I bring all this up only because just this morning I saw a report somewhere – think I spilled coffee on it already – that America's Health Insurance Plans pulled in somewhere between $10 million to $20 million from a handful of insurance companies: Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Foundation Health Plans, UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint. AHIP reportedly then handed the cash over to the U.S. Chamber to pay for a few health reform attack ads. And while the story plays out in a breathless, can-you-believe-this style, the bottom line is that this really isn't that much of a story. It's called lobbying. There's nothing remotely illegal or even immoral about this.

You can see the story for yourself here. Let me know what you think.

It's a little disappointing that with so much real news going on (let's see if Haiti gets as much airtime as Leno), we have to resort to so much barrel scraping. But, then again, I suppose that shouldn't comes as a surprise either.