Uber-Democratic donor Hassan Nemazee’s legal woes are multiplying. As you may recall, the day after Nemazee was confronted by the FBI last month about his alleged $74 million fraud of Citibank, he repaid his outstanding obligation to the bank in full. But now prosecutors allege that Nemazee defrauded another bank to obtain the money to repay Citibank.

Tom Daschle: If the choice is between “complete legislative failure” of health care reform and bypassing Republicans through reconciliation, it’s a no-brainer. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

If the sketchy initial reports are accurate, a pro-reform demonstrator bit off the finger of an anti-reform protester after a scuffle at a rally last night in California.

From EJ Dionne …

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?

There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television’s point of view “boring”) encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.

…

Over the past week, I’ve spoken with Democratic House members, most from highly contested districts, about what happened in their town halls. None would deny polls showing that the health-reform cause lost ground last month, but little of the probing civility that characterized so many of their forums was ever seen on television.

“I think the media coverage has done a disservice by falling for a trick that you’d think experienced media hands wouldn’t fall for: of allowing loud voices to distort the debate,” said Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, whose district includes Columbus, Ohio.

There’s a backdraft of chatter about the fact that the president’s joint address to Congress next week will come uncomfortably close to the anniversary of the speech President Clinton gave at the same lectern on the same subject in September of 1993. But it’s worth remembering just what happened in 1994.

First it is important to remember how much of what happened in 1994 had little to do with the health care debacle. The pre-1994 Democratic majority was heavily represented by long-term incumbents from what had over time become heavily Republican states and districts. Incumbency masked the vulnerability. But so did the fact that the Democratic Congress had gone so long without having to face those inherently skeptical electorates when a Democratic president, with big plans, was in office. That configuration was bound to create cross-cutting wave that would sweep away many of those office-holders. For all the myriad factors that went into that disastrous mid-term, and there were many, I’ve always thought these were the key factors.

Still though, the health care debacle, coming just before the election (really catastrophic timing) played a big role. So why? Read More

At True/Slant, Ryan Sager has a very apt post noting that the real and overwhelming factor behind President Obama’s sagging approval ratings is the economy. What I’d been wondering though was why the White House was not moving more aggressively to convince voters that the early signs of a stabilizing and rebounding economy are due in large measure to the Stimulus Bill President Obama pushed through just after he was elected. But it appears they’re kicking that into gear. Today, Vice President Biden and cabinet secretaries Vilsack, LaHood and Salazar are each giving speeches on the Stimulus. Read More

From TPM Reader PB …

The administration needs to not only make the affirmative case for the stimulus, but to remind voters of what the alternative might have been. If McCain had gotten elected and somehow managed to get his agenda enacted (remember he was calling for a government spending freeze) we would not be talking about a recovery from a bad recession, we would be in the throes of a very deep depression.

Biden on health care: We’re “gonna get something substantial” on health care reform. But “it’s going to be an awful lot of screaming and hollering before we get there.”

Jon Taplin sees hints that Joe Biden may not be fully on board on our Afghanistan policy.

We just talked to an eyewitness to the rapidly becoming notorious finger-biting incident at the health care rally in California last night. According to the eyewitness the anti-health care reform guy punched the reformer in the face before having the reformer bite off his finger.

And in a crowning bit of poetic justice (moral victory?) for the reformers, the anti- guy had his finger reattached under Medicare.