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Seems WATB Orrin Hatch is not taking to kindly to having his office protested by MoveOn.org for being in the pocket of the health care industry. I've got to wonder, how would the Republicans react if a Democratic member of the Senate went on television and said they'd like to kick those Tea Bag protesters in the teeth?
Hatch: Now by the way MoveOn.org is a scurrilous organization. It's funded by George Soros. He's about as left wing as you can find in this country. And they're up to just one thing, and that is to smear good people. And frankly, they're not gonna smear me without getting kicked in the teeth by me.
Stay classy there Hatch. While MoveOn has received $1.46 million from George Soros as Wikipedia notes:
MoveOn's primary source of funding is its members. MoveOn.org raised nearly 60 million dollars in 2004 from its members alone, with an average donation of $50.
So...Hatch says he gets donations from all sorts of people -- "including liberal people" -- but as for that supposed left-winger George Soros and that "scurrilous" liberal group MoveOn.org -- they've got a kick in the teeth coming.
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The Villagers on the Chris Matthews panel all agree on a couple of points. The dirty f-ing hippies on the left have no right to demand anything of President Obama and were silly to think he’d live up to his campaign promise to reform our health care system. And two, any bill, whether it’s terrible or not that the President signs will be “transformational” and “historic”.
It doesn’t matter to them if it’s a crap sandwich which ends up being nothing but a giveaway to the insurance industry. What matters is that it passes. Andrea Mitchell seems positively giddy at the idea that it will be “criticized from all sides”. That’s a good thing Andrea?
While I agree with them on Afghanistan and that the President did not promise to get us out of there, President Obama did promise some real reform on health care and he also talked about cleaning the lobbyists and their influence out of Washington. This is hardly what’s going on now with Max Baucus and his lobbyists writing the health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee.
And Clarence Page conflates going between single-payer and the public option to the compromises being talked about now. Note to Clarence Page. Going from the public option to a trigger—or no public option at all—is not the same as hedging between single payer and the public option. One is an already bad compromise that might lead to reform. The other is just loading up the pockets of the insurance industry by forcing everyone into the system with no price controls.
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Chris Matthews is getting all hot and bothered because liberals in Congress and from the netroots are pushing hard to get a public option included in health care reform. That's called legislating, Chris. It's a long, hard process sometimes.
The Village really gets upset when dirty f*&king hippies get uppity and speak out on issues that matter. Villagers don't care that America voted in Obama with a mandate on health-care reform. Villagers don't care that America rejected conservatism, which practically caused the world to almost spin off its axis. It's getting to the point that Tweety is pulling stuff out of his pie hole because he hates us so much. And apparently Tweety forgot that "the left" was elected in droves in 2008. "The Left" is not a fringe teabagger, tax evading group, it dominates the House of Representatives. Here he is on Andrea Mitchell talking about Obama and Afghanistan and see where Tweety goes with it all.
Matthews: Everybody is doing their politics here. She represents San Francisco and she represents, I know the Speaker's role. you have to respond to the nosiest elements in your caucus, and the most passionate and apparently, I assume just knowing the Democratic House, the voices she's hearing from every single day are the left who want out. Now this president never promised to get out of Afghanistan. And he's not gonna...
He never promised to pull out, that was the good war, the necessary war. Oh, by the way he never ran on the public option. Somebody's got to tell these people on the left and the netroots and some of our colleagues, yeah, he might like the idea of a public option, he may prefer it. He didn't run on it. He didn't get elected for it. So this idea that he somehow betrayed a left wing mandate is nonsense.
Where to begin. Why is it OK to attack Nancy Pelosi for representing San Francisco? What did they ever do to Bill O'Reilly and Tweety? Aren't they part of the US of A too? That she is from the Bay Area somehow minimizes the fact that she's the Speaker. On Afghanistan, he's right. President Obama did not promises to withdraw from there. That's why we on the left have to put pressure on the administration or we could be there for decades.
But President Obama did campaign on the public option., It was part of his health-care plan that he unveiled in the primaries. I asked Ezra Klein to verify it for me and he did.
Berkeley's Jacob Hacker, who was the first to persuasively articulate it; to the Economic Policy Institute, which fleshed out the specifics; and to the Campaign for America's Future, which took the lead in selling it to advocacy groups and the presidential campaigns. John Edwards picked it up and made it central to his proposal, and the other candidates followed suit to protect their left flanks.
The idea of letting individuals buy insurance from a government-run plan was introduced in 2007 by Jacob Hacker of Yale, was picked up by John Edwards during the Democratic primary, and became part of the original Obama health care plan.
Tweety needs to apologize to President Obama, the netroots and the liberals in Congress who he just smeared in this clip. We are fighting for real health-care reform in America and not some mythical-bipartisan Beltway compromise bill that is completely useless to all the real working families that the Villagers like to pretend they speak for all the time.
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Congressman Pete Hoekstra on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports talking about our options with Iran now that the Obama administration has called them our for their underground nuclear facilities.
"I think the interesting thing here was the decision that the Obama administration made, perhaps weeks or months ago, that they wanted to enter into these talks with Iran, probably being fully aware that this secret facility existed, and they were willing to move forward unconditionally," said Hoekstra, the ranking member on the House's Permanent Select Intelligence Committee.
"Now ... they're locked in; they have to go on Thursday, so let's see what comes out of that," Hoekstra added.
[....]
"I think that if you put tough economic sanctions on Iran, what a regime like this will do ... is they will make sure it is the Iranian people that will be hurting," he said. "That will then give them the opportunity to go on international television and ... [show the United States] is hurting the Iranian people, and is really not stopping or changing their strategic direction."
But, Hoekstra added, "I'm not sure there are any good options at this point in time."
I wonder how long it will take the neocons to start attacking Pete Hoekstra for saying this?
Last night two of the blogosphere's brightest lights posted on the difficulties Obama is facing when it comes to turning around U.S. Afghanistan policy. Digby, who recounted a 1964 conversation between McGeorge Bundy and President Lyndon Johnson about the futility of American policies in Vietnam, seemed aghast that "Democratic strategist" Donna Brazile was on CNN yesterday seemingly reading some leftover talking points from Karen Hughes about the need to stay in Afghanistan and "get the job done." Then last night Daily Kos' most prescient Afghanistan blogger, Meteor Blades, highlighted the controversy over Andrea Mitchell's report on the 500,000 troops needed to do the job in Afghanistan.
But as Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), our No Means No guest today, asked me this morning, "What is the job?"
Blue America's friendship with Eric Massa goes back to the very beginning of our PAC and he was one of the first candidates we ever supported. Ultimately it was his character that moved us to endorse him, although his championing of issues impacting the real lives of working families (like "fair trade" over so-called "free trade"), his dogged support of single-payer health care, and his spot-on analysis of the war in Iraq based on experience as a Naval officer are what first drew us to him. He came close in 2006 and he triumphed in 2008-- in one of the only districts in New York that Obama didn't win! Obama tool 48% in NY-29 while Massa scooped up 51% against a multimillionaire incumbent and Bush tool.
In June, Eric was one of only 32 Democrats to vote against the supplemental war budget -- of the 90 who had pledged to vote no. It was an incredibly courageous political act, particularly in a district with a daunting R+5.48 PVI (one of the most Republican districts in the country represented by a progressive Democrat). This morning Eric told me in no uncertain terms that he would "continue to vote against any supplemental."
We're not going to fund any wars in a way that no one knows about. The Republicans gave the wealthiest Americans the largest tax cut in history and then launched two wars without any idea of how to pay for them. It was the most fiscally irresponsible action they could take-- and they took it.
Eric is fired up and full of fight, as always. He loves his job and told me he's absolutely committed to it. "I'm in the right place in my life doing the right job for the right congressional district. And I'm just getting started." Right now, you hear the lifelong military man in him when he says he's very supportive of what he calls "the president's strategic pause to formulate whatever strategy his administration will implement (in Afghanistan)."
For instance, is this about fighting the Taliban or fighting al-Qaeda -- two distinctly different groups -- or is it about creating a democracy, or is it about protecting the Afghan people? These are very different missions that require very different resources. And until we know what we're doing, we cannot begin to get it done. The first thing a military officer asks is 'What is the mission?' And as of right now, that is a very legitimate question."
As progressives and men and women of common sense, we should demand a strategy that turns the destiny of Afghanistan over to the Afghans so we can get out of there as soon as possible. If the condition of our departure is creating a Jeffersonian democracy, then we are on a fool's errand.
Eric is joining us now (in the comments section) as part of our ongoing series on Afghanistan policy at Crooks and Liars. As MoveOn mentioned in the mailing this morning, "U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment. President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about the Afghanistan war in the next few weeks. And there's a big debate happening right now about what to do. Pro-war advocates both inside and outside the administration -- including John McCain and Joe Lieberman -- are calling for a big escalation. The general in charge of Afghanistan is expected to request tens of thousands more troops, and that may just be the beginning. They're cranking up the pressure for an immediate surge."
Eric Massa is in a unique position to help us figure out a progressive strategy for dealing with this dilemma. He's adamant that if the President asks for more funds for the war, he do it through a normal budgetary process that includes a "clearly articulated strategy with an end game. The Republicans say they're all about fiscal responsibility? Then they should agree we should apply those concepts to wars."
Please take a look at Blue America's No Means No! page and consider donating to Eric and any or all of the 32 other Democrats who have already done the right thing by voting no on the supplemental budget 3 months ago and who we will be counting on to help end the occupation of Afghanistan in the coming months.
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Max Baucus finally unveiled his new/old bill from the Senate Finance committee today and as has been expected the bill is all about bowing down to the minority party that has no intentions of supporting any type of health care reform. He's chucked aside America just to try and land one Republican vote in the Senate... errrr... I mean, the House of Lords.
Sen. Rockefeller has been very outspoken about his opposition to the Baucus Dogs bill and says as much while many other Democrats are not pleased either.
On Andrea Mitchell, Sen. Kent Conrad came on at the end of the show and read off a list of things that Republicans should be so happy to support in the bill. It was as if Baucus and Conrad wrote a bill that caters to the Republicans and his Gang of Six committee. It was disgusting watching him gush when he said there was no public option in the bill because Republicans didn't want it. He then read off more and more things that Grassley wants in the bill and it's as if he really thinks there's a chance in hell that they will vote for his bill.
Actually, it's a bill nobody but self-eviscerating Dems will vote for.
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Michael Steele seems to have a problem recognizing racism. Steele does the apples to oranges game and tries to compare what was done to President Bush when those silly lefties were calling him names for dropping bombs on a bunch of people's heads that were never a threat to the United States and lying to the country about that non-existent threat, to what's going on now with President Obama.
Steele says that the "adults in the room need to step up, and I think the adults are myself and President Obama, two African American men at the top of the political structure of this country who can say with some degree of experience and clarity that this is not the context in which we need to have a debate on health care or any issue facing America".
Michael Steele knows full well that President Obama cannot say what Jimmy Carter just said because if he did, the wingnuts would go into full attack mode just as they are right now with President Carter. And of course this is not the context that we need to be having a debate on health care. It is the context the GOP wants us to be having a debate on to "blacken" up President Obama or they wouldn't have put someone with a track record like Joe Wilson up to his stunt on the House floor during President Obama's address to Congress.
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Andrea Mitchell ask Barney Frank if he will support a bill that will as Mitch McConnell claims, but Medicare by nearly half a trillion dollars and without a public option. Frank rejects McConnell's accessment and says Obama's mistake was trying to get any bipartisan support. He then states something that should be said over and over again.
Frank: Let's just put it this way. If we hadn't waged that foolish, expensive, devastating war in Iraq we could have paid for health care two times over, so I reject the notion that there's no other way to find the funds for health care.
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The man who was almost part of Obama's cabinet is now a big opponent in the health care reform debate. I wish I knew what President Obama was thinking when he selected this man, but like all good conservatives he too doesn't let facts influence his position.
Andrea:...at the same time there's a new poll, let me share with you from the new England Journal of Medicine today and 63% of American doctors polled say the public option should be at least available. That's 63% to 27% supporting the public option. Don't doctors know best?
Gregg: Yeah, well I think if the follow up question was asked, do you as a doctor want to work for the government. Do you as a doctor want to have yourself and your basic delivery of medicine be controlled by a federal bureaucrat? The answer would probably be 80% no. The fact is a public option is a stalking horse for a national health insurance...
The idiot known as Judd Gregg assumes that doctors haven't considered what it would be like to deal with the government and pulls information out of his ass to try and dismiss this vital poll and attack the public option. Andrea didn't push him on it after his non-answer, but she put it out there to him and he does what conservatives do.
This poll is surprisingly honest because the AMA stands against the public option, but doctors know what it's like to deal with the health insurance industry. Gregg knows this so he makes up his own poll questions and then answers it and gives us the percentage. he should start his own polling company.
My doctor already will not accept any form of private insurance because they block him from performing his craft. Since the Villagers are using polling as a weapon against health care reform, this poll should be high on their radar and the American people should be told. I wonder how many times it will make it on FOX News....
President Obama has new and powerful information known to insist that a public option be included in health care reform. As Andrea said: "Don't doctors know best?"
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All day I've been hearing how stupid Max Baucus was to release his plan this week which is basically the same bill he leaked back in June. Chuck Todd was wondering why he took so long to produce nothing new. Suddenly the lead Baucus Dogs' bill isn't the be all and end all.
Todd and Andrea Mitchell were saying that Baucus still has a role, but he screwed up by taking so long. He lost his leverage. We'll see, but it was fascinating watching the media turn on the the king of the gang of six.
Max Baucus' plan had the name of Liz Fowler, a former WellPoint VP who now works for the Finance Committee, in the metadata. When you have WellPoint personnel instrumental in writing the laws, you get little provisions like this:
Interstate Sale of Insurance. Starting in 2015, states may form “health care choice compacts” to allow for the purchase of non-group health insurance across state lines. Such compacts may exist between two or more states. Once compacts have been formed, insurers would be allowed to sell policies in any state participating in the compact. Insurers selling policies through a compact would only be subject to the laws and regulations of the state where the policy is written or issued.
This is something that conservatives have been begging to do for years. Even the most outgunned conservative on a talking head debate can vomit up "let people take their insurance across state lines to increase competition!" It sounds reasonable. But there's a very good reason why it would quickly turn into a nightmare, and you can see it in the examples of Delaware and South Dakota.
{} Consumer Watchdog jumped on this today, claiming that this race to the bottom could be expanded...read on
Max Baucus is getting serious. Just a few hours before President Obama is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress, the Finance Committee chairman announced that the committee would be moving forward with a health care reform bill - with or without the GOP.
The announcement followed a morning meeting with the so-called Gang of Six. A source with knowledge of the situation said that Baucus told the two other Democrats and three Republicans that he will be putting out a "Chairman's Mark" by the middle of next week whether he has Republican support or not. (A Chairman's Mark is a bill written by the chairman of the committee.)
It’s obvious that people who show up screaming about how they want the government out of their Medicare and who go into a faint because they heard that the health care bill has no provision to ban abortion aren’t people that you can respond to in any way. They can’t compromise or understand the concept. They’re too busy struggling against reality itself.
{}
It’s the people who are putting corporate profits ahead of human lives who need to explain themselves. They’re the ones who should be asked why corporate profits count more than lives. They’re the ones who should be asked why working class citizens should be forced to decide between paying for an insurance bill or paying their rent in order to make sure that no insurance company executive goes without a fresh supply of yachts and fancy cars. They should be forced to explain why insurance company executive yachts count more than your ability to avoid homelessness, or your ability to have a perfectly treatable illness actually treated.
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The David Gregory and Andrea Mitchells of the world have decided to declare the public option dead and of course all of those silly liberals who think that the bill would be a giveaway to the insurance industries without it need to just shut up and get in line. Mitchell says "I just don't get the lack of discipline here". Hey Andrea, there are three co-equal branches of government, or have you forgotten that? And it is not going to destroy Obama's Presidency if he actually listens to the majority that elected him and does what they would like.
As my C&L cohort Nicole pointed out, this article does a good job of explaining just what we're watching right now. From Mike Lux at Open Left- The News Big Media Won't Report:
Every morning I still read my old fashioned paper copy of the morning Washington Post on the subway on my way to the office, and then I sit down to review all the information I am getting from field events and town halls around the country, lobbyists' reports from those meeting with Senate and House members and staff, updates from organizations working in the field. I have to say that the two sets of information could not be further apart, and it makes me wonder again what the disconnect is.
[....]
As I've written before, between some combination of their own pre-conceived conventional wisdom talking points and their love of covering a train wreck, traditional media does not want to report the good news about health care reform. I can't remember ever seeing in any traditional media story, for example, the fact that (as Chris Bowers reported) there is now a majority in both the House and the Senate that are on the public record in support of a public option.
The future of health care reform hangs in the balance. We are in the fight of our lives- but if you listen to the traditional media, you would think it is all over.
Lots more there so be sure to check out the whole article, but he's right. The media has decided to tell everyone that the fight is over and so go sit down and shut up if you don't like it. I would hope that is the last thing anyone that wants to see some real reform is doing.
The news has been fast and furious as we approach Labor Day with media outlets trying to out-do each other with "breaking news stories" about what President Obama will or will not support in the health care fight as we enter the the final few innings of this debate.
Administration officials said Wednesday that Mr. Obama would be more specific than he has been to date about what he wants included in the plan. Doing so amounts to an acknowledgment that the president’s prior tactic of laying out broad principles and leaving Congress to fill in the details was no longer working and that Mr. Obama needed to become more personally involved in shaping the outcome.But the officials said Mr. Obama was unlikely to unveil a detailed legislative plan of his own. And they insisted that Mr. Obama had not given up on the provision that has attracted the most fire from the right, a proposal for a government-run competitor to private insurers, although many Democrats say the proposal may eventually be jettisoned.
{}
For now, White House officials said, Mr. Obama remains committed to the goal of insuring all Americans and still prefers to foster competition for insurance companies by creating a new government insurance program, or public option.
...what Chuck Todd thinks, he just said unequivocally on Andrea Mitchell that the Finance Committee bill is Obama's preferred bill, that it is being done with the cooperation of the White House, and that once it is released, Obama will do everything in his power to pass that bill.
We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,” an aide said. “There are lots of different ways to get there.”
And Ed Henry on CNN said yesterday in their big breaking story that the White House was negotiating to get a Snowe job.
Ed Henry: My colleague Dana Bash and I have learned from a source, each one of us, that this White House right now is very quietly in serious conversations with Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, a key moderate.
She is basically the last Republican out of those gang of six senators who have been negotiating, really the last Republican that has an open line to this White House right now.
What we're hearing that she's talking about with White House staff is sort of a scaled-back bill that would focus on insurance reforms that both sides could agree to, but would not have a full public option, instead, would have a so-called trigger. What that means in layman's terms is basically that the insurance companies would have a couple of years to make some dramatic changes.
If they do not make those changes, then a public option would be triggered. So, it would be used down the road. They would hope that this would appease liberals by saying it's not completely off the table. And the big hope is that this could bring along another moderate Republican, like maybe Susan Collins of Maine, some conservative Democrats, like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu in the Senate, who don't want a public option, but would sort of potentially be open to a trigger like this.
Basically we still don't know what's actually going to happen until the president takes the stage and speaks to the nation and then even after that, the Baucus Dogs still have to release their bill. And then we move on to the next step in the process. This is a massive clusterf*&k, but getting any type of health care reform passed was never going to be easy. We all knew it, I just thought Axelrod's team would have handled it better from the start.
OK, what's the next big breaking story and what will it contradict? I can just see a bunch of WH aides jotting down suggestions and putting them in a shoe box. When a reporter comes sniffing around, they take turns pulling out a piece of paper from the box and passing along their tip. Repeat as often as necessary. Then at night, all the aides go to the bar, get hammered and laugh as it appears in the news.
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Good little torture advocate Joe Scarborough seems to think that anything the United States does is justified, if it works. I'd like to know just what Joe Scarborough and the rest of his guests would ever find objectionable enough that it finally goes over the line for any of them? Scar starts out feigning indignation for the poor demoralized CIA that got their feelings hurt by that mean old Amnesty International and the ACLU for letting the public know they tortured prisoners. He's completely unfazed by her report and at the end of course questions whether it's even true.
Mitchell: Well when they looked at the details and when they looked at some of the more gruesome aspects of this program, they say, they believed they had to uphold...
Scarborough: Now when you say gruesome, what are you talking about gruesome. Uhhhmm....
Mitchell: Well we don't know frankly. Pete Williams and I went through all this and we're told that we don't even know some of the worst cases that were still censored. So....
Scarborough: Well the cases we do know is somebody turned on a drill and made a detainee think that they were going to get drilled...
Mitchell: Well...
Scarborough: And then somebody fired a gun in an adjoining room. Have we heard of anything worse than that right now?
Mitchell: Yes we have.
Scarborough: What have we heard?
Mitchell: We've heard of threats to, we will bring your mother in here and we'll bring your children here and we'll kill your children when the children were in custody of the U.S. Military. So we will rape your mother in front of you. These are things that, this is not, you know, me talking. This is the Geneva Conventions. You've got a lot of...
Scarborough: We will rape your mother in front of you. Who is suggesting that was said by an interrogator?
Mitchell: Yes, exactly.
Scarborough: Okay. And when are we going to get that information released?
Mitchell: Well, we're not sure that we're going to ever get that information released. There are a lot of lawsuits out there and some of the plantiffs are still complaining, Amnesty, ACLU said what was released yesterday still has too many blacked out sections.
Scarborough: Okay. Andrea...ah...it is, this is absolutely fascinating.
Mitchell: It's a mess. There's no question it's a mess. And it's really damaging morale at the agency. There's no questions about that.
Scarborough: Listen, I personally believe it's a nightmare moving forward. I know David Ignatius has said as much. We're going to have him on and talk to him for about thirty minutes.
Scarborough and Richard Haas then go on to more or less say that the CIA cannot do it's job if they're not allowed to torture people, and carry water for that "torture saved us from terrorist attacks" canard.
Olympia Snowe admitted to Andrea Mitchell that the Senate Finance Committee is not even considering a public option in their bill and never had it on the table. She said that the skyrocketing costs of health care are paramount to their bill which is why they are ogling co opts.
Mitchell: So bottom lines, Nancy Pelosi says that they will not produce anything that does not include a public option. Do you see any way that the gang of six will come out of the Finance Committee with a public option?
Snowe: No, I don't. We have not had the public option on the table. It's been co ops and addressing affordability and availability and plans through the exchange and those are the challenges we're wrestling with to insure that there are basic plans to offer Americans.
Snowe: ...states today can create co-ops as a matter of fact, but we want to make sure that not just incorporating the status quo. In other words, if these co-ops were to be formed, Americans still could not have access to affordable, quality plans then you really do have to have a contingency plan, with a fall back plan of some kind to make sure that you do have the conditions to ensure that Americans do have access to an affordable plan.
Today for example in the state of Maine, you don't have the purchasing power necessary to leverage competitive prices so it really has kept so many people and so many small businesses out of the market, we want to make sure that's not what we repeat as we try to reform and provide universal access and coverage to all Americans.
Why is she now on board with co ops when she knows they suck? Is Chuck " Killin' Grandma" Grassley her daddy?
Foreshadowing a House-Senate showdown, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday there is "no way" the House can pass a health care bill without a government-run insurance option.
Speaking at a news conference in San Francisco, Pelosi told reporters that a public option will "keep insurance companies honest."
“There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” the California Democrat said, according to wire reports. "Unless someone comes up with a better idea, that's how we're going forth in the House."
Pelosi reportedly added: "If someone can come up with a better idea, let them put it on the table, we haven't heard that yet. ... So we're fighting very hard for the public option."
On Andrea Mitchell's show this morning, Chuck Todd was on to opine about health care reform. He said one outrageous thing and one right thing. The Toddster said that progressives might be attached to the public option because conservatives immediately attacked it. WRONG.
Mitchell:...how did this become the thing that liberals will not live without?
Todd: ...what's ironic is I think it became a big deal from the left because originally it was the immediate point of attack from some conservatives. Immediately. That that is the public option so you sort of wonder was it simply a political reaction from the left. "They don't like it, we love it."
Since there is no single payer, the public option is the only way that there will be sufficient competition that would force the health insurance companies of actually competing on the open market and making it possible for Americans to have a real alternative to them. The public option is our compromise you sad sack of know-nothingness. We wouldn't form a coalition around something just because conservatives object. That thinking only further illustrates how much the beltway despises us. We are thinking people who actually can evaluate policy on its merits and not out of resentment. When Kyl said "co ops' was just another Trojan horse for government run health care I thought that spoke volumes to the way they are treating health care reform. Wouldn't you expect the media to pounce and say that republicans never had any plans to become part of the negotiating process over health care reform? Even Chuck Grassley's insane statements haven't generated much of a reaction from the press.
What Todd is right about is that President Obama does not have any good spokesman for his positions other than himself. I've written many posts about this problem and I traced it all the way back to the general election. I also wrote about it here: With Surrogates like these... and here. The President shouldn't be the only person that can sell his positions, but the Senate is devoid of anyone that can speak with true conviction that can reach the American people. It's sad.
At least for progressives, Rep. Anthony Weiner has stepped up and become a real force in talking about the necessity of having a public option. More of him please.
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