Good morning, Capitolists! Tom Delay shook what his mama gave him last night on "Dancing With the Stars," and frankly, we're still in shock from the awe of it all. In addition to Delay's star turn, here is what else people are talking about in Washington today.
Here's what's making news in your nation's capital:
* As if reforming one-sixth of the economy weren't enough for President Obama to focus on, he tackles world peace today with a tri-lateral meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and himself at the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York.
* The Senate Finance Committee starts debating Max Baucus' version of health care reform today. (That's the one without the public option, but with the 35 percent "excise tax" on high-end insurance plans.) Senators have filed more than 500 amendments to the bill, with Republicans looking to scale back the taxes and benefits and at least three Democrats trying to add the public plan back in. Good luck with that, Baucus!
* The day after a Pentagon memo leaked with Gen. Stanley McChrystal's dire warnings that more troops are needed in Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that White House officials have asked the general to delay his official request for more troops to give civilian officials more time to revise the war strategy. The process leaves Obama between his Democratic base, which wants no escalation, and generals who say escalation is the only path to success.
* The House will vote today to extend unemployment benefits to job seekers for another 13 weeks in states where unemployment is higher than 8.5 percent. The Hill writes that it's the first of several pieces of the $787 billion stimulus to go past the original stop date.
* Leave it to the New York Post to sum up the awkward tarmac tango yesterday between Obama and the man he's trying to shove out of the New York governor's mansion, David Paterson. As Paterson met the president upon landing in New York for an education event, the Post writes, "Bam embraces Gov -- and all that's missing is the knife in his hand."
* And finally, in case you missed Tom Delay's lip-synching, air-guitaring, four-way-stretch-wearing rendition of "Wild Thing":





