Sudden spike in hits from a Google search on "overton window." Why?

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Barney Frank has become something of a darling on the left because of his feistiness, which heaven knows is in short supply among Democratic politicians. That quality seems to work best for someone who will go down with the ship on principle, all other considerations be damned; someone like Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the House health care bill under just that circumstance. (Phoenix Woman brilliantly articulated the hazards of this outlook.*) It does not work so well with someone who appears to be at least half in the pocket of the interests he ostensibly oversees.

His interview with Ed Schultz earlier this week gave a clear illustration of why. Schultz pushed on a couple of key points: Last year's bailout came with no strings attached, and as a result the major players have gone back to the same reckless behavior. Frank turned prickly, which is what feisty looks like when you don't like it, and almost immediately said "don't condescend to me" when Schultz was obviously doing no such thing. He proceeded to condescend to Schultz throughout the interview; "the point I made to you several times" and "What's the matter with you?" stand out. There was also this:

SCHULTZ: Congressman, why can't you just admit that this was a serious misstep on the part of the Congress? You forked out billions of dollars to save the economy, I get all that, to get the structure back going again. But you didn't ask them questions about how this...

FRANK: No, Ed. You're wrong.

SCHULTZ: Oh, tell me I'm wrong.

FRANK: You're wrong. And I'd like to be able to explain it.

David Jenny writes* in the Bangor Daily News:

The president and Congress agree: Washington’s solution to 46 million uninsured Americans is to “mandate” that they all purchase health insurance from private companies, or — if the president’s view should prevail — a government-run “public option.”

Until now, our federal government has never claimed the power to compel individual citizens to pay insurance premiums to either private companies or government entities.

Astonishingly, no one is asking: “Does the federal government actually have the power to dictate that individuals purchase health insurance?” ....

After all, single payer would only save $350 billion dollars a year! And where do we read about this? Our famously free press? Not. Our tribunes of the people on the "progressive" access blogs? You're joking. No, we hear it from a local PA blog with a union connection:

Word from the Physicians for a National Health Program is that the flood of calls has forced Pelosi to allow 20 minutes of debate and a vote on the floor for the Weiner amendment this Friday. This amendment will substitute most of the language of HR 676 for the current bill and establish a Medicare for All system of healthcare.

Swanson agrees, calling it kabuki.

Here. I've been involved in RL today, so I'm not clear whether these rules can still be changed by the Saturday vote, or not.

So, I'm down in Cambridge, MA at an internet cafe in Central Square, where there is a time limit of exactly one hour for free access, at which point the cafe blocks your machine. And I'm almost ready to go, and I'm almost at the end of the hour, and I've got the map to my destination in one tab, and the invitation in the other, when....

Google says: "All your data are belong to us":

The uber-geeks who run Google don't like to think about the messy world of law and politics. But it can't be avoided. The latest example: A Bear Stearns manager done in by a GMail account he thought was closed.

Matthew Tannin may have shut down his account, but Google keeps backups, and the company provided government prosecutors with "a CD-ROM disk... of Mr. Tannin's emails from November 20, 2006 through August 12, 2007," according to the New York Times. The prosecutors are trying to prove fraud in the collapse of two hedge funds, managed in part by Tannin, and have been helped along by his personal emails, one of which reads "a wave of fear set over me that the fund couldn't be run the way that I was ‘hoping'... And that it was going to subject investors to ‘blow up risk'." ...

[E]very police department and district attorney's office in the country knows they can extract valuable data from the company. Google has little motive to fight much against these authorities.

Yves comments:

[Thanks to all! I can't much more now, since RL calls, but you all made a real difference, and the kind words helped. --lambert]

[Again, thanks. I'm closing in on the fall necessities, like cleaning the furnace and fixing a radiator and -- not to tug on your heartstrings too brutally -- next I'll move on to luxuries, like a new pair of trifocals to replace the broken, one-lensed set I have now. Also, do read below the fold for why we fight. --lambert]

[Thanks, everybody. I'm not out of the woods yet, but thanks to so many of you I think I see light between the trees. I'll leave this sticky for now, maybe come up with some kind of zippy promotion.... And do read below the fold, for where I think we can go. --lambert]

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[If you're coming here from Digby's comments, that's a result of a campaign to deny a (pro-single payer, pro-finance reform, feminist-friendly) blogger fuel for the winter, and help him avoid foreclosure, by causing a fundraiser to fail. I rest my case. -- lambert]