**Podcast audio fixed.  Somehow, Tuesday’s show was originally re-posted. Click on the player to hear the correct audio.  Sorry for the inconvenience!  NS**

Today, I watched President Obama’s final speech on Health Care Reform. And he said nothing. Nothing new, anyway.

It was the same old shit. Same old pandering to the right. Same old sidestepping the public option — the one fix that could get much of his former base back on board, but that, for reasons still completely obscured, he ignores.

The same old Obama, trying to please everyone and, by doing that, pleasing no one… except the for-profit insurance extortionist industry who will reap even bigger, more obscene profits on the backs of our health care.

He said, though in not so many words, that it was time to use reconciliation to push reform through. But he certainly didn’t give me any new confidence that he’d do the right thing. It just made me wonder why he didn’t do this a year ago.

I know that many people didn’t get to see or hear the speech live, so I played it in its entirety tonight, albeit made it go a bit faster. The speech ran about 20 minutes this afternoon, but through the magic of editing, it only takes about 14 minutes of your time (plus whatever time used by the snarkiness I injected with my comments).  Amazing what one can do by editing the pregnant pause and applause from an Obama speech!

We also had a visit from the always insightful Christy Harvey of the Center for American Progress, who also oversees the wonderfully informative MicCheckRadio.  We discussed the meaning of the hot new Capitol Hill term “Bunning,”  Roger Ebert’s tweeting prowess, last night’s late night Palin vs. Romney show down and more.

Ellen Ratner checked in with a report from the Talk Radio News Service.

And we had an edition of Crooks & Liars Radio with its founder John Amato.  In addition to a discussion about Mitt Romney’s chances of becoming president as a Mormon in a country where the religious right and many others believe that this is a “Christian nation,” here are some of the stories we talked about: