Yesterday was a big day in college football. Alabama beat Florida 32-13 for the SEC championship, Texas beat Nebraska 13-12 for the Big 12 championship. Both games were thrilling or disgusting, depending on your point of view. See Cecil Hurt's column on the Alabama-Florida game.

Today is the 40th anniversary of another game, a heart-stopper. This was the Big Shootout between Arkansas and Texas on December 6, 1969. The ADG has a big story about it today. Many Arkansans of that era have never gotten over the last-minute loss to Texas. In their minds the game was between them and us, between light and darkness, between good and evil. Funny thing, today Texas QB James Street and his teammates have turned out to be really nice guys, and they had a lot of respect for the Razorback players.

I remember the game well, and I was upset at the outcome, but I got over it. Many people still can't accept it. See here, for example. The DG has some stories today about how contemporaries recall their reaction to the game.

See this Google search.

Catastrophic effects

Dr. Edward Miller, dean and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Md., warns:

We'll meet the demands placed on us because serving poor and disadvantaged populations is part of our century-old mission. But without an understanding by policy makers of what a large Medicaid expansion actually means, and without delivery-system reform and adequate risk-adjusted reimbursement the current health-care legislation will have catastrophic effects on those of us who provide society's health-care safety-net. In time, those effects will be felt by all of us.

Liam Clancy has died at 74. I didn't remember his name, but I well remember his song, "Those Were the Days My Friend. We Thought They'd Never End." Listening to it again, it seems to be a sad song. It makes me think back over the years, about how things have changed. That generation did not always win even when they thought they did.

Monticello High school beat Camden Fairview 38-7 for the Class 5A state championship last night. Three players rushed for more than 100 yards. The Billies ran up almost 500 total yards. Monticello is 14-0 on the season.

John Fund: Why are Democrats so obsessed with health care? I've wondered that too.

... [M]any in the trenches are uneasy about the sprawling, complex bill they privately acknowledge has no bipartisan support, doesn't seriously tackle soaring costs and will increase insurance premiums. That may explain Majority Leader Harry Reid's haste—he has ordered a rare Sunday session this weekend to hurry up the debate. Public support for the bill averages only 39.2% backing in all polls compiled by Pollster.com.
But buried in the surveys is an explanation for the Democratic obsession to pass the bill: An overwhelming 76% of Democrats back it. "They believe the liberal base expects them to deliver and will punish them if they don't," says Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, who worked for Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

They believe that passing health care will bail them out. I don't believe it will at all. When people find out what it really means for them, they will react in horror.

Power Line comments on the recent cut in Medicare funds passed by the Senate. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor both voted in favor of the cut.

Yesterday, the Senate defeated an amendment proposed by John McCain that would have stripped the Democrats' health care legislation of cuts to Medicare (more than $400 billion of them). Sen. McCain's amendment was defeated by a vote of 58-42. Ben Nelson and Jim Webb were the only Democrats who voted to prevent the cuts to Medicare.
This leaves a large number of Democrats who will have to explain to their constituents why they voted to slash Medicare so drastically. Some of these Dems will be facing substantial challenges in 2010.
The honest explanation is that the health care legislation cannot reasonably be funded without these cuts, except by running up too much debt for some Democrats to swallow. But this explanation isn't very helpful because the underlying health care legislation lacks broad popular support.
As something of a senior citizen myself, I can't say I'm pleased with potential cuts to Medicare. However, I take solace from the fact that the Dems will, at last, rid Medicare of waste, fraud, and inefficiency.

 LOL

James Antle on a recent Bob Dole quotation:

"I figured it up the other day," Bob Dole memorably snarled during the 1976 vice presidential debate. "If we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans -- enough to fill the city of Detroit." It wasn't Dole's finest moment as an orator, but it should be a cautionary tale for a Democratic president seeking bipartisan support for a "surge" in Afghanistan.

Blanche Lincoln has voted to keep Medicare cuts in the Senate health care bill. The vote was 58-42 with two Democrats joining the Senate's 40 Republicans to restore the cuts.

Most endangered

Power Line has these comments on Blanche Lincoln and the 2010 elections:

Blanche Lincoln continues to be the most "endangered" of all Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2010. The latest Rasmussen poll shows her trailing all of her potential Republican opponents, and she trails the probable frontrunner, Republican state senator Gilbert Baker, by 47 to 41 percent (our friend Tom Cotton decided not to run). According to Politico, this result is consistent with what other polls have found.
To make matters worse, 36 percent of Arkansas voters view Lincoln "very unfavorably." Only 19 percent have a "very favorable" opinion of her.
Lincoln's decisive vote to bring the Senate Democrats' health care reform bill to the floor for debate surely will not help her in Arkansas. 56 percent of Arkansas voters say they "strongly oppose" that plan.
Lincoln's vote on the actual legislation -- as opposed to whether to debate it -- should tell us how she reads the situation back home. If Lincoln votes against the bill, it probably means she thinks she can win next year, not an outrageous assumption if she is only trailing by six percentage points now. If Lincoln votes "yes," it probably means she is resigned to not being in the Senate after 2010, and has been promised a desirable post by the Obama administration.

I wrote her two letters trying to encourage her to vote for her constituents, but whatever. Up to you, Blanche.

Obama's approval rating is now below his disapproval rating. This link has all the polls.