The New York Times leads with quite a headline, followed by a description of Obama “bowing” to Joe Lieberman. Obama’s procrastination on health care, which is now in month ten, has him in real PR trouble.
In the great health care debate of 2009, President Obama has cast himself as a cold-eyed pragmatist, willing to compromise in exchange for votes. Now ideology — an uprising on the Democratic left — is smacking the pragmatic president in the face.
Stung by the intense White House effort to court the votes of moderate holdouts like Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, liberals are signaling that they have compromised enough. Grass-roots groups are balking, liberal commentators are becoming more critical of the president, some unions are threatening to withhold support and Howard Dean, the former Democratic Party chief, is urging the Senate to kill its health bill.
Therein lies the conflict, which is now playing out. You cannot be a consensus builder unless you value the other side as much as your own; value all sides as much as people from your own party.
“It’s time for the president to get his hands dirty,” Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, said in a statement this week. “Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares.”
Sharing them isn’t enough. Obama has to value them and fight for them over what others believe. That’s what we cannot trust him to do.
This feeling is widespread, hitting team Obama at its heart.
One leading OFA volunteer in Florida blasted an email to a statewide listserv urging activists to “just say no” to the phone-banking effort – uncorking a torrent of frustration from Florida Democrats – while some OFA subscribers replied directly to the call-to-action email with angry messages and others asked to be removed from the list entirely.
Deal making is a reality. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, is being used like political medicine as if we don’t know what’s at stake. But when we can’t trust someone to have our best interests at heart in making those deals, everything collapses.
The health care debacle, which it certainly is at this point, has made Pres. Obama look weak.
And the word has now spread. All Obama wants is a bill, any bill.
The desperation presented yesterday in David Axelrod, who attacked the strongest leader on health care this year, Dr. Howard Dean, using crazy talk as the weapon, was not only unseemly, but revealed an ugly truth. Team Obama is freaked out at Dean’s honest appraisal on a subject he happens to be an expert.
The White House caught completely flatfooted that their own wouldn’t fall in line.
Let’s hope senators can make the bill better, because there are many in Congress who have worked a very long time for this moment.
But Democrats in Congress are also in the unenviable position of simultaneously having to save Pres. Obama from humiliation; this situation produced through his own procrastination.
Even WJC is being sent out to prod people to fall in line. It’s truly silly that the White House thinks this is that type of campaign. That’s how totally clueless they are.
Pres. Obama had this year to solidify his prowess as a leader. It may be unfair, but that’s how this works. The only way this ends well for Mr. Obama is if the Senate saves him. They can start by giving people choice, which they can do by at the very least taking out the mandates.
Whatever this bill ends up to be, Obama owns it. Moral of this story: If you’re going to be held responsible in the end, take it and craft what you want from the start. That Obama didn’t know that health care would be all his in the end is alarming on multiple levels.
question on maddow- will liberal revolt push bill back to the left at all? maddow thinks it could if dean continues his attack and more grps come out against. but others say no as the trend through all fo this has been to make the bill to the right. obama’s rhetoric on the pub opt meets reality- he nor his folks ever pushed it behind scenes and the left is seeing this all play out with the lieberman cave in. what do u think of krugman’s piece on this bill?
Go see http://bit.ly/traitorjoe for a strong single payer public option and secondly call Senator Ben Nelson you will boycott Omaha Steaks and Nebraska beef until Senator Ben Nelson removes all anti abortion language from the final health care bill.
And here I was a traitor for voting for Hillary instead of Obama. I told you so, Taylor! You flipped for Obama and he did his usual run-and-hide with his corporate buddies routine. In the words of that idiot Doc Phil: “How’s that working for ya!”
Let’s make the health care industry a regulated utility. Everybody gets signed up at birth. Everybody pays a participation fee. (That fee can be waved for all those under 18 or 19 or 20.) Those falling below a specific income level can obtain a government subsidy to help pay for the participation fee. The fees charged, the cost of care and the rules governing the insurance providers to be regulated by a health care utilities commission. Oh, wait…….that’s Medicare (except for the at birth part which is HIPA or CHIPA or some such). Never mind. Peace
It is interesting than some people in the media are asking the right questions right now. This morning Dylan Rattigan asked Debbie Waserman-Schultz why it was that all the stock prices of all the major insurers is going up.She responded with Democratic,probably WH talking points. I like her for her ability to do a very good job of articulating Democratic talking points but she was pretty stunned at the question and could not pivet.He took her apart.She was brave and kept rattling the talking points in the back of Dylan’s rant but it was not good for the WH’s ability to manage the narative.They are losing it.
t4h
Unfortunately I think Krugman is right. The down side is horrific. But, I think the left or whatever you want to label those of us who feel profoundly betrayed and angered by the corporate shilling by Obama – yeah, that’s what I said and it is what I mean – need to be certain that he and his corporate overlords pay a price. I haven’t read up too much on it , but why can’t we start with removing their antitrust laws exemption.
Panic at the WH – well deserved, well earned, and another reflection on voting for Prom King. He’s showing everyone what he always was – an empty suit – but a pretty suit.
..are going up. narrative…if only I could see! I have a shaft of sunlight coming through the window right on the screen at the moment.
Lake Lady
And they should lose it. They don’t deserve anything but ridicule and mockery for the shameless acquiessence to big money interests. Following Obama’s pattern of use, abuse and kick to the curb.
He’s earned this. Too bad the greatest majority of us have to suffer because we doesn’t have what it takes in a successful President – ethical and principled leadership.
COPENHAGEN — Sen. Jim Inhofe flew across the Atlantic and — on little sleep — braved the snow, the cold and the dark to deliver his skeptical message at the international climate conference.
What he found when he got here: a few aides and a single reporter.
“I think he’s going to be a little disappointed,” one of his aides remarked.
I’m afraid that all of the liberals who patted themselves on the back for electing the first AA president in history forgot one of MLK’s main messages.Judge a man not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. There were many indications that Obama did not have great character. They were all brushed aside in the rush to manifest a liberal dream.
Nadar
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-18/the-man-cheering-obamas-health-care-woes/2/
“Is the title of your article ‘I told you so?’” he asked. “This is what I meant a year ago when I said the next year will determine whether Barack Obama will be an Uncle Tom groveling before the demands of the corporations that are running our country or he’ll be an Uncle Sam standing up for the American people.”
Nader cited a number of cases in which he was encouraged to see people he considered loyal Democrats stand up to their lawmakers on principle.
djjl says:
18 December 2009 at 10:08 am
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Lake Lady
I agree completely. I doubt Dr King was happy about it either. I think Dr King meant what he said:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Hillary Clinton would have shilled for corporations also. I’m glad she lost the nomination. I lost some respect for Bill Clinton when in 1996 he threw the welfare recipients to the Republiklan party wolves.
I did not want a repeat of that with Hillary.
We need to get rid of the corporate Democrats from our party. I believe in business but not the way these corporate Democrats shill for them and have a corporation uber alles philosophy.
We must get rid of them all of them by voting them out and also boycotting their campaign contributors that make and sell consumer products.
There are few in politics who I hold in lower esteem than Inhoffe.
What Obama and the rest of the right wing, corporatist Democrats (including Klugman) want to do is to force 30 million uninsured Americans to become clients of the BIG insurance company’s. Because the bill mandates that this be done those 30 million American’s will be fined if they don’t sign up. Those 30 million new customers will be given a government subsidy if they can’t afford to pay the insurance premium. So BIG insurance gets 30 million new customers and the government gives them billions of dollars in tax payer subsidies. What does BIG insurance give back in return? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Their rates are not regulated one red cent. That is why the price of their stock is going up. (Big profits ahead.) That’s why Waserman-Schultz is an idiot (or believes that we are idiots) and is either lying to our faces or doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Kill the Bill or make it muuuccch better. Peace
democratz
You need to get a little deeper. What’s the purpose of dragging in Hillary and Bill? The knee jerk “Hillary is just as bad or worse” and “look what Bill did” really is getting beyond ripe and isn’t good for your main argument. Which is a good argument in general and a fully passionate one. I admire you for that.
There are many, many who believe that 1996 welfare reform was a reasonable move in the right direction:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-17-welfare-reform-cover_x.htm
Imhotep
That is not what KRUGMAN wants. Did you even read the piece?
It is possible for reasonable people to view that a win for Jim DeMint and his ilk is too expensive by far. I think health care, in this pitiful form, has to pass and will. I think we must also keep Obama knotted over in political fear for the rest of his term. The once all but certain 8 years is now a likely very anemic 4. We all lose – oops – 1% who own 95% of this country’s wealth are doing OK – thanks again to Obama and his economic team.
I’m sorry. Bill Clinton signed that bill into law and Marian Edelman resigned. She appears an expert on children. I will not apologize for losing some respect for Bill Clinton and my rejection of Hillary Clinton as my presidential nominee.
If Dennis Kucinich looked like JFK I would have voted for him.
I voted for Obama because he appeared the best of moderate and conservative Democrats after Edwards got out of the race.
No more Clintonism and no more triangulation for me.
The prescription drug benefit appears a farce and a shame that has to get fixed and moved to Medicare Part B. http://bit.ly/drug_benefit
We need a single payer public option. http://bit.ly/traitorjoe
“Pres. Obama had this year to solidify his prowess as a leader. It may be unfair, but that’s how this works”
Yet you’ll look our young soldiers in the eye and tell them you trust Obama to act competently when he sends them into harm’s way.
djjl, you sure have a funny way of putting fear into Obama when you pass his lousy health care bill. Give Obama everything he wants, that’s the ticket. He’ll be quaking in his boots with fear the next time he wants another rotten piece of legislation passed knowing that he got what he wanted the last time he tried that. You faux-Liberals and Progressives are, as Dean said, “not tough enough.” You wimpy, weasels. Peace
I never suggested you didn’t have the right to judge either Clinton as you choose. My comment had to do with yet another gratuitious mentioning of a Clinton when there was no real purpose to the thread.
Bill Clinton happened to be President of the nation, Marian Edelman Wright is a life long advocate of disadvantaged children. Resigning her position made her point but it certainly wasn’t as if her world would stop turning – in fact she gained more power for her purposes. Good for her. You might know that she still calls the Clintons old friends – but points out that they aren’t political friends – but personal.
Personally, I’m not friends with people I don’t respect – I doubt Ms Edelman Wright is either.
Obama appeared, then, exactly as he is showing himself to be now. You apparently saw what you wanted to see as many did. It’s Obama that started this health care down a rat hole – and he started it in secrecy with big pharma.
I admire your passion for what you believe and appreciate how hard you work. That doesn’t mean that I don’t disagree with you at times. Welfare had to be reformed.
Imhotep
Peace.
BTW,democratz, do you dislike Obama’s triangulation or only Clinton’s?
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-90005243
and much more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22383.html
Obama’s energy triangulation
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/04/020243.php
Obama and the Art of Self-Triangulation
http://www.cookpolitical.com/node/4144
Obama’s Triangulation Squares with Public
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/09/09/obama-s-big-speech-triangulation-airbrushed-orszagism.aspx
Obama’s Big Speec + Airbrushed Orzagism
You didn’t vote for the candidate you thought was the best because he wasn’t pretty enough?
That’s the type of reasoning that brought us GWB.
NOW–your speechless? I sure wish I could work that same magic on secularhumanshitforbrains. Peace
djjl, what brought us George W. bush was a stolen election. Peace
The reasoning enabled him to get close enough for the election to be stolen.
This is all so sad, because it is also futile. What does it matter? The bill (something) will pass, and the Dems will go back to being Dems, sending around their silly petitions, collecting people’s money and lots of righteous indignation, and not ONE DAMNED SCALP TO SHOW FOR IT. Blanche Lincoln will not have a primary.
When the Club in the senate decides to forgive that scumbag Lieberman and keep him as Chairman of HS, we’ll raise hell again but that’s all we’ll do. The thing is WE are the enablers. There is no amount of crap WE would not take from our representatives and forgive them. WE ARE the ones who refuse to punish them. This is why no one in politics takes the left seriously. All we do is rant, then we calm down. We never get even.
Axelrod repeated the old line that this opportunity would not come up again for a generation. who says? if the dems get a larger majority in 2010 or 2012, why can’t it be revisited then? why this sudden sense of emergency, when the White House has dilly-dallied for ten months on this?
Ramsgate
I think this may be the time.
djjl, the problem you have is with the Electorial College and the Supreme Court not with how the average voter was thinking. Pappy Bush stacked the Supreme Court and Baby bush’s brother, Jeb in Florida, stole thousands of votes away from Gore. At least get the history correct. Peace
Zaine Ridling says:
18 December 2009 at 9:26 am
I’m proud to have voted for Obama for president.
And the folks in your pen didn’t tell anyone anything that wasn’t fully laid out before on this site.
The thing is WE are the enablers. There is no amount of crap WE would not take from our representatives and forgive them. WE ARE the ones who refuse to punish them. This is why no one in politics takes the left seriously. All we do is rant, then we calm down. We never get even.
Excuse me, Ramsgate, but that’s just bullshit. Buck up!
Progressive activists, and myself, a political analyst and political writer, are giving them hell at a time when they can least afford it. We have thrown the White House into a tailspin.
God bless Howard Dean, Arianna Huffington, Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann AND DYLAN RATIGAN. We’ve now got powerful allies to augment our case. No one is being forgiven around here.
djjl,
Here is the question for Obama, or any so-called Progressive for that matter: Is there anything — anything at all — that you believe in so strongly, that you will not (cannot) compromise on?
I would love to hear Obama answer that question. Here is a man who talked at length about his mother being dunned by insurance companies on her sick bed, and now his selling out to insurance companies. Dems ALWAYS leave themselves lots of wiggle room.
Hmm, I wonder – the story about his mother and the insurance companies is starting to sound like the “poetic license” he took with the facts during the campaign. who knows what to belive!
Imhotep
I don’t need history lessons from you or lessons about what you think my problem is. I don’t have a problem with the electoral college – I understand that quite well.
The problem is that BIG MONEY MEDIA laid the election choice out as one between a lying, self-important pompous buffoon (Gore) and the down to earth fella chopping and clearing brush (shades of Reagan) that yopu’d really like to go have a beer with -GWB.
That’s my problem. As you might recall – the comment had to do with a poster saying he’d have voted for Kucinich for president if he’d been better looking – ala JFK. That kind of thinking.
Zaine:
<>
You forgot my heroine, Rachel Maddow. I too, salute all those people, but unlike you I look for RESULTS. Point to the RESULTS of your “tailspin”.
They gave Landrieu $100 MILLION.
They Gave Lincoln what ever she wanted.
They scrambled and BOWED to Lieberman.
They are going to BOW to Nelson.
Name ONE thing the Progressives got.
What are they going to give Sanders? Nothing. Because he wiggles.
A tailspin is histrionics. RESULTS are what count in my book.
Obama took a lot of license.
But most license was given to him.
Ramsgate
I’d like to know what they gave Lincoln? I’m serious – she’s my senator (I’m not particularly fond of her at all) but I’m not aware that she got a thing – and she’s the only one of “those” senators facing an election day in 2010.
I think Obama has given you the answer to that question Ramsgate.
The majority of Americans want a public option. The Democrats are in the majority of both houses of Congress. But the PO won’t be in the Senate bill because of a few Democratic Senators (and Lieberman).
If the Senate wants to represent their constituency, simply vote to make the healthcare bill NOT subject to the filibuster rule. It’s a RULE!! It has been changed before for a similar reason.
One other thing that totally amazed me yesterday. You have Sen McCain asking what has happened to the civility of the Senate when Sen Franken wouldn’t allow Sen Lieberman another “moment”. This, after the GOP pulled every trick in the book to obstruct and delay the bill.
These people live in another world. We have to worry about paying our bills and waiting in ER’s for hours…and they think it’s a perceived slight that illustrates the problem with the Senate?
Ramsgate says:
18 December 2009 at 11:59 am
Just answered that in new post.
JoeBeets says:
18 December 2009 at 12:54 pm
Bingo, big guy.
“Imhotep says:
18 December 2009 at 11:26 am
NOW–your speechless? I sure wish I could work that same magic on secularhumanshitforbrains. Peace”
Imhopless is such a typicaly johnny come lately to the scene, he/she/it really is. You work magic? Some dickless weasel in a torn up black T with his/her/it’s widdle red A in a circle work magic?
What magic would that be? steryotypical extra lefty rants against the machine? Are you gonna say don’t trust anyone over thirty next?
YOU work magic?! BWAHAHAHAHA!
P.S. Sgitferbrai…OOPS sorry forgot, no brains in imhopless is der.
Go back through the archives and cjeck how much I supported Obama during the primaries…oh, wait a minute, I supported HRC instead of Gus Hall or Abbie Hoffman so that wouldn’t cut it with a big bad revolutionary like you would it.
“djjl, the problem you have is with the Electorial College and the Supreme Court not with how the average voter was thinking. Pappy Bush stacked the Supreme Court and Baby bush’s brother, Jeb in Florida, stole thousands of votes away from Gore. At least get the history correct. ”
So Papa Bush “stacked the Supreme Court” and Jeb gave it to them huh? Maybe if Gore hadn’t tried being cute and said recount the entire state instead of trying to pick and chose counties he thought would go for him it would have come out differant…but NOOOOOO. But then you hated Clinton Gore too so what differance would it have made?
At least get the history right imhopless.
There is no one to blame for this other than Obama, Rham, and Axelrod, er Rasputin. Raspy is a cold hearted killer pol who is cringe making every time he hits TV .
Rage? I haven’t been this politically angry in many long years.
Now I’m watching my own party eat their own, and take women’s rights to equal protection along with them.
Obama has showed himself to be an aloof unemotional political opportunist and will do anything, anything, to get what he wants. He’s a dog eat dog survivor and the scam he ran to get elected was a good one. However he was found out early on but for the Obambots
who called me a fascist racist because I saw what he was doing from the get go.
In the backrooms that Obama promised he would never be, Obama worked with loathsome chief BigPharma lobbyist Billy Tauzin promising that
he would never allow government purchasing of drugs, and would not stop BigPharma’s extending patents so generics do not reach the marketplace for years, if ever.
This sellout allowed that BigPharm would cough up 80billion for 10 years. This is a laugh considering that drug prices are already rising and by the time this law should kick in, it might be worth a scant 10billion or much less. Insuranxe stocks are soaring a well.
Drug Cartel made 77Billion in profits last year. And remember Tauzin? He and his Republican pal Tom Delay rammed through Medicare PartD [the senior plan with the donut hole] after running an unheard of three separate votes in the House until they strong armed and threatened until they arrived at the vote they wanted. This was at midnight. Familiar?
So now seniors get nothing pretty soon after paying monthly premiums
as their cap disappears quickly. Then they must spend around $2700
more to qualify for reimbursement to begin again which means they get nothing, as the year is usually up. And guess what the con is? They must continue paying monthly premiums while denied in the donut hole. Same scam that Obama is running with Tauzin now by compromising for little.
Guess what an easy lay Obama is? He got Tauzin to promise that Pharma won’t run ads against his HCare bill. Of course the usual campaign donations are not far behind$$$$$. Re-election is key in this administration as it’s a full time job.
After scamming congress into voting for Medicare PlanD drug plan Tauzin left congress to work as chief lobbyist for Pharma for 2 million$$$ a yr.
So Obama sleeps around. I am controlling myself as my anger is so great as a woman whose body has recently been traded and defiled for votes that I’m afraid where my rage will lead.
I did say caveat ‘Emperor’ from the beginning when the mean streets of Chicago surfaced with swamp scum like Axelrod and Obama’s ties with State Street were not too kosher. No one listened.
The Obamabot Village will have to come back to reality as they will soon realize they’ve been snookered.
I am so angry at what I’ve been witnessing from progressives who have all caved in fear for a rotten rip off which delivers nothing that I have to stop.
We all need to take our rage and produce it into political action.