupt junta. But Campbell also insisted on having a highly visible meeting with the leader of the country's democracy movement, Aung San Suu Kyi, and then called publicly on her persecutors to grant her party more freedoms.

This is the balance that has been missing in Obama's outreach to other authoritarian states. Demonstrators on the streets of Tehran underlined the president's missing link Wednesday by chanting: "Obama, Obama -- either you're with them or you're with us," as Iranian police beat them, according to news accounts. Obama and his advisers need to take the dissidents' message to heart.

The dissident -- a hero and catalyst for enormous change in the Soviet empire, China, the Philippines and elsewhere only two decades ago -- has become a largely neglected and absent figure in this administration's diplomacy. Media coverage of political protest globally also seems to have waned since the end of the Cold War.

True, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have made symbolic gestures toward the politically oppressed on their travels and in pro-forma statements. But, as the president's coming visit to China will again show, dissident political movements have not been incorporated into his strategy for changing the world. The president believes so strongly in his powers of persuasion that the transformative work once done by Lech Walesa, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Corazon Aquino, Wei Jingsheng and others now falls largely on his shoulders. Campbell's meeting with Suu Kyi provided a useful corrective, for one country at least, to this tendency.

George W. Bush proved that it is possible to overdo support for dissident movements and the vilification of their tormentors, just as his father demonstrated that it can be underdone (see Bush 41's effort to keep the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia from disintegrating). The Bush 43 administration, in fact, bears some of the responsibility for the current eclipse of the dissident in the public mind. The focus of many journalists and political activists has recently been on U.S. human rights abuses rather than those of much more brutal foreign regimes.

So Obama's decision to reach out and encourage hostile regimes to relax their grip internally made initial tactical sense, especially in Iran. The administration deserves some credit for the current political fluidity there. Removing the U.S. as a heavy-handed, threatening enemy helped expose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's manifest failures of governance and helped meaningful dissent to surface and spread.

But the extended-hand tactic may have run its course there. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's highest authority, used inflammatory language to denounce Obama and the U.S.-originated proposal on uranium reprocessing given to Iran on Oct. 1 in Geneva. Even though U.S. officials claimed at the time that Iran had "accepted" the proposal -- which effectively drops the long-standing U.S. demand for Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium as a condition for negotiations -- Khamenei said its terms were unacceptable.

Meanwhile, protesters were voicing concern that Obama's single-minded pursuit of a nuclear deal is conveying legitimacy to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad -- at the dissidents' expense. They did not seem to have been impressed by the general words of support contained in a message issued by Obama to mark not this political uprising but the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, an event celebrated in Iran but not here.

Syria also served notice that its priorities have not been influenced by Team Obama's repeated blandishments for better relations. Israel intercepted a major clandestine Iranian arms shipment destined for Syria and the Hezbollah guerrillas it supports in Lebanon. And As-Safir, a Syrian-controlled newspaper in Beirut, launched a vitriolic, sexist attack on Michele Sison, the able U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, that concluded by calling on its readers to "silence this chatterbox" -- an ominous statement in a country where U.S. and European diplomats have been murdered.

Friendly, principled engagement is a useful tool -- up to a point. It is probably worth exploring in Burma with new steps. But there also has to be a workable Plan B -- something Obama will now have to demonstrate that he has developed for Iran and Syria.

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

Here's why. One of my favorite stories from the civil rights movement involves James L. Farmer Jr., the co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, President Kennedy, and thousands of ballpoint pens. As Farmer told the story, many in the civil rights community were angry and frustrated in 1962 that Kennedy had not kept his campaign pledge to eliminate discrimination in federally assisted housing with "one stroke of the pen." Farmer later wrote, "We figured the president's pen must have run dry." So he helped organize the "Ink for Jack" campaign, which sent loads of pens to the White House. Before the year was out, Kennedy signed an executive order prohibiting discrimination in federally assisted housing.

The moral: It's important to stand up to your enemies, but sometimes you also need to prod along your friends.

Schumer promised immigration activists that he would introduce a comprehensive reform bill by Labor Day. That day has come and gone. So I figure he must have lost track of time.

There's a good chance that the Schumer bill is written and languishing in his desk drawer. After all, the senator had a very clear road map of where he wanted to go. In June, during a speech in Washington, Schumer laid out seven principles that he said would guide the legislation. Yet, five months later, no bill has been unveiled.

Hence, I think immigration reform activists should flood Schumer's office with thousands of 2009 calendars, each one with a red circle around Labor Day.

The smart money says that Schumer -- either on his own, or at the urging of the White House -- decided to hold the legislation until next spring to give the Senate time to wrap up the all-consuming health care reform debate. That's not an unreasonable decision.

Except for one thing. By putting off the immigration reform debate until the spring, Schumer puts it that much closer to another Labor Day -- Labor Day 2010 -- when lawmakers will be spending much of their time back home trying to win re-election. So the window for debating comprehensive immigration reform, which was never that large anyway, got a lot smaller.

For an idea of how small, listen to a congressman who remains committed to achieving comprehensive immigration reform. During a recent interview on National Public Radio's "Tell Me More," Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., said he expected Congress to debate the issue in February and March of next year.

This sounds right. The debate can't go much further beyond early spring because members would have to vote on specific bills in May before their summer recess and then preparing for the fall campaign. And the abbreviated schedule means that the odds of passing something next year are growing much longer.

So thanks, Chuck. By breaking your promise to start this debate by Labor Day, you helped undermine the very cause you appeared to be championing just a few months ago. The only silver lining in all this is that you've demonstrated pretty clearly that, sometimes, those on the left flinch when they should fight. (Schumer's office did not respond to a request for comment.)

Gutierrez has now stepped into that leadership void and announced that he's planning, in the next few weeks, to unveil his own 10-point plan for comprehensive immigration reform. At an immigration rally in Washington last month, Gutierrez laid out the core principles behind his bill. They are: creating a pathway to earned legalization for millions of immigrants; ensuring more effective border enforcement; allowing for more humane interior enforcement (which implies an end to workplace raids); ensuring that Americans get the first crack at jobs, not foreign workers; improving employer verification systems; preserving family unity as a centerpiece of our immigration system; managing future flows of workers; ensuring legalization specifically for agricultural workers; giving students a special pathway to earned legalization whether they go to college or not; and promoting the integration of immigrants into U.S. society.

There are some good ideas in there and a couple of bad ones. For instance, we shouldn't stop raiding businesses and we shouldn't start protecting U.S. workers from foreign competition. But overall, there is plenty to debate. If Gutierrez follows through with his pledge to introduce this legislation, he'll deserve credit for stepping up to the plate when others backed away from it.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I've got to run out and buy some calendars.

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

Do I hear age 28? Why not 30? As long as Washington is giving away private health care coverage, why not eliminate the age cap entirely?

The House plan enjoys the support of a new group, "the Young Invincibles," an organization, Pelosi explained "formed to get young adults behind the campaign for health insurance reform."

Eureka. Pelosi has found the way to get young adults behind health care reform -- have mom and dad (or their employers) pay for it. Of course young adults are jumping on the bandwagon.

A few years ago, Matthew McConaughey starred in the movie "Failure to Launch" about a thirtysomething adult who did not want to fly the familial coop. Now the Beltway wants to enable adults to live as their parents' health care wards for years after they've been emancipated.

Forget the old system that allowed adult children to remain on their parents' policies until age 19, or up to age 23 if they were in college, and hence financially dependent. The Washington measures would apply to adults up to age 26 or 27, whether they live at home or not -- as long as they are not married or parents. (And how long do you think it will take for politicians to eliminate those exclusions?)

To my surprise, the insurance industry believes that, if enacted, the failure-to-launch provisions "will have a minimal impact," according to Robert Zirkelbach, press secretary for America's Health Insurance Plans.

In part, the industry accepts this new definition of "dependent" because states have been passing laws extending the wonder years. According to Zirkelbach, Delaware and Oklahoma draw the line at age 18, but it's 22 for North Dakota; 24 in Indiana, South Dakota and Tennessee; 25 in 13 states; and, age 30 in four states, including New Jersey. Also, states have different criteria dealing with residency. The toothpaste is out of the tube; at least a federal measure would provide uniform standards.

As health care expert Steve Zuckerman of the Urban Institute noted, putting young adults on their parents' policies mean more premiums for insurers to cover a group that has pretty low claims.

Besides, a law that would make insurers cover healthy young adults is far less onerous than other congressional provisions, such as the requirement that health care providers cover cancer patients at no extra cost. Ditto restrictions on what they can charge older Americans.

Joshua B. Gordon of the fiscal watchdog group The Concord Coalition, sees "very minimal federal budget implications" -- as there are advantages to adding "young and healthy people" to the ranks of the insured. "It actually saves costs in a way," he added -- a point that has been made by elected failure-to-launch boosters.

It's true that 1 in 3 young American adults lacks health care coverage -- and Washington should try to pass laws to correct the situation. But don't tell me it's practically free. As Geoffrey Sandler testified for the American Academy of Actuaries last year, "Although young people age 19 to 25 generally have lower claims costs than other age groups, increasing coverage to this group will increase claims."

And don't act as if there is something noble about failure-to-launch provisions -- when they do nothing for young adults who have no parents or whose parents don't have health insurance.

"It's a way to get people to have coverage, but without the federal government picking up the tab," noted Zuckerman. But that does not mean there is no cost -- only that employers or employees will have to pay the added cost.

This is where a proposal by the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to sell low-premium, high-deductible "young invincibles" policies to young adults comes in handy. As Time Magazine reported, such policies "do not constitute full coverage." But if crafted correctly, Zuckerman told me, "the young-invincibles plans could be a good option."

And not just for the sons and daughters of the middle class. It makes no sense, but the so-called caring members of Congress want to avoid the path that paves strong incentives for young-invincibles to take charge of their health care. Instead, they're pushing the "failure to launch" model.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

The end began the night of Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall was opened, allowing East Germans to leave the prison that constituted their country. Throughout Eastern Europe, one Communist regime after another disintegrated. Within two years, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was not only out of power but banned by law. A system soaked in the blood of millions was gone.

It was the most dramatic, life-affirming and miraculous event of our time. And for those of us in the West, it is one from which we have yet to recover.

The Cold War was often grim and scary. For four decades, we had to maintain vast defenses against a numerically superior enemy that threatened the freedom of our allies and, by extension, ourselves. We lived with the daily reality that, with the push of a button in the Kremlin, we would all be dead in half an hour.

But the "long twilight struggle," as John F. Kennedy called it, was also inspiring. It gave us a purpose greater than ourselves. In those days, most Americans understood it was our national duty to prevent the spread of the most malignant force on earth, lest it enslave us all.

That may sound absurd to anyone who has grown up since 1989. But there were serious people who feared the worst. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher thought that in the 1970s, the West was "slowly but surely losing."

Our unequivocal victory brought joy, but it also created something else: a void in our lives. If upholding freedom and democracy against a global enemy was not our purpose, what was?

In his 1989 essay, "The End of History?" published in The National Interest, Francis Fukuyama celebrated the triumph of liberal democracy over communism. But he feared "centuries of boredom" once the "worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination and idealism" was replaced by such dull fare as "the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands."

The end of the Cold War left us searching for something to match its gravity, drama and urgency. Unfortunately, some people have managed to find it.

For conservatives, it has been the war against terrorism. There was terrorism during the Cold War, but we regarded it as a lethal but limited nuisance. After 9/11, though, President Bush said our task was nothing less than to "rid the world of evil."

Before long, he persuaded himself and the country that the effort demanded the invasion of Iraq. The dangers Saddam Hussein and his kind presented, Bush told Czech students, were "just as dangerous as those perils that your fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers faced." That fantasy led us into tragic folly.

The right has also had trouble shaking the fear of totalitarianism. Lacking the specter of Soviet tyrants, they have found a suitable replacement in Barack Obama, who is routinely, and ridiculously, compared to Stalin and Mao.

Liberals are likewise susceptible to extravagant dread spawned by misplaced nostalgia. For many of them, the darkest time of the Cold War was the McCarthy era, when anti-communist fevers spawned abuses of power and persecution of the innocent. The left has spent the past eight years denouncing a new wave of domestic repression that, in reality, never materialized.

It's no coincidence that the film "Good Night, and Good Luck," about CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's brave stand against Sen. Joseph McCarthy, came out in 2005. Director George Clooney said it was highly relevant to the present: "We do this every 30 or 40 years; we just sort of, you know, go crazy."

But in the realm of civil liberties the Bush administration, though it often went wrong, did not go crazy. Dissenters were not ruined or jailed. Muslims were not herded en masse into internment camps. While there were instances of indefensible overreaching, there was no reign of terror on the home front.

In reality, we are never likely to face anything comparable to the perils and fears that hung over our heads during the Cold War, and for that we should be immensely grateful. Once was enough. Wasn't it?

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

First, Palin will not leave the Republican Party.

"As independent-minded and anti-establishment as she is," says Villanova University's Lara Brown, "she seems to understand well one of my favorite quotes from political scientist John Aldrich from Duke University: 'The standard line that anyone can grow up to be president may be true, but it is true only if one grows up to be a major party nominee.'"

In short, Palin is positioning herself to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee and getting involved in NY-23 was merely the first step. Her book and her Oprah interview are her next major steps due out later this month.

As they say "all politics is local"-- which is why Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman did not win in the New York race. The endorsement of drop-out Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava for Democrat Bill Owens didn't help. And the local GOP party bosses who first chose Scozzafava most likely decided after all the Hoffman-hype and "national-meddling" that they were not going to go out of their way to turn out the vote to help Hoffman get elected.

Yet just because the third-party guy didn't win, the support given to him by Palin (and other GOP conservatives, such as Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Club for Growth types) should not be discounted.

First of all, for a third-party candidate, Hoffman did very well by managing to rally the GOP base to himself in a short period of time. As recent as just 30 days ago, he was thought of as a "spoiler" not a "contender."

Make no mistake, the Republican Party Leadership is still split, but that might not be a bad thing for them right now.

The GOP has to decisively figure out which way to move - towards the conservatives or towards the moderates/liberals. Last week's races should help them figure it out, if they don't miss the signs.

"I would argue, based on what happened last Tuesday, is that they should move towards the conservatives," Brown says. "But - and this is a big but - they need to focus on fiscal issues such as taxing, spending, deficits and debt and the size of government, issues like freedom, liberty and small government and not the cultural conservative issues (abortion and gay marriage)."

The Republican gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia were about twice as large as most people were expecting. Most predictors thought Bob McDonnell would carry Virginia by about 9 percent, but he won by 18 percent. And many believed that New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie would squeak out a win by about 2 percent and he won by 4 percent.

It was all about the swing voters. Independents in both states moved towards the GOP in a pretty big way and this movement had everything to with precisely the above issues - the economy, jobs, taxes, a desire for fiscal responsibility, which both McDonnell and Christie stayed focused on - and not cultural issues such as same sex marriage, which is what Hoffman and the Club for Growth focused on.

If Palin wants to be considered a credible presidential candidate for 2012, she needs to not only release her book and go on Oprah, but she needs to weigh in on serious issues (like energy and the size of government and taxing and spending) and support candidates in 2010 who promote those issues.

Palin has lots of opportunities to do that, Brown says, adding: "But if she wants to win, then she has to move away from her 'rebellious, risk-taking conservative' image and adopt more of a 'substantive, discerning reformer' image."

It's more than a month since what was touted as a breakthrough meeting with the Iranians in Geneva over their nuclear program. But the Iranians now seem to be backpedaling -- disavowing the tentative agreement that their own negotiators had signaled they supported.

"The feeling now is that the Iranians are unable to decide," says a senior European diplomat involved in the talks. Abbas Milani, a Stanford professor who closely follows events in Iran, agrees: "They clearly want to back out of the deal."

It's a measure of the political turmoil in Tehran that the chief proponent of engagement with the United States over the past month has been the hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has been attacked for his supposed willingness to make concessions to the West, including by some of the "green movement" reformers who defied him in last June's presidential elections.

The diplomatic stalemate is a setback for the Obama administration, which had made engagement with Iran one of its signature issues. As the administration is discovering, getting to "yes" with Tehran for now seems all but impossible. This reversal follows the breakdown in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the other issue where President Obama had attempted a bold new start only to be enveloped by the bitter legacy of the past.

What comes next with Iran, if the negotiating impasse continues, is a new pressure campaign. First will be a debate over further United Nations sanctions. The crucial voices here will be Russia and China, which could veto any new punitive Security Council resolution. Both have publicly expressed their wariness about more sanctions.

Scrolling back to the Oct. 1 meeting in Geneva, it's clear that the Iranians were hedging their bets. Initial reports had it that Iran had agreed to allow inspection of a previously secret nuclear facility at Qom, agreed to ship most of its existing stock of low-enriched uranium to Russia for further processing, and agreed to continue broader talks about the nuclear program and other issues.

Of those three, only the first -- inspection of Qom -- had taken place by Oct. 31, as expected. And it turns out that what the Iranians actually promised at Geneva was that they would not contradict the West's announcement of the breakthrough, which isn't the same thing as publicly endorsing it.

The prospect of a deal with the Great Satan produced a political (BEG ITAL)frisson(END ITAL) back in Tehran. For the first several days after the Geneva meeting, the press was silent, seemingly waiting for a cue. Then the attacks began, and they intensified after an Oct. 21 meeting in Vienna that was supposed to hammer out details for the transfer of Iran's uranium to Russia. Critics chided Ahmadinejad for giving away the nuclear store.

The most important criticism came from Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament and formerly Iran's top nuclear negotiator. "The Westerners are insisting on some kind of deception," he said. Larijani wouldn't have launched this assault unless he was confident of the backing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader.

And sure enough, Khamenei joined in the attacks last week, warning that negotiating with America would be "naive and perverted." The leader was implicitly criticizing Ahmadinejad, who had characterized the Geneva deal as an Iranian victory.

Perhaps this is all an elaborate negotiating ploy, intended to enhance Tehran's bargaining position. But reading the Iranian press, you get the sense that for Iran's ruling elite, engagement with America remains a bridge too far. "America is still the Great Satan. Negotiations are meaningless," thundered the hard-line weekly Ya-Lesarat.

Rather than speak up for dialogue with the United States, many of the reformists gathered around former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi decided instead to score political points against Ahmadinejad.

The past month has been a reminder that the very existence and legitimacy of Khamenei's regime are interwoven with a defiant anti-Americanism. This legacy infects even the reformers who protest against Khamenei.

The challenge for Obama, notes Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is how to reach an accommodation with an Iran that needs America as an adversary. And how can Obama do that without betraying the opposition that promises Iran's best hope for change?

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

The two men apparently came to blows over, of all things, words. Not ad hominems necessarily, or at least not exclusively, but words as in the quality of writing. So began the argument that led to a punch being thrown.

Be still my fibrillating heart.

The pugilist was one Henry Allen, a renowned writer and an editor with the Style section. On the other end of Allen's fist was Style writer Manuel Roig-Franzia, co-author of a "charticle" (an appetizer-sized combination of words, images and graphics) that Allen called the second-worst story he'd seen in 43 years.

Roig-Franzia responded by suggesting that Allen not be such a "(bleep)." Allen, 68 and just a few weeks from retirement, lunged. Bystanders to the excitement, including Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, intervened -- and the Earth continued to spin on its axis in the customary fashion.

No harm, no foul, right? Not quite.

Much harrumphing has ensued. Opinions veer between "We can't have that sort of thing" to "Was that great, or what?" Moi? I feel like Miss Rosie Sayer in "The African Queen," reluctantly weak-kneed in the presence of the rough-hewn Charlie Allnut.

In an online chat, the Post's Gene Weingarten cheered the passion, long missing from America's bean-counter newsrooms. Reporters of a certain age remember when newsrooms bristled with heat amid the search for light. Fights may have been infrequent, but tempers often flared as deadlines loomed and reporters sweated over just the right word, usually under the baleful eye of an editor whose own deadline was bearing down.

The newsroom wasn't just a workplace. It was a rendezvous point for renegades from the ordered life who, nevertheless, were compelled to perform under fire. To create on demand is a contradictory skill. To do so artfully is not usually a function of charm.

Thus, David Von Drehle, a former Post editor and writer (now at Time), lamented the decision that Allen not return to the building, calling him "the most dazzling and original talent I've seen in 30-plus years in the journalism business."

"Instead of being banned from the building, Henry should have a statue in the lobby," he told the Washington City Paper.

While some staffers have been placing bets on what might have been the (BEG ITAL)worst(END ITAL) story ever to cross Allen's desk, others have tried to discover the deeper meaning of the fracas. Among the theories advanced is that Allen was reacting to New Media's advancing siege.

"What we are watching is a whole profession losing its swagger," wrote Natalie Hopkinson on The Root, a Web site hosted by the Post.

Piffle.

Now, there's a word unlikely to have tumbled from the fingertips of Henry Allen. Or those of Matt Labash, an ardent admirer of Allen's and, himself, the sort of muscular writer who fashions sentences you want to read aloud. The thought that this smallish eruption portends or remarks on the end of journalism-as-we-know-it was enough to prompt Labash to an e-mail rant, which more or less ranks with having Bruce Springsteen call you up to sing "Happy Birthday."

"He's the best writer by a factor of five that the Style section's ever seen," wrote Labash. "The problem with newspapers is there was never enough Henry Allens to go around, which the Internet only serves to prove daily."

Maybe, as with all things lately, we're overanalyzing what amounted to a scuffle between two men under the influence of testosterone. Alex Jones, longtime media critic and head of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, distilled the event to its plainer truth:

"Maybe it's because I'm from the South, but if you call me a '(bleep),' I'm going to take a shot at you unless I know I'll get the crap kicked out of me ... and maybe even then."

Which is to say that Allen was defending his honor, an act so unfamiliar in today's emasculated newsrooms that we hardly recognize it. No one would insist that fisticuffs are an appropriate route to resolution (harrumph, harrumph), but it is sublimely reassuring that such a passion for wordsmithing survives in a twittering, talking-head world.

With appropriate concern for Roig-Franzia's own bruised honor, it is still possible to cheer Allen's spirit. As Miss Rosie might put it: "Mr. Allen, you're the bravest man that ever lived. You're just overdue, that's all."

kathleenparker@washpost.com

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

The fundamental fact is that we cannot cover 36 million new patients without more doctors and nurses, much less with the declining census of medical professionals the Canadian experience points to. A recent survey of doctors by the Pew Institute found that 45 percent of all practicing doctors would consider retiring or closing their practices if the Obama healthcare bill passes. This scarcity of medical personnel heightens the likelihood of draconian rationing, lengthy waiting lists and lower-quality medical care for all of us, particularly for the elderly.

This physician shortage leads to massive and never-ending waiting lists. In 1993, for example, there was an average wait of 9.3 weeks from the time a patient got a referral from a general practitioner to the time he could see a specialist. By 1997, the wait was up to 11.7 weeks. Now it's 17.3 weeks - over four months just to see a specialist!

In Canada, unions control the entire healthcare process. In Manitoba, for example, there is an eight-month wait for colonoscopies, yet the unions do not permit weekend or evening procedures, thereby extending the waiting lists. The unions are doing to healthcare in Canada what they have done to education in America: stifling creativity, reinforcing bureaucracy and extending waiting times.

Because of these long waits for colonoscopies, there is now a 25 percent higher incidence of colon cancer in Canada than in the United States. And because the leading drugs that we routinely use to treat the malady in the U.S. are banned in Canada because of their high cost, 41 percent of Canadians who get the cancer die of it, compared with only 32 percent in the United States. Overall, the cancer death rate in Canada runs 16 percent higher than in the United States. Cancer does not wait for waiting lists to clear.

The potential of healthcare changes to shrink the doctor population, exacerbating scarcity and extending waits, is even worse now that it is apparent we have overestimated the number of doctors in the U.S. Where we once thought there were 840,000 doctors, the total is now estimated to be only 760,000.

The proposed $400 billion cut in Medicare raises the probability that more and more of those doctors who do practice will refuse to accept Medicare patients, aggravating the doctor shortage among the elderly, the population that needs them the most.

As Obama's program moves through Congress, despite the fierce opposition of a majority of American voters in virtually all the polls, it becomes clear that those moderates who vote for it will face harsh retribution at the polls from their outraged constituents. A kind of suicide-pact mentality is gripping the Democratic majorities in Congress, akin to that which came over it when Congress passed President Bill Clinton's tax package in 1993. This disregard for the will of the marginal voter may make sense for those who come from safe districts, but it makes none for those who come from swing districts. For them, suicidal conduct leads to political demise.

It makes no sense to suggest he'd been traumatized by narratives he had heard concerning the awfulness of combat in Iraq and therefore resisted the idea of deployment there. He's an Army psychiatrist, not a rifleman. Since when, anyway -- read "The Iliad" for confirmation -- has combat been other than awful?

It makes sense to ponder deeply -- I did not say "conclude," I said ponder deeply -- the possibility that in Maj. Nidal the Army had, unwittingly, in its bosom a treasonable viper; a supporter of Islamic jihad against the West and the United States; a soldier who, in violation of military oath and citizenship, opened fire on soldiers as he cried, "Allahu Akbar." "Allahu Akbar" is the familiar cry of Islamic terrorists all over the world as they pounce on the unwitting.

We shall see about all this in due course. We'd better prepare meantime to learn some things we'd rather not learn, such as that a swath of international Islam -- indeterminate in size but nonetheless vicious -- wishes all Americans dead; and that allegiance to Islam can override any considerations of loyalty to, or appreciation for, the United States.

A day or two before the Fort Hood bloodbath, an Afghan policeman made a kindred declaration of hatred for the West. When the British soldiers who had worked and lived with him were at ease, he mowed down five and then escaped. Whether, in so doing, he shouted, "Allahu Akbar," I haven't read. It would have fit.

Scoundrels who shoot their comrades aren't unknown in military annals. It happens in every war -- even the "good" ones. It horrifies out of proportion to other deeds, in that civilization teaches respect for friends and friendship. Just here, fanatics, such as Muslim murderers, have made famous uprisings in denial of civilization itself. The mass murderer doesn't ponder the personal qualities of those he intends to annihilate -- babies, teenagers, mothers, fathers, whoever happens to be there. He throws his hands in the air. "Allahu Akbar." Boom!

The mass slaughter of innocents is un-American (save in decisive instances such as Hiroshima). We basically don't get it. Surely it can't be on account of hatred. We explore alternative possibilities. The poor guy suffered from lack of love. Others were mean to him. He was mentally confused. He snapped -- yes, maybe that was it. He snapped, as with various school and post office massacres.

None of which speaks to the terrifying possibility that particular killers particularly hate and scorn and despise the victims, as on 9/11, as with the London bus bombings and the commuter rail bombings in Spain. And the Fort Hood massacre?

That we can't know yet. A careful society, nevertheless, mindful both of human lives and human freedoms, has to brace itself for the possibility that in the war on terror a new domestic front could be opening.

Responsible Muslims, to their undoubted credit, have denounced the Fort Hood massacre. That hardly means other Muslims do not rub their hands in satisfaction as they await future opportunities to gun down soldiers and civilians engaged in shoring up civilization. Murderers of any and all religions hate civilization as a living reproach to ... themselves and their notions.

The war on terror isn't over or even much abated, for all the domestic recoil from waterboarding and Guantanamo and "unconstitutional" assaults on civil liberties.

Down the highway a piece from my own city, Dallas, the fighting appears to go on. May I be mistaken in this! That would be wonderful. The guy snapped -- what a relief it would prove to many if this were the case. We could go back to rooting for more apologies by President Obama for national arrogance. And yet that privilege may not be available. We need to brace ourselves.

Copyright 2009 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Among the things that people complain about under the present medical care system are the costs, insurance company bureaucrats' denials of reimbursements for some treatments and the free loaders at hospital emergency rooms whose costs have to be paid by others.

Will a government-run medical system make these things better or worse? This very basic question seldom seems to get asked, much less answered.

If the government has some magic way of reducing costs-- rather than shifting them around, including shifting them to the next generation-- they have certainly not revealed that secret. The actual track record of government when it comes to costs-- of anything-- is more alarming than reassuring.

What about insurance companies denying reimbursements for treatments? Does anyone imagine that a government bureaucracy will not do that?

Moreover, the worst that an insurance company can do is refuse to pay for medication or treatment. In some countries with government-run medical systems, the government can prevent you from spending your own money to get the medication or treatment that their bureaucracy has denied you. Your choice is to leave the country or smuggle in what you need.

However appalling such a situation may be, it is perfectly consistent with elites wanting to control your life. As far as those elites are concerned, it would not be "social justice" to allow some people to get medical care that others are denied, just because some people "happen to have money."

But very few people just "happen to have money." Most people have earned money by producing something that other people wanted. But getting what you want by what you have earned, rather than by what elites will deign to allow you to have, is completely incompatible with the vision of an elite-controlled world, which they call "social justice" or other politically attractive phrases. The "uninsured" are another big talking point for government medical insurance. But the incomes of many of the uninsured indicate that many-- if not most-- of them choose to be uninsured. Poor people can get insurance through Medicaid.

Free loading at emergency rooms-- mandated by government-- makes being uninsured a viable option.

Within living memory, most Americans had no medical insurance. Even large medical bills were paid off over a period of months or years, just as we buy big-ticket items like cars or houses.

This is not ideal for everybody or every situation. But if we are ready to rush headlong into government control of our lives every time something is not ideal, then we are not going to remain a free people very long.

Ironically, it is politicians who have already made medical insurance so expensive that many people refuse to buy it. Insurance is designed to cover risk. But politicians have mandated that insurance cover things that are not risks and that neither the buyers nor the sellers of insurance want covered.

In various states, medical insurance must cover the costs of fertility treatments, annual checkups and other things that have nothing to do with risks. What many people most want is to be insured against the risk of having their life's savings wiped out by a catastrophic illness.

But you cannot get insurance just for catastrophic illnesses when politicians keep piling on mandates that drive up the cost of the insurance. These are usually state mandates but the federal government is already promising more mandates on insurance companies-- which means still higher costs and higher premiums.

All this makes a farce of the notion of a "public option" that will simply provide competition to keep private insurance companies honest. What politicians can and will do is continue to drive up the cost of private insurance until it is no longer viable. A "public option" is simply a path toward a "single payer" system, a euphemism for a government monopoly.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

First of all, what we can afford has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of producing anything. We will either pay those costs or not get the benefits. Moreover, if we cannot afford the quantity and quality of medical care that we want now, the government has no miraculous way of enabling us to afford it in the future.

If you think the government can lower medical costs by eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse," as some Washington politicians claim, the logical question is: Why haven't they done that already?

Over the years, scandal after scandal has shown waste, fraud and abuse to be rampant in Medicare and Medicaid. Why would anyone imagine that a new government medical program will do what existing government medical programs have clearly failed to do?

If we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical drugs now, how can we afford to pay for doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical drugs, in addition to a new federal bureaucracy to administer a government-run medical system?

Nothing is easier for politicians than to rail against the profits of pharmaceutical companies, the pay of doctors and other things that have very little to do with the total cost of medical care, but which can arouse emotions to the point where facts don't matter. As former Congressman Dick Armey put it, "Demagoguery beats data" in politics.

Economics and politics confront the same fundamental problem: What everyone wants adds up to more than there is. Market economies deal with this problem by confronting individuals with the costs of producing what they want, and letting those individuals make their own trade-offs when presented with prices that convey those costs. That leads to self-rationing, in the light of each individual's own circumstances and preferences.

Politics deals with the same problem by making promises that cannot be kept, or which can be kept only by creating other problems that cannot be acknowledged when the promises are made.

Price controls are a classic example. At various times and places, in countries around the world, price controls have been put on any number of goods and services-- going all the way back to the days of the Roman Empire and ancient Babylon.

Price controls create lower prices for open and legal transactions-- but also black markets where the prices are higher than they were before, because the risks of punishment for illegal activity has to be compensated. Price controls also lead to shortages and quality deterioration.

But politicians who take credit for lower prices blame all these bad consequences on others. Diocletian did this in the days of the Roman Empire, leaders of the French Revolution did this when their price controls on food led to hungry and angry people, and American politicians denounced the oil companies when price controls on gasoline led to long lines at filling stations in the 1970s. It is the same story, whatever the country, the times or the product or service.

The self-rationing that people do when prices are free to convey the inherent impossibility of any economy to supply as much as everybody wants is replaced, under price controls, with rationing imposed by government, which cannot possibly have the same knowledge of each individual's circumstances and preferences-- least of all when it comes to medical care, where patients differ in innumerable ways.

Here, as elsewhere, there is no free lunch-- even though politicians get elected by promising free lunches. A free lunch in medical care is one of the most dangerous illusions of all.

Waiting in long gasoline lines at filling stations was exasperating back in the 1970s, but waiting weeks to get an MRI to find out why you are sick, and then waiting months for an operation, as happens in countries with government-run medical systems, can be not only painful but dangerous.

You can be dead by the time they find out what is wrong with you and do something about it. But that will "bring down the cost of medical care" because you won't be around to require any.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. I want to begin by offering an update on the tragedy that took place yesterday at Fort Hood.

This morning I met with FBI Director Mueller and the relevant agencies to discuss their ongoing investigation into what caused one individual to turn his gun on fellow servicemen and women. We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.

What we do know is that there are families, friends and an entire nation grieving right now for the valiant men and women who came under attack yesterday in one of the worst mass shootings ever to take place on an American military base. So from now until Veterans Day I've ordered the flags at the White House and other federal buildings to be flown at half-staff. This is a modest tribute to those who lost their lives even as many were preparing to risk their lives for their country. And it's also recognition of the men and women who put their lives on the line everyday to protect our safety and uphold our values. We honor their service, we stand in awe of their sacrifice, and we pray for the safety of those who fight and for the families of those who have fallen. And as we continue to learn more about what happened at Fort Hood, this administration will continue to provide you updates in the coming days and weeks.

Now, I would also like to announce that I just signed into law a bill that will help grow our economy, save and create new jobs and provide relief to struggling families and businesses. The need for such a measure was made clear by the jobs report that we received this morning. Although we lost fewer jobs than we did last month, our unemployment rate climbed to over 10 percent -- a sobering number that underscores the economic challenges that lie ahead.

When we first came into office our immediate goal was to stop the freefall that caused our economy to shrink at an alarming rate. We have succeeded in achieving that goal, as our economy grew last quarter for the first time in a year. But history tells us that job growth always lags behind economic growth, which is why we have to continue to pursue measures that will create new jobs. And I can promise you that I won't let up until the Americans who want to find work can find work and until all Americans can earn enough to raise their families and keep their businesses open.

The bill I signed today will help folks do that while continuing to grow our economy. It's a bill that extends unemployment benefits for up to 20 additional weeks, with the longest extension for the hardest-hit states. Already these benefits have helped 16 million unemployed Americans, and now that I've signed this bill, an additional 700,000 Americans who are still searching for work will be able to sign up for an extension of those benefits immediately.

Although the extension will help over 1 million Americans, it won't just put money into the people's pockets who are receiving the benefits. Economists tell us that when these benefits are spent on food or clothing or rent, it actually strengthens our economy and creates new jobs.

Now, this bill will also cut taxes for struggling businesses, with even larger cuts for small businesses, which means that thousands of entrepreneurs will get the cash they need to avoid laying off workers or closing their doors, and will extend the tax credit for all home buyers through April of next year while strengthening it with stronger anti-fraud measures.

The rebound in the housing market was one of the big factors that contributed to the growth of the economy last quarter, and brought hundreds of thousands of families into the housing market. We want to give even more families the chance to own their own home.

Now, it's important to note that the bill I signed will not add to our deficit. It is fully paid for, and so it is fiscally responsible. It builds on a Recovery Act that's already saved or created over 100 -- over 1 million jobs, and it will lead to even more in the weeks and months ahead.

We will also build on the measure I signed today with further steps to grow our economy in the future. To that end my economic team is looking at ideas such as additional investments in our aging roads and bridges, incentives to encourage families and businesses to make buildings more energy-efficient, additional tax cuts for businesses to create jobs, additional steps to increase the flow of credit to small businesses, and an aggressive agenda to promote exports and help American manufacturers sell their products around the world.

So although it will take time and it will take patience, I am confident that our economy will recover. I'm confident that we're moving in the right direction. And I promise that I won't rest until America prospers once again.

Thank you, everybody.

11:38 A.M. EST

Cable television debates offer a choice between extremes. Competitive statewide elections are a fight for the middle. This is the contest Republicans won on Tuesday.

Given the breadth of Obama's victory a year ago, Republicans had no choice but to seek the support of wavering Obama voters and independents. McDonnell, in particular, went after them with unflappable discipline -- speaking respectfully of Obama, while seizing the momentum of economic discontent. Obama won just under half of Virginia independent voters last year. On Tuesday, McDonnell carried 66 percent.

Both McDonnell and New Jersey's governor-elect, Chris Christie, were blessed with opponents who combined weakness and viciousness in equal measure. But the ideological atmosphere for the election was determined by Obama himself. When I interviewed McDonnell in September, he saw the first signs of an anti-Democratic backlash among Virginia businesspeople who were concerned about the "card check" bill (which would allow union organization without a majority vote). Then a broader resentment about the level of spending and new burdens imposed by cap-and-trade climate legislation. Then the summer of health care reform discontent.

The White House now dismisses Tuesday's losses as the reflection of "local issues" -- as though the Virginia outcome was determined by zoning disputes on the proposed site of a new 7-Eleven. When one of the primary concerns of the electorate is the direction of the economy, all politics is national.

By creating deficits unequaled as a percentage of the economy since World War II, by proposing to nearly triple the national debt in the next 10 years, by using the economic crisis as an excuse for the massive expansion of government authority over health care, Obama has become a polarizing figure. Of course, some Republicans thrive on ideological combat and would seek it even if unprovoked. But it is Obama's tax-and-spend ambitions that have united Republicans of every stripe in opposition, put fiscally conservative Democrats in an impossible bind, and ceded the economic center to Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey.

Advocates of purity politics on both left and right see Tuesday's lessons differently. "If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary 'bipartisanship,'" we read in the DailyKos, "you will lose votes." But what could this possibility mean in practice? Would Democrats have saved Virginia and New Jersey if they embraced a single-payer takeover of American health care? If they proposed another trillion dollars in new debt? Yes, Democratic turnout and enthusiasm were down in both states. But this is likely because Obamamania was an acute, not chronic, malady. And though Obama remains fairly popular, his liberal policies look considerably less appealing without his winning personality on the ticket.

Others make a similar argument with a different ideology: If only more conservatives were nominated, such as Doug Hoffman in New York's 23rd Congressional District, the party might be pure enough to excite the base. Liberal Republicans who eventually endorse Democrats, such as Hoffman's opponent, should probably expect a conservative primary challenge. But this strategy is self-destructive when universalized. Would Republican appeal throughout the Northeast really be expanded by more ideological nominees? Though the Republican Party will remain the conservative party nationally, it is not possible for Republicans to win everywhere with an identical conservative message.

The Republican candidates who won on Tuesday were generally conservative, but not angry. They were supported by the Republican base, but spent most of their time reaching toward the middle. It was a center-right victory in a center-right country.

Politicians who have run for governor -- say, Bill Clinton -- had a good feel for the politics of the center. Obama has yet to demonstrate it. According to the White House, on election night he was "not watching returns" -- displaying a French monarch's indifference to America's shifting middle.

Now comes Obama's largest test, which will determine the ideological atmosphere for the 2010 election. If the president -- opposed by a majority of Americans, with almost no support from the other party -- imposes an ideologically divisive health reform, it will smack of radicalism, reinforce polarization, and may cede the ideological center to Republicans for years to come.

mgerson@globalengage.org

 (c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

In the aftermath of last year's Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics -- most prominently, rising minorities and the young -- would bury the GOP far into the future. One book proclaimed "The Death of Conservatism," while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.

This was all ridiculous from the beginning. 2008 was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.

Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism. Virginia -- presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone Democratic in '08 for the first time in 44 years -- went red again. With a vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17 -- a 23-point swing. New Jersey went from plus 15 Democratic in 2008 to minus 4 in 2009. A 19-point swing.

What happened? The vaunted Obama realignment vanished. In 2009 in Virginia, the black vote was down by 20 percent; the under-30 vote by 50 percent. And as for independents, the ultimate prize of any realignment, they bolted. In both Virginia and New Jersey they'd gone narrowly for Obama in '08. This year they went Republican by a staggering 33 points in Virginia and by an equally shocking 30 points in New Jersey.

White House apologists will say the Virginia Democrat was weak. If the difference between Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds was so great, how come when the same two men ran against each other statewide for attorney general four years ago the race was a virtual dead heat? Which made the '09 McDonnell-Deeds rematch the closest you get in politics to a laboratory experiment for measuring the change in external conditions. Run them against each other again when it's Obamaism in action and see what happens. What happened was a Republican landslide.

The Obama coattails of 2008 are gone. The expansion of the electorate, the excitement of the young, came in uniquely propitious Democratic circumstances and amid unparalleled enthusiasm for electing the first African-American president.

November '08 was one-shot, one-time, never to be replicated. Nor was November '09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm -- and definitive confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political history.

The irony of 2009 is that the anti-Democratic tide overshot the norm -- deeply blue New Jersey, for example, elected a Republican governor for the first time in 12 years -- because Democrats so thoroughly misread 2008 and the mandate they assumed it bestowed. Obama saw himself as anointed by a watershed victory to remake American life. Not letting the cup pass from his lips, he declared to Congress only five weeks after his swearing-in his "New Foundation" for America -- from remaking the one-sixth of the American economy that is health care to massive government regulation of the economic lifeblood that is energy.

Moreover, the same conventional wisdom that proclaimed the dawning of a new age last November dismissed the inevitable popular reaction to Obama's hubristic expansion of government, taxation, spending and debt -- the tea party demonstrators, the town hall protesters -- as a raging rabble of resentful reactionaries, AstroTurf-phony and Fox News-deranged.

Some rump. Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates (at 36 percent). So on Tuesday, the "rump" rebelled. It's the natural reaction of a center-right country to a governing party seeking to rush through a left-wing agenda using temporary majorities created by the one-shot election of 2008. The misreading of that election -- and of the mandate it allegedly bestowed -- is the fundamental cause of the Democratic debacle of 2009.

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

Will loyal members inform on others for harboring suspiciously moderate views? Will anyone judged guilty have to wear a sign saying "Republican In Name Only" as penance? Will there be re-education camps? Will deviationists face the Enhanced Interrogation Technique of being forced to listen to the wit and wisdom of Glenn Beck, at ear-splitting volume, for days on end?

Or worse: When Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue," hits the bookstores later this month, will the ideologically impure be required to read -- and commit to memory -- every golden word? Her publisher might consider culling the highlights into a pocket edition. That way, any Republican caught without a copy of "Quotations from Chairman Sarah" could be summarily expelled from the party.

The big story from Tuesday's vote ought to be that independents, who gave Democrats their sweeping victory last November, went with the Republicans this time in New Jersey and Virginia. Indeed, Democrats are trying to figure out what this means. Given President Obama's continuing personal popularity, has his cool, nonconfrontational, consensus-building style been the right strategy all along? Or, as some on the left believe, did a lack of fight and fervor leave independents cold? Or was it all about the unemployment numbers?

But the Democrats' soul-searching is far less compelling than the Republicans' civil war. The "tea party" conservatives -- led by Palin, Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Armey and others fed up with the GOP "establishment" -- managed to get Democrat Bill Owens elected in a solidly Republican upstate New York congressional district. They accomplished this feat by driving the Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, from the race because of her apostasy on abortion and gay rights.

The Palinites -- because of her star power, she's the de facto leader of the movement at this point, so it's fair to name it after her -- backed a third-party conservative named Doug Hoffman. Scozzafava pulled out and threw what support she had to Owens, who won by four points.

The net result is minus-one for the Republicans and plus-one for the Democrats in the House. That arithmetic seems to have escaped Erick Erickson, editor in chief of the Web site RedState.com, which is almost as influential in the tea party world as Palin's Facebook page. He wrote: "This is a huge win for conservatives. ... We did exactly what we set out to do -- crush the establishment- backed GOP candidate."

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele crowed about winning the two governorships. "Assume the Heisman position. Yeah baby. That's my moment," he said Wednesday on MSNBC. But even Steele couldn't find joy in the New York debacle. "I don't see a victory in losing seats," he said, quite logically.

The tea party people have made clear, however, that logic doesn't count -- and that this is just the beginning. The next target, now that they've made the world safe from Scozzafava, seems to be Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who is running for the Senate. Crist committed the unforgivable sin of supporting Obama's stimulus bill, and must face a conservative former state legislator, Marco Rubio, in the primary.

Erickson wrote that "if Crist wants to own the mantle of 'GOP Establishment Candidate,' let's tie it around his waist and throw him in one of Florida's many lagoons."

I guess Florida lagoons are a substitute for Siberian tundra.

The good news for the Republican Party is that its far-right conservative base is energized. The bad news is that the far-right conservative base isn't big enough to elect national or even statewide candidates without help from moderate Republicans and independents. The two new Republican governors-elect, Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey, did just that. If the party is going to insist on ideological purity from every candidate in every state, it will cede the political center to the Democrats.

Sensible Republicans get it. But any GOP officeholder up for re-election has to worry about a possible primary challenge from the right, with tea party fanatics yelling about revolution, Palin posting attacks on social networking sites and Beck shouting treason. I don't expect to see many profiles in courage.

Republicans, hide any old copies of The Nation you might have lying around. Keep all televisions tuned to Fox News at all times. The Palinite Putsch might be coming for you.

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

The story goes like this: In 2008, Americans voted for change not just in the nation's leadership, but in its fundamental political orientation. They wanted a shift to the left not seen since 1932. The nation's political map had been utterly transformed. Barack Obama owned the suburbs and independents, and laid claim to formerly secure Republican states. An outdated GOP had been reduced to a rejectionist husk clinging to rural areas and the South.

A more modest rival interpretation explained it differently: A charming young man running against a Republican party debilitated by its association with an unpopular war and a politically toxic incumbent won a solid 7-point victory nationally. He sounded reasonable and moderate, and won for his party something important, if not necessarily epoch-making: a chance to govern after the other side had blown it.

The Republican sweep of the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey is flatly incompatible with the first, heroic interpretation of 2008. If things changed so fundamentally, they wouldn't have snapped back so quickly.

Obama beat John McCain among independents in Virginia by 1 point, and in New Jersey by 4 points, while winning the suburbs. Both Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie took back the burbs and wiped out their Democratic opponents among independents by 2-1 margins. If Obama wants to freshen up on appealing to independents, he could do worse than send David Axelrod to get a tutorial from McDonnell (66 percent) or Christie (60 percent).

Candidates from a fringy party doomed to oblivion don't perform this well in a Democratic state and a swing state, respectively. In New Jersey, Democrats have a 700,000-voter edge in party registration over Republicans. After 2008, Virginia was touted as the next blue state. The Washington Post wrote a piece headlined "Democrats Make Most of Shifts in Va.; Demographic Changes Put Party in Optimal Position." They went from optimal position to wrong side of a historic landslide in all of twelve months.

Liberals are comforting themselves that McDonnell and Christie had to play to the center, as if that in itself were a stinging rebuke to the Right. They seem to forget that they have long been arguing that conservative candidates can't appeal to the middle. That the pro-life, anti-gay-marriage, limited-government conservatives McDonnell and Christie had more cachet with the center than their opponents should be a Democratic warning sign.

Of course, Obama wasn't on the ballot, although that's cold comfort for 2010. In New Jersey, the African-American turnout held up from 2008 to 2009, but the youth vote dropped off from 17 percent to 9 percent of the electorate. The infatuation of starry-eyed Obama kids apparently isn't transferable. In Virginia, the youth vote fell off by half, and the African-American vote went from 20 percent of the electorate to 14 percent.

Obama's mistake is governing as if he has a heroic mandate when he really has a modest one. This is his mandate gap. It accounts for the paradox of his current political standing. His job approval is holding up around 50 percent, and people still like him, even as his rating on key issues - health care, the economy, and the deficit - falters.

The mandate gap is a potential killer for Democrats not named Barack. Consider poor Creigh Deeds, the losing Democrat in Virginia. He got saddled with Obama's unpopular policy positions, while Obama's likability naturally didn't make him any more charismatic or inspiring. At the end of his campaign, Deeds ran an ad consisting entirely of vintage Obama waxing poetic about him at a campaign rally, in the forlorn hope the magic would rub off.

It didn't, and it won't for other Democrats. The mandate gap threatens their congressional majority. They'll persist anyway, sprinkling more pixie dust on their tattered fairy tale and wishing, wishing it were so.

© 2009 by King Features Syndicate

The shades of Vietnam were presented in the letter itself. It was written Sept. 10, and the story fully surfaced this last week in the Washington Post.

Hoh was flown to an interview in Washington with Richard Holbrooke, the administration's "point man" for Afghanistan and Pakistan, after his superiors grasped the political implications of the letter: its potential for damage when further circulated. Inevitably, today, such letters are -- and this one may now be found readily in .pdf form on the Internet.

Before going any further with this column, let me make clear that this will not be about "Obama's conduct of the war," just as Hoh's letter was not about that.

It was, instead, a well-reasoned, succinct, and effective challenge to the strategic thinking behind the whole eight-year war effort. It has obvious implications for Canada, because the same reasoning -- and even the letter itself -- could be used by the Canadian, as by any other allied government, to justify complete withdrawal from the Afghan theatre, leaving the Americans "holding the bag" in a quite unconscionable way.

We can no longer take for granted what we once could: that our elected politicians understand the value of our NATO alliance -- that it trumps any short-term political exigency, and therefore no single member must act except in consort with all the others.

The Americans are, whether or not they ever wanted to be stuck with their superpower role, the lead partner in this alliance, and the lead partner in the field in Afghanistan. We must thus "go through Washington" to make our points, which may be tough luck, but ultimately not as tough as theirs: for the Americans carry even more of the burden for our own ultimate defence against "Islamism" and every other foreign threat, than we do ourselves.

So back to the letter. The writer of it, as he has said of himself to a journalist, is "not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love." He is a former marine, who has seen quite active and recent service (with citation), and whose attitude may be further characterized by the next quote, about America's terrorist enemies: "There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed. ... I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

The hippie view, typified for instance by Jack Layton in our Parliament -- that we should trustfully negotiate with people such as Taliban who accept any such offer as a proof of weakness, and will not hesitate to exploit it bloodily -- is itself impossible to argue with. Alas, his NDP is hardly the only such party now represented in the legislatures of the West.

Hoh admits to recent traumatic experience in the Afghan field, with a candour that may be impressive, but does undermine his case. He has got too close to what he is describing. A responsible "pro" would have left in print only the usual terse, one-sentence resignation, keeping the real arguments behind closed doors. But now Hoh is presenting himself as the Joe the Plumber of foreign policy.

For all that, his letter points directly to a very big issue, that has been neglected by commentators, including this one, for too long: the necessary distinction between two kinds of war, both of which the allies have been fighting, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of these is a "garrison" operation, in which we try to impose some domestic order upon, and import some infrastructure and hope into, a dysfunctional country, whose very disorder provides opportunities for our common enemy. As Hoh rightly argues, we can't garrison Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and a few other equally dysfunctional countries in the region; what is the point in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The other is a genuine counter-insurgency operation, in which our troops -- chiefly special forces -- go directly after the encampments of al-Qaeda and their like. And this other operation requires the opposite qualities of the first: not bottomless-wallet "compassion," but ruthlessness and precision.

In Iraq, under the "surge" of David Petraeus, the two operations were briefly conjoined with remarkable effectiveness. Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan has an analogous plan that Washington has been sitting on. But let us allow it can only work for a couple of years.

In the end we must somehow discover a way to pursue the latter operations (finding and killing international jihadis), while abandoning the former (trying to "build democracies" in places with no historical preparation). For our strategy has proved to be merely tactics on an unsustainable logistical scale.

We need a real strategy, that confronts the international threats directly, and will therefore not be kinder and gentler, but harder and meaner. Unfortunately, we also need the guts for that.

The Club for Growth's endorsement of former state Speaker Marco Rubio (R) now seems inevitable, since he has positioned himself as the conservative insurgent against Gov. Charlie Crist (R), whom Rubio defines as an ally of President Barack Obama and an unreliable soldier in the struggle against liberalism.

Earlier this year, I wrote in this space ("Florida Senate Race: Just What Is Marco Rubio Up To?" June 22) that I was "agnostic" about whether Rubio could beat Crist for the GOP nomination. Too many questions still needed to be answered.

Now, however, it is clear that Rubio, bankrolled by the Club for Growth and conservatives across the nation, will offer a serious threat to Crist. Even some of the governor's supporters expect a nail-biter. But while Rubio has the potential to beat Crist, don't bury the governor just yet. This is going to get very interesting.

Crist's initial advantage over Rubio - 53 percent to 18 percent in a mid-May survey by Mason-Dixon - reflected Rubio's lack of name identification and the public's lack of attention to the 2010 contest.

And while Rubio has moved strongly in the polls, reaching 35 percent in the Republican primary ballot test in Quinnipiac's latest survey, Crist's slide in the primary matchup hasn't been all that dramatic, probably about 4 or 5 points. Still, he is now sitting right around the 50 percent mark in the Quinnipiac and St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald surveys, a dangerous place to be for a universally known governor in tough economic times.

More than a few opinion leaders in Florida see the governor as someone who avoids making tough decisions but is great at taking credit for the accomplishments of others.

Rubio's big problem continues to be statewide visibility. Quinnipiac's most recent survey found 55 percent of Republicans said they hadn't heard enough about him to have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion, while only 5 percent said they hadn't heard enough of Crist to have an opinion of him.

And for all his problems, Crist's name ID among Republicans is 63 percent favorable/30 percent unfavorable. That's certainly a high negative for an incumbent governor, but, as it stands now, it isn't enough for Rubio to defeat Crist for the Senate nomination.

Crist has decent numbers among Democrats (47 percent favorable/35 percent unfavorable) and good numbers among independents (65 percent favorable/24 percent unfavorable) in the Quinnipiac survey, but since Florida holds a closed primary, those voters can't participate unless they re-register as Republicans. Look for Crist to try to do that much as Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) did five years ago when he was seeking renomination as a Republican.

Rubio and the Club for Growth will need to pummel Crist from now until the Aug. 24 primary, and they will certainly do so - on Crist's support for Obama's stimulus package and cap-and-trade legislation, among other things.

But Crist is only now gearing up for a fight, and he'll have plenty of ammunition, both defensive and offensive. Unlike Specter and state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R) in New York's 23rd district special election, Crist is culturally conservative ("pro-life" and "pro-gun"), positions he'll surely use to rebut Rubio's characterizations of him. And as a former state attorney general, Crist's anti-crime record is long.

Moreover, the governor will go after Rubio on everything from his redecorating of the Speaker's office to his voting record in the Legislature.

Local observers say Crist is guaranteed to make a major issue of Rubio's support for a steep hike in the state's sales tax when he was state Speaker. Rubio's supporters will cry foul, complaining that the then-Speaker proposed the sales tax increase in exchange for the elimination of the state's property tax on primary residences, and, of course, they'll be right.

But Crist doesn't have to portray Rubio's record that way. He can and will focus only on the tax hike part of Rubio's proposal, which would have been a boon to homeowners but not to renters. The debate should drive the folks at the Club for Growth crazy.

"By the time Crist gets done with him, ‘Marco Rubio' and ‘sales tax' will be tied together," chuckled one journalist about the governor's likely strategy.

Crist's financial advantage also can't be underestimated in a state where a major statewide TV buy of 1,000 gross ratings points costs about $1.5 million.

By its own admission, the Club for Growth spent $645,000 in this week's New York special election, and it bundled another $376,000 from its members, for a total investment of about $1 million. That's a huge amount in a single House race, but it isn't such a dramatic number in a Florida Senate race, where Crist is likely to spend many millions.

Moreover, the club has other opportunities, in Utah and Pennsylvania, for example, and former Club for Growth President Pat Toomey (R) will expect a major effort by his former organization on his behalf in the Senate race in Pennsylvania. Even the anti-tax organization's resources are not unlimited, so it's not clear how much money the group can and will commit to Florida.

Finally, Florida political observers say it's a huge error to underestimate Crist. In something of a back-handed compliment, one observer put it this way: "Charlie doesn't care about anything but Charlie Crist. That means he'll do anything to win. He always wins, even when it looks like he shouldn't."

If they were, they'd follow the lead of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the party's foremost Jack Kemp-style conservative, whose Patients' Choice Act aims for near-universal coverage without mandates.

Instead, to go along with incessant excoriating of "Obamacare," House and Senate Republican leaders are proposing modest "step by step" cost-saving reforms that Democrats ought to consider, but won't.

Republicans will offer a single substitute bill in the House and multiple amendments in the Senate to show they aren't, as Democrats charge, the "party of no."

But it's largely a charade. Senate Republicans clearly hope to delay health care reform into next year, build public opposition and frighten moderate Democrats away from the bill being drafted by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

The unspoken intent is to sink President Barack Obama's signature initiative and send his poll ratings plunging, sparking big GOP victories in 2010.

All this does not exactly make the GOP the "party of yes" on health care. Ryan's proposal would. It's designed to use state-regulated free-market competition and patient choice to lower health costs and cover nearly all Americans.

What scares his GOP colleagues is his big swap: Workers would pay taxes on their employer-provided insurance benefits, and everyone would get a tax credit to buy their own insurance in the private market.

In 2008, Obama clobbered Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by charging that a similar idea was a "tax increase on the middle class." McCain failed to defend it.

As Ryan told me, though, "We're not raising people's taxes. We are taking one tax benefit and swapping it out for a different tax benefit.

"People at the bottom of the income scale do better under our plan than under the status quo and that's as it should be. The average American will get a $1,200 tax cut, and the most anyone's taxes will increase is $300 for people in the top rate, who can afford it."

As Ryan points out, there's wide agreement across ideologies about the merit of eliminating the tax exclusion for employer-provided benefits and providing a tax credit.

Just Wednesday, Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, was quoted in the Washington Post saying that changing that tax treatment "is among the most important single things that could be done to constrain costs and improve quality."

Orszag has said it numerous times, but it's not part of either Democratic or Republican proposals. Unions oppose it, and Republicans view it as too disruptive of a status quo in which people say they like the health coverage they've got.

With more money in their pockets, Ryan says, people would be free to buy their own insurance, either the policy offered by their employer or some other - and keep it if they changed jobs or lost their jobs.

Ryan proposes that each state develop an insurance exchange to organize the private market, but he would mandate that they offer the basic benefit now available to federal employees and Members of Congress.

Policies sold on state exchanges couldn't discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions, and states would prevent "cherry-picking" of healthy patients by having insurance companies "risk-adjust" - share the risk for covering sicker patients.

Unlike most Republicans, Ryan shares Obama's view that "the health care system in America is broken" with "costs rising at an unacceptable rate," both doctors and patients "trapped" by current insurance practices and 47 million people uninsured.

However, he's dead against the Democrats' public option proposal. "The federal government would run a health care system ... with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the post office and the competence of Katrina," he says.

Ryan thinks that, even without an individual mandate, nearly everyone would sign up for some insurance plan - possibly a high-deductible plan - because states would make it convenient and cheap to do so.

House and Senate Republicans are offering some useful ideas. In the Senate, they will propose giving the uninsured and self-employed the same tax break that employer-insured workers get. House leaders think that's too expensive.

In both chambers, they'd reform Medicaid, crack down on Medicare fraud, cap malpractice awards, allow small businesses to form insurance pools and permit interstate purchase of insurance.

Democratic majorities will vote it all down, of course. And maybe Republicans can use public doubts to kill Obamacare. But then, as Ryan says, the U.S. health care system will continue to be broken.

Mort Kondracke is the Executive Editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill since 1955. © 2007 Roll Call, Inc.

Though Mr. Carter described the embassy takeover as "a disappointing development" and "surprising," it shouldn't have been. Strikes, mass demonstrations and student protests throughout Iran began in early 1978. In September, the shah responded by declaring martial law. It didn't help.

On Jan. 16, 1979, the shah, seriously ill with cancer, fled and sought refuge in Morocco, Mexico and the United States. About two weeks later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to be greeted by more than 5 million devotees lining the streets of Tehran. Ten days later, he proclaimed himself Iran's supreme leader.

When hundreds of students chanting anti-American slogans flooded into the U.S. Embassy on Feb. 15 and briefly occupied it, the Carter administration delivered a "strongly worded diplomatic note" protesting the "lack of protection by Iranian authorities." For the next eight months, despite increasingly strident pronouncements by Khomeini and officials of his new "Islamic republic," Mr. Carter and his aides made repeated overtures to "engage" the regime in Tehran.

On Nov. 1, 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski met in Algeria with the ayatollah's prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan. Three days later, the "students" charged into the U.S. Embassy again. This time they stayed.

Though some of those who participated in the takeover subsequently claimed they planned nothing more than a "sit-in" like those on U.S. college campuses during anti-Vietnam War protests, the ayatollah's most radical followers were actually in control of events. Despite Carter administration protests, Khomeini's Revolutionary Guard and police, posted outside the embassy walls, did nothing to end the takeover or the hostage situation. Mr. Carter responded by freezing Iranian assets in the U.S. and "severing diplomatic ties" with Tehran.

On Christmas Day, less than two months after the hostages were seized in Tehran, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Once again, President Carter, racked by intelligence failures and indecision, said he was "shocked and surprised" and boycotted the Olympics.

Over the course of the next year, while the Carter administration dithered, Khomeini and his council of militant clerics created all of the instruments of state control common to revolutionary regimes -- but with an Islamic twist. He purged the military and the Iranian civil service, created a massive internal secret police network, created a "block warden" system to spy on neighbors, took control of print and broadcast media, and rounded up opponents and tried them in "special courts" under Shariah law.

By the spring of 1980, when President Carter ordered our deeply under-funded U.S. military to rescue the hostages held in Tehran, Khomeini was convinced that he was on a divine mission to "purify Islam" and re-establish a caliphate in the "Lands of the Prophet." When Operation Eagle Claw failed catastrophically on the night of April 24-25 -- with the loss of eight American lives and without the Iranians' firing a shot -- the ayatollah claimed it was because Allah "protected the Islamic state from infidels." He also began predicting an apocalyptic battle against the U.S. and Israel that would destroy "the Great Satan" and "the Zionist entity."

Though the hostages were released Jan. 20, 1981 -- just hours before Ronald Reagan's inaugural -- Tehran's wave of terror didn't stop. By 1982, despite a bloody war with Iraq, the ayatollah's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had created a proxy force in Lebanon -- Hezbollah. Over the course of the next five years, Hezbollah terrorists armed, trained and paid for by Tehran hijacked, kidnapped, bombed and killed more Americans than any terror organization on the planet until the attacks of 9/11.

In the three decades since the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the rhetoric of revolutionary Islam has changed little. The words and pronouncements of Iran's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the declarations of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad echo those of Khomeini 30 years ago.

Their actions also are unchanged. This week, while our Fox News team was at this base in the Nevada desert, Israeli commandos seized 60 tons of Iranian weapons that were en route to Hezbollah.

The regime in Tehran still proclaims, "Death to America." It still promises to destroy Israel. Only now the Iranians are building nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them.

Like the Carter administration, Mr. Obama and his advisers apparently are convinced that "engaging" the Iranian regime would make things different somehow. After 30 years, they still don't get it.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

It is a coincidence not lost on political philosophers that the Wall fell on the same date as Kristallnacht in 1938, when the Nazi's -- with lots of help from "otherwise decent people" -- smashed windows and storefronts of Jewish homes and businesses, set fire to synagogues, and looted and plundered Jewish property, writing Adolf Hitler's preface for the Holocaust.

On Nov. 9-10, more than 20,000 Jews were stuffed into trucks like cattle and transported to concentration camps such as Buchenwald and Dachau. Buchenwald was located in East Germany, and it is with tragic irony that during the years that Germany was a divided country, East Berliners were taught that Buchenwald was not a camp where thousands of Jews died, but where the Nazi's imprisoned "good" Communists such as Ernest Thalmann, chairman of the pre-war Communist Party. History, like politics, is local first.

The deaths of 6 million Jews have been catalogued and documented and are mourned in memorials and museums. Individual fatalities of those attempting to escape over the Wall are smaller in number and less well-known.

The Berlin Wall Memorial is now gathering documents for an outdoor exhibit called "Windows of Remembrance," which opens next year and will include pictures and profiles of the 139 men and women who died seeking freedom on the other side of the wall. Many of their names were temporarily lost to history because the East German regime labeled them fugitives and criminals, and tried to hide the ruthless way they were killed.

Nearly all were unarmed. Some were shot in the back running toward the wall. Others died from gunshots while swimming across the Spree or sneaking across train tracks in "ghost stations" sealed shut in East Berlin. Officials quickly had their bodies cremated, often before their families knew of their deaths to identify them.

I have read some of their stories from the Stasi files now open to the public, and they not only reveal a brutal regime viciously cutting off, families, friends and neighbors, but also tell poignant stories about the way the misfortunes of history affect people personally in their hearts and minds.

"History fatally intersected with the fate of a single individual," says the sister of Peter Fechter. She sought prosecution for the guards who shot and killed her brother, whose unheeded screams for help went on for almost an hour as he lay dying at the foot of the Wall in a neighborhood that had once been Berlin's lively newspaper quarter.

To its credit, Germany has documented the atrocities of the Holocaust and is now meticulously identifying every person who died trying to flee the tyranny of the East after the wall went up, including Ida Siekmann, who jumped out of her third floor window right in front of the Wall when she realized that the barbed wire and cement that was climbing up in front of her apartment building was meant to deny her freedom. She was the first to die when the border was closed.

After the wall fell, many of the border guards responsible for killing innocents were brought into court and found guilty of manslaughter, but because they had been only 19 years old and had committed crimes legalized by the state, most of them were sentenced to little more than a year or two of probation.

Some recited the familiar refrain that they were merely following orders. Others said they did what they were trained (indoctrinated) to do.

Of course, some people successfully escaped from East Berlin, and we'll probably never learn the names of those guards on duty who refused to take an innocent life. (Many border guards also found opportunities to flee.)

The 20th century was witness to great horrors against humanity, inflicted by the state collectively and by individuals. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, in his new book "Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity," observes succinctly what is true for both genocide and murder: "People make choices about how to act, even if they do not choose the contexts in which they make them."

As we recall Kristallnacht and what followed in the Holocaust, we wonder how such things happen. When we celebrate the fall of the wall and think about other kinds of walls that are continually being built between people and countries, we look for ways to prevent them. We can ask, along with Goethe, the German poet who understood the importance of second chances for fallen man in "Faust," his masterpiece, "We all grow old -- but who grows wise?"

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

So you have to wonder how the president slept last Wednesday night.

He has known that critics in the United States regarded his posture toward the Iranian regime as weak. But on Wednesday, he heard this critique from a different quarter -- one that will be more difficult to dismiss.

Every year, on Nov. 4, the anniversary of the day in 1979 when Iranian thugs took American diplomats hostage in Tehran, the government has organized a street demonstration outside the former American embassy. In the early days, the rallies may have engaged a certain number of spontaneous participants, but they have long since become utterly stage-managed government shows. The only people the regime could muster this year to chant "Death to America! Death to Israel!" were non-Iranian members of Hezbollah and students bused in from the provinces for the purpose.

But that wasn't the only demonstration in Tehran that day. Displaying awe-inspiring courage in light of the brutal tactics (including murder) the regime has used to quell opposition, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets again. Instead of "Death to America," they shouted "Death to the Dictator" referring to Ahmadinejad. And they trampled on photos of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Michael Ledeen, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, reports that demonstrations also erupted in Shiraz, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Zahedan, Arak, Mazandaran, Tabriz, and Rasht. As before, the regime used paramilitary goons on motorcycles to beat, teargas, and bludgeon protestors. And again the regime disrupted cell phone service, text messaging, and the Internet to prevent demonstrators from coordinating their activities.

But this is what should awaken Obama's conscience: The protestors chanted something new this time. As they dodged the blows of the militia, they chorused: "Obama! Obama! Either you're with them or you're with us."

This exquisitely moral White House was unmoved. Incredibly, President Obama released a statement that very day commemorating (!) the 30-year anniversary of the kidnapping of America's diplomats, taking the opportunity once again to abase himself and us. "Thirty years ago today," the president recalled, "the American embassy was seized" -- he did not say by whom. But because some anonymous agent seized the embassy, it "set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation" that Obama is determined to reverse. He wants to move beyond the past and seek "a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect."

By ostentatiously using the term "Islamic Republic" Obama tips his hand. He could have expressed his hopes for good relations with the people of Iran. That would have left the door open to a new Iranian regime that might not be politically Islamic. Instead he has signaled his eagerness to placate and yes, appease, the current malevolent Iranian leaders. "We do not interfere in Iran's internal affairs" he assured them. Asked about the demonstrations flaring around Iran, the president's spokesman Robert Gibbs hoped that "the violence will not spread," which sounds like something you'd say about rioters. In Iran, the violence is coming exclusively from the government, which is firing upon unarmed demonstrators.

Though the Obama administration has tripled the deficit in just 10 months in office, it has found one program to cut -- the $3 million to support the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The tiny research organization, which kept records of the disappearances, murders, and other human rights abuses in Iran, was abruptly defunded last month, sending a clear message of contempt to the Iranians who are putting their lives on the line to resist this vicious regime.

A successful overthrow of the nearly nuclear mullahs in Iran would be the greatest boon to world peace and stability since the fall of the Berlin Wall. After this week's events, it can no longer be said that the Obama administration isn't doing enough to support the opposition. The people on Tehran's streets know the truth -- he's effectively supporting the regime.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Virginia Republicans led by Robert McDonnell crushed the most conservative Democrat nominee in decades, rolling up a victory that rivaled Ronald Reagan's rout of Walter Mondale.

New Jersey GOP nominee Chris Christie, whose campaign had been the despair of its backers, won a 5-point victory over Jon Corzine, despite huge Democratic advantages in money and voter registration, two visits by Barack Obama and the presence on the ballot of a third-party candidate who took votes away from Christie.

Maine has gone Democratic in five straight presidential elections. Yet voters overturned a gay-marriage state law, 53-47, the 31st straight victory for traditionalists. This replicates California's rejection of gay marriage, 52-48, in a year Obama carried the state by 24 points and 3 million votes.

Democrats see green shoots in the capture of New York's 23rd congressional district, which has been Republican since Ulysses Grant. Yet, even here, the conservative showing was impressive.

GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava is a fellow traveler of the Albany crowd of Gov. David Paterson. She is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro "card-check" -- a euphemism for eliminating the secret ballot for workers deciding on whether they want a union.

Disgusted with a choice between liberals, the Conservative Party put up Douglas Hoffman. While he did not live in the district, his views did reflect the district's views.

Hoffman was going nowhere, however, until the Tea Party and town-hall activists and Club for Growth sent contributions and troops. Hoffman got ignition when Sarah Palin joined Fred Thompson in endorsing him. He began a rapid ascent from last to first, dumping Dede into third place. When Dede fell to 20 percent, the weekend before the election, she dropped out and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, who won.

Nevertheless, Hoffman had come, in a month, from nowhere to knock a liberal Republican out of the lead and out of the race and out of the party, and closed to within two points of taking the seat.

The good news for the GOP is that, despite the unpopularity of their brand name -- Republican identification is down to 20 percent -- this is no longer the impediment it was in 2006 or 2008. The 40 percent who call themselves conservative will rally with energy and enthusiasm to Republicans willing to go to their capital, be it Trenton, Richmond or D.C., to battle Big Government.

As for the Democrats, their problems are not easily soluble, in the short term.

In 2006, the war in Iraq cost Republicans the Congress. Now, Iraq, like Afghanistan, is Obama's war. In 2008, the financial collapse on George W. Bush's watch enabled Obama to retake the lead that Sarah Palin's nomination had given to John McCain. Now, the economy is Obama's albatross and his party's responsibility.

Going into 2008, 27 percent of Americans approved of Bush. Eighty percent thought the country was headed in the wrong direction. Over 90 percent thought the economy was bad or poor.

If we can't win with those numbers, said James Carville, we ought to go into a new line of work.

Obama won, but only because of those appalling numbers. In every state except Missouri where Bush's approval was above 35 percent, McCain carried the state.

In 2010, Obama will not have George W. Bush to kick around anymore and Republicans will not have "Bush's war" or "the Bush economy" to defend.

If Americans think the country is still on the wrong course, as most now do, and the economy is still dismal, as most now do, the only way to protest will be to vote against the party that controls Congress and the White House.

Despite all the media mockery of the "Birthers," "Truthers," Tea Party and town-hall "Nazis," it is the populist-conservative center-right that is not only on fire but came out to vote in 2009.

Young voters and African-Americans who came out in record number in 2008 stayed home in 2009. What will cause them to rally to endangered Democrats in 2010, after they have endured another year of what they are enduring now?

After Tuesday's defeats, Obama flew to Madison, Wis., on the first anniversary of his victory, to remind Americans what a terrible hand he had been dealt. We had, said Obama, a "financial crisis that threatened to plunge our economy into a Great Depression. We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world."

Since then, the financial crisis has eased. But millions more are now unemployed. And deficits are now three times as large as Bush's largest. And America's prospects in those two wars are more grim than a year ago. And the Middle East peace process is moribund, and there is the threat of a new war with Iran. What has the outreach to Chavez, Castro and the Ayatollah produced?

President Obama is today the victim of a disillusionment caused by the excessive hopes and expectations that were raised by candidate Obama.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Fast-forward to 2009. The Imperial Congress has returned. The oppressed have become the oppressors. Democrats have met the enemy of deliberative democracy, and it is they.

Three years ago, the Democrats complained of House Republicans rushing through conference reports "before members could read them." Sound vaguely familiar? They urged their colleagues in power to "spend more time on major, substantive legislation" instead of ramming things through. Deja vu, anyone?

The Slaughter report pleaded for more transparency and public access: "Regular order should be the rule, not the exception." Instead of meeting late at night or early in the morning, the Dems called on the majority to operate "during regular 'business' hours so that members and the press can attend and participate."

Three years later, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is jamming a 1,900-page health care takeover bill through Congress for a hasty Saturday vote while members of her own party revolt against strong-arm tactics. Upward of 40 pro-life Democrats have objected to the plan's government subsidies for abortion. Majority leaders evaded sunlight by keeping a compromise amendment on the matter out of the version of the bill made available to the public. As of Thursday afternoon (fewer than two days before the scheduled vote), Pelosi had yet to decide whether to permit an abortion ban amendment to her health care bill.

Pelosi's "most ethical," open and transparent House ever ordered Capitol police to block a GOP staffer from attending the public unveiling of the health care reform plan last week. A week before that, Democratic Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to prevent them from meeting when Democrats weren't present.

In June, Pelosi's Imperial Congress severely curtailed debate on the House cap-and-tax bill and rammed a 309-page manager's amendment through the legislative grinder at 3 a.m., which no one read before the vote just hours later. As GOP Rep. Mike Pence pointed out on the House floor, the "debate" was a "travesty." So much for procedural fairness: 224 GOP amendments were denied by the majority.

In April, the House passed a $3.6 trillion federal budget in the middle of the night with phony fiscal restraint amendments that leaders all admitted would be thrown out during a closed-door conference.

In February, House and Senate conferees larded up the stimulus bill with pork galore behind closed doors while President Obama denied the existence of earmarks with a straight face. South Carolina Rep. and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn snuck in a provision intended to punish governors who chose to turn down federal stimulus funds. The Democrats broke their high-minded pledge to give Americans 48 hours to read the bill before passage. "Urgency" demanded it.

On the Senate side, Majority Leader Harry Reid is playing Harry Houdini with his health care package. After announcing a deal last week and telling the public that he was sending his proposal to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring, there is still no actual bill to review. When 40 Republican senators demanded to see the bill, he played "you show me yours" and then admitted that, indeed, "there is no bill to release publicly -- it does not exist."

Emitting more vapor than an industrial humidifier, Reid still holds out the possibility of abusing the budget reconciliation process to force the government health care takeover through with a simple majority and limited debate.

Meanwhile, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., performed an end-run around debate over her massive global warming bill on Thursday by using a "nuclear option" maneuver on the Senate Environment and Public Works. She and 10 Democrats rammed through the legislation without considering amendments and in defiance of GOP protests.

The 2006 minority Democrats' report on the death of deliberative democracy condemned the then-GOP leadership for becoming "the arrogant and corrupt majority they despised and condemned in their minority days." And now? Et tu, majority Democrats? Same as it ever was.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The biggest voice in the United States...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... is your voice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... the voice of the American people!

REP. TOM PRICE, R - GA.: As a physician, I've read the majority of this bill. And I've got a diagnosis, and it's legislative malpractice!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going down the tubes, so the only thing we can do is fight back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't like big government. It's just too much government.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The government should not determine what our health care choices should be.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who will kill this bill? You will!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to retain our individual rights for health care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's laughable to think that our government could take over something as big as our health care system and do it right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speaker Pelosi, the American people have rejected your bill! Congressman must listen and also reject this monstrosity! We're going to win because the American people will not be denied!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America's future begins with us! Madam Speaker, throw out this bill!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Republican congressman Tom Price is also a doctor. And as you just heard, he calls the Democrats' health care bill "legislative malpractice." Congressman Dr. Price joins us live. Nice to see you, sir.

PRICE: Great to be with you, Greta. Thank you.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, this bill that the Republicans have proposed, will it cover -- how many people will it cover? Do you have any idea?

PRICE: Well, what it does is address the cost issue. And we believe that if you bring down costs significantly, then you can increase the number of folks that are covered. We also increase competition so that you also bring down costs. And we allow for folks to pool together with the purchasing power of millions so that you cover those folks with preexisting illnesses or injuries. Those are the things that the American people care about.

VAN SUSTEREN: As a practicing doctor (INAUDIBLE) what were the problems you had, I mean, that we sort of need to remedy with this?

PRICE: Right. Preexisting, I mentioned. You can't -- you ought not -- you ought not to lose your insurance if you change your job or you lose your job. That's the portability issue.

VAN SUSTEREN: And is that fixed in your bill, in the Republican bill?

PRICE: We believe it is by decreasing the costs, and also the pooling mechanism, so that if you have an awful diagnosis or an injury that you don't -- that runs up the cost, that you don't get priced out of the market and be thrown into the individual market, get priced out. So we pool folks together to be able to get that purchasing power of millions.

And then the incredible burden of malpractice, the incredible burden of liability, so that the lawsuit abuse that occurs -- it runs up the cost of defensive medicine, and then you have hundreds of billions of dollars. We address that. The Democrats don't.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, now, let me talk about malpractice for one second because a lot of these malpractice proposals are batted around. They never talk about capping the legal fees on both sets of lawyers, the ones who are suing and the ones who are doing the hourly rate. Does your proposal at least put a cap on both, so that they both have an equal incentive to try to sit down and resolve things?

PRICE: Well, any of those caps address the issue of non-economic damages. So the folks that...

VAN SUSTEREN: But that's the person who's hurt.

PRICE: Sure.

VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, the persons who are driving this are the lawyers.

PRICE: They are.

VAN SUSTEREN: And if you want the lawyers to sit down and figure out if -- because there are some legitimate -- legitimate malpractice and there are some illegitimate ones. But if you let the lawyers, you know -- you know, run amok, you know, they're going to keep fighting.

PRICE: Yes, but it's not the hourly rate that's the problem. It's the tens of millions...

VAN SUSTEREN: Oh, it is! Oh, it is!

PRICE: ... of dollars that occur with the non-economic damages.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, but see, it is. If you've got a lawyer who's being paid by the hour, he has no incentive or she has no incentive to sit down...

PRICE: OK, I'm defending the lawyers!

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, you've got to -- if you've got someone keeps being paid by the hour, the person has no incentive to sit down and do the right thing.

PRICE: That drags out.

VAN SUSTEREN: Right.

PRICE: That drags it...

VAN SUSTEREN: And brings 15 lawyers to a deposition and bills the lawyers, bills the insurance companies. You've got to stop that.

PRICE: Sure. Absolutely. And you can do that through other kinds of mechanisms, like arbitration, like health courts, which we've proposed in other...

VAN SUSTEREN: But if you...

PRICE: ... pieces of legislation.

VAN SUSTEREN: But even arbitration adds a whole 'nother layer of lawyers who are getting paid by the hour. You've got to stop the lawyers and force them to sit down and talk reasonably.

PRICE: What our bill does is begin the process in that direction. What the other side's bill, what the Democrats' bill, what Speaker Pelosi's bill doesn't do is anything as it relates to...

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, they don't even mention it.

PRICE: ... malpractice...

VAN SUSTEREN: They don't -- they don't touch it. The Democratic bill doesn't, right?

PRICE: They got some pilot programs and some grants. They want to study the issue. The fact of the matter is, we don't need to study the issue anymore.

VAN SUSTEREN: I'm with you on that. I can't -- I'm with you on that. Studying's going to get us nowhere.

PRICE: That's right.

VAN SUSTEREN: We need action at this point. All right, is the Democratic bill, the House bill, going to get passed?

PRICE: I think that they're breaking arms and buying people off, at this point. I think they'll pass a bill. I think that the American people will be so irate that they will suffer terribly for it because this doesn't have a chance of survival in the Senate. The Senate will be the place where the deliberative work is done and that the American's people's will will be done, hopefully.

But the issue today with the folks coming to Washington was incredibly important because they said loudly and clearly, Look, this is not the direction in which we want to go. This is not consistent with the principles of either health care or the American system of government.

VAN SUSTEREN: But it -- but they may have had a loud -- a large voice. It may have been a big draw. But unless there are members of Congress who are Democrats are voting against the bill...

PRICE: Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: ... this is going to happen.

PRICE: Well, those members of Congress, those Democrat members of Congress, have to represent their constituents instead of their leadership. And that's a question that they have to answer, and I promise you they are struggling with it. You can see it in their eyes and in their body language all this week.

VAN SUSTEREN: And we always talk about the Blue Dog Democrats...

PRICE: Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: ... the ones who are more conservative, who tend to focus on the fiscal issues. Are you hearing any -- are you peeling off any of those to your side, or are you losing more of those?

PRICE: Well, they -- remember, this bill was supposed to be done in July, according to the Speaker's timetable. So those folks have already been peeled off. Now, the question is how many of them the Speaker is getting back into the fold. And I don't -- they haven't got the numbers yet. If they have the numbers, they would have had the vote.

VAN SUSTEREN: And so today, how many people showed up? Do you have any idea?

PRICE: I'm a bad estimate of crowds, but tens of thousands. I've heard 25,000 to 50,000.

VAN SUSTEREN: So I take it you're not giving up, at least at this point.

PRICE: Oh, goodness, no. And whatever happens, we will not give up because the American people don't want this. And so whether it's -- whether it's now, whether it's next month are whether it's early next year or whether it's after the next election, we will make certain that the American people get a health system reform bill that respects patients and allows patients and families and doctors to make decisions.

VAN SUSTEREN: Congressman, Doctor, thank you.

PRICE: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Hey! Hello, everybody. Please sit down. Good afternoon, everybody. I wanted to come down and just talk a little bit about health care before Robert gives his regular briefing.

I am extraordinarily pleased and grateful to learn that the AARP and the American Medical Association are both supporting the health insurance reform bill that will soon come up to a vote in the House of Representatives.

When it comes to the AARP, this is no small endorsement. For more than 50 years, they have been a leader in the fight to reduce the cost of health care and expand coverage for our senior citizens. They are a non-partisan organization, and their board made their decision to endorse only after a careful, intensive, objective scrutiny of this bill. They're endorsing this bill because they know it will strengthen Medicare, not jeopardize it. They know it will protect the benefits our seniors receive, not cut them. So I want everybody to remember that the next time you hear the same tired arguments to the contrary from the insurance companies and their lobbyists. And remember this endorsement the next time you see a bunch of misleading ads on television.

The AARP knows this bill will make health care more affordable. They know it will make coverage more secure. They know it's a good deal for our seniors. And that's why we're thrilled that they're standing up for this effort.

The same is true for the doctors and medical professionals who are supporting this bill today. These are men and women who know our health care system best and have been watching this debate closely. They would not be supporting it if they really believed that it would lead to government bureaucrats making decisions that are best left to doctors. They would not be with us if they believed that reform would in any way damage the critical and sacred doctor-patient relationship.

Instead, they're supporting reform because they've seen firsthand what's broken about our health care system. They've seen what happens when patients can't get the care they need because some insurance company has decided to drop their coverage or water it down. They've seen what happens when a patient is forced to pay out-of-pocket costs of thousands of dollars that she doesn't have to get the treatment she desperately needs. They've seen what happens when patients don't come in for regular check-ups or screenings because either their insurance company doesn't cover them or they can't afford health insurance in the first place. And they've seen far, far too much of their time spent filling out forms and haggling with insurance company bureaucrats.

So the doctors of America know what needs to be fixed about our health care system. They know that health insurance reform would go a long way toward doing that.

We are closer to passing this reform than ever before. And now that the doctors and medical professionals of America are standing with us; now that the organizations charged with looking out for the interests of seniors are standing with us, we are even closer.

I want to thank both organizations again for their support, and I urge Congress to listen to AARP, listen to the AMA, and pass this reform for hundreds of millions of Americans who will benefit from it. Thank you.

1:24 P.M. EST

Remember the stories written one year ago today, the morning after the Barack Obama win? It wasn't just about him, said the prevailing analysis. This was a giant reset button, a realignment of American politics, which had skewed mostly Republican since Reagan.

We were told the Obama election was a pivotal event signaling a repudiation of all of those nasty things Republicans had been selling and an embrace of the Democratic brand that could leave the GOP reeling for years.

But the people of Virginia and New Jersey have now suggested otherwise, electing Republican governors in one state that Obama won comfortably and another that he won decisively.

From the White House down, the Democrats' spin is that these were elections based largely on local issues, not referendums on the young presidency.

Please. If a Democrat had won either state, administration operatives would have stumbled over each other to proclaim the resiliency of the Obama agenda.

The defeated Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey were the face and voice of Obama's policies in their states. If either had lost by a sliver, one could argue that issues from property taxes to state pension funds might have made the difference.

But the fact is that Chris Christie campaigned across New Jersey with frequent references to how the modern Democratic Party is leading America down a road of profligate spending and oppressive government intervention. Meanwhile, wealthy incumbent Jon Corzine's themes were a mirror of Obama's positions on health care, taxes and the environment.

In a state Obama won by 15 points a year ago, Christie won by a comfortable 4. This nearly 20-point swing in a union-heavy, ACORN-heavy blue state strikes fear in Democrats' hearts, whether they admit it or not.

In Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell dominated in another Obama '08 state with conservative criticism of the wildly radical status quo of skyrocketing deficits and government overreach. His win obliterates last year's momentary conventional wisdom that Obama/Pelosi-style government can stay popular in the South.

So if these wins are sufficiently gloat-worthy, doesn't the win by Democrat Bill Owens in New York's closely watched 23rd Congressional District mitigate the glee a little?

Sure. A little.

But look at what actually happened. The state Republican Party anointed a thoroughly unworthy standard bearer in liberal Dede Scozzafava, who torpedoed her reputation even further by endorsing the Democrat as she bailed out of the race last week.

Doug Hoffman, a third-party conservative virtually unknown mere weeks ago, lost by 49 to 46 percent. Clinging to the only comforting narrative available, liberal analysts crowed that this was a renunciation of the voices that backed him, from Rush Limbaugh to Sarah Palin.

We'll see about that, and soon. Hoffman (or any real conservative) will have that support again next year when actual voters, not party officials, pick the Republican candidate. I would not advise Mr. Owens to buy a house in the Washington area.

The ripples of this election may be visible as soon as noon today, as Republican House members - including Michael Burgess and Joe Barton of the North Texas delegation - gather on the Capitol steps to oppose the mammoth spending and suffocating government control of the Democrats' health care bill.

Unlike the Democratic event heralding the bill's unveiling, the general public is welcome this time, guaranteeing attendance by the kind of people who made Election '09 a major blow to the current one-party rule.

It is not time to predict Republican congressional majorities in 2010 or an Obama defeat in 2012. But seeing the radical policies that once lay beneath the pretty paper of "hope" and "change," many independents, seniors and other constituencies may be rethinking 2008 and looking for the first opportunity for some healthy ballot-box repentance.

You will recall how when the tea-party movement erupted during the congressional recess in August, it was spun on the left that these events were the creation of conservative ideologues. At the start, yes. By the end, though, it was about anxieties deeper than that.

The GOP is now spinning the results in Virginia and New Jersey as proof that voters are fed up with the liberal ideologues in the White House and Congress. Yes, but it's deeper than that.

What was learned Tuesday is that the American voter is absolutely, totally, unremittingly disgusted with both political parties. More than anything, the American voter is desperate for political leadership.

That electorates in two politically significant states, led by the widening independent movement, could swing within one year from enthusiasm for electing Barack Obama to support for Virginia's OK Republican Bob McDonnell and New Jersey's lackluster Chris Christie is simply astonishing.

Add another American metaphor to the political landscape: the cattle stampede. Independent voters across the U.S. have become like the massive cattle herd John Wayne drove from Texas to Kansas in "Red River." These voters are spooked and on the run, a political stampede that veered left in November 2008 and now right a mere year later. They will keep running--crushing incumbents, candidates and political models of the left and right--through November 2010 and onto 2012 until they find a person or party capable of leadership appropriate to our unsettled times. And yes, Virginia, the possibility of a man on a white horse in 2012 is not out of the question.

Exit polls in New Jersey and Virginia said the economy was on voters' minds. Unemployment is near 10% and may stay there for a year. But it's deeper than that.

This isn't just another turn in the business cycle. On Sept. 15, 2008, the economic structure of the U.S. imploded. Lehman Brothers, a synonym for the American financial bedrock, filed for bankruptcy. On June 1, 2009, General Motors, once a synonym for American economic primacy, filed for bankruptcy and was effectively nationalized. In the nine months between these two iconic events, the American people were riveted to news of economic distress.

The signal event of the 2008 presidential election was the day in September when Sen. John McCain "suspended" his campaign to deal with the financial crisis. Within 48 hours, his candidacy stood naked. Mr. McCain's instincts were right; The American people wanted leadership. But he didn't have a clue how to provide it. The restless herd ran toward Barack Obama.

Now they're ready to run toward someone else. They just did in New Jersey and Virginia.

This is not normal. A new American presidency, especially this one, should not be in this much trouble 10 months into a four-year term. Nor would it be if not for the economic events that fell out of September 2008.

Absent the immediate need to steady the credit markets and deal with a deepening recession, the Obama White House would have introduced--and passed--its restructuring of the U.S. health-care system in early spring. Instead, voters watched Congress create and pass a nearly trillion-dollar "stimulus" bill, and then erect the world's tallest national budget--a towering $3.5 trillion. They watched the Obama Treasury, now hard-wired to the Federal Reserve, intervene massively in the structure of the private economy. There was an attempted federal climate-control bill, an attempted expansion of union organizing rights (card check) and second thoughts on free-trade agreements.

Only then, in June, was this hyperactive government able to introduce its health-care proposal--the public option, the remaking of the insurance industry, a 5.4% tax surcharge, the expansion of Medicaid.

After his election, Mr. Obama's strongest attribute was limitless self-confidence. He was a man aglow with knowledge, control and . . . leadership. Now, with the scale and cost of Mr. Obama's ambitions so clear, the question many voters are asking is whether the Obama government's reach exceeds its grasp or abilities--or any government's.

The most acute voters know these are not normal times. The Obama vision so far looks a lot like the social-market economic model of Europe, where leaders such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel give homilies about the "crisis" of capitalism. If American voters then look toward Asia, they see rising economies using capitalism to supplant Europe.

American voters know they've reached a long-term economic tipping point. Which way to go, old West or new East? They understand the challenges are growing while the politicians seem to be shrinking.

So the Republicans "won" Tuesday. Now what?

Just as the Democrats in 2008 ran mainly against "Bush," the Republican political model seems to be to let Democratic failure dump states like New Jersey and Virginia into their control. But I think most voters, no matter their party registration, know that in the past 12 months the stakes for them have suddenly become larger than political "control."

Unless leadership emerges equal to the new world voters see they have fallen into, volatility in America's election returns is going to be the norm for a long time.

Tuesday's defeats in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey not only ended a decade or more of Democratic gains in those states but signaled possible trouble ahead in the midterm elections at the national level.

At the same time, the loss of another Republican House seat in a special election -- the fourth such defeat in the last two years -- showed how bitter ideological conflict within the party could cripple the GOP's prospects for a comeback.

Despite White House efforts to discount the importance of the loss of the only two governorships on the off-year ballot, especially in New Jersey, where Obama had campaigned heavily for embattled Gov. Jon Corzine, the implications were clear to other Democrats.

Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, a leader of the moderate-conservative "Blue Dogs," called the result "a wake-up call for Congress. A tidal wave could be coming."

His fellow Tennessean, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, said that Obama "retains his personal popularity, but his policies, and those pushed by the congressional Democrats, are scaring the daylights out of people."

Democratic pollster Peter Hart, in a memo to his clients, warned of the possible consequences of "the disappointment and disgust the American public feels toward Washington. It is as strongly negative as the period of 1979-80 and 1973-74." Both those cycles saw wholesale changes in Congress, the Democrats benefiting in the latter and the Republicans in the former.

For Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership, the off-year results arrived at a moment when their fragile internal coalitions are facing severe tests. The White House is attempting to stage-manage a crucial vote-counting exercise in both the House and Senate to determine if Democrats can risk bringing landmark health care bills to the floor. And within weeks, Obama may precipitate a similar test of support on a new policy toward Afghanistan.

Former Republican Rep. Vin Weber said he sees the Democrats in "a difficult position. A year ago, they thought they were entering a new progressive era. It was 1932 again. But within a couple months, it began to turn around, and worries about spending and big government came to the fore. In New Jersey and Virginia, we're seeing the voters return to a center-right agenda. But I think Obama and the Democratic congressional leaders are locked into that progressive agenda, and that leaves them in a risky position."

Weber conceded that "the grass-roots energy" fueling signs of a Republican comeback "can be destructive" when it is less well managed than it was in the two successful gubernatorial campaigns. In both New Jersey and Virginia, candidates with clear conservative histories and credentials, former prosecutors Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell, focused their races on their opposition to higher taxes and their proposals for attracting jobs.

On the other hand, the GOP civil war that broke loose in New York's 23rd District special election resulted in the loss of a seat that had been Republican for more than a century. Democrats said they looked forward to many more instances next year where conservative icons such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck intervene against mainstream Republicans.

While that problem concerns Republicans, Democrats have a larger worry: the unemployment crisis that crippled John McCain and the Republicans in 2008 is hanging on -- and now is being blamed on Democrats.

Exit polls in New Jersey and Virginia showed that the more worried voters were about keeping or finding a job, the more likely they were to vote Republican.

Last week, I heard the lead economist for a major New York bank predict that unemployment next November will still linger at 9.5 percent or more.

If that is the case, this week's Democratic losses could seem minor by comparison.

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

The odd-year elections -- held in the first year of a presidency -- have been meaningful over the last two decades. In 1993, New Jersey voters rejected tax-raising Democratic Gov. James Florio, despite the best efforts of Bill Clinton's consultant James Carville -- a harbinger of the losses congressional Democrats suffered the next year after they raised taxes and supported, unavailingly, massive health care proposals.

In Virginia that year, Republican George Allen was elected on a platform of abolishing parole and opposing gun control. Those quickly became national consensus policies and remain so today.

In 2001, just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, George W. Bush's Republicans suffered defeats in Virginia and New Jersey. In Virginia, Mark Warner showed that a Democrat conversant with country music and stock car racing could make inroads in rural areas that had little use for Bill Clinton or Al Gore. Democrats gained their congressional majorities in 2006 by winning such areas.

In New Jersey, Democrat Jim McGreevey showed the enduring power of the gains that Clinton and Gore had made in suburbs hostile to cultural conservatives. These areas rejected Bush even when he was winning re-election in 2004.

This year the issues in the governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey are reasonably congruent with those raised by the programs of the Obama administration and congressional Democratic leaders. Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds in Virginia and Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in New Jersey have refused to rule out tax increases even as congressional Democrats press health care bills loaded with them. Their Republican opponents have both opposed tax increases.

In Virginia, McDonnell has done considerably more than that. He has advanced substantive, detailed positions on transportation, jobs and education -- issues that affect voters' everyday lives. He has also weighed in against national Democrats' health care, card check and cap-and-trade bills, while Deeds has dodged them -- a clear sign those stands are unpopular in a state that voted 53 percent for Barack Obama.

Every Virginia poll taken since mid-October showed McDonnell with a double-digit lead, and he and his Republican ticket mates swept to solid victories. Those who dismiss such results as irrelevant to national politics might want to have a chat with Florio.

New Jersey this year is more complicated. About 60 percent of voters disapprove of Corzine's performance in a state with some of the highest taxes and public employee pensions in the country. But Corzine has used his personal wealth to drag Republican Chris Christie's numbers down, and independent candidate Chris Daggett could take enough votes for Corzine to squeak through.

But a Corzine plurality win could scarcely be taken as an endorsement of Democratic policies in a state that Obama carried with 57 percent of the vote.

There will be some lessons in the results for Republicans, as well. One of the big surprises of this year has been the spontaneous outpouring of spirited opposition to the Democrats' big government programs and the disappearance of the enthusiasm that propelled Obama and Democrats to their big wins in 2008. The question is how Republicans can harness that enthusiasm.

McDonnell did that in Virginia with a classic campaign. Early on, he staked out clear and detailed positions on issues important to voters and refused to be distracted by Washington Post news stories designed to depict him as an intolerant troglodyte. He showed the sense of command voters want in an executive.

Christie, with less experience in electoral politics, did not present such a detailed platform, which left him vulnerable to vote-poaching by Daggett and to the cynical attacks of the Corzine campaign. He's vulnerable as well to demographics: As he noted in his last ad, New Jersey's high taxes have been driving conservative voters out of the state.

Yes, both of these governor races involve issues specific to particular states and candidates with particular strengths and weaknesses. But the odd-year elections of 2009, like those of 1993 and 2001, still provide clues to where the nation's voters are headed, and it's a different direction than they took in the presidential election last year.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

They were also a timely reminder that President Obama needs to tune up his celebrated political organization and find a way to make Americans feel hopeful again.

The night's biggest loser was the national conservative political machine -- the wealthy tax-cutters at the Club for Growth and the Palin-Limbaugh-Beck complex. The Beltway Right shoved aside local Republicans in an upstate New York congressional race, imposed their own candidate who didn't even live in the district, and went down in a heap.

To understand the importance of the defeat of third-party Conservative Doug Hoffman by Democrat Bill Owens in New York's 23rd District, consider the narrative that would have been woven if Hoffman had won.

Combined with Republican victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races, a Hoffman triumph would have been heralded as the beginning of a new conservative revolution, a reproach to Republican moderates as well as Obama Democrats, and a sign that "big government," including the Democrats' health care plan, was on the run.

Instead, voters in the district (parts of which have been Republican since Abraham Lincoln) staged a different kind of rebellion. Furious that big conservative money and national personalities such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck had forced out Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava -- the official, moderate, locally chosen Republican candidate -- they turned to Owens.

The Democrat was the perfect candidate for a middle-of-the road protest. He had only recently been a political independent and presented himself as having no ideological edges. The spurned Scozzafava backed him, creating a moderate united front. June O'Neill of the New York Democratic state committee called Owens' victory a "backlash" against "the way they treated our friend and neighbor." We know who "they" are.

The Owens win puts the victories of Republicans Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia in a different light. Both won governorships by focusing on the need to win voters smack in the middle of the electorate: moderates, independents and suburbanites. David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser, engaged in a bit of self-serving hyperbole when he said in an interview that McDonnell ran "not as a Sarah Palin Republican, but more as a Barack Obama centrist," yet his point was right: McDonnell knew where the votes were.

So did Christie, who capitalized on a deep, personal disaffection with incumbent New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Christie, like McDonnell, managed in reverse the excite-the-base, win-the-middle strategy Democrats pursued so effectively in 2006 and 2008. Christie ran up huge margins in Republican counties, but also won over previously Democratic voters who were angry but not ideological.

Democrats will highlight Obama's continued strong approval ratings in New Jersey as part of their larger argument that these contests were local in character. But the disaffection in both Virginia and New Jersey -- and the unexpected narrowness of New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's re-election margin, despite his record-breaking campaign spending -- should worry all incumbents, particularly governors seeking re-election next year. And after their strong showings in the last two national elections, Democrats happen to constitute a large share of the pool of incumbents.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, as he made his way to Corzine's concession speech at a hotel here, said he sees an electorate in a dark mood. "There are two things happening," the New Jersey Democrat noted. "One is fear. The other is punishment. Voters fear for themselves and their families, and they want to punish anyone who got them into this condition."

What Lautenberg underscored is a spirit far different than the buoyant confidence Barack Obama inspired a year ago. And the Obama change-agents, particularly the young, were notably absent from the voting booths this week. In Virginia, a state Obama carried comfortably last year, a majority of those who showed up to vote on Tuesday said they had backed John McCain. This much more Republican electorate produced a GOP landslide all the way down the Virginia ballot.

That is the fact from this week that Democrats would be fools to ignore. It's not a resurgent right wing that should trouble Obama's party. Indeed, the stronger the right's role in shaping the Republican message, the harder it will be for middle-of-the-road voters to use the Republicans to express their discontent. But for the moment, the thrill is gone from politics, and that is very dangerous for the mainstream progressive movement that Obama promised to build.

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

It's interesting that early signs of economic recovery are not helping the Obama Democrats. This is largely because of the 9.8 percent unemployment rate, which is expected to move higher. Even the crazy jobs-saved-or-created campaign is having no discernable impact while the Obamacons try to fight the unemployment rate.

If you go to recovery.gov, the official stimulus website, you'll find that there has been $207 billion in stimulus spending through Oct. 30, 2009 -- including $84 billion in tax benefits, $52 billion in contract grants and loans, and $71 billion in entitlements. So even if we give my friend Jared Bernstein his highly flawed "1 million jobs saved or created," that's $207,000 per job in an economy where the average wage is about $46,000. Not good. Wasteful and ineffectual spending. (In reality, tax credits are spending. For incentivizing, you need marginal tax-rate cuts.)

Mike Flynn of Breitbart's biggovernment.com notes that the government pumped $170 billion into the third-quarter economy. But gross domestic product grew by only $150 billion. As I said, ineffectual spending.

That doesn't meant the economy isn't rebounding. It is. Glitches and all, third-quarter GDP popped up 3.5 percent at an annual rate after inflation. Statistically, the recession is over. That's good. And it corroborates the big stock market rally over the past seven months. This is going to be a business-led recovery as self-correcting firms build profits on top of huge cash flows.

Yesterday's ISM manufacturing report for October also confirms the growth trend with a recovery reading of 55.7, the strongest since April 2006. And this morning's factory orders for September also show a stronger-than-expected gain. Even car sales are expected to rise in October by more than 10 million, at least 1 million better than September. Ford, which refused to take TARP bailout money, reported a surprise increase in profits.

But the depreciating dollar remains a storm cloud over recovery. So are scheduled tax-rate increases and health care legislation that will slam individuals and firms with higher tax burdens and higher tax costs for job creation.

And then there's the Federal Reserve. With gold up another $25 -- setting a new nominal record of $1,079 -- the Fed released a policy statement Wednesday that continues a program of massive money-pumping and a zero interest rate.

This whole Obama policy mix of huge government spending and a depreciating greenback is all wrong. It's pro-inflation, not pro-growth. For a true economic recovery, we need a stable King Dollar and lower marginal tax rates to incentivize job creation.

Jimmy Pethokoukis and others have noted that the first recovery quarter under Ronald Reagan was better than 8 percent, not 3.5 percent. In fact, the average real GDP growth rate for the first quarter of the 10 postwar recoveries is 7.3 percent.

So the economic-recovery story, and even the stock market rally, won't bail out the Obamacons today, although it remains to be seen whether a free-market, anti-tax-and-spend message will emerge from the election sweep by the GOP. If so, it could doom the so-called health care reform that has become a symbol of the leftward-tilting, big-government, economic-control policies emanating from Washington.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Naturally, a consensus will emerge:

The angry, hard-right, radical, insane (etc.) conservative base has hijacked the Republican Party and, in the process, further alienated a beleaguered nation -- a nation that apparently is hankering for tripling deficits and government takeovers of the health care, energy, banking and car industries.

Like Democrats, I, too, hope Republicans suffer. By focusing on needless culture wars, nurturing government centralization and growth, and spending without restraint, the GOP has downgraded fiscal conservatism to nothing more than election-time rhetoric over the past decade. And not surprisingly, Republican identification is also at an all-time low.

So how is it, some wonder, that a recent Gallup Poll claims that "conservative" remains the dominant ideological group in this nation -- with between 39 and 41 percent of voters identifying themselves as either "very conservative" or "conservative"?

The percentage of independents describing their views as "conservative" has also grown, to 35 percent from 29 percent in just one year.

What does it mean to be conservative these days? I mean, "conservative" happens to be the default self-identifying ideological designation of nearly every Republican politician (and some Democrats, too); so in Washington, at least, we know it means very little.

In the real world, I imagine many non-ideologically inclined voters tend to see themselves as conservative, as well. And with a president who has yet to meet an industry he doesn't believe needs to be managed by the loving but firm hands of Washington, this increasingly must mean fiscal conservatism.

The rise of free market populism in this country finally has manifested in an election. And judging from the hyperbolic reactions, you know it's a political movement with staying power.

When tepid, traditional conservative candidate Doug Hoffman knocked off liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava -- a candidate who was supported by nearly every boogeyman in the GOP handbook -- you might have thought that the rabble had stormed the Bastille.

Sophisticated New York Times columnist Frank Rich called the event "a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war" and compared the conservative surge to a murderous Stalinist purge. (Remarkably, the esteemed wordsmith failed to unleash similar histrionic language when one-time-Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman met the same fate.)

Purging moderates is indeed a self-destructive strategy for any national party. But running a party without any litmus tests on the central issue of the economy seems to be similarly self-defeating.

The most impressive trick played by Rich and other liberals, though, is creating a narrative wherein the ones attempting to fundamentally reconfigure the American economy are cast as the moderates.

The nearly powerless who stand in their way? Well, they play the part of Stalinists.

Now, I'm not nearly as smart as Frank Rich, but I do know that the single ideological bond that holds together all factions of the right is a belief in capitalism and economic freedom. Or, at least, it should be.

In fact, as Arthur C. Brooks, American Enterprise Institute president, summed it up, "there is a major cultural schism developing in America. But it's not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise -- the principle at the core of American culture."

The next few elections will tell us whether this tenant of American culture has staying power -- and whether there will be a political party to champion it.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

"This certainly was a much needed shot in the arm for Republicans. And should be a dire warning sign for Democrats," said Tony Fabrizio, a veteran GOP strategist.

But Fabrizio's long term view differed. "The smart Republicans are looking at it and saying ok, we're not dead yet," he continued. "But we can't assume that the election of these two Republicans means that the voters think we are right and are embracing Republican principles."

Tuesday's gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey have, in typical fashion, led to some exaggerated public comments. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele declared a "Republican renaissance has begun."

Strategists at the helm of Republican presidential campaigns are not so sure.

Interviews with top GOP strategists paint three conclusions. A Republican revival is possibly underway. But possibly does not mean probably. The off-year races do not level the Republicans' steep road ahead.

Few strategists know the steep road better than Bill McInturff. One year ago, as John McCain's top pollster, McInturff saw his party and candidate reap the whirlwind of dissatisfaction--dissatisfaction with George W. Bush, with Republicans, and, most consequentially, with the economy.

McInturff witnessed a different electorate Tuesday. It was the margins. The Republican candidate won by more than 4 points in blue New Jersey. It was the structure of turnout. In Virginia, 51 percent of the voters were former McCain supporters. Yet last year, Obama won 53 percent of the state. It was that affluent blue suburbs went red. Republicans won Fairfax County for the first time since 1997. Perhaps foremost, the middle moved. In both states, independents sided with Republicans by a 2-to-1 ratio over Democrats.

"In 2008, independent voters were really difficult. They just were not listening. To now have independents demolish the Democrats in two states is a big deal," McInturff said. "Look, if I were a Democrat, I would be very sober now looking toward 2010," McInturff added. But McInturff took a sober view of his party as well.

"Tuesday night did not fix the Republican Party's problems. And Tuesday night does not mean much in the context of 2012," he continued. "But it's still the best night Republicans have had in five years. It's still a lot better day Wednesday for Republicans than it was Monday."

It was indeed a lot better to be a Republican on Wednesday. Off-year elections are poor predictors of future contests, but they can capture the present. The center has been slipping from Democrats since summer. Gallup tracks Obama's approval rating among independents first falling below 50 percent in late July. In late September, Democrats' advantage with independents was the slimmest it had been since 2005. Now, in McInturff's words, "It isn't just data. There are actual consequences."

But several GOP strategists warned those consequences could prove limited. "We can kid ourselves now because Obama has a world of problems," said John Weaver, a moderate Republican strategist. "Everyone's crowing about a comeback. And you take any big wins you can get. But first off, we haven't even admitted that we have any structural problems. I think we have our head in the sand about our problems."

Those GOP problems remain numerous. Democrats party identification advantage is at least 10 points, according to three major October polls. One of those polls, by The Washington Post and ABC News, found that only 34 percent of the public trusts Democrats in Congress to make the "right decisions for the country's future." That's low. But for Republicans it was 19 percent.

The recent Wall Street Journal poll finds that only 42 percent of the country has a positive view of Democrats. It's 25 percent for Republicans.

Then there is the force of incumbency, of holding the White House. The much discussed but unresolved demographic issues. Democrats have won Hispanics since at least 1980. They have won youth and first-time voters since 1992.

And there is the Republican tension between purists and moderates. That complicates any party recovery. It's why, on Tuesday, Beltway eyes were focused on an upstate New York congressional district. The conservative forced out the moderate Republican. The Democrat won. The circumstances of the race were uncommon. The tension is not.

MSNBC "Morning Joe" viewers witnessed that tension Election Day morning. Joe Scarborough asked Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty if he wanted Olympia Snowe, a moderate senator from Maine, in the Republican Party. Pawlenty refused four times to say "yes."

Pawlenty, a likely 2012 candidate, is looking ahead. And he is worried about the ire of his base. Contenders often are.

For now, the story is the 2010 midterms. Democrats are favored to keep their Congressional majority. But they will lose seats. A modern president has only twice, in 1934 and 2002, not lost House seats in his first midterm.

Losses though are not losing. Democrats' advantages remain "formidable," as Fabrizio put it. But conversations with Fabrizio betray an unusual pang of optimism. In recent years, Fabrizio has been remarkably forthright about the GOP decline. The odds may still be long. But Fabrizio believes Republicans "certainly could" win back the House in 2010. Could is not will. But it captures a sanguine outlook unseen among Republicans in years.

"I am optimistic," Fabrizio said, "because it's not often that you can get off the gurney when you are about to die. We are being given that chance."

David Paul Kuhn is the Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics and the author of The Neglected Voter. He can be reached at david@realclearpolitics.com and his writing followed via RSS

There was no story about Noor Faleh Almaleki. Her father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, has been arrested for running down his 20-year-old daughter, as well as the mother of her live-in boyfriend, on Oct. 20 in an Arizona parking lot with his 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee. On Monday, Noor Almaleki died, in what is considered the latest "honor killing" in America.

According to news reports, the father, who moved his family from Iraq in the mid-1990s, was angry because his daughter had become "too Westernized." Before Noor Almaleki died, a local prosecutor described the crime as "an attempted honor killing."

After the incident, Faleh Almaleki fled across the border to Mexico, then London. He was extradited and charged with two counts of aggravated assault on Saturday. The judge then assigned him an attorney. He has yet to enter a plea on the charges, which are likely to be upgraded to include murder or manslaughter.

Before the 20-year-old died, prosecutor Stephanie Low told a Maricopa County court that, "By his own admission, this was an intentional act and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame upon him and his family."

So where is CAIR, which bills itself as "America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization?" Spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told me, "We tend to deal with things that are related to Islam and the Muslim community."

Hooper added that CAIR does not "believe there's any so-called honor in an honor killing. These things occur. They're completely against Islamic beliefs. There's no justification." And: "Horrible things happen all over the world. Domestic abuse among families goes along religious lines," based on false justifications.

In short, CAIR will make a stink when (male) imams are not allowed to board a Minneapolis plane, but don't expect the organization to make an issue of honor killings.

The Arizona-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy, however, released a statement that mourned the young woman's death and called on the Muslim community to abandon its "denial that honor killings are an issue."

The group's founder, M. Zuhdi Jasser, who practices internal medicine, suggested that while groups like CAIR may want to paper over the cultural Islamic roots of honor killing, they do exist. And: "If you identify the pathology wrong -- in an incorrect fashion -- you will never treat the disease."

Hooper told me that "the hate bloggers are trying to insert Islam" into Noor Almaleki's death. But the true haters are those who want to disguise honor killings as pious and selfless, when they are in fact brutish and cowardly.

Or as Low noted when she argued for high bail, "The defendant tries to hide behind his moral convictions, and yet he also fled."

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Yet, when it comes to medical care, there seems to be remarkably little attention paid to questions of both quantity and quality, in the rush to "bring down the cost of medical care."

There is no question that you can reduce the payments for medical care by having either a lower quantity or a lower quality of medical care. That has already been done in countries with government-run medical systems.

In the United States, the government has already reduced payments for patients on Medicare and Medicaid, with the result that some doctors no longer accept new patients with Medicare or Medicaid. That has not reduced the cost of medical care. It has reduced the availability of medical care, just as buying a pint of milk reduces the payment below what a quart of milk would cost.

Letting old people die instead of saving their lives will undoubtedly reduce medical payments considerably. But old people have that option already-- and seldom choose to exercise it, despite clever people who talk about a "duty to die."

A government-run system will take that decision out of the hands of the elderly or their families, and thereby "bring down the cost of medical care." A stranger's death is much easier to take, especially if you are a bureaucrat making that decision in Washington.

At one time, in desperately poor societies, living on the edge of starvation, old people might be abandoned to their fate or even go off on their own to face death alone. But, in a society where huge flat-screen TVs are common, along with a thousand gadgets for amusement and entertainment, and where even most people living below the official poverty line own a car or truck, to talk about a "duty to die" so that younger people can live it up is obscene.

You can even save money by cutting down on medications to relieve pain, as is already being done in Britain's government-run medical system. You can save money by not having as many high-tech medical devices like CAT scans or MRIs, and not using the latest medications. Countries with government-run medical systems have less of all these things than the United States has.

But reducing these things is not "bringing down the cost of medical care." It is simply refusing to pay those costs-- and taking the consequences.

For those who live by talking points, one of their biggest talking points is that Americans do not get any longer life span than people in other Western nations by all the additional money we spend on medical care.

Like so many clever things that are said, this argument depends on confusing very different things-- namely, "health care" and "medical care." Medical care is a limited part of health care. What we do and don't do in the way we live our lives affects our health and our longevity, in many cases more so than what doctors can do to provide medical care.

Americans have higher rates of obesity, homicide and narcotics addiction than people in many other Western nations. There are severe limits on what doctors and medical care can do about that.

If we are serious about medical care-- and we should be serious, since it is a matter of life and death-- then we should have no time for clever statements that confuse instead of clarifying.

If we want to compare the effects of medical care, as such, in the United States with that in other countries with government-run medical systems, then we need to compare things where medical care is what matters most, such as survival rates of people with cancer.

The United States has one of the highest rates of cancer survival in the world-- and for some cancers, the number one rate of survival.

We also lead the world in creating new life-saving pharmaceutical drugs. But all of this can change-- for the worse-- if we listen to clever people who think they should be running our lives.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Remember the mantra that the region is the "graveyard of empires," where Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, and the Soviets only three decades ago inevitably met their doom?

In fact, Alexander conquered most of Bactria and its environs (which included present-day Afghanistan). After his death, the area that is now Afghanistan became part of the Seleucid Empire.

Centuries later, outnumbered British-led troops and civilians were initially ambushed, and suffered many casualties, in the first Afghan war. But the British were not defeated in their subsequent two Afghan wars between 1878 and 1919.

The Soviets did give up in 1989 their nine-year effort to create out of Afghanistan a communist buffer state - but only because the Arab world, the United States, Pakistan and China combined to provide the Afghan mujahideen resistance with billions of dollars in aid, not to mention state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.

While Afghans have been traditionally fierce resistance fighters and made occupations difficult, they have rarely for long defeated invaders -- and never without outside assistance.

Other mythologies about Afghanistan abound.

Is the country ungovernable? No more so than any of the region's other rough countries. After the founding of the modern state in 1919, Afghanistan enjoyed a relative stable succession of constitutional monarchs until 1973. The country was once considered generally secure, tolerant and hospitable to foreigners.

Did we really take our eye off the "good" war in Afghanistan to fight the optional bad one in Iraq? Not quite. After a brilliant campaign to remove the Taliban in 2001, a relatively stable Karzai government saw little violence until 2007. Between 2001 and 2006, no more than 100 American soldiers were killed in any given year.

In fact, American casualties increased after Iraq became quiet - as Islamists, defeated in Iraqi's Al Anbar province, refocused their efforts on the dominant Afghan theater.

Is Afghanistan the new Vietnam? Hardly. In the three bloodiest years, 2007 through 2009 so far, the United States has suffered a total of 553 fatalities - tragic, but less than 1 percent of the 58,159 Americans killed in Vietnam. What is astounding is the ability of the U.S. military to inflict damage on the enemy, protect the constitutional government and keep our losses to a minimum.

Our military is the most experienced in both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency warfare in the world. The maverick savior of Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, now oversees operations in the Mideast and Central Asia. His experienced lieutenant, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is a successful veteran of the worst fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unlike past foreign interventions, our U.N.-approved aim is not to create a puppet state, but a consensual government able to defend itself against the Taliban and al-Qaida - while preventing more strikes against the United States.

With Iraq relatively stabilized, jihadists have no choice but to commit their resources to prevent a second defeat. Meanwhile, Pakistan at last is cracking down on terrorist enclaves.

Unlike the case with the unpopular Bush decision to surge troops in Iraq, President Obama does not face a hostile political opposition at home. Many Americans are undecided rather than against continuing the war.

Republicans in Congress will support the administration's efforts to secure the country. There are no conservative counterparts to Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan. Even most anti-war Democrats became quiet once Barack Obama was elected. European NATO commanders want the U.S. to lead them to victory.

What, then, prevents President Obama from sending more troops to secure the country?

Mostly problems of presidential indecision and confusion. Candidate Obama ran on the theme of Afghanistan as the necessary war, Iraq the optional one. But he assumed the then-quiet front in Afghanistan would stay that way, while Americans would withdraw from what he deemed a hopeless effort in Iraq.

Just the opposite ensued. The surge worked. But Afghanistan heated up. So now the president finds himself increasingly trapped by his campaign rhetoric. He is on record as committed to defeating the Taliban and winning the "necessary" war. But the president is now also a Noble Peace Laureate who apparently does not want what has become a messy conflict with Islamists on his watch.

We have experienced soldiers and military leadership, a just cause and Western unity. In other words, we have everything we need to defeat the Taliban -- except a commander-in-chief as confident about fighting and winning as he once was as a candidate.

Copyright 2009, Tribune Media Services Inc.

1. Support a candidate who doesn't live in the district -- in this case, Conservative Douglas Hoffman. Savage the local Republican choice, Dede Scozzafava, and hound her into dropping out.

2. Condemn the local Republicans who had picked the moderate Scozzafava as being "insiders." And have the finger-pointers be Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson. (Guess no one would ever accuse them of being insiders in upstate New York.)

3. Refer to the issues that concern voters in the "North Country" district -- dredging the St. Lawrence River, building a new highway -- as "parochial." Have that term be flung by former Texas Rep. Dick Armey, now a right-wing gadfly -- and in response to distress shown by the Watertown Daily Times editorial board that Hoffman knew nothing of local matters.

4. Bring Armey into the editorial board meeting.

5. Have Palin make flashy sweeps through upstate New York, spreading voter repellant around this politically moderate district.

Put it all together, and you have the perfect strategy for turning a congressional seat that had been in Republican hands for well over a century into a Democratic seat. As recently as last month, polls showed Scozzafava trouncing both the Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Hoffman in the polls. Not an easy race for Republicans to lose, but the Tea Party nihilists showed how.

A lesson here for Republicans, and Democrats as well, is that Americans don't live on cable television or talk radio. These media invented the Tea Party movement and egg on its followers, who are angry for reasons not necessarily related to politics. This crowd, after all, is pretty darn colorful and makes for good entertainment.

Americans live in real places, and their candidates tend to be familiar figures they have coffee with. Scozzafava had served as a mayor and state assemblywoman. She was not some cartoon character on which the opposition could safely launch its childish attacks.

No electorate approves of carpetbaggers. If any word describes what Tea-Baggers tried to pull in upstate New York, it was an outsiders' takeover of a local race.

Hoffman clearly spent more time visiting with Glenn Beck than reading the local papers. And his Tea-Baggers were also moneybaggers. On Election Day, when Hoffman seemed to have a slight edge, the Club for Growth proudly announced out of Washington that it had dumped over $1 million into his campaign coffers.

"Hoffman's cash didn't come from somebody in Hermon or Hopkinton or Adams Center or from anywhere that cares about the country," wrote Jeffrey Savitskie, a Watertown Daily Times editor who had planned to vote for Scozzafava, but then moved to Owens. "It came from folks who know so little about the North Country that they would likely believe it if you told them Alexandria Bay was an exotic dancer."

Independents should welcome the outcome in upstate New York, not because a Democrat won, but because the American two-party system needs to offer them a real choice. It can't please them that New York state will now have only two Republicans in its 29-member congressional delegation, or that New England has none.

The Republican Party has been torn by a civil war between its establishment and insurgents on the right. The battle of New York's 23rd could be the Gettysburg that determines the winner. The right-wingers lost badly in what was a reliably Republican district.

But questions remain whether the Tea-Baggers will retreat -- and more unsettling for mainstream Republicans, who the Tea-Baggers thought they were fighting.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

This is a politician who is no stranger himself to the wilder shores of extremism, a populist and a purist who rose to great power against the GOP establishment, and a demagogue whose lexicon lacerated the "Democrat Party" as decadent, elitist, unpatriotic and immoral.

In his day, Gingrich channeled the same phobias and fury as the Tea Party activists whose growing influence in Republican ranks seems to have shaken him so badly. Why is Newt scared now?

Despite his habitual ranting against the Eastern elites, the former House speaker is a professional historian and an intellectual with wide-ranging interests -- making him a figure of potential suspicion to radio talkers without much formal education and the raving mobs that follow them.

Much as he exploited the prejudices of the religious right and fantasies of the conspiracy crowd, Gingrich has always affected a more sophisticated and urbane attitude. He may be troubled to realize that he suddenly ranks far lower than Sarah Palin, who can barely muster a coherent political thought, or Glenn Beck, who enthralls his audience with weird, weepy rants.

Leaving aside any lingering presidential ambitions, Gingrich understandably feels that brand of leadership will have a very limited appeal for most Americans -- and that the more voters see of it, the less they will like it.

Is it fair to stigmatize the tea-baggers and their leaders as a movement of the fringe? In New York's 23rd congressional district, Douglas Hoffman, the right-wing carpetbagger who drove out moderate local Republican Dede Scozzafava, apprenticed himself to Beck, obsequiously flattering the Fox News host as his "mentor."

Hoffman signed a pledge to uphold the "912 principles and values" endorsed by Beck -- a juvenile tract that demands honesty, thrift, humility and charity even as it complains that government forces citizens to "share" when they don't want to. (As far as Beck is concerned, all Democrats are "Marxist" and almost all Republicans are "Marxist lite.")

No doubt Hoffman is eagerly studying the collected writings of the late Cleon Skousen, the Beck-endorsed prophet whose speeches used to stir up meetings of the John Birch Society, mostly against Republicans of the Rockefeller and Kissinger variety. He has plenty of time for reading now, after losing the special election to Democrat Bill Owens.

If the revival of Birchite mania troubles Gingrich, then the Palin phenomenon, now breaking loose with the publication of her memoir, must be equally disturbing. The former Alaska governor has a long, Beck-like history of affiliation with bizarre causes and characters, including an Alaskan secessionist party and a Kenyan witch-hunting evangelist who conducted an exorcism rite in her Wasilla church. She will ignore or minimize those episodes in "Going Rogue," but putting extra lipstick on this pit bull may not help.

Most Americans don't know much yet about the idiosyncratic ideology of the Tea Party crowd, beyond their conviction that President Obama was born in Kenya (and that his birth announcement in the Hawaii newspapers is therefore part of a plot that dates back to the Kennedy era). But what they have seen so far, they don't seem to like: The more that Beck, Palin and kindred spirits appear to represent the Republican brand, the less appeal that brand possesses.

From the perspective of Gingrich and other veteran Republicans, there is deep irony in these untoward developments. Many of the Tea Party types actually hate Republican politicians, unless, like Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater, they are already dead. They hate Democrats, too, of course -- and lots of other people -- but their invective against Republicans is suffused with special outrage.

If they have their way, every Republican who doesn't adhere to the Beck canon will be driven out at the end of a pitchfork, just like poor Dede Scozzafava.

Fifteen years ago, when Newt rode to power on the resentments of the religious right, the gun lobby and the economic royalists, he celebrated their extremism as the political style of "normal Americans." Today when he hears the violent rhetoric, the hateful threats and the fanatical intolerance, he knows they are talking about him, too.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

In a special House election in upstate New York, a Conservative Party candidate, backed by Sarah Palin, took on a moderate Republican whom his supporters called a "radical leftist," forced her to withdraw and then lost to the Democrat. It's entirely possible that in the Senate, not a single Republican will vote for an administration-supported health insurance overhaul.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., laments that "it makes news when Democrats and Republicans do something of substance together and that truly is a shame." From cable TV news channels, you get the impression of a country not so much politically divided as verging on civil war.

Here's a solution to that problem: Stop watching cable TV news channels and listening to politicians. Using them as a gauge of how divided we are is like using the National Hockey League to estimate the level of violence in America.

Most Americans aren't rabid liberals or fanatical conservatives. Gallup recently found that more people call themselves conservative than liberal or moderate. But other polls contradict it. According to a 2008 survey by the National Opinion Research Center, when you give them more options -- extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative or extremely conservative -- you find that the largest ideological group is moderates, with 37.3 percent compared to 34.5 percent for the three conservative groups combined.

Add up the moderates and those who are only slightly liberal or slightly conservative and those who don't know -- those clustered in the middle of the road -- and you've got about two-thirds of the citizenry. As political scientists Morris Fiorina of Stanford's Hoover Institution and Samuel Abrams of Harvard put it, "the American electorate in 2008 is much better described as centrist than polarized."

Moreover, they note in a forthcoming paper, the public is not getting more polarized. "In terms of their ideological orientations," they note, "the American electorate looks about the same as it did when Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Republican Jerry Ford in the not very polarized 1976 election" -- Carter being conservative by Democratic standards and Ford moderate by GOP standards of the day.

So why does everything feel so bitterly divided? One reason is that the elected officials of the two major parties have definitely gotten more ideologically uniform. A generation ago, we had liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, two species that are nearly extinct. In 1965, half of House Republicans voted in favor of creating Medicare. No such mass crossover this time.

Among ordinary people who identify with one party or the other, however, there is far more diversity of views than among either party's leaders. Gun owners and evangelical Christians are supposed to be repelled by elitist liberal Democrats, but Fiorina and Abrams report that nearly 40 percent of gun owners voted for Obama, along with more than a quarter of white evangelical Protestants. Though Republicans are the anti-abortion party, one-third of Democrats are closer to the GOP position than to that of their own party.

Strictly ideological parties mean most people have little choice but to vote for ideologues. Faced with a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican, write Abrams and Fiorina, voters "tend to vote for the candidate on their side of the spectrum, although they might well have preferred more moderate choices."

Another reason for the acidic climate is the rise of cable TV networks that thrive by taking ideological sides, day in and day out. Twenty years ago, they didn't exist. Today, watching Fox News, you get the impression that huge numbers of Americans regard Obama as a Stalinist. Switch on MSNBC, and you would assume that most people want Dick Cheney sent to Guantanamo.

You would be mistaken. Fox News averages just 2.6 million viewers on a typical weeknight, or less than 1 percent of Americans. MSNBC does even worse, with 831,000 per night. The three major network newscasts, which offer less overt bias, pull in a combined total of more than 20 million viewers each evening.

The average American citizen, contrary to myth, is neither very angry, nor very far to the left or the right, nor inclined to treat anyone with different opinions as a mortal enemy. In a cluttered media environment, the most extreme voices tend to attract so much attention that it's easy to forget something important: Most people aren't listening.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Gay-marriage advocates are bitterly disappointed. They spent three years building an organization to push gay marriage in Maine. They had every major newspaper and most other media on their side, as well as the political establishment -- the governor, the attorney general, the head of the schools. They were awash in money, out-fundraising pro-marriage advocates by more than 50 percent. (Full disclosure: The National Organization for Marriage contributed $1.8 million to the Yes on One campaign -- or more than half the campaign budget.)

Gay-marriage advocates in Maine had the benefit of learning from California. They ran the kind of campaign critics claim would have won Proposition 8: No on One ads featured happy gay families, and rebuttal ads to Yes on One claims came quickly. There are not very many Mormons in Maine, or black people, either, so they cannot blame this loss on either minority group. Maine is a deep blue state, socially liberal and relatively secular, and close to Massachusetts, where people have presumably learned "the sky doesn't fall" after gay marriage becomes law.

And yet people in Maine in a free and fair election decisively rejected gay marriage by an even bigger margin than in California.

Here's the first thing this victory means: The $4 million spent to pass gay marriage in Maine was wasted. Even Americans in liberal states do not believe that two guys pledged to a gay union are a marriage. Politicians can pass a bill saying a chicken is a duck and that doesn't make it true. Truth matters.

Americans have a great deal of goodwill toward gay people as friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. Most of us do not want to hurt them or hate them or interfere with anyone's legitimate rights to live as they choose. But we do not believe gay marriage is a civil right; we think it is a civil wrong. And we do not appreciate the increasingly intense efforts to punish people who disagree with gay marriage as if we were racists, bigots, discriminators or haters.

Case in point: Don Mendell, a school guidance counselor at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine, now faces ethics complaints for his decision to appear in a TV ad for the Yes on One campaign in the closing days of the contest. If substantiated, the ethics complaint could lead the government to yank his license as a social worker and, therefore, threaten his livelihood. What kind of movement spurs people to act like this? Meanwhile, a teacher of the year who campaigned for gay marriage faces no such threat to her livelihood. Is gay marriage really about love and tolerance for all?

The people of Maine are certainly entitled to wonder.

Over in New York, the collapse of Dede Scozzafava is another big story. Scozzafava was handpicked to become the first openly pro-gay marriage Republican in a district where the vast majority of Republicans and independents (and even a big chunk of Democrats) oppose gay marriage.

A National Organization of marriage poll of likely voters in New York's 23rd Congressional District revealed that fully 50 percent of her opponent's supporters said that Scozzafava's vote for gay marriage was a factor in their decision not to support her.

NOM spent more than $100,000 sending 160,000 pieces of mail to voters who oppose gay marriage, and it also made more than 250,000 automated and live calls to make sure these voters knew that Scozzafava voted for gay marriage. Executive director Brian Brown has his own take on what happened in the 23rd district:

"This should be a wake-up call to GOP politicians who think they can play clever insider games and cut special deals on the marriage issue: It's not going to work. The voters are not on your side."

Indeed.

Maggie Gallagher is president of the National Organization for Marriage and has been a syndicated columnist for 14 years.

For Americans, our relationship with Germany is rooted in our commitment to freedom and democracy. And certainly, the new government that the minister represents exemplifies that. This time is a reminder of the values that we share and that we will use to chart a new future together: democracy, tolerance, human rights, the pursuit of a peaceful and prosperous future for our people and for all people.

This is the foundation of such a strong partnership, and we will, through our own efforts, try to deepen and broaden that partnership, because the challenges that we face today are not the challenges that our parents and grandfathers faced and that we will celebrate the end of in Berlin on Monday. They are new challenges which come to every generation, from rebuilding the global economy, combating climate change, understanding and combating violent extremism, curbing nuclear proliferation. This all demands the kind of international cooperation that the United States and Germany must provide, not only for each of us in our bilateral relationship, but within Europe and globally as well.

So we discussed a very broad array of issues. And I want to express publicly our appreciation and the honor that we show toward the German soldiers who are working to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan. Their sacrifice is deeply respected and honored by Americans. And we appreciate also the generous support that Germany has provided Pakistan to help the Pakistanis improve health and education, encourage energy efficiency and responsible governance, and assist people who are displaced by the current conflict.

The United States is also grateful for Germany's participation and leadership in the P-5+1 and the E-3+3 processes to ensure Iran's full compliance with UN Security Council resolutions and IAEA directives on its nuclear program. We are speaking with one voice on this critical issue, and it is a voice that is amplified by our friends from Britain and France, from Russia, China and the European Union. We are pressing Iran together in our support of the recent proposal to provide new fuel for the Tehran research reactor in exchange for Iran shipping out its low-enriched uranium. We both support the IAEA's efforts to inspect the recently disclosed uranium enrichment facility near Qom. And we both remain ready, along with our partners, to meet with Iranian representatives to discuss further steps to build confidence and transparency in its nuclear program. As I have said, this is a pivotal moment for Iran, and we urge Iran to accept the agreement as proposed. We will not alter it, and we will not wait forever.

The United States and Germany are also working together to forge a strong international agreement to combat climate change. We applaud Germany's efforts in transitioning toward a clean energy future, and we appreciate and admire its leadership. With one month to go before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, it is absolutely imperative that we work together. And as Chancellor Merkel said in her important address to Congress last week, the only way we are going to meet the challenges of the 21st century, the only way we are going to tear down the walls of today, is by working together as partners.

So I am looking forward to continuing these discussions. It is wonderful to welcome you, Guido, here to Washington, and --

FOREIGN MINISTER WESTERWELLE: Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: -- I am delighted that I will see you again very soon in Berlin.

FOREIGN MINISTER WESTERWELLE: (Via interpreter) Ladies and gentlemen, I was delighted about the very warm welcome I received on my introductory visit here to Washington and my counterpart. The fact that I traveled to Washington, to the United States right after taking on my tenure as foreign minister, is meant to underline the great friendship existing between the peoples of both our countries, and the fact that we intend to continue that partnership and cordial relationship and friendship between both our countries.

These days, especially, we think back with gratitude as Germans for what the Americans did to ensure our freedom, our reunification, and the unity of Europe. In many of the international issues that we discussed during our meeting today, we noticed a high degree of agreement.

On the Afghanistan issue, the policy that we pursue towards Afghanistan, we noticed high agreement. We both believe that, on the one hand, our commitment goes towards the freedom and peace in the country and the region; but at the same time, we also have certain expectations from the reconfirmed Government of Afghanistan with respect to good governance. And here again, we want them to pursue a policy that not only accepts and acknowledges certain irregularities in the country but does its best to do away with them. And in order to be successful in that endeavor of ours, our intention is to cooperate and consult very closely.

I again strongly underline the point that the peace policy and the disarmament policy pursued by the American Administration, from the German viewpoint, is not only a very good path to pursue, but that we want to do whatever we can not only to accompany it with words but also with deeds. But it's, of course, quite clear, very clear indeed, that we intend to do so in close consultation together with our allies and partners.

And of course, today in our exchanges we also talked about an issue that affects both our countries, and that is being intensively debated in Germany right now. And again, the American Secretary of State made it very clear and strongly underlined the fact that the decision taken by General Motors was a decision taken without any political influence having been exerted beforehand by the American Administration, and that is - indeed it's very good news to receive.

But for the German Government, it's equally clear that, on the one hand, we have to make sure that as few jobs in Germany are being lost as possible; and at the same time, we place great value on the fact that the funds that we've provided to General Motors are being paid back, because we are talking about funds here that have been provided by the German taxpayer and thus the German taxpayer wants that money to be paid back. And I thank you very much for the understanding that you showed on that issue.

And generally speaking, we got off on a very good start not only politically speaking but also on a personal note. Thus, I am looking forward to receiving you very soon, Madame Secretary, Sunday evening, that is, and then again on Monday in Berlin. I will have the honor and the pleasure of being your host then and returning your hospitality, and we will have a chance to continue the discussions of today. Thus, our cooperation has got off on a very good start. We intend to make sure that it continues in that very same vein. We will focus very much on continuing to cooperate very closely between both our governments and both our people. I am looking forward to that.

MR. KELLY: Thank you. We'll take a few questions. The first question to Nick Kralev, Washington Times.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Hi, Nick. How are you?

QUESTION: I am well. How are you?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Good, thank you.

QUESTION: Welcome back.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I wanted to ask you for updates on two issues that have to do with Iran. The first one is the hikers with whose families you just met today. If you can tell us what you heard, what you told them, and what's the course from here.

And the second on the negotiations in the P-5+1 group, you say, on one hand, that you want to work this out diplomatically, you want to keep negotiating; but on the other hand, you are saying that the proposal as it is, it's not up for discussion. So what is to negotiate, and how do you reconcile those two things? And perhaps the minister would like to comment on the Iran question, too.

Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first let me say that earlier today I met with the families of the three American hikers who are detained in Iran. These three young people are obviously not only on the minds of their family members but on the minds of all of us. It was an emotional meeting, and I described to the families everything that we are doing. I was impressed by their strength and fortitude and their commitment. They are determined, as we are, to see these young people return home.

As a mother, my heart went out to all of them. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to know that your child was imprisoned for now a hundred days with very little contact between you and them. I told them we were doing everything we possibly could to get Shane and Joshua and Sarah home, and we are exploring every angle. Obviously, I would hope that the Government of Iran would free them on a humanitarian and compassionate basis as soon as possible and return them home to their families.

On the second issue, we have a unified position that we have presented to the Iranians. That position is clear. It was agreed to originally in principle by the Iranians. There were, of course, questions that they were asking about the details that stood behind the agreement, which both the IAEA and our experts have been answering. But the terms of the agreement, the heart of the agreement, is not and will not be altered. And that is why we continue to call on the Iranian Government to go ahead and accept this agreement and begin to implement it, which we think is in the best interests of the Iranians as well as the rest of the world.

And finally, the point to make is that this offer has been made in good faith. We have worked hard to make sure that there was no misunderstanding about the offer. And we continue to hope that the Iranians will accept it, but our patience is not unlimited.

FOREIGN MINISTER WESTERWELLE: (Via interpreter) Allow me to begin by expressing my solidarity with the three young people affected and their families and relatives.

With respect to our Iran policy, I can only strongly underline what was just said by the American Secretary of State. We're pursuing a dual-track approach. On the one hand, we are ready to enter into a dialogue, to pursue that dialogue, to have negotiations, to talk to the Iranians, and the international community has expressed that readiness on several occasions.

On the one hand - on the other hand, it's equally clear that our patience is not endless. We very much hope that our offer to pursue a dialogue is accepted, but we also want to see good results. The federal chancellor has been very clear, unequivocal, in the speech she delivered to the two houses of Congress earlier this week. And I can only underline what she said in that speech, speaking as the federal foreign minister of Germany: This is the position of the Federal Republic of Germany.

MR. KELLY: Next question for Reinald Becker from ARD.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter) A question addressed to both secretaries, both ministers, a question with respect to General Motors and Opel, the recent decision taken by General Motors. Did you agree today that you would bring your influence to bear with respect to General Motors; that is to say, take up the issue with those responsible at General Motors and point out the situation that is the consequence of this decision in Germany?

FOREIGN MINISTER WESTERWELLE: (Via interpreter) The American Secretary of State showed great understanding for the position that I presented and to the clear words that I found earlier today. Now, as to any further steps that might be taken, these will be steps to be taken by those politicians responsible in our government. As far as the German side is concerned, it will be our economics minister who would have to and will be ready to take the respective steps.

MR. KELLY: Question for Desmond Butler from AP.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, are you concerned about Mahmoud Abbas's announcement that he is not interested in running for reelection and that it's come so quickly after your trip? Did it surprise you, and will you try and persuade him otherwise?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we have tremendous respect for President Abbas and the leadership that he has offered the Palestinian people for decades. I just saw him on Saturday. George Mitchell saw him on Monday. In each of those conversations, he described in great detail the challenges that he faces, and we talked about his own political future. He reiterated his personal commitment to do whatever he can to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that he's actually been working on since 1972.

And I agree with him; I think it is the only way for the Palestinian people to fulfill their own aspirations, for Israel to have the kind of security that it deserves. And I look forward to working with President Abbas in any new capacity in order to help achieve this goal.

MR. KELLY: And the last question from Peter Carstens from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter) A question addressed to both of you: What are your expectations of the upcoming Afghanistan conference at the beginning of next year?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we discussed this at length, and we have a very strong sense of agreement about what we would like to see going forward with the newly elected government. We have been both committed to the people of Afghanistan and to the institutions of their government to carry out a constitutional electoral process.

Now that it is over, it is time for us to begin working together and with our other partners in the international community, as well as with the government and people of Afghanistan, to reach understandings of the kinds of commitments that will be made to the people of Afghanistan, to look for ways we can measure those commitments going forward, and then to make explicit what the international community would be expecting.

I think that the minister and I see eye to eye on this, and we will be working together. I am sure we will talk about it again in Berlin because we want to enlist our counterparts as well as others in making it very clear that there is an opportunity now for President Karzai and his government to really engage on all of the issues, from corruption and transparency, to the rule of law, to good governance, to the delivery of services that the people of Afghanistan are looking for.

FOREIGN MINISTER WESTERWELLE: (Via interpreter) What is important is that we develop our strategy together in close consultation. And this is what we agreed upon today, that we will be in close consultation on the strategic issues. And if I speak of close or when I speak of close consultation, I'm not only thinking of the United States of America and Germany, but I think of the international community as a whole, because I believe that the international community indeed does a very important - have a very important responsibility to bear with respect to freedom and the rule of law in Afghanistan.

And this is why we will continue to talk about and to discuss on the questions that are to do with the expectations that we have of the Afghan Government and the work that they need to do on the domestic front, but I think it is far too early a point in time to give any further details here now. The frame and conditions have already been mentioned earlier in our statement.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you all very much.

FOREIGN MINISTER WESTERWELLE: Thank you very much.