Noted.

NO APOLOGIES: After Senator Max Baucus kicked the public option to the curb, it was starting to look like Congressional Democrats would blow this fall's healthcare fight. Then Alan Grayson, a freshman Congressman from Orlando, started landing punches. On September 29 Grayson announced on the House floor that the Republican healthcare plan is this: "Don't get sick; and if you do get sick, die quickly." When the GOP's inevitable clamor for an apology arose, Grayson, who hails from a swing district, responded: "I would like to apologize.... I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America."

So shaken by the prospect of a Democrat taking the healthcare debate seriously enough to try to win it, Republican operatives screeched that Grayson had "come un- hinged." In fact, Grayson--a Harvard Law grad who worked as an assistant to conservative icon Robert Bork and Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia before establishing himself as a top trial lawyer--had set a trap for the GOP. He had used the controversy to focus attention on a study revealing that 44,000 Americans die annually because they lack health insurance. While he acknowledged that the holocaust reference went over the top, Grayson kept taunting "knuckle-dragging Neanderthal" Republicans. And they kept responding in a manner that earned the Congressman air time to detail the real cost of saying no to healthcare reform.   JOHN NICHOLS

DADT REVERSAL? The latest issue of Joint Force Quarterly, a military journal reviewed and published by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contained a seven-page critique of "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT). The study's author, an Air Force colonel, argues that DADT has been "costly both in personnel and treasure" and that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly "will not impact combat effectiveness."

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