Congressional Republicans have now positioned themselves firmly between a rock and a hard place on healthcare reform. This would be highly amusing if it weren't for the seriousness of the subject matter, which could accurately be described as a life-or-death subject for millions. Republicans now have the choice of voting for a bill which is massively unpopular with the public (increasingly so, as a matter of fact), or admitting to their own voting base that they've been flat-out lying about the evils of Obamacare for the past eight years. That's a tough choice, because no matter what route they take, it is bound to cause anger among the voters -- at this point, it's just a question of which particular voters (and how many of them) will be massively disappointed.

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I haven't done one of these three-dot columns in a while (as always, in homage to the late, great columnist Herb Caen), but the flood of news tidbits flowing from the White House is relentless, so I thought it was time to catch up on some of the fresh idiocy coming from the Oval Office.

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Barack Obama caused somewhat of a tizzy last week, when it was announced he would be giving a speech to some bastions of Wall Street, for a cool $400,000 speaking fee. Some were simply aghast at the idea, for a couple of different reasons. But there's one way Obama could make most of the criticism disappear (at least that portion coming from the left), and that is by making one simple promise. If Obama pledged to immediately release the transcript of his speech right after he gave it, he could defuse a lot of the angst the idea is causing among progressives. The speech reportedly won't be given until September, so Obama isn't facing an immediate deadline; but the faster he swears he'll release the text of his speech, the better for him politically.

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