Setting aside the merits of the Senate health care reform bill for a moment, I think it’s almost funny to watch the people who fought so hard to see that Harry Reid include an opt-out public option in the base bill prior to the Conference Committee are now left to argue that the Senate should reject the bill. They told people like me that I was shilling for the administration (or a secret agent of the DNC) when I warned them that the public option would get dropped and all the concessions to reach 60 would get set in stone leaving us little room to improve the bill in Conference. Okay, so I told them so. It doesn’t make it any more satisfying to be proven right.
It is also immensely ironic that all the effort that went into whipping the Progressive Caucus into insisting on a robust public option (by people who made their national name by publishing a photo of Joe Lieberman in blackface) was swatted down with a mere flip of Senator Lieberman’s wrist. It must be sweet revenge for Rape Gurney Joe. It’s probably all the sweeter in the face of naked attacks on his wife’s cancer research activism. I know attacking my family is the best way to convince me to do what you want. I’m sure you are no different.
Just a couple of reminders here. The Senate bill is not the final bill. It’s borderline retarded to openly advocate for killing the Senate bill right now. All that matters, and all that ever mattered, is what is in the Conference Report. Even though things look predictably (from my point of view) grim for the Conference Report, the time to reject passage of an unacceptably shitty bill is when it is actually about to be made into law. For progressives, the goal right now should be to try to make improvements in the bill in Conference. While some much needed changes won’t be possible, others will be.
I’m not quite in total agreement with Nate Silver because I think the current Senate bill is the political equivalent of self-injury. People will hate being mandated to buy insurance from for-profit corporations that have an anti-trust exemption. If you want to give people something really worthwhile and get absolutely no credit for it (actually, be hated for it) then the Senate bill is a good way to go. But Nate makes a decent case on the non-political merits.
I think people need to understand the importance of following the leadership of activists who actually understand what the fuck they’re talking about, who tell you the truth, who don’t set you up for disappointment with totally unrealistic expectations, and who don’t try to inspire by demonizing their allies. But, hey, to each his own.
The Senate bill is not the final bill.
We’ll see about that. And anyway, no matter what you think about Jane, it doesn’t say much more of HoJo that’s he’s only doing things out of spite. Besides, do you know what Lieberman’s wife does for the Komen Foundation? And what is the Foundation’s mission? And don’t you think Evan Bayh has a conflict of interest on the whole thing? Is he(and by extension his wife) fair game?
Calvin-
Don’t conflate two distinct things. If you want to point out a conflict of interest, that’s fine. If you are trying to persuade someone to do what you want, you might want to lay off the attacks on their family regardless of any possible merit. If you attack Bayh’s wife, he’s going to fuck you harder than you have ever been fucked in your life (to quote Karl Rove).
he’s going to fuck you harder than you have ever been fucked in your life (to quote Karl Rove).
He’s been doing that to Democrats his entire time in the Senate.
Actually, he hasn’t. I shouldn’t have to remind you that his selection as VP caused only minor stirs from the left in this country. I was appalled, but Gore remains pretty popular in most circles. Lieberman has always been a lousy Democrat, but he was a middling pain in the ass for most of his career. Iraq changed that. And the successful primary against him changed it dramatically.
I supported Lamont. But it’s simply not true that he was always looking to screw the left. But a quick look at his voting record would demonstrate that to you. DLC? Yes. McCain-Republican? No.
His “debate” with Cheney during the 2000 campaign pretty much solidified his wishy-washy middle-of-the-road bonafides, and he did absolutely no good for the Gore campaign (a blow-up doll would have been a better running mate). I remember feeling rather cheated after that fiasco. No wonder so many progressives bailed for Nader…
No Lieberman, and Florida isn’t close enough to steal — it goes GOP. The votes he pulled in Broward and Palm Beach counties made the difference.
And Lieberman’s selection brought the Gore campaign the best week’s press of the whole campaign.
It was a shrewd move then. It doesn’t make Lieberman less of a jerk, but it was a shrewd move.
Give me a fucking break. Even though the progressive blogosphere didn’t exist then, the people that make it up, did. And a lot of them voted for Nader because they couldn’t swallow Lieberman.
Beyond that, Lieberman proved to be a drag because he sucked as a campaigner and as a debater.
what booman said.
I held my nose to vote for gore, not out of dislike for Al but because Lieberman was such an awful toad.
Russ Feingold would have been a solid choice in that regard, with real progressive cred (at least more than HoJo).
Russ is a perfect progressive banner waver: a record of pointless symbolic votes plus deserting the party when it counts. His stunning good sense in deciding that elections to fill empty senate seats was a critical issue in 2008 still resonates. And who can forget his pondering about whether convicting Clinton was the right thing to do?
Ineffective prima donna. He’s PERFECT!
Funny how you were selling Lieberman a few comments ago like he was God’s gift to the 2000 Democratic ticket. What election coverage did you watch? Also seems like Lieberman spent quite a bit of his time back then grandstanding/formally berating Clinton for his moral improprieties, which is probably one of the reasons Gore chose his sorry ass in the first place. Amazing how Clinton’s hard dick was somehow a liability for Gore — funny how things work in politics…
Have you ever been to Palm Beach or Broward? You clearly don’t know a fucking thing about their politics.
It was a stupid move on Gore’s part, and it’s pure stereotyping of a very particular demographic in South Florida that makes you think it shrewd.
Nobody in Broward and Palm Beach gave a rat’s ass about Joe Lieberman. Democrats there are among the most reliably liberal in the country. They’d cut Lieberman’s balls off before they’d ever vote for him again.
Hey, after all, those old Jews clearly hated Obama once they saw HoJo yammering about him possibly being a Muslim, right?
Yeah.
Speaking of conflating things, I don’t see how Hamsher REVEALING Mrs. Lieberman’s history with insurance corporations has anything to do with Lieberman’s previous positions on national health. But I do see a connection between what Hadassah adds to the Lieberman family wealth and the way Joe votes.
Lieberman is owned by the insurance industry. He may strut around on the national stage, but he is performing from the script that the insurance industry wrote for him. He doesn’t think that a good healthcare plan is bad for America. He knows that it’s bad for the insurance industry.
If Hadassah Lieberman is working for breast cancer research on one hand and on the other has been working with insurance companies who routinely deny women coverage for breast cancer, then that’s not only an interesting fun fact, it should be known, especially in context with Joe’s posturing.
Quite honestly, if the Liebermans’ personal wealth and Joe’s public positions on healthcare have some commonality, then I’d much rather hear all about that than about Tiger Woods. And if the Komen Foundation wants or doesn’t want Hadassah to continue, it’s just another business decision, like whether or not Accenture wants to use Woods (“Be a Tiger!”) to advertise its work in global capitalism.
Ditto for Bayh.
And Tiger’s fans and Komen’s Race for the Cure runner-donors will then be able to make a more informed decision.
Gee, BooMan — I checked out all the links and they all seem to have a common thread (with the exception of the Nate Silver link)…I get the point. It’s starting to seem quite a bit personal, and I’m not sure I can blame you, especially after the “troll with a blog” put-down! Sounds like Jane already took her nerf ball and went home for 2010…
Now you know EXACTLY how I felt with the electronic voting (so-called) activists who killed Holt’s bill before it even got TO committee, much less out of it.
I’m waiting for this generation of activists to grow the bleep up. Seriously. I’m hoping with age will come some form of wisdom. But I’m not holding my breath, either.
what’s the TO committee?
In Buffalo last I heard.
House administration. That’s where Steny Hoyer killed the first one by reinstating DREs into the bill. But this time around, instead of fighting for paper ballots, activists got all upset by ONE SENTENCE that left the door open to ballot MARKING, not TABULATING, devices. Oh, don’t get me started. The insanity was too much to bear.
Especially the ones that think the quickest way to single-payer universal is to throw a fit and shout at everyone how they’re just not going to vote in 2010. Yeah, that’ll show ’em…
Poor old Jane’s just desperate for a win……on something. ANYTHING.
Consider:
She’s been trying to bring down HoJo since 2005 and hasn’t made a dent — indeed, may have helped him win the ’06 election with that brilliant blackface move.
She bent over backwards pretending to be “neutral” in ’08, all the while shilling for Hillary so obviously that even her groupies noticed. (Whereupon, she promptly condemned them as “misogynists.”)
She was primed to claim glorious Victory for any public option that actually made it through Congress — and, well, we all know how that turned out.
So now, there’s one path left for Janie to achieve that big time Relevance she has so long aspired to……and lo, it is “Kill the bill” — 40 million uninsured people be damned.
Well, that……and busting Hadassah Lieberman. That does seem to have succeeded in getting her at least a day’s worth of notice from the emmessemm.
You didn’t include the “princess” comments about Caroline Kennedy.
I think BooMan’s summary last week was on the mark: her efforts are admirable. Her tactics, not so much.
She’s been trying to bring down HoJo since 2005 and hasn’t made a dent — indeed, may have helped him win the ’06 election with that brilliant blackface move.
That didn’t cost Lamont the GE in ’06.
Yes. Lamont opened my eyes really. The blogosphere said it would be close, there was a “feeling” on the ground, and excitement. That republicans would vote republicans and Joe would be in trouble. But the polls never moved and no one listened when I brought this up.
Well who knows what would have happened?
Lol, as you said, vindication isn’t really any sweeter, but once again…Booman +1, Jane 0.
What a load of pathetic face-saving bullshit. If you’d lived in Stalin’s Russia, you’d have had a great career opportunity revising history books for the state’s educational publishing industry.
You’ve been solidly in favor of the inclusion of a real, effective, public option all down the line. It’s just that in your zany world of make-believe, this measure had to very “cleverly” be held back until the conference committee’s work, where, “Surprise!” (NOT!), it would be “sprung” on the “unsuspecting” opponents, (of BOTH Democratis AND Republican parties).
That’s the gist of your team’s ingenious strategy.
Now that all your marbles have been taken, maybe you should reconsider the worthiness of that stategy’s chances.
Go ahead and think about it. The bill would be passed right now and sitting in conference, with no one having had to take a hard stand against the PO because it wasn’t included in the base bill. The bill would have passed with about 62 votes, and it would not have been watered down with pork for Katrina and other goodies to get to 60.
And all the pressure would be on final passage. Even if the PO didn’t make it in, the bill would be better and the base wouldn’t be more disappointed than they are now.
” The bill would be passed right now and sitting in conference, with no one having had to take a hard stand against the PO because it wasn’t included in the base bill. The bill would have passed with about 62 votes, and it would not have been watered down with pork for Katrina and other goodies to get to 60.”
Bullshit. You don’t even believe your own stuff. (See below).
You say everything and its contrary depending on what, which way the wind is blowing at the moment? You repeatedly asserted that the much-wanted public option would, could and should be added in the all-important conference stage—as though none of that strategy would ever occur to or reach the eyes, ears and minds of (for crying out loud) not only the Republicans but also the conservative Democrats in opposition!
That’s the fly in your ointment which, now, you want to deny, ignore and flee. But you can’t, can you?
Here’s your observation from today’s “insights”:
“The answer is ‘no,’ I don’t think 60 votes were gettable for a robust public option, no matter what Obama did.“
Well, now, WHICH THE FUCK IS IT?, HUH?
This should be cross-posted in Daily Kos.
By all means, BooMan, cross-post this at Daily Kos.
The real Progressives over there will have a fun time ripping it to little pieces.
There is one act short of killing the bill in the Senate that might keep it from being the Democratic Party Suicide Act of 2009.
That is to kill the individual mandates and just let it be a practice reform bill, without trying to transform the market.
Indeed. At this point, we all need to be calling our Senators and yelling, “Kill the mandate!”
Just saw this after I typed my longer screed and:
That is to kill the individual mandates and just let it be a practice reform bill, without trying to transform the market.
is the meat of what I was trying to say as well, below.
Seems to be the only way to make it marginally tolerable.
People are suffering and dying because they don’t have access to quality health care.
Our health care system is near the point of collapse.
And Booman wants us to be impressed by his ability to predict from the beginning that health care reform would end up a total joke?
There’s nothing funny about the fact that Democrats in the Obama administration, the House and the Senate were too weak and incompetent to have done anything about the real problems in our health care system.
This is supposed to be a Progressive community?
In this post, Booman mocked a real progressive community.
They aren’t too weak … they are taking us on the road to fascism .. don’t believe me … then read this:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/12/15/health-care-on-the-road-to-neo-feudalism/
I was a member over at FDL, but I have to say that if you did not follow their Conventional Wisdom spouted by commenters such as “Hugh” or “Selise” you got shouted down immediately; I know I am speaking generally here, but one of the things that struck me is that a large part of the community had a hell in a handbasket approach to the world. When you pointed out that there were positive solutions to certain problems, especially when the economy started going in the shitter and people like Ian Welsh were talking up how wonderful China was and that everyone should start a garden in their back yard because the food distribution chain would break because of the upcoming depression, I left. I looked there the other day, and it has actually gotten worse. All I have to say is that Rahm Emanuel must have pissed in someone’s cornflakes over there.
That said, some of the bloggers there are without par, especially Marcy Wheeler and when I saw this:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/09/15/affordability/
it changed my mind about the fact of just getting any bill through whatsoever. I have one simple question, what good to insurance companies actually provide to the society at large? Insurance companies whose business model relies on making people suffer and denying people things – it’s not only with health care, but also disability insurance and long term care insurance as well – in order to make a profit.
I tell anyone, conservative or liberal, that the biggest problem is the country is the First Amendment protection that is afforded to corporations (as persons) that allows them to bribe office holders under the mum of “campaign contributions.” It is not a coincidence that there we are the only industralized nation that does NOT offer a form of universal health care while allowing legalized bribery of their officials.
The unfortunate outcome of all of this is that the system itself needs to change and the Bush Administration with the appointment of the Roberts Court has ensured that the doctrine of persons as corporations will exist for at least 30 more years.
Therefore, if we can strip out that individual mandate tax out of the bill some how, I am for passing the bill more from a larger view perspective – can you imagine who would have replaced Souter if McCain or Caribou Barbie had been elected?
the bill with mandates and without public option is horrible, but conference committee is where it always needed to go.
And what do you expect to happen in conference? I’ll tell you what will happen. The House will be forced to eat a shit sandwich, that is what.
that is the case on nearly every bill of consequence. The House can pass much better legislation than the Senate.
Personhood for capital is the problem here. Money wants nothing more than to accumulate at the expense of people, of the planet. And the keepers of the money are destroying the world for a bigger pile of it. That’s why American armies are killing brown people in places all over the world. To acquire wealth.
I understand that tempers are short in Boo Land, and Congress is performing like pessimists have presumed, but manners have nothing to do with results. Being quiet and polite doesn’t stop the robbers from robbing.
To call for rejection of the bill is full on idiotic, childish, self-absorbed, lightweight, ignorant, callous, and easily-manipulated.
No it isn’t. Have you read what I just posted above?
Emptywheel is a joke.
Can you please expand on your pearl of wisdom here? The reporting she did on the Plame story or GM, Chrysler, etc., for example, was fantastic.
She’s hard working, but she does not understand either how the nuts-and-bolts process works or the objectives of players in the process. For example, in this story she appears to have forgotten how many times the Bush/Delay regime caved to Democratic Senate concerns in Senate bills and wiped these things away in conference. That would be more excusable if she did not have the even more recent example of the radical improvement of the stimulus bill in conference.
You have evidence that Democrats are going to play the “wipe away in conference” or “nuclear option” game?
Did the spine transplant really work?
We’ll find out. It’s not in their interests to pass a poison bill and they fixed stimulus in conference. So it seems at least a little premature to cast oneself into the river of Doom.
I’m not in the River of Doom yet, but the roar of the Beltway does seem to make our representives politically tonedeaf.
I’m of the “no individual mandates without significant cost controls, subsidies, or both” school of thought. Otherwise the Teaparty accusation of taxation without representation begins to seem reasonable to a lot of independent voters. “Big government is making me pay a tax to the big insurance companies.” It does seem to be 180 degrees from our expectations of reform.
Fair point – I have found that that happens in general when people start going outside their level of comfort, which in her case is analyzing complex documents and legal pleadings and making them easy to understand, which was the Plame matter in a nutshell – and actually dealing with who individual people are, how they interact with each other and what their actual motivation is.
The biggest problem, I feel, with the Internets and the blogosphere is that, because of its bubble boy-like nature, it inflates its own importance. While sometimes documents need to analyzed and dissected, face-to-face interviews and meetings are just as, if not more, important to gain an overall picture on a story. The blogosphere serves as an added tool to society’s ability to gain information but is not the end all and be all that some of the major blog proprietors ascribe to it. I don’t always agree with Josh Marshall, but his combination of reporters on the ground combined with his opinion pieces is a measured way to go about things.
I was also a member of TPM Cafe in its early inception, but got sick of getting troll rated by GOP operatives and Edwards sycophants. It is the major downfall of “communities” – there are people out there that like to preach and need to shout down other people because they are insecure little people with Napoleon complexes – Randy Newman’s song was about them, not midgets and dwarves.
Would that be TomP by any chance?
There were 2 actually, TomP being one of them, the other guy calling himself “Petey”
He was on KDrum’s site when Drum was with the Washington Monthly.
As an aside, I find it extremely interesting that a lot of the trolls left with KDrum when Benen came on board – “Al” will make an occasional appearance saying something really, really dumb.
Oh – and I forgot a very important point – this DID involve the analysis of the bill and the tax provisions in it, which is Marcy’s strength. I will grant you that interviewing the actual players involved would have helped, but that is not what her post in this particular instance is about.
In other words, Marcy’s piece is a data point necessary to gain the overall truth and her analytical skills are very good. With a great amount of Senators bought and paid for by the insurance industry who are in the very Finance Commitee who are supposed to eliminate the mandate provision, I just don’t share your optimism that it will get wiped away. I hope you are right and I am wrong.
also she pretends to be a lawyer, which she is not.
Marcy is at her weakest when she attempts to infer the motives of people from documents. In particular, she has no idea that other people have different priorities.
Yes, agreed, but if you keep that fact in mind her work is still invaluable IMHO.
So no inference should be made between Lieberman’s position and Hadassah’s relationship with Big Insurance?
where do you get that from?
Mandates (without meaningful cost control features) is political suicide.
“Setting aside the merits of the Senate health care reform bill for a moment, I think it’s almost funny to watch the people who fought so hard to see that Harry Reid include an opt-out public option in the base bill prior to the Conference Committee are now left to argue that the Senate should reject the bill.”
I can’t really take anything at face-value anymore. Who knows, maybe this is some elaborate 11-dimension chess on the part of the blogosphere to make Lieberman satisfied he fucked them well-enough for acting like idiots.
Good post Booman. What’s up with Howard Deans “kill the bill” mantra? Is he serious?
Romenycare in MA has mandates. It’s not suicide. If you have good subsidies then it’s like care insurance; people will swallow and do it.
The bill will expand coverage. That is step one of reform.
MA is doing step 2 b/c they have universal coverage; they’re looking at real cost controls.
This bill is a first step. They need to improve the subsidies in the senate version and get rid of the excise tax IMO and then they’ll be good to roll.
That this:
Is fascism and fascism is evil.
I voted for Obama because, during the campaign he promised to only compel coverage of children. I found this onerous, but much better than HRC’s push for this new tax to be paid to corporations.
I have a problem paying taxes to corporations and so should you.
I don’t have a single living relative in Europe because of fascism. The idea that such horrors as what the 20th Century visited upon Europe could never happen here or elsewhere in our name is foolishness and misses the whole point of our Bill of Rights. Remember taxation without representation? It was one of the few principals we had left that make it worth living here.
And I have a huge ‘FU’ for being dismissive of one of the bloodiest issues from the 20th century because others have over used the subject matter. It’s real, ideas matter, systems matter.
Suggesting that a little fascism is best for us all; ‘going along to get along’ is tired, evil and dismissive of real threat.
If you think you can explain to me how doing the above for corporations WHO ALSO CONTROL THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS isn’t just adding to the cluster fucking of the middle and working classes, you’re totally insane.
But as long as you ‘win’ something, I guess that anything cool. Strip out the tax paid to corporations from this bill and I am 10000% sure we’d all be better off, but that won’t happen because there aren’t enough folks actually representing the people in Congress anymore.
The answer isn’t the Repug’s do-nothing obstructionism, it is paying your taxes to those who represent you and a single payer healthcare system.
Since those people-that-represent-us no longer really exist, I can no longer support this bill or any further effort to pass it as long as it compels us to buy from private insurers. This sort of grand social change will always become similarly poisoned until we correct corporatist control of the Congress. That would be the best use of Obama’s clout, as this has just been a waste of political capital.
Rahm’s “The only non-negotiable principle here is success” approach is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard and should help us understand how we went from a Progressive Bill to a corporatist handout.
At least now, you have the option not to over-pay for healthcare. So, if you don’t have one, open an HSA and reduce your costs by your tax rate. That’s probably the best reform you’ll ever get.
As long as Blue Cross has more influence in Congress than people do we’re fucked. They do and we are.
It doesn’t make you more persuasive.
I hope Kos and Dean’s kill the bill stance will signal to Loserman that he is done fisting liberals. I am sure he will keep going back for more.
Let me see if I’ve got this right: Joe Lieberman’s wife is “fair game” ? hmmm . . . sounds familiar.
Actually an expose on Mrs. Lieberman’s industry clientele would probably be enlightening at some future date. But in the middle of a knife fight with her husband? Not too bright.
Re Dean’s kill the bill stance: It will probably assure its passage by all the conservaDems in the Senate. Nice counter-intuitive move Dr. Dean.
I heard Jane on the radio last night–Pacifica, I think–and it was indeed kind of shocking how often she performed poorly, even in a simple interview with a sympathetic host.
She wasn’t bad when she got enough time to work her way through to a point–because the shrill would mellow out–but she interrupted with some weird non sequiturs, and always found a way to bash Rahm. Now, I don’t like the guy either, but if I were him, I wouldn’t be scared of inartful carpet-bombing methods like that.
But then again I’m a relatively unsophisticated blogger myself, and I’m trying to not let a lousy messenger distract from the overall issue, or the current state of play. Everything I’ve read by BooMan about this topic makes sense. Almost everything I’ve read on either FDL or DKos (to name only two other sites) seems like kabuki–on both sides of the issue, and almost to the degree of Congressional kabuki.
I’ve been having difficulty taking this issue seriously since August, since theater has been the M.O.
I have noticed that at almost every site i have visited over the past few months about the health care fiasco, from places like FDL to atrios to digby to susiemadrak to americablog to glenn greenwald to the nation to the NY times, everyone seems to have a very different narrative than the one I read here. Even markos Moulitsas, whose site is notorious for shouting down any comments that disgaree with Obama, says, “Obama spent all year enabling Max Baucus and Olympia Snowe, and he thinks we’re supposed to get excited about whatever end result we’re about to get”.
Are all of these people wrong? Obama haters? Ignorant?
The role of rahm emmanuel comes up again and again, and not just from jane hamsher (with who i know you are in a deep dispute), but from reporters like Jon Cohn and Ryan Grim (both of who report that RE personally told harry reid to cut a deal with lieberman).
i saw a clip from “morning joe” that the WH is angry with Howard Dean, not Lieberman, and articles in politico where liberman says Obama thanked him privately for supporting a bill without a PO or medicare expansion.
I read booman saying “we don’t have 60 votes and the senators have all the leverage”, and then greenwald reminds me what the WH did to make sure the war supplemntal got passed:
So my question is: why is Booman’s narrative 100% different from the narrative I read everywhere else, not just on opinion blogs but at newspapers as well.
It does not make sense to me that all of these sources are wrong, and only booman is right.
Please educate me.
Well, let’s look at this quote: “Obama spent all year enabling Max Baucus and Olympia Snowe, and he thinks we’re supposed to get excited about whatever end result we’re about to get”.
Here we are at the end of this process and what is the problem?
The problem is that there we are relying on Olympia Snowe, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche Lincoln to sign off on the bill. Back in August, all those sources of yours were bitching about Max Baucus and Rahm Emanuel courting Olympia Snowe rather than telling her to fuck herself. Now it looks like she might be the key to passing anything. It’s a good thing that no one followed the advice of the progressive blogosphere.
Some of us, though Brendan, were keeping our eye focused not on the moment, but on the Conference Committee. First, I wanted to get to the Conference Committee, and second, I wanted the public option to still by viable when we got there, if that was at all possible.
I didn’t give a crap what was in the Finance Committee bill. Neither did the White House. Everyone else seemed to think it was critical and that we should burn bridges to get things in that bill that didn’t really matter.
So, ask yourself, who kept their eye on the ball, and who didn’t?
Saying that the administration spent all year enabling Baucus and Snowe shouldn’t be a criticism. Of course they did. Nothing could pass without getting the centrists’ support. If you think they would be in a better place if they tried to bully these senators like they were freshman congresspeople, you just don’t understand the Senate.
“Some of us, though Brendan, were keeping our eye focused not on the moment, but on the Conference Committee. “
who? who are these people and why have I not been introduced to their writing?
and even you acknowledge that conference is a gamble, at best.
i think the problem here is that the democrats promised what they couldn’t deliver, and after 8 years of watching the GOP, with an even more slender majority, get everything they wanted, people like me aren’t buying excuses.
and I’m not.
I think Nate Silver, Kevin Drum, and Ezra Klein have all been pretty clear-eyed about what is possible, what really mattered, and the politics of it all. They annoyed people by being off-message on the PO, but they were doing analysis, not advocacy, which is the key to understanding why there are these start differences.