And then there's eating time and sleeping time.

But it seems like there have recently been enough dumb statements to fill the rest of the day with those fits you're talking about.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

I, too, try not to throw a fit when some Democrat says something stupid, but Daschle was not supposed to be an ass. But gotta say, Obama is really starting to piss me off with this cultlike obsession with "bipartisan". He tried it, didn't work, now give it up already.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

Bipartisanship erodes democracy. When I go to the polls and make my choice between the available alternatives -- which are already meager by the standard of more modern democracies -- I don't want the turkey I voted for to turn around and adopt the positions of the candidates I voted against. It's a betrayal, not a virtue, no matter what the punditocracy may think.

Where did we get the idea that the only good health-care bill is a bipartisan bill? Is bipartisanship more important than whether a proposal is practical and effective? And if bipartisanship is a legitimate goal, isn't each party equally responsible for achieving it?

Almost sounds as if he were addressing a certain fellow WaPo columnist, doesn't it?

Continuing:

[M]ost Republicans want to take themselves out of the health-care discussion altogether. For reasons of principle as well as politics, they want to rail against the costs of government action and assert -- against what I would insist is overwhelming evidence -- that somehow we can find a way for the market to solve our health-care problems.

Republicans have every right to do this. But they can't refuse to play the game and then go on to condemn Obama and the Democrats for being insufficiently bipartisan.

It's one thing to compromise to pick up votes, which, one hopes, is what Baucus is doing. It's another to compromise in exchange for nothing at all. The first is bipartisanship with a purpose. The second is the bipartisanship of fools.

Thank you.

"Yes, mam."

"I'm going to be absolutely clear with you. I want a health care plan -- not insurance -- my husband and I can afford that covers everything that is wrong with us and could go wrong with us. Give me a public option!"

"Yes, mam, I'm marking your position down. We're keeping a tally. Thank you for calling."