Obama Asks Liberals How Far They're Willing to Compromise on Public Option

Last I heard he was too busy hypnotizing school children using a videotaped speech and maybe fluoride in the water.

Let's put at least some long odds on the chance that getting health care to Americans has crossed this president's mind at least once or twice in the last few years.

Let's also assume that the failure to get complete skunks like Joe Lieberman, southern polecats like Landrieu, Lincoln, and Pryor, or conservadems like Baucus and Conrad on board takes a little more than a warm smile. Can we also concede that it's easier to sway one than five?

And then maybe we can cut the guy some slack and wait to see what comes out next Wednesday. Deal?

Well and succinctly put. The Republicans have publicly declared, "We don't care what you put up, we will be against it because we are 1) corporate lackeys, and 2) believe the only way we can win is to en masse, completely, and consistently oppose anything and everything you do."

So what does Obama do but give them more time and attention and credence than the people who got him elected. Why are the so-called (corporate) liberals always going for this mythical beast of "centrism" (i.e. compromising by giving the store away to people who have nothing but contempt for them and who will give them nothing) and neglecting and insulting the people who have given them everything.

Progressives like me are feeling like the "wife" who spent her productive years working two jobs to put her husband through medical school, only to have him shack up with some ethically challenged, breast-implanted floozy when he finally got his plum job.

There is a great injustice here and not just politically and morally. Obama is starting to have a decency problem. He's not treating the people who got him elected and loved him and his stated principles with any decency. He's always seem quick with a reassuring speech, but name one REALLY politically tough progressive policy he has championed.

He only goes for the easy so-called progressive issues that no one can really be against. "I'm pro alternative energy." (Who isn't. Even oil companies are trying to climb on that bandwagon.) But gay people in the military, accountability and transparency for banks, exit plan and de-escalation in Afghanistan, even torture disclosure and investigation, all solidly Republican policy actions. If I wanted Clinton's third term, I would have supported Hillary. Jeesh.

wow. the cannibalistic nature of liberals rings true in yours and many in this forum's post. i dont mean to be patronizing (ok maybe i do) but some of you "he betrayed us" folk need to pop a prescription valium and just chill.

take a moment, think how far this discussion and process has come in 8 quick months. think of the riled up right-wing anathema that part and parcel is shifting the opinion of the middle. also, recognize that the Democratic party itself has a very nuanced group of representatives and constituents. to confuse the words liberal and Democrat is a mistake. lot of conservative Dems in the South and midwest, like Specter, whose positions can feasibly float both ways on party tickets. the Democrats aren't like the Republicans, they dont all share one brain. some have souls, some have partial souls, some have no souls.

consider also the cult of neo-conservatism and Reaganism (i.e. free market-ism) that has pervaded right, middle and left over the past 30 years. the fact that we have outspoken liberals likes Weiner who are getting solid MSM airtime to pitch single-payer and not getting shouted down and marginalized is another sign of how far we've come.

the fact that the public option will be retained in some form, because of the strong stand House party leaders like Speaker Pelosi have made, is also pretty stunning. the trigger or something like it sounds like itll hold muster. something thatll allow the progressives to save face and the conservative Dems to wave around a victory. of course that means that this fight has a part 2 in 2010, making sure Republicans/Insurance lobby (one in the same, no?) dont creep in and undo the good work. but politics has always been a two steps forward one step back kinda dance.

look, at the end of the day the President knows he's gotta make this happen with both houses of Congress. sure he's made missteps, but considering he's ghosting this process through other legislators (heeding the lessons of the Clintons in 93/94 whose dominating role in reform resulted in not just pushback but failure) and that he needs a number of conservative and private-interest infected Senators to be onboard to get the vote, I think he's doing a helluva job.

he's not being a stubborn child persisting on a utopia that wont happen. he's doing what we elected him to do, making change. if he walks away from this with a bill that gets stopped in its tracks because trying to do what's high-minded instead of what's effective, the backlash from the middle and the left will show this cannibalistic liberal nature where it counts, in 2010 and 2012.

lot of people have delusions about this president on the right and on the left. Obama during the campaign was a centrist and a pragmatist with a conscience. and i think he's delivering in a big way.

In all this debate, has anyone done the math? Reconciliation, which they will need to get this bill through requires 51 votes to pass. Why not let the worst blue dogs and all the Republicans vote against it, if they want to save face. We still have 9 Democratic votes to sacrifice to we not. If they are all worried about their districts, let them "save face" and simply oppose the public option and pass it with the remaining votes? The only other nuanced strategy is to pretend you're are supporting a watered-down bill to get it out of certain committees, rewrite it strongly, and let people "up-or-down" vote it as a majority proposition.

Correct.

A so-called reform bill that does nothing but require people to buy health insurance (what the insurance industry wants) is worse than no bill at all.

Unless competition is created where there really isn't any now, this will be like Medicare Part D -- a giveaway to the worst of the worst, our for-profit illness insurance industry.

Only 45 Senators support the public option. Reconciliation is also a dead option as reported by Lawrence O'Donnell (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#32696599)

So Obama wouldn't need to persuade "a few", but 15 senators. You've got it wrong. Among them are two Democratic senators from Arkansas, one of whom has less than 30% approval rating and 60% of the people in Arkansas disapprove of the public option. At some point there is no persuading. If you are about to get thrown out of office for doing what you are being asked to do, you will say no and there's nothing worse that Obama can do to some of these Democratic Senators than their constituents will do to them for supporting a public option.

Liberals are part of a COALITION of liberals, left-leaners and independents. You confuse your failure to see that all Democrats and their constituents are not liberals with Obama's inability to make some Senators sacrifice their own seats so they can do what you want (which no one can do anyway).

So within 6 months Obama has now become the whipping boy for the left. Here is a man who chose to bring up Health Care Reform within the first 4 months into his first term. The man gets 300 death threats a day, is compared to Hitler, and now the his base will abandon him on call him a coward because he cannot convince 15 Blue Dogs to vote for the public Option. Maybe Republicans were right, Liberals thought Barack was the Magic Negro and could turn water into wine. The votes are not there in the Senate. I don't trust reconciliation. I think by the time the public option goes thru reconciliation it will be so picked apart that it will be meaningless. What Liberals fail to realize is that the PO was the best way to bring down costs but it was not the only way. The inflexability of Democrats is why after 70 yrs we still don't have universal healthcare. If dems were a little flexible taking what we could get when we could get it it - we might have had single payer by now. But this all or nothing attitude is not only dangerous it is stupid.

Thanks for reminding me that the public option already was a compromise. That's important and appears to have been forgotten.

From "Yes, We Can!" to "No, We Can't" in only 9 months.

That's change we can believe in.

What we really need is Obama waving a great big white flag in front of Congress so they all can get exactly what they want healthcare for themselves plus a a trillion dollars for the insurance lobby.