I’m waiting for an edit on a piece about Manas, and everyone’s talking about Daschle so I feel like I should say something too. I know nothing about this and don’t intend to learn — you can read the only healthcare blogger that matters for that — but I did notice this in a Matt Cooper post:

Daschle made the decision to go himself after the New York Times op-ed and the sense that the opposition could grow and not diminish over the next week.

I have no idea whether or not it made any sense to dump Tom Daschle. But the idea that a disapproving New York Times editorial would convince you to drop out of a cabinet secretaryship is absolutely insane. Suffice it to say that any Republican who has ever and will ever serve in a GOP administration is justifiably howling with laughter. You care what an editorial board thinks of you that much? After the president of the United States expresses confidence in you? Look, I’d like to believe that what we do in the press has an impact, but an editorial? Who even reads those?