I don’t think it is betraying any confidences to divulge that I received an email from Atrios about ten days ago or so where he suggested that we really ought not to show any enthusiasm for the Medicare Buy-In plan lest Joe Lieberman decide that he’s against it. I laughed at the idea because it had a ring of truth to it. Turns out, Atrios was right on the money.
And [Lieberman] said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.
“Congressman Weiner made a comment that Medicare-buy in is better than a public option, it’s the beginning of a road to single-payer,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Jacob Hacker, who’s a Yale professor who is actually the man who created the public option, said, ‘This is a dream. This is better than a public option. This is a giant step.'”
It turns out that Lieberman just made up the part about Professor Hacker, but the Weiner part of it is accurate enough. Essentially, Lieberman heard that Dean and Weiner and a lot of the blogosphere were happy about a Medicare Buy-In proposal, which was something he himself has supported, and that was enough for him to spike the idea. Maybe we should find out how Lieberman likes to get to work and just go park our cars in the middle of those streets each morning. You know, just because we can.
Did Joe not campaign for a Medicare buy-in option as VP candidate?
I really have to wonder what Barack Obama thinks of all this. He supported Joe in the CT primary, he saved Joe’s chairmanship last year, and now Joe is just crapping all over his top priority.
I would like to think that he is pretty upset about it and hiding his anger, but who knows. Maybe he’s so used to realpolitick that he just isn’t surprised or upset by anything anymore.
I’d really like to see some pissed off CT voter smash a cream pie into Holy Joe’s face at a town hall meeting. Just cream him in the face and put the video on YouTube. I know that’s juvenile of me, but I want to see this man publicly humiliated.
Lets just hope CT voters don’t make the same mistake again…
campaigns for him again.
(Eyes rolling skyward.)
We could have had someone more principled like Ned Lamont.
Obama endorsed Lamont after the primary.
I remember the discussion at Kos. He didn’t know Lamont at all. He seemed embarrassed by the connection, and the impression was that he seemed to prefer Lieberman. If I am wrong, then I bow to other facts I am not aware of. But if I am not wrong, then why the hell do Dems enable this traitor time and again, and give him chairmanships and other perquisites?
Of course he did .. Lamont was the Democratic candidate .. so harping on that isn’t proving anything
…but there are some people who deserve to be shot, and imho he’s one of them.
People are dying right now because they don’t have health care, and he’s grandstanding and profiling on their vulnerability, powerlessness and illnesses.
I hate neo-Clintonism. I HATE it. And I am close to loathing Obama for going for this bankrupt strategy.
It’s Lieberman who needs a pineapple rolled under him, NOT Obama.
I really have to wonder what Barack Obama thinks of all this.
He doesn’t. He’s too busy being a rock star to care about little things like health care, wars, jobs, climate change.
We knew what Lieberman was, but this past few weeks has been a revelation for me regarding Barack Obama. I’m ashamed to say just how fooled I was.
i am troll rating you for being a troll.
and Amy Klobuchar are kissing Holy Joe’s ass right now on Chris Matthews. Same old shit about “he’s with us on 90%…”. They are actually happy that he seems to want to support the health care bill now that he has cut all the balls off it.
The Democrats suck.
Speaking of that, I don’t even think Barack Obama is “with us on 90%” of what we want.
What a miserable failure he’s turned out to be.
Barack Obama has set back the progressive agenda by twenty years. It could not have been worse had John McCain been elected.
I hate to say it, but as of today, I really believe it.
And I doubt that even the most dependable liberal in Congress will show enough strength to stand up and say NO to this horrible bill. They don’t even have that much backbone.
The best we can hope for is a Republican sweep in 2010 and then start rebuilding. This bunch is history.
republican sweep – you guys are becoming so obvious. go back to the abyss into which you and your master are destined to fall
I know it seemed like a genius move when you and the other mouth-breathers hatched The Plan. May I do a few impressions?
PopeRatzo: Duh…We should pretend to be libruls, then go on the computer thing, and bad-mouth the Negro. Then the other libruls will think they have to say bad things about the Negro, too. Then he will not be preznit, huh-huh…
PopeRatzo’s loser web-buddies, typing at the same instant: Yeah! but first I hafta finish yankin’ it to this Sarah Palin photoshop…
Ta-da! No, No, hold your applause. I’m here Tuesdays & Thursdays. Try the veal.
I was thinking something very similar if not quite so colorful. There seems to be a wave of new libruls on DK especially who are just so pissed off at Obama and Reid and Dems in general that they’ve had it up to here I tell ya, not gonna vote next year, not one more dime, boy am I pissed/disgusted/disappointed/betrayed/sold out.
I would say something about great minds, but I know my mind ain’t all that great. They’re pretty transparent actually.
I’m thinking someone needs to introduce a banana to his tailpipe…
A potato works much better.
wow! would like to write something but can’t think of anything appropriate that is printable.
Scary. If he was told that the left turned against the public option he would likely support it.
If that’s the case, then I think Markos and Howard Dean are right on the money by saying that we should kill the bill. If they’ve reached that point, then Joe can assume he’s won the ballgame and can vote for the bill.
If hardcore liberals were still championing the good parts of the bill (whatever they may be) then Joe and Marshall “Bullshit Moose” Whitmann would demand that they be taken out as well.
I’m just wondering if Lieberman and Nelson’s votes were actually secured by this concession? Or is this another example of Harry Reid making concessions in return for no promises?
Honest to God, I am hoping that that is what a lot of this is. After all, Democratic supporters of Hillary and Edwards were for a mandate before they were against it (meanwhile, I went in the other direction from not wanting a mandate on principle to seeing it is a part of policy). Maybe we could amend it with a employer mandate, but exempting small business with less than 100 people (like the Finance bill originally did).
He and Reid insisted on doing do this with 60 votes making Joe and other conservative members of the Democratic caucus pivotal.
Obama is revealingly himself to be a cautious incrementalist when the times call for a stronger figure. Too bad.
I’ll say it again: start over with single-payer. Attach it to the next bill that authorizes Israel’s next handout. And any funding going to CT.
I think Dean makes the most persuasive case for next steps. http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002424/
And may I just ask the question: Does anyone think the insurance industry is going to allow itself to be regulated?
This mealy-mouthed Congress trying to alter how insurers do business is like the little sisters of the poor going up against the Gambino family. I foresee disaster. I can picture thousands of claims being denied or simply put on hold with various excuses, e.g., “until the law is clarified” or “X doesn’t mean Y” or “that’s not how we interpret the new law. . .” etc. It’s another full-employment act for the lawyers.
Disaster.
I wonder what the world would be if Ned Lamont had received all the support he needed. What a different world it would be if we had a Sen. Lamont. Traitor Joe is only concerned about himself…Traitor Joe will be responsible for more deaths—due to lack of health insurance–than the cigarette industry.
just in case you forgot:
http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060316/060316_nedlamont_hmed9a.hmedium.jpg
Well, the PharmaDems just killed the Dorgan amendment, including my Senator, Hagan, and also John Kerry in addition to the usual suspects.
From the odd split, it looks like the leadership wanted it killed and so a mixture of pharmadems and obedient soldiers did their bidding.
Weren’t the repubs using that amendment to kill hcr? (which Menendez then outdid himself arguing against)
From the odd split, it looks like the leadership wanted it killed
Of course, because it would torpedo Obama’s deal with Big Pharma .. and what’s even sadder is that Obama was once a sponsor of the Dorgan amendment(the equivalent) when he was still a Senator
I can live with health care being a “pass it now, fix it later” approach, but worries me is that I’m not hearing anything about how with financial regulatory reform, climate change, jobs bill and all the other things we’re trying to get done in our once in a lifetime progressive window that will expire sometime next summer, the strategy will be any different. Obama and the Senate leadership’s strategy continues to be
1) introduce a reform that is already a compromise that while if not welcomed to the existing power structures, at least is not a direct challenge to them and arguably makes them stronger and better off while helping ordinary americans as well (Win-win!)
2). when those existing power structures flex their muscle and join with the GOP and their allies in the Dem Party to water down or kill reform, progressives fight back, while Obama and the Senate leadership ask progressives to make concessions.
3). Progresives make significant concessions.
4). After Progressives have made concessiosn, the existing power structures and their Congresssional allies flex their muscles again and this team, Rahm and the entire power of the presidency leans on progressives to buckle once again.
5) Reform/legislation passes which is welcomed and beneficial to existing power structures.
Somebody please tell me that the White House and Senate leadership have a plan to make sure this doesn’t happen again. This is what I really care about: what will be different next time important legislation will be on the line. If its going to be the same story, obama won’t have progressives to fight his battles for him. The cynic in me thinks perhaps Obama really intends to just be Clinton for 8 years and he doesn’t mind if he assumes that role early and often by sending a powerful message that he doesn’t consider progressives his allies.
It’s really more a situation where whatever progressives like is treated as poison by the press and thought of as radical by the center. We are not people with power or that have shit to offer anyone except at election time. Obama can’t get one single thing done by pleasing us, and in fact even consorting with us makes his job harder. Plus, most of us are ungrateful assholes.
Lieberman’s recent admission that he opposed a Medicare buy-in because we like it is just shorthand for a more general phenomenon.
Or being sarcastic?
Seriously, I can’t tell…
We are not people with power or that have shit to offer anyone except at election time.
Except that’s a lot to offer. Do you think Obama would rather have a Democratic Congress, or Republican? Given his bipartisan fetish, I am beginning to wonder if he cares. Otherwise, why do so much to further depress turnout next year?
“We are not people with power or that have shit to offer anyone except at election time.”
well, then we DO have some to offer. tell me, my friend, did the progressives line up behind Obama or Clinton?
“Obama can’t get one single thing done by pleasing us”
Huh? What does that mean? Clarify.
“Plus, most of us are ungrateful assholes.”
what am i supposed to be “grateful” for, beyond my lower tax rate (which I truly appreciate by the way)? i believe in equal rights for gays, but that’s on hold. I don’t support escalating in afghanistan, so i’m not grateful for that. Bailing out the banks is one thing, but no strings attached? I’m supposed to say “thanks”? c’mon. You’re the only person i know still defending the way the bailout was handled, and that includes prominent economists from left to right.
no, the ungrateful asshole, IMO, is Obama.
because if it wasn’t for progressives like us, we’d have mrs. clinton as president.
not that I’m surprised. when was the last time a democratic president delivered for the base?
Brendan, you can come off as badly out of touch sometimes. Time Magazine just made Ben Bernacke the Man of the Year. It seems that some people think the handling of the financial crisis was superb, even if they might quibble with the details.
There is a difference between defending the status quo and understanding the status quo and the restraints it puts on change. As a political matter, Obama needs the Left to win reelection and to keep majorities in Congress. But for passing legislation, he needs a bunch of turds that are on the far right of the party. That’s a balancing act, but you won’t see much pandering to progressives precisely because the turds react to that by withholding their support (even, sometime, when they originally supported the measure themselves).
i think it’s YOU who is out of touch.
I just read your post on urban progressives vs academic progressives. I guess you’ve forgotten that I’m the former, not the latter. Yes, i have a BA in English, but I’m not some academic. I’ve worked in inner city non-profits since 2005. oh, and I live in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Philadelphia, so i’m in the thick of it every day. How’s the cabin in burbs doing?
i reject your citation of Time’s “man of the year” as some sort of measurement, since you’d be one of the first to say that Time doesn’t really reflect what’s really going on and that they typically regurgitate conventional wisdom (I can go through your joe Klein archives if you’d like). if everyone’s so happy with Ben, why do so many Reps want to audit the Fed?
everyone i know, from small business owners to the people I work with to democratic hillbillies in Kentucky is livid about what’s going on.
“Obama needs the Left to win reelection and to keep majorities in Congress. But for passing legislation, he needs a bunch of turds that are on the far right of the party.”
oh fucking bullshit. He sure came down hard on the progressives about war funding, but he can’t do that on health care? and didn’t the Obama admin just pretty much kill the dorgan amendment?
out of touch. sheesh.
Obama thanked Lieberman privately for his statement issued earlier Tuesday pledging support for the bill as long as the Medicare expansion and public option were eliminated from the bill, Lieberman said
Good to know Obama is happy with Joey boy.
Why is anyone surprised that this corrupt Congress can not and will not pass a decent health care bill? Most of the legislators know which hand feeds them, especially at election time, and that hand does not belong to progressives. Face it folks, in this culture money talks. Look at how smoothly and swiftly the banksters of Wall Street got bailed out. Do you think it might have had anything to do with the big campaign contributions they made to that corporate suit from Illinois? So with the legislative and executive branches of our national government compromised, I think the ordinary people of America should be ready to be screwed again and again. Isn’t it great to live in the greatest nation on earth?
The worst thing about the Obama presidency is that it’s revealing just how godawful the Democratic party is. Watching this healthcare clusterfuck has been one of the most embarrassing things I have witnessed in my 62 years as a citizen.