Turned on the intertube and checked out memeorandum, and what do I see:
Which means we will get another whole day of left-wing self-flagellation in the form of “Obama admitted he loves the bankers more than he loves _____.”
Reader Interactions
169Comments
Comments are closed.
Zifnab
I’m still waiting for the:
“Ben Nelson considers the $100 million Medicare hand job as his most important thing of his first year”.
I also appreciate all the Republicans throwing hissy fits over the pay out, if only because it was absolutely in their power to wreck the deal. I was actually looking forward to hearing “Bridge to Nowhere” comparisons.
eric
I am surprised Barry just not come out and say that causing a schism in the Netroots and sticking it to Liberals was his most favortist thing. Certainly his most obvious accomplishment.
/snark
eric
Wilson Heath
Keeping the world economy from going to a place where we all should start dressing like extras in “The Road Warrior”? Yeah, that could be kind of important. No one gets anything close to single payer or a public option if that goes down.
Two extreme (and overly pat) fallacies: right wingers think we don’t need the government to have a modern economy, left wingers don’t think we need an economy to have a modern government.
eric
@Zifnab: On Mr. Nelsen’s change of heart, as I undertand it, he got more money for Medicaid. Theoretically, that means more services for people in financial distress, either directly or by making up the State’s shortfall. Isn’t that demonstrably liberal? Just asking the world.
eric
Malron
HAHA John so true.
I posted a response in the “WTF?” thread yesterday and had to surrender the pc to a 4 year so he could cruise CartoonNetwork. I come back this morning to the most absurd shitstorm imaginable. I think the “didn’t campaign on a public option” brouhaha is more a quest to prove Obama’s a liar than it is to find out what he was actually trying to say, because – in typical WaPo fashion – you read a little further in the story and you’ll find this in the next paragraph:
As I said before, it was stupid of him to say “I didn’t campaign on the public option” because he mentioned it enough on the trail to have a thousand DKos diaries launched accusing him of lying. But the quote is being thrown around without context and that’s something he should have known would happen considering the hostile environment.
Atlliberal
I hate it, but he’s right. If they hadn’t rescued the financial system, we wouldn’t be talking about a historic, but flawed health care bill passing. We wouldn’t be talking about recovering from the worst recession since the great depression. Even a jobless recovery is better than a complete financial meltdown. We could be talking about a 25% unemployment rate, and huge homeless problems. We could be talking about soup lines and people starving.
He’s right.
K. Grant
Whatever you do, do not surf over to HuffPo today – they are in full Taylor Marsh-Peter Daou-Jane Hamsher whining mode today, all lamenting the end of civilization because pure liberals are not running Washington.
My thought? Ariana never really switched sides, it is all some subterranean plot to reinstall her right-wing overlords by destroying the centrists. Hamsher may have let the cat out of the bag with her foolish column stating that real liberals and teabaggers have common cause.
eric
@Wilson Heath: Speaking as a Left Winger, my point would be not that a bailout was not needed — it was, and not that some financial insitutions had to be propped up as too big to fail — they probably were, but when it comes time to propping up families (see cramdown) and reining in the excesses that caused the too big to fail, those are the places Obama “failed.” Sure, we avoided the iceberg, and even though the Captain has sobered up, we have not barred the crew from bringing him drinks. So, us lefties see an economy as necessary, we just want more safeguards against the ravages caused by unfettered and unregulated Captains of Industry.
eric
Cathie from Canada
Now Huffington Post is headlining a piece about how Obama is enacting policies originally promoted by Clinton and McCain during the 2008 campaign.
How old are their reporters — 14?
Is the Huffington Post message here that America should have voted for one of them instead?
I myself was a Hillary supporter but there was no way that Hillary would have got Congress to support any health care bill. Obama did it by keeping his hands off it, so that the members of congress did not see it as “his” bill but rather as “their” bill. Hillary was too identified with health care reform, and not as adept at handling congress.
Joe Beese
My word, John. So much hippie punching. So little argument to support Obama’s actions.
But then the former is a great deal easier than the latter, isn’t it.
mk3872
Yeah, I am sure huffpo will use this as a way to call for geithner and summers’ removal.
Funny thing is, why would the Obama admin do anything that HuffPo calls for when all they do is poke Obama in the eye day after day after day ??
General Winfield Stuck
Which means we will get another whole day of left-wing self-flagellation in the form of “Obama admitted he loves the bankers more than he loves
Sellout!! Sellout SELLOUT!!
CORPORATIST!
The only question that remains, — will I be strong enough to avoid getting my dumb ass in the middle of all the poutrage concern!!
That Obama cock tease.
btw woke up to 4 inches of the snow thang. Charlie loved it.
pics later when time.
Comrade Jake
It’s going to be a strange 2010, with all these people who used to denounce Fox News deciding to regularly appear on it to bash the President because he’s too much of a corporate schill. I look forward to them also using comments by Joe Lieberman to help make their case. Good times.
Mike from Philly
Oh Christ, enough already. He DID campaign on the public option. He DID criticize the idea of mandates. He DID state that his administration would break with Bush era secret dealings. None of this is in dispute to anyone with a memory of longer than 18 months. He’s done a 180 on each of these things. Bitching about the dirty hippies who are calling him on it because they dared to expect more from their leaders makes you sound like a machinist tool for the status quo. An increasingly shrill one at that.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Jake:
Real hippies going on Fox News.
What’s the world coming to.
valdivia
I also love that the WashPo interview from yesterday is pretty in depth and the one and only thing we got is about is the PO. I would say averting another Depression was a pretty big deal. But I am an O-bot so what do I know?
Max
@K. Grant: OMG! I read that fan fiction of a PUMA post from Marsh about if Obama was a liberal, we’d all be thin and rich.
As John has pointed out continually, none of the “kill the bill” “Obama is a failure” crowd can tell us how we get the bill they want passed.
It’s all blogging nonsense designed to increase their profile for financial gain.
If that is the “liberal left”, I want no part of it and am happy in the moderate center.
eric
@Cathie from Canada: Rumsfeld really captured it for the ages: You legislate with the Congress you have, not the Congress you might have in the future. Even if Obama was a DFH, how does that get Nelsen and Lieberman to vote in a way different than they did? In fact, the more those guys are pushed by a seemingly ibleral politician, the more their instincts say “push back” to demonstrate that they are not beholden to the liberal “special interests” of the democratic party. It has always been thus.
eric
jibeaux
What, hasn’t he caught a really big-ass fish yet? Failed Obama preznecy, indeed.
Brick Oven Bill
Obama likely does not love the Bankers. He probably seethes about them. But the most likely scenario is that he has to obey them, as they would surely have access to the records of Columbia University. The President in this scenario is a compromised man.
Observe Obama’s denouncement of ‘Short-Term Greed’.
Barack Obama’s website: ‘President Calls for End to Short-Term Greed’.
This seemingly small distinction is of great significance, as Goldman Sachs’ motto is ‘Long-Term Greedy’.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mike from Philly:
The thing is, bitching is all we get from your ilk. That’s it, Non stop, and nothing else, ever. And stop calling yourself hippies, hippies don’t go on Fox News. period.
Silver Owl
I’m not getting all the liberal bashing but hey whatever floats your boats. It’s not like this hasn’t been going for decades and is quite the boring rerun.
Yeah bailing out the irresponsible piss poor performing bankers was necessary. Who knew America raised and promoted so many unskilled thieving arses to such high levels. Most important, no. Most necessary yes. So far we still have a financial infrastructure run by heroin addicts rather than legitimate professionals that actually perform.
Now what is most important is getting value adding Americans back to work.
jibeaux
@General Winfield Stuck:
Sometimes, there is moaning.
Zifnab
@eric:
His state is getting special treatment because Nelson is a holdout dick. I’ve got no problem with leaning spending towards states in budget crisis or extending coverage to more Americans. Just the opposite.
But Ben Nelson’s whole shtick was about how the budget is oh-so-important and health care was too gosh darn expensive to afford. The current plan unbalanced the budget by another $100 million to win his vote, specifically. It could just as easily have gone to any other Senator – from Bernie Sanders to James Inhofe. But it’s $100 million earmarked specifically for Ben Nelson’s state because Ben Nelson needed something to wet his whistle.
The term “unethical” comes to mind.
And I’m not blaming the White House, or Reid, or the Senate or the House. This legislation needed to get made, and I’m sure there are a few other big payouts to other states reached in similar deals. It’s just the sign of what the filibuster Senate gets you. Legislative blackmail.
Al Capone couldn’t have done it better.
General Winfield Stuck
@jibeaux: LOL
Jim
@General Winfield Stuck:
are there any “real hippies” left? Most of the ones I see are too young to make the cut. (that’s a small joke)
I’ll say this much for Hamsher, even though she’s a bit too pure for me, stuck in the thought warp a lot of bloggy types are, that the Left blogoshpere is an accurate reflection of the American polity, not unlike Broder and Cokie and Joe Klein think the Manhattan/Beltway/Greenroom consensus does, but I don’t remember Hamsher being for a specific candidate in the primaries. She, as I recall, concentrated on issues rather than people. It’s always remarkable to me how many people who were balls-out Cintonites now suddenly think that HRC and Dennis The K were running on near identical platforms.
BTD
Really? That’s weird. It clearly is the biggest accomplishment of his first year – saving the country from Depression.
I think he could have done it better, but the accomplishment occurred.
I think you are chasing shadows on this one – flinching on Obama’s behalf so to speak.
Gwangung
@Mike from Philly: Funny. I NEVER got that message; my takeaway was always that he was cagy about it, as he should. Mildly surprised that anyone thought differently.
martha
@eric: As much as I hated Rumsfeld, that line was, and is, a perfect encapsulation of pragmatic reality. But there’s way too little of that boring commodity on both the left and right these days.
I’m with John. Until one of these shrill shriekers can tell me how they would have gotten 60 votes in the senate with a public option or the medicare buy-in, I assume they’re in la-la land.
Da Bomb
It’s so nice to be on thread where there isn’t any screeching or bemoaning one sentence that was said in an entire 17 minute interview.
I wonder how long it will last?
I pray to the Santa Claus god to get me a tree that grows a money indefinitely. I wonder will he be able to make that prayer happen? Hmmm…
General Winfield Stuck
Howard Beale Hippies? unhinged, but well meaning.
Notorious P.A.T.
Yeah, that’s true. But I thought that the main reason for not punishing Lieberman when Obama took over was so that Holy Joe would owe him one. It would’ve been nice if Obama had tried to cash in that chip.
Senyordave
Maybe I’m somewhat biased becasue I work as a financial analyst, but I agree with Obama on this.
It’s funny to always hear conservatives talk about running the US as a business, but then when they are in charge the first thing they do is violate every basic business principle. Goerge Bush spent eight years CUTTING REVENUE AND INCREASING SPENDING! He, Cheney and all the other clowns in charge would have been fired from any business.
The first concern of any entity is survival. Without the financial rescue I believe we would have 15% to 20%unemployment, virtually no lending, and a worldwide financial meltdown. I think we literally would have had panic in the streets. Many things could have been done better, but can anyone seriously say they would want McPalin in charge?
I pray that Obama uses the State of the Union speech to talk about the difficult financial choices ahead. Unfortunately , in addition to the right who won’t work with him on anything, we have a large portion of the left who truly are every bit as fiscally irresponsible as the stereotype of the loony left.
Mike from Philly
My ilk? Would that be the “ilk” that took a look at the Democratic field in 2008 and decided they would actually believe in what Obama had to say and vote for him over the establishment candidate? Or would that be the “ilk” that actually wants to hold some of these people at their word after busting ass to get them elected?
In any event, I’m certainly proud to not be of the “ilk” that will sneeringly mock anybody who wants to hold their politicians accountable for their promises rather than cheerlead their every move like a mindless automaton simply because of teh Nader.
If anybody would like to dispute that Obama has continually broken his campaign promises to his supporters you should do so rather than mock those supporters as unrealistic losers. You want to swallow every shit sandwich you’re being given because our leaders are so much better than us and we couldn’t possibly imagine how hard all this is, go right ahead. The rest of us will be aspiring to something a little better.
The cynicism and arrogance is breathtaking.
Gwangung
Well, that’s the point. Now that it’s done, we can think of dozens of ways it coulda been and shoulda been better. I’m not sure we have a good sense of how difficult the task of saving the economy was and is.
eric
@Zifnab: But, it is oh-so-common. He had heightened leverage because he was the last one, but that is the way it always is in a negotiation. I was only pointing out that his larceny procured a more liberal result than, let’s say, tax breaks for an insurance company and if you had to give in to larceny isn’t more money to Medicaid a decent compromise. I am not defending his anti-choice demands in any way. I am not defending him in any way, nor was a really criticizing your point.
eric
Da Bomb
@Gwangung: My take was similar to yours.
And he didn’t really campaign on that, he also mentioned the option of affordable private plan as well. But that seems to get lost in the shuffle of poutage.
Actaully FlipYrWig, stated best yesterday, on what was meant by “I didn’t campaign on the Public option” I understood the way he did. I have to wade through the belly of the beast that became that thread, so I will get back with his quote later.
I know, someone will post what was on his website in 3…2…1..
cat48
Comprimised by Columbia records how? or is that Birther humor?
jibeaux
@General Winfield Stuck:
And the inevitable “shit sandwich” analogy. That’s three contributions.
Da Bomb
@General Winfield Stuck: Sometimes there’s pissing contests too. Also.
Zifnab
@martha:
Ben Nelson was bought off with a $100 million kick back, so your last real hold-out was Lieberman.
Given that Lieberman has a long history of being for the Medicare Buy-In, I imagine a similar kickback deal or some simple “Joe Lieberman is a hypocrite” media badgering could have brought him around.
But, at this point, the legislation was a good four months overdue with Conference and an endless wave of GOP staling in front of it.
I think Lieberman’s vote would have been gettable with more time. Perhaps Obama simply didn’t believe he had the political time left. Of course, if that was the case, perhaps he shouldn’t have let Max Baucus stand around with dick in hand for three months negotiating the loser Finance Bill over the summer. :-p
General Winfield Stuck
@Mike from Philly:
Go for it then. get a new candidate and challenge Obama. I am all for it. And by your ilk, I mean people who are constantly moaning and groaning about all of Obama’s failures, or alleged failures, and never ever list his accomplishments. If you believe he has any, as we do.
Cole. Maybe it’s time to again put up that graph reviewing Obama’s campaign promises kept versus not, and the other parameters. Maybe it needs posting daily. Or put on the side bar for easy reference.
Gwangung
@Mike from Philly: you’re mockable because you’re not very smart and very predictable in your squealing. Functionally, no different than a troll. If you were serious (which you aren’t), you’d deal with people’s comments instead of spraying invective.
Zifnab
@eric:
I mean, you’re right there. As far as bribes go, they definitely handed him a liberal cookie. But state money is fungible. $100 million for Medicare today means taxes Nebraskans won’t have to pay tomorrow.
Sandlapper
If I hear the word ‘sh*t sandwich” one more time this week, I am going to perform a John Cole on somebody (otherwise known as punching somebody in the neck).
It appears that the vast majority of the “liberal blogosphere” woke up late last week and discovered that it is often necessary, if not entirely critical, to compromise in order to get something done. Oh! The horrors!!
John Cole
This is the progressive mindset in a nutshell. I personally have flamed Obama over the banksters, flamed him over the drone attacks, flamed him over any number of things. But because I don’t fly into a snit every time David Sirota gets a wild hair up his ass and decides he needs to be on CNN again, which is every day, I’m doing nothing but cheerleading.
The problems with folks like you is a lack of perspective. Tens of millions of people will benefit from new community hospitals. Tens of millions will be able to purchase more affordable health insurance. Millions will no longer be denied care because of a pre-existing condition. Medicare is expanded and strengthened. Medicaid is expanded and funded. Huge subsidies to help people provide insurance. Subsidies to small businesses. And on and on and on.
But to some of you, the insurance companies were note blown up and there is no public option, so the bill is just one giant failure. On top of all the lack of perspective is this fanciful claim that there were 60 votes to get what you wanted. That is idiocy.
I’m not punching hippies to punch hippies. I’m punching hippies because they are acting like morans.
Max
@General Winfield Stuck: I’ve resigned myself to the fact that some people need to live in a state of continual outrage and any attempts to insert logic into the manic is futile.
It reminds me of my friends that aren’t happy unless they are in relationships that are all drama, all the time. If there is no drama to be found, they make some.
I specifically try to live my life without outrage and drama and while I am a very passionate person, I choose to direct my efforts towards more productive enterprises.
But, I’m an O-bot, what do I know.
Da Bomb
@John Cole: The bill doesn’t give me the right to blow up Aetna or Blue Cross, Blue Shield?
Teh Horrors!!!!!!!
I am hereby, turning over my O-bot card. I can no longer support the Kenyan Lying Lion that is in the White House. He’s black, he’s not to be in a house that’s white. And on top of all this, I don’t get to blow up insurance companies at my leisure. His white side is trying to oppress me. Even though his black doesn’t like his white side, because he’s a rascist towards teabaggers and Glenn Beck. I want my 40 acres and a mule dammit!!!
Obama is the absolute suck!
Mike from Philly
Ah I see. You guys are the positivity police. You can’t mention how Obama has broken his campaign pledges without listing his “accomplishments” as well. Otherwise you’re just a bitchy whiner.
This isn’t Glee Club guys, hate to break it to you. Its representative government and if a politician has promised you something and then does the exact opposite, you’re not required to think happy thoughts. The idea itself is laughable. Again – if anybody would like to dispute that Obama campaigned FOR a public option and AGAINST mandates you should do so. C’mon – it’ll be good for a laugh.
You sound like a bunch of four year olds complaining about mean mommie. “Why do you guys gotta bring us down man, can’t you see he’s trying?”.
Miriam
You know you guys, it is always so easy to blast the DFHs and I’m sorry to see this site falling into that trap. I think your snark and your ire is directed at the wrong targets. Obama is really doing some egregious things – supporting the security state for example – and it makes it hard to trust his good intentions on other issues. Progressives need to push the President from the left or he will keep leaning farther and farther right. That is all that I see happening at places like FDL – they are functioning as a counterweight to the overwhelming wave of corporatism and conservatism coming from the Democratic party.
Sandlapper
@John Cole:
Yep. That pretty well sums up this whole week.
General Winfield Stuck
@Max:
And so we have No Drama Obama. Drives the manic progressives crazy. He ain’t getting our rocks off cause he doesn’t that’s why.
Comrade Jake
@Notorious P.A.T.:
I just don’t know what universe this is from. I’m pretty sure it’s not the one I live in. If they pull that chairmanship Holy Joe’s not the 60th vote, in which case I’ve no idea where it comes from.
Comrade Jake
@Mike from Philly:
Yes, that is clearly what the rest of us are suggesting. Where’s the facepalm emoticon for BJ?
You got something right.
valdivia
I have made this point before but I think it bears repeating–what annoys me no end and I think is very destructive of democratic morale in general is that those who want to criticize the President do so *in the exact same language and talking points* that Republicans use. Why adopt the frames put out there by Republicans? WTF?Go ahead and push for Obama to do what you want but do not start out by calling Teh Fail, don’t call him a wimp (a favorite Republican meme about dems) and don’t use their language! My thought is that certain dems are thoroughly captured and fearful of Republicans they now talk in exactly the same way about their party’s standard bearer? Political Stockholm Syndrome.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@General Winfield Stuck:
Fucking-A right, a real hippie would never go on Faux nooz. Only an attention-whoring money grubber would do…
Hold it. Hamsher did describe herself as a libertarian, right? Problem solved! She ain’t no DFH, she’s just a DF and so are her followers. They’re just appending the “H” to it in hopes of fooling everyone else into thinking they are hippies.
A real hippie don’t do Faux, no way and no how. Only a sellout would and that would mean that they never were a hippie in the first place, they were just fair-weather hippies.
eric
@John Cole: Let me suggest the following as an explanation for the current “crisis.” During the bailout “conversation,” you may recall all of the liberals on the networks explaining why the bailout was too small and why tax cuts were the least efficient way to stimulate the economy. You don’t? Not surprising, because the voices of the Left were shut out. Everyone on TV talked about how BIG the package was and how EXPENSIVE it was. There was never a contrarian left view point to state what is now obvious: we need more stimulus and we need it now Scotty.
So, here we are. The second substantial policy debate has effectively ended and the left has taken a beating again. Forget the realpolitik of it all. we (the Left) know this Bill falls way short just as the stimulus did. So, you are hearing the frustration of a group that sees another lost (and very big) opportunity.
Notwithstanding Obama’s accomplishments, there are a number of programs that were “wait until next year,” and I think you are hearing liberals saying “next year better be here soon.”
eric
Da Bomb
@Mike from Philly: Again here are the accomplishments as posted by TPM
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/30/progressives_and_obama_are_doing_better_than_we_th/index.php
Quick Summary of 2009 Progressive Victories (more explanation below)
•Three major health bills (SCHIP, tobacco regulation, and stimulus funds for Medicaid, COBRA subsidies, health information technology and the National Institutes of Health) enacted even before comprehensive reform
•Stimulus contained myriad other individual policy victories, not only preventing a far worse depression but also:
◦Delivered key new funds for education
◦Expanded state energy conservation programs and new transit programs
◦Added new smart grid investments
◦Funded high-speed Internet broadband programs
◦Extended unemployment insurance for up to 99 weeks for the unemployed and modernizing state UI programs to cover more of the unemployed
◦Made large new investments in the safety net, from food stamps (SNAP) to affordable housing to child care
•Clean cars victory to take gas mileage requirements to 35mpg
•Protection of 2 million acres of land against oil and gas drilling and other development
•Executive orders protecting labor rights, from project labor agreements to protecting rights of contractor employees on federal jobs
•Stopping pay discrimination through Lilly Ledbetter and Equal Pay laws
•Making it easier for airline and railway workers to unionize, while appointing NLRB and other labor officials who will strengthen freedom to form unions
•Reversing Bush ban on funding overseas family planning clinics
•Passing hate crimes protections for gays and lesbians
•Protecting stem cell research research
•Strengthening state authority and restricting federal preemption to protect state consumer, environmental and labor laws
•Financial reforms to protect homeowners and credit card holders
•Bailing out the auto industry and protecting unionized retirees and workers
There’s also this website called Politi-fact that list promises broken; compromises, and promises kept, works stalled, works in progress and a host of things that haven’t been worked on yet because HE’S ONLY BEEN IN OFFICE FOR A YEAR.
We have beaten this horse, ad nauseum. Please stop.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mike from Philly:
Nope. We are the perspective police. And you are without any.
This is just priceless. Projection much. And the idea that this blog is the one demanding that so called “real hippies” fall in line is a laughable. Do you even read other liberal blogs? BJ is in the distinct minority in a sea of left blog non stop Obama buttrage.
The others may assimilate us in the end, but not without a fight.
General Winfield Stuck
@Da Bomb:
I do so love your list Da Bomb :-)
Da Bomb
@Miriam: Really well how is Jane Hamsher appearing on Fox and aligning herself with rascist teabaggers supposed to make the President lean to the left?
Comrade Jake
@Miriam:
Well, then I’ll happily go over to FDL if I want to get my righteous on then. Meanwhile, thank God for Cole and that this place won’t turn into another FDL anytime soon.
I’m sorry but just because we don’t engage in the daily poutrage doesn’t mean a lot of this stuff doesn’t bother us. It does. But there are limits, and it’s simply not the case that Obama’s essentially W v. 2.0.
eric
@General Winfield Stuck: You listen to the whining from the Left you have, not the Left you want.
Da Bomb
@Comrade Jake: THIS.
Tsulagi
@Zifnab:
Actually it did. In that deal Bernie got $600 million for Vermont and MA picked up $500M in a threeway. See, Nelson has love for the DFHs.
valdivia
What Max, DaBomb and General all said. And that post that John did in response to Mike in Philly.
Seconded.
jibeaux
The beatings will continue until the horse turns into a pony!
BTD
@John Cole:
John:
There are simply significant substantive differences between two camps of Democrats regarding the best way to tackle health care reform.
Ed Kilgore’s piece on this was excellent and I wish everyone would acknowledge that there is a reasonable and real difference of opinion on the substance.
Does that mean I think that everything that has been said and done makes sense? Of course not. but this holds true for all sides, including you, me, Jane Hamsher Ezra, Nate Silver, Yglesias, etc.
The fact is, from Obama on down, all of us have been disingenuous on the issue, trying to ignore the real difference of opinion. some believe the regulatory reform framework the way to go. Other the public insurance framework. Since these two frameworks did not collide, no one had to make the choice of one over the other – until the end.
All summer long folks have protested that Obama did too support the public option. And in a manner of speaking he did. but the real question was when push came to shove, would Obama place enough value on the public option to fight for it. the answer was clear, I thought last summer frankly, he would not.
Obama wanted regulatory reform and was indifferent to public insurance reform. As are most of the proponents of the Senate bill. this is a perfectly reasonable position to take. I do not agree with it. but it is clear that these were not the positions of a public option advocate.
To be honest, the real targets for people like Jane Hamsher should be someone like Russ Feingold, who protests his support for the public option while doing everything to undermine the one path it had – reconciliation.
kay
I think he’s saying he wants credit for avoiding a world-wide depression, which he can credibly, arguably, claim. But only if you believe there was going to be a complete meltdown, or you’re not so opposed to how he did it that you think the mitigation wasn’t worth the cost, or wasn’t directed equitably or properly.
I don’t think Presidents generally get credit for what horrible things didn’t happen, in any event. No one does.
Bush tried it, with terrorist attacks, and no one really bought it.
Da Bomb
@jibeaux: Or a unicorn that poops chocolate covered cherries.
Max
@Da Bomb: If funding for stem cell research was the only thing accomplished by Obama this year, his first year is a great success for me. The rest is gravy.
Stem cells and bringing science back are major accomplishments and they get so little coverage.
My father suffered from a spinal cord injury for 10 years before he passed away and he was in constant pain. There is considerable evidence that future spinal cord patients will be able to get some relief because of the science and stem cell work that Obama is funding.
That’s major.
Malron
@Comrade Jake:
HAHAHA if you “push the president from the left…” guess where he ends up? You need to be pushing your president to the left in order to get more progressive legislation, but the antics of progressives are definitely pushing more people away. That is all.
Zifnab
@John Cole:
Your mom is in a nutshell.
:-p With Ben Nelson, there were 59. The bill had been fought long and hard and it looked like Lieberman was going to be the last gumba to cave. But he’d been keen on the Medicare Buy-In before and he wasn’t nearly so offended by the public option as Nelson was about abortion (or, at least, he wasn’t as loud).
Only the single payer die-hards wanted to blow up the insurance companies. The public option guys wanted a release valve for the inevitable insurance company lawyer dicking, SCOTUS provision overturning, and extra-legal clusterfucking that would inevitably occur when insurance companies were suddenly prohibited from cutting costs by telling you to go fuck off and die.
Every regulated industry – from oil to cigarettes – has fought like rabid badgers against client-friendly regulations. Insurance will be no different. The only question is whether you want to support several thousand people working their way through the legal system to hold insurance companies accountable, or whether you want to provide people with a default “obeys the rules” policy.
General Winfield Stuck
And I will add. It is Okee Dokee with me that the Obama bashers do what they do. It is a free country and anyone can support or not any president. Free speech.
But when that is all there is, pointing out nothing but your perceived failures of Obama, don’t tell me you are supporter also. Doesn’t wash and is dishonest.
I am an Obot not because I agree with everything he does, or how he does it, and in what order. I am an Obot because someone has to be left to support a dem president under the banner of popular presidents, especially from their base, get the political capital needed to actually get stuff done. And what we are getting from the activists is all negative that creates a negative feedback loop, that ends up being self fulfilling prophecy of failure.
It is just one more example of no perspective from the left. They want what they want and now. There is a way to both support and criticize a dem president, but it takes intellectual effort and a little guile. The lack of this from the concerned left is my complaint, No more no less.
Da Bomb
@Max: No but see, er..uh… the Senate bill which half of an unfinalized bill doesn’t let me blow up the insurance industry. Obama Claus promised me that he was gonna create a new heaven from a grain of sand and Liberman’s farts.
It’s December and there is no new heaven!!!
Can I haz a new heaven?
Thoroughly Pizzled
@kay:
It’s pretty unfair, when you think about it. If Congress had passed a law before 9/11 that improved security to the point where the attacks didn’t happen, they would definitely deserve appreciation, but they wouldn’t get any.
BTD
@General Winfield Stuck:
Interesting comment. I think then you would acknowledge a role for those who criticize the President from the Left no? Personally, I am more comfortable knowing someone is criticizing ME from the left (as they do when I support the President’s views on Afghanistan and foreign policy (I give him an A), trade (Obama is a free trader like me) and TARP (I supported it).)
You do raise an interesting point though – should some of us spend more time trumpeting the things we like about what Obama has done? Like John (who thinks his criticisms of Obama are not taken into account), I think my praise of Obama is conveniently ignored when discussing my criticisms of him.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@John Cole:
Can we have a brief moment of comity where we note what a huge improvement in the state of the nation it is since the Cheney years, that once again we can have hippies who act and sound like morans rather than being in a place where the most freaked out, far left, conspiracy minded hippies were the only stone-cold realists in the room and everybody else was just deluding themselves.
valdivia
@General Winfield Stuck:
this a million times this. Why do you always write what I want to write much more eloquently? Now I have to go to the next thread and spell out how you have disappointed me. ;-)
Miriam
@Malron: You are right – it should be pushing to the left. Not from the left. Good catch.
Rick
I’ve been a reader here ever since Greenwald mentioned the blog but this is the first time I’ve posted here. For the life of me I don’t understand where this sarcastic slamming of liberals who are upset at Obama is going. Pointing out that to-date there’s been little to no proof that Obama is willing to fight for his base(or anyone who isn’t incorporated) is considered shrill and unrealistic.
No one is arguing that McCain would have been better but to say Obama has been disappointing to-date is the largest understatement of the year.
I realize that my position might not be as “realistic” as the author’s but I’d have rather had Obama fight like a cornered tiger on single-payer or a strong public option and LOSE than win with the status-quo enhancing bill that’s on the table. I think it would have helped move future arguments to the left and been much more productive politically. As it is the base is having serious moral issues going into the 2010 elections. Will I vote for Democrats? Sure, if nothing else because their velocity of screwing me over is slower than any Republican contenders. But asking me to donate, argue for or volunteer for Democrats is asking too much for my pride to swallow.
Mike from Philly
“It is just one more example of no perspective from the left. They want what they want and now.”
Or they want what they were promised during the campaign. Again, had I known that mandates were going to be the rule of the day once health care reform was passed I would have thrown my support around Hillary.
“There is a way to both support and criticize a dem president, but it takes intellectual effort and a little guile.”
Only if you’re concerned about “the team”. I’m not. I frankly don’t consider myself a Democrat or Republican, I want what’s best. Am I going to run out and vote Republican in the fall? No way. Am I going to call bullshit on this insurance giveaway? Yeah. Big time. Because it is bullshit. And all the rah rah look at my impressive accomplishment list isn’t going to change the fundamental fact that we were promised one thing and then given another. Speaking only for myself I can say that had I seen any pressure at all being put on the Lieberdems I might be in the “oh well at least we got something” camp. But we didn’t see that. We saw backroom deals with pharmaceutical companies and demands from the White House that the Nelsons and Liebermans of the world get exactly what they want just so we could pass something. Nobody really gave a shit what the supporters wanted, probably because they knew you guys would be able to shout them down with your chants of “realism”.
“The lack of this from the concerned left is my complaint, No more no less.”
Really? Because looking at all these posts it would seem your main problem with those of us who don’t support this bill is that we’re of low intellect and crazy.
mk3872
If you look at some of the Michelle Malkin-nastiness that Jane Hamsher put up today on FDL, you’ll see that she has co-opted a lot of the language and techniques from the Tea Baggers and has full-out gone to jouvenile name-calling of Pres. Obama.
Now you know why the MSM ignored Jane.
If only they would do the same to her conservative sister in hate, Michelle Malkin …
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@BTD: “I think then you would acknowledge a role for those of us who criticize the President from the Left no?”
Fix’t.
Yes, I would agree there is a role for you and yours. This is like a play on the stage of the world and our costume is a that of a donkey. We play the front half and you guys take up the rear. I think you peeps are naturals at that position and who knows, you might even win a Tony for it.
KCinDC
Kathleen Parker (you may know her from such previous gems as her column saying Obama was not a “full-blooded American”) thinks Obama is experiencing his “Harriet Miers moment”.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@mk3872:
Jane Hamsher is turning into the Ann Coulter of the left. Now Fox will have two refrigerators to store ice cold drinks in, one on the left side of the cafeteria and one on the right!
;)
Dr. Loveless
I nominate “shit sandwich” as the new “slap in the face.” Do I hear a second?
kay
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
I’m more optimistic on the economy than 99% of the people here.
Orzag said he wanted to keep unemployment to 10%, to avoid a death spiral, and I think they basically accomplished that.
I believed at the time and still believe the 8% figure that they put out there was politics, to try to get more stimulus, and I agreed with trying to get more stimulus by making up a number. I think it was a tactic.
I wish someone would write a good, non-ideological book on what happened in the financial crisis. I like to start with what happened, not what didn’t happen, or might have happened.
It’s been more than a year. Where’s my book?
John Cole
Sweet mother of God, Hillary and Edwards and all the progressives now wailing BERATED Obama for not having mandates in his plan. And for his part, Obama demagogued the two of them for having them.
Obama should resign and go raise his kids. This nation is too fucking stupid, selfish, and shortsighted to govern.
valdivia
@KCinDC:
I refuse to click on that because it’s Kaplan. Want to summarize?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Dr. Loveless:
We must throw Shit Sandwich under the bus. Then we can have a Shit Taco. A very flat one.
Da Bomb
@Dr. Loveless: Seconded!
El Cid
Although, yes, he mentioned it, personally I never thought Obama actually supported a public option and would get rid of it as soon as it became helpful or possible to do so. It just didn’t seem like the sort of program he would back. (NOTE: That said, I thought it was a pleasant surprise the extent that he did mention it positively — i.e., though it was dropped it wasn’t treated like OMG U KRAZEE HIPPIES, it was more like, ‘hey, just, it’s not gonna happen…’)
But John is right: our collective memory is at best 30 – 40 seconds.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay:
Yves Smith has been writing a book. When it comes out I’m going to push aside Grandmas and trample small children in my rush to get a copy.
kwAwk
Of course we’ll never know if Obama couldn’t have gotten Lieberman or Nelson to go along with the public option because he didn’t try.
Lieberman’s statement that he went looking with Obama’s healthcare liaison/aide for what the President’s position was on the public option gives a strong implication that Lieberman was fairly concerned about what the President had committed to.
More so than the President methinks.
BTD
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Heh. “We play the front half and you guys take up the rear. I think you peeps are naturals at that position and who knows, you might even win a Tony for it.”
Now that’s elevating the discourse. No doubt you think the DFHs have a superiority complex.
Mike from Philly
“Sweet mother of God, Hillary and Edwards and all the progressives now wailing BERATED Obama for not having mandates in his plan. And for his part, Obama demagogued the two of them for having them.”
Uh…no. Progressives liked the public option. Do you honestly not know that? Because if you that fact isn’t clear in your mind you frankly have no business having an opinion. That’s why Obama was the more appealing choice for many of us during the primaries, because he offered an alternative – the public option. So he campaigned on that, got the support he needed and then turned around and offered mandates.
Sweet mother of God, do you not see how this was a betrayal of his campaign promise to his supporters! You should go play with your dogs for a while. You’re too self righteous to understand why somebody might be a little pissed about voting for the wrong guy.
Or put up another list which includes how he advanced gay rights. That was awesome.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kwAwk:
If Obama had been willing to nuke Iran on behalf of Israel as a tradeoff for HCR, Lieberman would have voted for single-payer, after he recovered from the orgasms.
Everybody has their price, some are just higher priced than others.
harlana peppper
So what if they do? I mean, really, why do you care?
Emma
Rick: Two of my friends that now will be able to get insurance which they have been constantly denied due to (minor, but needing daily control) pre-existing conditions would like to say something to you. It’s just that I don’t think it would be printable.
We have tried the “all or nothing” before: Ted Kennedy and President Clinton both have expressed their regrets that they didn’t compromise. This president has gotten a foot on the door for millions of people and he still has three years to go.
You want to do something constructive? Send him an email: thank you for this Mr. President. Now, about that exemption from anti-trust? Let’s talk about that, yes? And you start pushing again.
SGEW
@John Cole:
You did see this Onion article, right?
Malron
@Mike from Philly:
Praytell, oh wise and infinitely hysterical sage, who did you see as the right guy?
Da Bomb
@Mike from Philly: If you want to constantly live in denial, be my guest. But you stated upthread that we weren’t listing his accomplishments. For eleventy-billion time, I listed references and even informed you of Politi-fact.
So now that I easily did your work for you by providing you a list of accomplishments, you start to deflect and speak on gay rights. Since he has 3 years left in his term, I will reserve my opinion about whether or not he has an agenda against Gay people.
John Cole is correct about the fact that Obama originally didn’t want mandates and he was completely berated. Now that he sees that mandates are necessary, he wants them. Actaully he campaign on extending health care to all not the actually public option. And that’s what I signed up for, extending health care to all.
harlana peppper
Jane Hamsher poops angel dust.
:p
Da Bomb
@Emma: THIS!!! with big huge sparkly spotlights aglow.
Tsulagi
Yep, a perfumed turd with some chocolate sprinkles on top is still a turd.
kay
@Mike from Philly:
HRC had a public option and mandates. Obama had a public option and no mandates.
You really chose Obama over HRC because of that difference in their health care plan proposals? Your support for a mandate was conditioned on a public option insurance plan, in 2008?
I guess it’s plausible, but I think you were way further into the weeds that the average Democrat, if you were parsing proposals that fine.
Mike from Philly
@DaBomb
Yeah I read your meager list of accomplishments, which actually included reference to the great strides he’s made in advancing gay rights. Speaking as a gay man, and somebody who isn’t vested in cheerleading this presidency I can say with assurance that list was not overly impressive. But hey keep flogging it if it makes you feel better.
You’re also woefully misinformed if you or John Cole thinks that Obama did not specifically campaign for a public option in 2008. Campaign literature is rife with references to a public option. A cursory glance at Daily Kos (that doesn’t involve trolling for giggles at all the crazy hippies) will reveal numerous YouTubes of the president vociferously arguing for the public option and arguing against mandates.
If by “berating” you mean winning the Democratic primaries, then yeah Obama was berated for this. And sorry but the glib “but now he sees mandates are necessary so we’re getting them” doesn’t quite explain why his supporters shouldn’t feel as if they were lied to at this point.
You people aren’t arguing for “realism”. You’re arguing the same tired bullshit we’ve been hearing for the last nine years. Nobody should be held accountable for anything and facts don’t matter. Like Greenwald noted previously, most of you were probably full throated cheerleaders of the Iraq war. Apparently your ability to shoutdown naysayers who don’t want to hop on the bandwagon is still intact.
kay
@Mike from Philly:
It’s funny, I just looked at a Krugman column where he was passionately arguing for HRC’s health care plan, in the primary. The mandates. He wants those.
In the third paragraph, he makes the disclaimer, where he recognizes that no candidate’s proposals are a guarantee, and predicts Obama will come around on mandates.
I think HRC is the person who should be pissed at Obama on mandates, actually. But I bet she’s not. She wants mandates, because she wants universal coverage. She was right.
kwAwk
What the Balloon-Juicers don’t seem to understand is that what Mike is trying to tell you guys is that a lot of people chose Obama over Hillary because they viewed him as being more trust worthy and thus MORE LIKELY to fulfill his campaign promises.
When he not only doesn’t fulfill his campaign promises but then makes claims that he didn’t even campaign on those promises at all, it is going to leave a bad taste in a lot of those people’s mouths.
The reasonable judgment on what Obama has achieved with Healthcare reform is that with very large majorities in both houses Obama got though a healthcare proposal that looks like it was written by a moderate Republican.
What Mike doesn’t seem to be understanding is that this is how Balloon-Juice operates and has operated for the past two years, which is to defend Obama at all costs. Nothing Obama does is Obama’s fault, its Hillary’s fault (last year) or Lieberman’s fault (this year).
Bailing out the banks may be what Obama thinks is his greatest accomplishment of his first year, but spurning the left on the Public Option will soon come to be remembered as Obama’s greatest mistake of his first year in office.
Da Bomb
@Mike from Philly: Meager list? What alternate universe do you live in?
And you invoke Greenwald and Daily Kos to disprove my point? I stand corrected. The mighty Greenwald is always right.
Which there are also Daily Kos postings with actually transcripts of his speeches where a public option isn’t even mentioned.
And yet again, you are only a silver of his base. If you think there are hoardes of disappointed Obama supporters, you are sadly mistaken.
I was never for the Iraq war, so don’t use strawmen to push your inept,inane, and ludicrous arguments. And please tell me where you got the 62% number, because last time I checked his approval ratings for several issues have went up. But that doesn’t fit the meme you are selling huh? Goes back to you are only a sliver of the base.
WHAT.THE.FUCK. EVER.
kay
@kwAwk:
A Republican, moderate or otherwise, would never expand Medicaid to 15 million people. I know that because not a single Republican voted to bring the bill.
kwAwk
I believe Olympia Snowe did vote to bring the bill out of the Finance Committee. And one rep. from LA did vote for the bill in the House.
Aside from that I’m betting that a few of the Repubs will vote for the final bill tomorrow.
@Da Bomb
Lets quit pretending Obama didn’t campaign on the public option shall we?
Mike from Philly
@Da Bomb
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1222/As-health-care-reform-bill-advances-public-support-slips
According to the most recent poll, 36% of Americans favor this health care reform bill. It didn’t seem possible, but the Democrats have somehow managed to create a bill that pisses off both Republicans and liberals. So yeah I guess 62% was wrong, its more like 64% who don’t support this bill.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just a “tiny sliver” of the majority of the country. You keep your head firmly in the sand, up your ass, or wherever it is you keep it to shut out reality and I’ll keep on enjoying all those sweet sweet gay rights I’ve been given this past year.
Da Bomb
@Mike from Philly: Here’s a link to a GOS article that supports what I have been saying.
As for the article you reference, the general respondents don’t seem to understand what’s in the bill. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether there is a public option or not.
You are a sliver. Pretty much the whole blogosphere is.
And I definitely don’t want to live in the reality you live in. So if that means keeping my head in some “fantasy sand land” then I will keep on trucking.
I guess Krugman is an Obot too now: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/simulating-single-payer/#more-6219
Tsulagi
@kwAwk:
Not always.
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of “Obama is a misunderstood 11D chess genius” and should be protected like an innocent puppy among the commentariat, but the site’s host as well as most of the commenters have had unkind words for the president’s direction in Afghanistan. I agree with the president’s escalation in AF-PAK, but then I also would have supported single payer so I must be a confused DFH.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Rick: Someone else has already posted their personal view of this legislation.
Teddy Kennedy’s widow has explicitly pushed back on the “kill the bill” BS:
Because she knew what he went through when his bill died, and he foolishly thought the same thing you did — that a dead bill was better than a scalped-but-alive one. The death of the last few attempts didn’t “push heath care to the left”, it made it harder to pass comprehensive health care. Indeed, in the negotiations for this bill, you can see the skid marks and wounds from the Clinton-era fight.
The last time a White House micro-managed this, it drove it into a nearly 20-year ditch. And your cunning plan is to revisit that style of effort?
Also: Let me be clear. Obama’s Base is Not the Netroots, nor the Far Left in general. When day-to-day folks were connecting to support Obama in early ’07, they weren’t DFHs or Democratic strategists or Daily Kos-style bloggers — or, perhaps you’ve forgotten the massive fights on that side that split Kos from DD, for one?
I recall my first meeting in the spring of ’07 with people building an Obama group in my then-town. One of the 10+ people had experience with the Democratic group, here. 2 were GOP-registered. The rest had never worked a campaign before, and hadn’t been particularly active in politics, including online, until then.
Obama’s “base”, if anything, is actually college-educated moderate-to-liberal + African-Americans, just as it was when he ran for the Senate. He’s someone who’s actually gone to Kos and criticized their POV prior to the election, because for all the similarity in tactics (on one level!), Obama’s approach is fundamentally different than the netroots.
Malron
@Da Bomb:
Cue Al Giordano referencing the graph illustrating that this whole manic-progressive freakout is about swaying the opinion of 12% of the public who want health reform but don’t feel the Senate and House bills go far enough.
Like you said. Just a sliver.
Makewi
Related, it’s a festivus miracle.
It goes on to say Obama is confident he will eventually get a deal, but given 2010 is an election year I have my doubts.
If the GOP was smart, which they are not, they would campaign hard on ensuring a better version of health care reform.
Folderol and Ephemera
Just passing this along, from Paul Krugman’s blog:
. . .
I’m willing to take his word on this one.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@kwAwk:
…you realize this is the place that created the term “Magical Unity Pony” as a sarcastic term against Obama, right?
Really, before you go bad-mouthing folks, you might want to check that track record. Since Obama “campaigned” on the PO based on one line on his site, I reckon John’s many pissed-at-Obama posts might count against that “defending Obama”score.
Mnemosyne
@Mike from Philly:
69 percent of the people in that poll say that the media has confused the issues:
So you’re arguing that because people don’t understand what’s in the bill thanks to the media’s obsessive focus on the horserace over policy, that means we should scrap the whole bill.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Let me guess what their version would be — tax cuts, tax credits, and deregulation. Yep, that’ll reform the whole system.
Da Bomb
@Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill: Yep. That’s my point about who ‘s Obama’s base.
Not the blogosphere/netroots.
People in the community that I deal with on a day to day basis, don’t think he’s selling them out. Most are withholding judgment, because he’s only been in office for less than a year. These people typically don’t read blogs or watch MSNBC.
And there is a schism being formed within progressives between black progressives and white progressive. There have been several posts onBlack Daily Kos about that and on other black blogs.
There are plenty who bitched about the CBC shit throwing at Obama. Listen to typical black radio here.
And you are right about some of the dynamics of the people who campaigned for him, most I people I worked with who campaigned for him didn’t follow the Netroots or any blogs.
In the end I guess Paul Krugman is an Obot now: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/simulating-single-payer/#more-6219
He starting to compare the Senate Billas being single payer-ish. Let the flame war begin.
John S.
What a load of shit.
Balloon Juice operates on the premise that people of diverging viewpoints can discuss topics based on reality. Even back in the days of Republican John, the discussions tended more towards the practical even if still clouded by the ideological. That is how John became a Democrat – it was a practical move, not an ideogical one. He is still a conservative ideologically, but he isn’t willing to let that get in the way (most of the time). Many of us follow the same principle.
There is a difference between what is POSSIBLE and what is PROBABLE. That you cannot tell the difference is your failing, not ours.
Da Bomb
@Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill: My typing was at complete epic fail there. Oh well.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
I said they weren’t smart. I’ve also said what I’d do, but to repeat it would risk the wrath of a certain unhinged individual. Who needs that on such a day delivering such splendid festivus news.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Folderol and Ephemera:
What I think a lot of folks who expected fewer blunders in the HCR debate from the WH are missing is that it takes experience to run a WH smoothly and mistake free, both at the top and at the staff level. The last couple of Dem administrations either didn’t get much experience working with a Dem controlled Congress (Clinton) or didn’t have much success in doing so (Carter), or both. You have to go back to LBJ circa 1964-66 to find both, and the folks who still have practical experience from that long ago are very few and very old now. Obama was 4 years old the last time Dems ran a tight ship on both ends of Penn Ave, and a lot of things have changed since then to make it harder than it was back then. This is a rebuilding process, where Dems learn how to do it right the hard way, by trial and error.
kwAwk
@Woodrow Jarvis Hill
Please. If Obama had come out and said during the primary last year that he either wasn’t a supporter of the public option or that it wasn’t all that important to him, he never would have won the primary against Hillary Clinton.
The debate between Obama and HRC around healthcare reform revolved around their difference on the issue of mandates precisely because the rest of their healthcare reform proposals were so much alike.
As far as insulting people here at Balloon-Juice all I can tell you is that last year I was being attacked by the people here for saying that Obama’s lack of mandates in his healthcare reform proposal showed that he was willing to give up too much right from the start.
I also remember all of the talk about how evil Hillary Clinton was because the issue of Jeremiah Wright was brought up during the primary. And how evil Hillary Clinton was for not jumping out of the primary when the users here thought she should have and how she was secretly planning to destroy Obama before the convention. Or how she was going to do everything in her power to make sure Obama lost so that she could come back in 2012.
The public option being on Obama’s healthcare plan is important because that was the assumed value a democratic politician would have. It wasn’t debated because it was the agreed to position from pretty much all of the candidates.
Now we jump forward to this year where supposedly evil Joe Lieberman was trying to torture liberals by getting the public option out of the plan, but it sounds more like the truth is that Obama wasn’t even pushing for it, instead letting Harry Reid do the dirty work for him.
Midnight Marauder
@Mike from Philly:
Wow. You have just been dreadful today and for that, good sir, I must thank you. You have forced me to bust out that flask that I spoke of in the Festivus thread to drown away the inanity and just outright bullshit coming from you post after post.
Do you know what cursory means? Of course you don’t. It means “going rapidly over something, without noticing details.” So in your cursory glance over at the GOS, all those YouTube clips of the president “vociferously arguing for the public option”…did you notice when they were from? No, you didn’t, because all you did was a “cursory” glance, so you failed to take note that all those clips are from 2009! That’s why Sam Stein over at HuffPo (and we all know how much they hate President Obama these days) summarized Obama’s position on the matter thusly:
You will note that this is from the actual campaign, and not just a bunch of bullshit videos and out-of-contexts statements put together by slinkerwink (because that’s totally the diary you’re talking about, right? Of course it is.)
Jack
…illustrating yet again that “liberal” means “fuck it, I gots mine and I don’t want to hear fuck all about the problems” as much as “glibertarian’ does.
Go on, distinguish yourself from the “left wing.” I’m sure the Republicans will forgive you for it after they ride Obama’s ineptitude into another Commons destroying orgy of honest and open piracy.
Jack
@Da Bomb:
Huh?
Glen Ford, the BAR correspondents (and there are a lot of them), the Prom6 crew, Marg Kimberly, and a number of other progressives of color have been at the forefront of criticism of Obama and his corporatist ways.
It ain’t a black v. white thing, for shit sure.
Malron
@Mike from Philly:
Projection is a oft-used tactic of Greenwald, Sirota and Hamsher who consider anyone who disagrees with their point or questions their bomb-throwing tactics to be an Obama worshiper. They try to shout us down while accusing us of stifling their right to speak.
Da Bomb
@Midnight Marauder:
Hey there, don’t point out facts. Facts are all truthy and shit. In his alternate universe, none of the accomplishments I listed mean anything. They are so meager in comparison to all of the previous President’s first year accomplishments… oh wait, he didn’t provide a list.
I stated he campaign on extending health care to all. All the evidence has shown is from 2009, after he was elected. But I guess that means campaigned on.
kwAwk
Pre-2009 evidence....
garsh all the way from 2007
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Maybe, but a bigger reason is that she is a shrill bitch and people were tired of listening to her for 16 years.
kevina
Uhh, hey Zifnab, there were NEVER 59 votes for a public option. Lincoln and Landrieu made that clear. Were there 59 for Medicare buy-in? Maybe. But being offered as late as it was, you didn’t have time to apply the pressure to get 60.
kwAwk
Hell….. I guess I don’t feel so bad. Apparently Paul Krugman was stupid too thinking Obama campaigned on a public option.
Da Bomb
@kwAwk: How is this not similar to what’s in the Senate bill now.
@Jack: Corporatist ways? What? I have read several of your posts the past couple of days, and you never have anything of substance to say. Apparently, you cherry-picked my comment. Do you read various balck progressive blogs on a daily basis? I actually write for one, and deal with my commenters everyday and there are plenty of them. As I have said before, there is a schism and as Maldron pointed upthread, there’s even a post from Al Giordano(white progressive extroadinaire) who’s pointed out the same thing. http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3698/health-care-numbers-what%E2%80%99s-it-you
But hey Greenwald, Sirota, and Hamsher (I like make picture in people in blackface and align myself with teabaggers)didn’t say it, so it must not be true.
Midnight Marauder
@kwAwk:
All this is evidence of is that he has always supported a public option of some kind, but it in no way indicates that a public option was the fucking CENTERPIECE OF HIS CAMPAIGN! That is the distinction that some people around here are failing to grasp. We’re not saying that Obama never said any kind words about the public option, or didn’t say that he wanted a public option, or didn’t say that a public option would be the bee’s knees. What people are saying is that while a public option was a part of his campaign platform–you know, like the kind of thing you would find on websites like that–it was not the platform of his campaign.
It wasn’t the entirety of his stump speeches, he wasn’t doing sit-down interviews with Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams about how important the public option was; it wasn’t something he even discussed at the fucking debates in any kind of relevant detail. You know something he did campaign on? Closing Guantanamo. And that’s something he’s been busting his ass on from Day 1. You know what he didn’t campaign on? The public option. And that’s one of the reason why he’s always said “I like it, it would be nice, but let’s not act like it’s the end-all, be-all of HCR.” That’s what he’s said since the beginning.
And more importantly, I haven’t seen shit from folks like you talking about how the frequency of Obama’s discussion of the public option exponentially increased after he became president. Because that would seem to throw quite the wrench into the nonsense you keep spouting.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Okay, this is getting confusing now. Some people are upset about the public option but not the mandates. Some people are upset about the mandates but not the public option. Some people are upset about both the public option and the mandates. And yet they all claim to agree with each other against us Obots and — even more infuriatingly — use “public option” and “mandate” interchangeably when it suits them.
John Cole
I’m not defending Obama so much as making fun of many of you who honestly seem to be working, living, and breathing in an alternate reality.
There is your world, where all a President has to do is press a button and every campaign promise is enacted.
Then there is my world, where you have to go through two bodies in congress packed with egotistical pricks and arcane procedural rules, all while the media and your allies attack you from varying angles, the Republicans obstruct and vote no as a block, and teabaggers stand outside with guns and poorly spelled signs screaming about shit.
There is your world, where this bill sucks because there is no public option.
There is my world, where this bill could be a lot better, but does a lot of really good things that I could not have imagined the conservative me supporting ten years ago, but I’ve been persuaded by my liberal and progressive friends and the facts on the ground that we need to take steps towards fixing our health care crisis.
I’m operating in a plane of reality. You all are operating in the reality described in Tbogg’s notorious Mumia tshirt post.
And when I point that out to you, I am accused of being a blind partisan or, more hilariously, that “you’re just trying to pressure Obama from the left.”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I’m working on a bumper-sticker: “Obama lied, people got forced to buy health insurance“.
But neither the rhyme nor the meter are working out very well. Can I get some help here?
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
See what you did there? You took an entire Krugman article about mandates and claimed it was about the public option. They are not the same thing.
Jack
@Da Bomb:
Of course I make arguments with point by point construction. It’s probably why you guys don’t address them, but trigger off into silly ad homs.
And I don’t care if you write for 101 blogs. You don’t represent every single person of color to the left of Evan Bayh.
Unlike you, I listed actual names of actual liberal blacks who have routinely criticized Obama’s corporate friendly policies, on terms both economic and cultural.
Having actually read those arguments, I was able to make reference to them.
Funny that.
Try blowing up black v. white all you want. It just isn’t about black and white progressives falling down on different sides.
Race is not the factor – faith and doubt are. Some people have faith in a skill and goodwill the Obama Admin has not yet demonstrated. Some of those folks are black, some hispanic, some white, some asian, some all shades and combinations of color.
And many of the people who doubt him come from same demographics.
It just isn’t race.
(I’m a halfer who campaigned for Candidate Obama. Neither his race nor my position between two official categories had anything to do with my support for him, as candidate.
And his race had nothing to do with my disappointment with the divide between his soaring rhetoric and the actual text of his white papers.)
Da Bomb
@Jack: You Don’t know every single person of color either. Neither do any of the people that think Obama is corporatist either represent all black progressives. But I am supposed to do your homework for you and name blacks that wouldn’t agree with your sentiment. Well that list would be long, because guess what, they don’t necessary write for blogs.
But whatever.
We keep circle jerking, it won’t make a bit of a difference.
And you sure as hell don’t make arguments with point by point construction. What a laugh.
Jack
@Da Bomb:
Your paucity of argument is showing.
I don’t know “every single person of color”? Of course not. I just didn’t pretend to speak for an entire segment of the population. And I didn’t make a silly case about you not being able to comment because you don’t know every black American, if that’s where you’re going.
I didn’t make a specious, and plainly laughable, black v. white argument.
You did.
It shows the very weakness of your position, that you would even go there.
Da Bomb
@Jack: First all it was a plain black vs. white argument, more complex and nuanced than that. Maybe if you were to read the Al Giordano article I linked to, then maybe you would get what I am saying.
But like I said, I am not doing your homework for you.
And I even mention reading Black Daily Kos who have plenty of black progressives who read their blogs.
So I done with this discussion.
kwAwk
Krugman’s article is about mandates specifically because he stipulates that both Clinton and Obama agree in the public option. No need for an article to dissect a point of agreement. Again, the mandates became such an issue BECAUSE of agreement on the public option.
John, there is a magic button that the President can push. It is called the bully pulpit. It doesn’t mean that the President gets everything he wants, but it is a tool to use to rally public support for what he wants thus making it harder for his opponents to oppose him.
The President can get on every news broadcast everyday discussing and selling his plans. Tom Coburn and Chuck Shumer can’t. That’s what makes the bully pulpit so powerful.
If you’d like to make fun of people on the left for wanting to hold Obama accountable for his campaign promises if you feel that they are unreasonable that is fine. But please don’t get bothered when others make fun of Obama supporters who are now claiming that the President never made these commitments in the first place.
Obama seems to have made a strategic miscalculation about how invested a great number of people on the left were in the public option. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did not make the same miscalculation.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@kwAwk:
I can’t find it. The proof, I mean. I find that Obama talked about a Public Plan, but that is not the same thing as the infamous Public Option invented by jacob Hacker.
Obama’s Public Plan was pretty vague and nobody really knew what it meant, exactly. Hacker apparently gave it form and substance.
So why do we assume that Obama’s Public Plan has to mean Hacker’s Public Option?
Da Bomb
@Da Bomb: I meant it wasn’t a plain black vs. white argument.
kwAwk
Angus: Here’s your proof.
Again he doesn’t go into specifics but he makes it pretty clear that he supports the public plan option to compete against private insurers.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@John Cole:
You should have learned by now, reason will get you nowhere with these people.
I can say this with a clear conscience because I am a cow.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@kwAwk:
Sorry, fail. He is describing a subsidized Public Plan “marketplace” until he says “I think one of the options should be a public insurance option.”
Wow. So do I. But he never said he would deliver such a thing. He is making a position statement, not a campaign promise. He is urging the creation of the publicly funded option. He says then, quite plainly, “I am open to different ideas on how to set this up.” He is not articulating a detailed plan, he is talking in deliberate generalities, which is a damned smart thing for a politician to do.
This is not a Public Option pledge, or anything even close to it. And frankly, one of the reasons I voted for this guy is that he can make this kind of distinction, and expect people listening to him to make distinctions. Turning everything into a slogan on a bumper sticker is how we got in the crappile we are in now. So now Dems want to use the same sloganizing of politics to attack their own guy?
This is how the GOP got into power without a coherent idea in their heads. Here’s a guy with a head full of coherent ideas, and people want to use them against him.
Fine, then they should vote for Mitt Romney in the next election, and get what they so richly deserve.
kwAwk
lmao Angus….
What he says if that I’m open to different ideas on how to set this up, BUT I’M NOT GOING TO BACK DOWN FROM THE BASIC PRINCIPLE THAT IF AMERICANS CAN’T FIND AFFORDABLE COVERAGE, WE’RE GOING TO PROVIDE YOU A CHOICE.
Hey, you can say that he is being deliberately general, but in doing so in the middle of a whole spiel about the public option which get rousing applause, one can’t make a reasonable argument that people shouldn’t take that as a rousing endorsement of a public option from the President.
gwangung
Of course they do. They’re human.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Tried to edit but got tossed by the all-important Five Minute Rule, which as we all know, is the only thing keeping fucking Osama Bin Laden from sending airliners into the White House, Disney World and Oral Roberts University all in the same day.
I was going to add, I think now that the Public Option may have been nothing but a cape that Obama’s forces grabbed onto to wave in front of the GOP to keep them off balance and let us slide in the Senate bill we have now. Or maybe it was a GOP ruse to throw us off stride. In any case, I have no idea how this narrowly defined gadget became the icon for all of HCR. It should never have been so.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Adn if the choice is subsidized purchase of private insurance from a risk pool, WHO THE FUCK CARES?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@gwangung:
Hmhm. Maybe, but after five years here, I am pretty skeptical of that.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
No.
It’s a position statement, and the only reference to actual policy or detail is, “I am open to different ideas on how to set this up.” That’s the money quote, and quite honestly, the kind of quote that makes me an Obama fan. In that one blurb, he is nodding to the legislative process and saying that he is not in a kinglike role here, he is an advocate who has to work within a very constrained system. It tells me that he is not a bullshit artist, and is leaving the door open to a range of possibilties.
That’s why I voted for him, and will again.
Makewi
Nope, sorry. He explicitly stated during the campaign that he would provide a public plan.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Which would be the exchanges, the subsidies, and having OPM administer insurance that are in the Senate bill. As the cow keeps pointing out, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s specifically pledging to follow Jacob Hacker’s public option idea if something he likes better comes along that does the same thing.
Again, we seem to be disagreeing about what counts as a public option here. I think the OPM plan counts. You don’t. So now we’re angels dancing on the head of a pin deciding what’s “really” a public option. I see no lie because the OPM plan has the same function as a public option of giving people a plan negotiated for them by the government — it’s just administered by OPM instead of HHS. You have a very specific idea of what exactly was supposed to be included in a public option and, because the Senate bill doesn’t include your idea of what a public option should be, Obama is a lying liar who lies.
Redhand
Which means we will get another whole day of left-wing self-flagellation in the form of “Obama admitted he loves the bankers more than he loves _.”
This whinge from the guy who recently said, in essence, that even if Tabbi got his facts wrong his heart was in the right place?
John, you’re being just a tad inconsistent.
TheWesson
Here’s what I don’t understand.
The basic problem is health care costs rising much faster than GDP.
To solve this problem, you have to limit costs.
If you’re limiting costs, you’re keeping money out of somebody’s – some corporation’s – pocket.
But since Pharma and the AMA and insurers and health care providers all seem pretty happy with this bill, how can costs possibly be limited?
Somehow, I suspect that the costs will continue to come out of the pockets of either people (‘health care consumers’) or taxpayers.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Well duh, I’m one of the ponytail-wearing, elitist, pro-Obama DFH cult members.
Takes one to know one. ;)
I’m an O-bot therefore I am incapable of reason and programmed to agree that every single thing that the President does is perfect, that nothing could be done to improve it. Obama is everything to me, an empty vessel that I have poured my hopes and dreams into. My ObamaReward for doing so is an endless shower of Magical Unity Pony Sparkly Butt-Powder and a rainbow arching over my house so when the ObamaHealthCare Angel flies over our home it will see that we are worthy of free medical care.
Now excuse me as I need to drink my ObamaCoffee that is in my ObamaMug, which I will then put in my ObamaDishwasher to wash later when it is filled with ObamaDishes.
henqiguai
@kwAwk (#152):
sigh As usual, late as hell to these parties. I very clearly recall the President saying he supported a public option; as a viable route to getting maximum coverage. But in that same breath he also stated, affirmatively, that he didn’t really care; as long as the maximum number of people could have access to affordable health insurance (“health care” is a different entity).
Rick
Emma: People who are dealing with the current system are certainly welcome to express their outrage. All I’d ask is they wait until they’ve actually managed to use the new “no preexisting conditions” goodness. Over the last eight years I’ve watched environmental, whistle-blower, real estate, banking, non-discrimination and countless other regulations not enforced by either agency fiat or defunding of the regulatory agency. This has only slightly improved since Obama took office. You want to convince me that insurance companies aren’t going to find a way around or simply ignore regulations without competition? Show me. Show me after the law passes and then show me again when a Republican is president.
You point out that health care hasn’t come this close since Nixon and that’s true. But why is that? Could it be because no Democratic president since LBJ has been willing to actually argue and fight for progressive ideas? As long as Clinton/Obama argue within conservative frames all we’ll get are solutions that empower corporations and more of the status quo.
Rick
Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill: So you figure Obama’s performance to date is going to excite your definition of his base? “I’m better than a Republican” is pretty hollow stuff to run on. Ask John Kerry.
DavidNYC
John, your reflexive, often straw-man, bashing of progressives has really grown tiresome. I frankly don’t think you have the pedigree or cred to make these incessant “criticisms.” You did this a lot for a long time toward gay activists, then seemed to have something of an epiphany that yes, they really do have a lot of legitimate reasons to be angry. The same is true for the broader progressive movement.