While the passage of a healthcare reform bill through Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee is the big news today, the even bigger news is that Republican Senator Olympia Snowe voted for it, the only Republican so far to cross the aisle in support of Democratic efforts to pass a bill this year. While Snowe warned today that just because she's voting "yea" today, she might not do so on the final bill, depending on what it looks like. While this may not even matter in terms of getting a bill through, Snowe will now be known as Senator Bipartisan, since with her vote the claim can be made that it is "bipartisan legislation," but if Democrats lose her they won't be able to make this claim. But while courting Snowe for her vote on the Senate floor is the only way to accomplish this, Democrats should also consider courting Snowe on an even more important front: switching parties.

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There are sins of commission in the way we're taught American history as children -- such as the fable about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree (which never actually happened). Then there are the much more prevalent sins of omission -- which conveniently gloss over the parts of American history which we have to "protect the children" from learning about. The reason I preface this column with such an observation is because a woman -- whose name we all know -- was honored today by the unveiling of her statue in the United States Capitol's Rotunda. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was on hand for this ceremony, as was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But the astonishing thing (to me) was that Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were also on hand, as well as the Republican governor of the very red state from whence this woman came. This state has honored the woman before, when it selected her to be their representation on their own state quarter. But the truly astonishing thing is that this woman not only helped found the A.C.L.U., but also was a radical and revolutionary Socialist, a fan of the Soviet Union and Lenin, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (the "I.W.W.", or the "Wobblies"), and an ardent foe and critic of capitalism. Not the type of woman usually honored by Republicans, you might think. But, in a glaring sin of omission committed by history teachers across this great land (and repeated by politicians even now), the only story we all know about her is of the daunting odds she overcame in her childhood. We're all familiar with this shared story, but it abruptly ends when she becomes an adult. All the parts about the raging Socialist she later became are conveniently swept under the rug.

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Republicans, masters of chutzpah that they are, have launched a pre-emptive strike against "politicizing" Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral with unseemly Democratic ideals. This should be so ridiculous as to endanger Americans' health from side-splitting laughter, but (Democrats being Democrats) it might just work.

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I've always been confused why the media goes berserk about rating a president's "first 100 days," but then just stops counting after the first milestone. This, to a statistician, would be known as a "zero dimensional data array" -- one data point, to be exact. If you don't re-test the sample on a regular schedule, how are you supposed to compare it to anything?

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The only real question in the hearings is how large a foot Republicans were going to insert into their collective mouth. The answer: medium-sized. Republicans on the Senate committee had a tightrope to walk this week, and the only drama was whether they would fall into the net of public yawns, or plummet to being the "Permanent Minority Party -- And Definitely Not THAT Kind Of Minority, Thank You Very Much." Republicans, you see, live in a world called "the 1950s." They must have all brightened up considerably when Sotomayor herself brought up Perry Mason (which caused the historic First Official Senatorial Joke to be uttered by Al Franken, it should be noted for posterity's sake). The geezers must have thought, "Perry Mason! Finally.... finally... a cultural reference I understand!!"

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OK, this column is rapidly getting out of my control, so I have to move on to the more important things before it totally loses all touch with sanity. In other words, we hereby return you to our cradle-to-grave Michael Jackson coverage, now entering its 294th hour...

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Three decades ago, the newspaper The Washington Post took down a sitting president. Now, it has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Recently offering to sell access to its reporters and administration bigwigs for the low, low price of $25,000 per "salon" certainly didn't help improve the paper's image. But, little noticed among the mainstream media (but much more so among the zeitgeist), David Letterman has now played a major role not only in determining last year's election, but also in hounding Sarah Palin out of office (at least, according to Palin's close friends). This, if true, is a notable achievement for a late-night comedian... but nobody seems to be noticing.

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Dan Froomkin's "White House Watch" column today will be the last one that appears on WashingtonPost.com. Froomkin has expressed interest in possibly moving the column elsewhere and continuing it, and I consider this a test of whether newspapers are (a.) smart enough to realize this is the way to modernize and move into the future of journalism, or (b.) dumb as a bag of hammers. WashingtonPost.com has obviously chosen the (b.) route. Because Froomkin's column is a shining example of how newspapers could migrate from their print business model to the more interactive web-based model they need to be in to survive.

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This column apparently shares a birthday with none other than Donald Duck, who turned 75 years old yesterday. Who knew? Yes, my column turned three years old yesterday, since my first foray into blogging happened on Huffington Post on June 9, 2006. Since I don't follow horoscopes, I have no idea what the metaphysical significance is of this column sharing the date with a duck who doesn't wear pants, so I will leave that for wiser minds to decide.

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"Judicial activism" (or, alternatively, "legislating from the bench") is defined -- no matter what your political beliefs -- as "judges not ruling the way I want them to." It's an inherently partisan statement to make, even if it doesn't sound like it. If you are a Republican, using the term means courts ruling for things you don't like. Same for Democrats. The irony is that while the charge is leveled in order to prove some sort of bias or prejudice in a judicial candidate or judge, the only thing it usually winds up proving is the bias of the accuser -- and not the accused. Because it almost always boils down to the accuser wanting the judge or justice in question to rule in a certain partisan way -- before even hearing the facts of any particular case.

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