Senate Body Snatchers

Judd Gregg, who agreed to become Obama's Commerce Secretary until someone reminded him he was a Republican, set off a round of name-dropping in the Senate debate on health care today.

“This is a greased slide to single-payer," he said of the Democrats' proposal. "It’s not about the issue of care. It’s not about the issue of coverage. It’s more about the issue of control...What it is about really is centralizing control right here amongst folks who think they really know how to run something from a central system.”

Gregg, who has had trouble running his own career, was admonished by Sen. Barbara Mikulski: "Well...This bill has just been accused of being somehow or another a combination between Rube Goldberg and Karl Marx. However, our current system is a combination of Adam Smith, Darth Vader and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. So I like our plan the better."

Chris Dodd joined in, asking "“Do I look like a body snatcher?” and, looking over at Gregg, said, “Don’t answer that question, Judd.”

Hilarity aside, the next time Obama wants a Republican cadaver for his Cabinet, the diggers should check for brain damage first.

Warren Buffet Shows the Way

While Chris Dodd et al in Congress arm-wrestle with Henry Paulson on how to invest taxpayer money to rescue the financial system, the 78-year-old sage of Omaha is putting $5 billion into saving Goldman Sachs and getting a nice deal for the money, preferred shares and a 10 percent annual dividend, thank you very much.

Wall Street, which respects Buffet in the extreme, will undoubtedly be buoyed by his move on the theory that the master investor, unlike the bipartisan bumblers in Washington, knows what he's doing and is taking action rather than debating about it.

It might settle the impasse if the government could persuade Buffet, who has more money than he will ever need and plans to leave most of it to charity, to come to Washington and help oversee the $700 billion portfolio that taxpayers are being urged to acquire.

That would inspire confidence well beyond Wall Street.

Bedford Falls in D.C.

In the era of Bush, Cheney and broken government, just in time for reruns of "It's a Wonderful Life," we get a Capraesque moment. After three decades in the Senate, Chris Dodd doesn't look much like Jimmy Stewart, but for the time being, he has saved the savings and loan or, in view of his filibuster threat, is it the boy's camp from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?"

Until after the holidays, at least, the Senate won't be giving telecoms retroactive immunity for illegal spying on Americans. The Majority leader (if you use the word loosely) was ready to Christmas-wrap that gift for the Bush Administration until a few Bill of Rights Scrooges started talking about traditional American values.

“Today," Sen. Dodd said of Harry Reid's decision to put off the vote on the FISA bill, "we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy.”

Before we get all misty-eyed, start re-reading "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus" and sending checks to Dodd for President, it might help to ponder how far we have come from the innocence and hope of those old Capra movies.

But it's good to be reminded that the spirit of Jimmy Stewart still lives in Washington, even if embodied in a white-haired Presidential candidate who is polling in the single digits.

The Senate's Tower of Jello

Harry Reid is once again showing the leadership that gave us a year of bickering and frustration over getting out of Iraq with nothing to show for it.

Today, as Chris Dodd fights retroactive immunity for telecoms on illegal wiretapping and threatens a filibuster, the Senate Majority leader is taking the bold step of offering versions of a bill with and without it.

“I have determined that in this situation," it would be wrong of me to simply choose one committee’s bill over the other," Reid said, referring to the conflicting versions presented by the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.

To accomplish this, Reid took the unusual step of overriding Dodd's "hold" on the bill with immunity to keep it from coming to a vote.

"Providing retroactive immunity to companies that may have violated the law will set a dangerous precedent,” said Dodd. “Companies who violated the trust of thousands of their customers will be immune to prosecution and the details of their actions will stay hidden.

"The President, and his Administration, has consistently used scare tactics in an attempt to force Congress to pass FISA legislation that provides retroactive immunity."

The Democratic Senate leader is acting as his helper on the issue.