What a week, huh? For me as well, since it included a redeye flight across the country, only to be sitting in my office less than an hour off the plane.

Anyway, wanted to start this off with a little anecdote from the New York Times. In the Week in Review section:

"A new insurance industry study found that bans on use of handheld cellphones while driving had made no difference in accident rates.

Researchers said they were puzzled, since it was clear that using a handheld phone while at the wheel increases accident risk and that the bans sharply reduce use of the phones. "We would expect to see a decrease in crashes," said Adrian Lund of the highway Loss Data Institute. "But we aren't seeing it."

Amazingly, the last sentence of the blurb notes that one theory is the "hands-free phones...may be just as distracting as the handheld kind.

Ya think? Seriously, it is somewhat amazing that this hasn't become part of this debate at all. Many cities (and the entire state of Washington) have banned talking or texting on cellphones while driving. None have admitted that the distraction is your mind being focused on the phone conversation, not holding the phone to your ear. If that were the case, we'd have to ban stick-shift cars too.

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To a review of the week. You all know that the president gave his State of the Union on Wednesday. It honestly doesn't nearly matchup with his visit to the House Republican's retreat in Baltimore on Friday. (By the way, how did the House GOP get so screwed that they only went to Baltimore, while the rest of the party is in Hawaii right now?)

With the State of the Union, comes to the opposition response, given this year by newly-elected Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. I did not watch it, but from what I have heard, there were two people sitting behind him, one a woman who made a big deal about having worked in the Attorneys General office in Virginia, where McDonnell was prior to becoming governor. Interestingly, word is she wasn't there while he was, notable only because of McDonnell's express opposition to women in the workplace. Notable only, however, and not relevant to his response.

What is relevant is how clear it was that the writers didn't read President Obama's speech. Specifically on energy, McDonnell ripped the president, saying that, "this Administration's policies are delaying offshore production, hindering nuclear energy expansion, and seeking to impose job-killing cap and trade energy taxes."

Well, no, that isn't all true. It isn't this administration's policies at all that have limited drilling and nuclear energy expansion and both were mentioned as necessary by the president in his speech. And there is no need to get into the cap-and-trade issue, given that there are simply differences in opinion on the ability of clean energy to create jobs. That said, Gov. McDonnell may want to glance at the front page of this morning's New York Times, where a story mentions over one million jobs in clean energy in China already. As Obama said, and the story notes, China is winning this race because the U.S. refuses to invest at the needed clip. Critics and supporters of other options, such as nuclear energy, will say these are subsidized too much, but ignore two things: a) the importance of energy to the country as a whole and the number of people employed in the industry, which is subsidized much like agriculture is, because it is that important and b) the fact the any subsidy directed toward nuclear energy would, at least in the near term, far outstrip that of the clean energy industry. Put simply, nuclear energy is incredibly expensive upfront, while also being based on a finite resource and still relatively unsafe. That said, both people are right here, with improvements, nuclear is the best option for any country right now.

On health care, again, both sides have a point. The overwhelming theme of the responses I got after asking for people's opinion on this legislation was that Congress should take up smaller reforms, that they can agree on, and not over-reaching across-the-board reform. Admittedly, I sit somewhere on the fence about this.

Here's the deal. I agree with what many Democrats are saying about this: it is very hard to do "small things", given that many of these reforms are tied to one another. The best way I could explain it is through another issue, that of Affirmative Action, which many of you know I think fails at it's goal, not because of the actually policy itself, but because it is not coupled with reforms in education at lower levels that make minorities more qualified candidates for higher educations and employment. It sets these people up to fail.

To a point that Adam made, part of the original plan, before it hit the U.S. Senate, also known as the most dysfunctional deliberative body in the world, was to help efficiency in hospitals that would cut costs dramatically. Here's the thing about that: politicians can't really do that. The ones who are doctors would readily admit that they aren't necessarily sure where to make cuts or what tests are and are not needed, things of that nature, that would cut costs. Somehow they would have to provide a way for hospitals to do that, and honestly that is done very well through insurance companies and HMO's. Two groups very much uninterested in reform. Your point is well taken though, Adam, the difficulty in working through the contentious issues is detrimental in that it makes agreeable reforms impossible when done as a whole.

Here's where this all gets stuck, something the president explained very well on Friday in Baltimore.

"...but if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America.

And I would just say that we have to think about tone. It's not just on your side, by the way -- it's on our side, as well. This is part of what's happened in our politics, where we demonize the other side so much that when it comes to actually getting things done, it becomes tough to do."

Granted, I haven't been alive for a long time, but I'd say he is right. In James Carville's book 40 More Years, about the new Democratic majorities in the electorate, he cites a study that says true independents are waning. Some of you may disagree with this and cite the Massachusetts race as an example. You'd be wrong. It was independents that won the race for Scott Brown, it was the lack of Democratic voters for a truly uninspiring candidate that mocked standing outside of Fenway Park. She deserved to lose.

What this means is that our politics, like our electorate is more polarized. Now, let me say something wholly contradictory to that: I think there are more moderates. The reason I think there are more moderates is that our politics are so polarized. In today's world, I am a moderate. Despite that, I vote almost exclusively Democrat, so on a whole I would never be considered an "independent". Nor would I consider myself one. And the president is exactly right about this, by portraying anything the administration does as apocalyptic for the country, Republicans leave themselves very little room to negotiate with the White House on anything it might get credit for. Winning is more important than policy. This shouldn't be shocking, just disappointing.

What do we do? I honestly am not really sure. It is seemingly up to Democrats to figure it out and Harry Reid to grow a pair. On the other hand, if, as president Obama suggests, we can tone down the rhetoric just a little and some Republicans can step up to the plate, even privately (as reportedly some have done), we could get something meaningful done. On health care, it need not be sweeping, but a framework. Just about every major bill like this was a framework of ideas, some that worked and were kept, many others that didn't and were scrapped. These are risks that must be taken. Energy is another beast, given that the technologies are there and there just needs to be a larger argument about jobs and national security, instead of about global warming (it snowed in DC again this weekend). But, that's enviros and that's another story.

It sounds fantastically optimistic, but what else is that? In Thomas Freidman's column today, he wrote that many business leaders are referring to the "Beijing Consensus" instead of the once-said "Washington Consensus". The point was that the U.S. is a wildcard now, where it used to be a stabilizer and a leader. China, on the other hand, seems poised to continue growing outside of turmoil. If a president is elected with an overwhelming mandate, has majority in both chambers of Congress, but can't get his signature legislation passed, what does America stand for? No one knows anymore. That is a scary thought, but also gives weight to the need for optimism and for even harder work in Washington. Like or not, politics run this country. James Carville said this morning that you cannot take the politics out of Washington. But you can make them better and make them work. Right now they have to.

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Links:

• Breaking as I wrote this was news that President Obama would seek changes in the No Child Left Behind Act.
• The Times did a profile of James O'Keefe and his accomplices in New Orleans. Two parts stood out to me, both racial. Apparently one group tied to O'Keefe posed as donors to Planned Parenthood, requesting that the money only be used for the abortion of black babies. Not sure if that is "conservatism" or white extremism. Either way, it brought me back to some recent comments by the Lt. Governor of South Carolina, who said basically said the poor shouldn't be given handouts, much like animals shouldn't, because they would just come back for more and never get it themselves. Given that he wasn't making a wholly invalid point, probably the story about giving the fish and teaching how to fish would've been a better angle there. But, it's South Carolina. If you're genuinely interested in my take on welfare, I'd be wide open to writing a post about it.
• This is sure to become more major in the days to come, but Scott Brown says abortion is, "between a woman and her doctor." This continues with the argument about moderates - bet he votes all Republican.
• I think I linked this before, but it is appropriate given the post I just wrote and how it ended. Arianna Huffington (creator of the Huffington Post) writes about "Hope 2.0", where American citizens react to the government saying there aren't votes for legislation by finding them. Just like Martin Luther King, Jr. did for LBJ.
• Huffington has a weekly wrapup, with the little note that Fox News cut away from President Obama's session in Baltimore. Washington was glued to whatever screen they were watching during that, but Fox didn't see the need to continue showing it. This especially irks me because of the way pundits on the channel are always blaming the mainstream media (MSM) for bad coverage of things. Well, this was unedited, unfiltered back and forth between the president and the opposing party. There is no better version of the democratic process than that. Oh, and by the way, Fox News is the highest-rated basic cable channel in primetime. Not sure how they aren't "mainstream media".
  
  
• I don't want it to seem like I'm just tallying this up, but 13 more people were killed at a party in Juarez, Mexico today. This is the same city that had more than 2,000 murders last year. Every story is just mind-numbing. Also, I wanted to bring this story to your attention, about forgotten war in the Congo.

On a lighter note, Taylor Swift just won a grammy for best country album. Later.