Six key moderate senators on Friday called for a slowdown in the White House's push for a healthcare reform bill.

Their decision was apparently precipitated by the Congressional Budget Office announcement Thursday that the legislation currently being discussed not only won't reduce healthcare costs, but also will have negative longterm ramifications to the economy given the increase in federal debt.

With this in mind, Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) sent Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) the following:

The defection of Arlen Specter is still drawing stories bashing the Republican Party as too conservative. On Thursday night's NewsHour on PBS, correspondent Kwame Holman announced "Specter's departure from the GOP has reignited the debate over whether the Republican Party has lost ground with the public because it has become too ideologically conservative and unwilling to listen to moderates in its ranks."

The soundbite count was very slanted, with nine snippets of moderates decrying the party's tilt (counting one from the departing Specter, since it's his rationale for party-switching) to just two clips from conservative Sen. Jim DeMint.

Holman suggested the ranks of Senate moderates had shrunk to just the two females from Maine, even as they used "centrist conservative" Lindsey Graham to bolster the Specter narrative.  There were four soundbites from Sen. Susan Collins, two from Sen. Graham, and two from Sen. Olympia Snowe, as Holman touted her New York Times op-ed piece:

If you haven't figured it out yet, the fact that lawmakers in Washington who voted for the mislabeled "stimulus" bill championed by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid did so without reading it, let alone understanding it, means that in the coming weeks (or months?) we'll be learning about all manner of items in the legislation that "nobody" knew about. But that didn't stop House and Senate majorities from passing the legislation. My educated guess is that you won't hear much about these buried provisions from Old Media, because they're largely designed as stealth advances of longtime liberal agenda items.

Remember "net neutrality"? It's back, after probably a year or so of neglect.

Declan McCullagh at CNet explains that whoever wrote the legislation (will we ever know?) is attempting to force anyone who receives government money for broadband expansion to comply with something that isn't law, or even a regulation (links were in original):

On Saturday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Kimberly Dozier filed a report profiling moderate Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both from Maine, in light of their vote in favor of President Obama's economic plan, and relayed their criticisms that other Republicans should show more willingness to "compromise." Dozier also likened Collins to another former Republican Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, who is known for being "the first Senator to stand up to McCarthyism."

Dozier began her report: "President Obama owes his stimulus package to three Senators from the losing side. Three renegade Republicans tipped the balance: Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania and two women Senators from the sparsely populated state of Maine – Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins."

Matt Lauer invited on two Senate supporters and no opponents of Barack Obama's stimulus bill, on Monday's "Today" show and asked pro-stimulus bill questions to his guests, even chiding those who opposed it, when he asked Republican Senator Susan Collins about two of her GOP colleagues who are against it: "So what do you get that those two are not getting?" Lauer, also depicted a gloomy picture for the states because of "draconian cuts," made in the bill as he ominously asked: "Senator [Ben] Nelson, to get the support from even these moderate Republicans, cuts had to be made...You lose $40 billion in aid to the states, that means states are gonna have to make draconian cuts in jobs, teachers, cops, firemen. You lose the $16 billion in school construction money. So is it still a real stimulus package? Will it have clout?"

The only voices of opposition came in a Chuck Todd set-up piece, where a soundbite from John McCain saying the negotiations were not "bipartisan," was aired. A soundbite of stimulus opponent Sen. John Ensign was also aired but it only highlighted him admitting the bill will pass.

Lauer, in the interview segment, did cite concerns from Senators Richard Shelby and McCain, as he noted: "Richard Shelby the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking committee said Sunday, 'This bill could put our country on the road to financial disaster.' And John McCain said, 'It was generational theft,'" but then added the, "So what do you get that those two are not getting?" line he asked Collins.

The following is a complete transcript of Lauer's interview segment with Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic Senator Ben Nelson as it occurred on the February 9, "Today" show:

Roughly five months after Joe Biden informed the nation that paying higher taxes is patriotic, it now appears radically increasing government spending and the federal debt is as well.

At least that's what one gets from a New York Times piece Saturday applauding a Senate compromise on President Barack Obama's stimulus package.

Here are the paragraphs where patriotism was prominently mentioned (emphasis added):

ENDA Who? The House of Representatives passed a sweeping bill on Wednesday evening that elevates sexual behavior to the civil rights status of race, ethnicity and sex. Except for the New York Times, AP, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Miami Herald, the media swept it under the rug. TV networks ignored it Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is a major expansion of federal government power and civil rights law. Backers call it "historic." Opponents say it is a direct threat to religious freedom. But much of the media skipped the 235-184 House vote (including 30 Republicans for it and 25 Democrats against). Major papers including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today failed to carry the story.

Wired magazine's Sarah Lai Stirland is reporting that liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is reversing course after it was lambasted for censorship for pushing Google to censor anti-MoveOn.org ads by Maine Senator Susan Collins' (R) campaign.:

The left-leaning political advocacy group, MoveOn.org, is backing down in a flap over the use of its name in online advertisements, permitting an influential Republican senator to criticize the organization in a reelection ad on Google's search engine.

"We don't want to support a policy that denies people freedom of expression," says Jennifer Lindenauer, MoveOn.org's communications director.

A blog posting at Daily Kos on August 24 has fired up the Netroots to point accusatory fingers at a Maine newspaper editor whose wife works for Republican Senator Susan Collins.

After all the smoke clears, liberal bloggers ignored some key facts concerning this matter:

• The editor under fire has worked at the newspaper in question since 1971
• His wife - who is about to retire in September - has worked for the Senator in question for ten years
• Her involvement with the Senator was disclosed by two newspapers, including the one her husband works for, in 1998
• The cousin of Collins's Democrat opponent for reelection in 2008 is the paper in question's political editor.

Of course, none of these facts were included in the Daily Kos post that got this firestorm started:

Whether it’s comparisons between the United States and the Soviet Union or George Bush and Saddam Hussein, the far left has always specialized in false moral equivalence.

In the latest example of this, Daily Kos proprietor Markos Moulitsas has been trying to shift the spotlight that’s now being shined on the numerous vulgar and hateful remarks for which his site is famous over to conservative sites, implying that the right is just as full of hate as his followers.

Trouble is, that’s just not the case. As NewsBusters pointed out earlier, left-wing blogs and their commenters are much more likely to use profanity than conservative blogs.

Brushing aside those pesky facts, Moulitsas launched a false attack on Maine senator Susan Collins today implying that “Arthur Frain,” a commenter on Maine Web Report, a site run by her online communications director was speaking for Republicans when he/she wrote the following: