No wonder Congress wasn’t on the ball about the whole prisoner-torture thing. I watch a lot of Congressional hearings, but today’s Senate Finance Committee on health reform was more than usually like a slow fingernail-pullng. I only half-watched, so go to this story by Politico.com for the sharpest political analysis of what happened. What I heard was 80% political preening, scoring points to use against "big government" in next year’s election.

Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas were the prime offenders, trying to make sure we’re all protected from government interference with our fantastic corporate health insurance. As to what they were really up to, watch the hilarious Will Ferrell video if you haven’t seen it two or three times already, on funnyordie.com.

What Congress can’t seem to get a grip on, with all this public speech-making, is that you can’t make private insurance affordable for the middle class while leaving the insurance and medical industries to do as they wish.