TPMDC
Politico

Public Option Pressure: As Stories Leak WH And Dem Leaders Say No Decision Has Been Made

Christina Bellantoni | October 23, 2009, 8:42AM

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), President Barack Obama

House leadership sources are telling TPMDC they think news on the "robust" public option is leaking out to pressure House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the health care discussions are getting hotter, and closer to the final deal.

Politico's story this morning suggests Pelosi doesn't have the votes, but our sources insist the leadership isn't yet at that stage.

Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett jabbed at the Politico story while appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe today, saying of the reporter who penned the piece, "I don't know whether Mike Allen can actually count votes or not."

But House sources think Democrats may have spoken with Allen to apply pressure on Pelosi at this late stage in the game.

Sources also knocked down a suggestion that President Obama expressed his preference for a type of public option during a huddle with Senate Democratic leaders last night at the White House.

An administration source tells TPMDC that last night Senate leaders updated Obama on their progress toward the final merger. The group discussed a public option that includes a state opt-out clause, but stressed they had not made a final decision.

Senators are "still working through the substance and talking to their members about it," the source said. "They didn't ask for the president's endorsement since no decision has been made."

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (51) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)
Topics: Barack Obama, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi, Politico, Public Option

Politico

Politico's Allen: SCOTUS Coverage Shows Media's Left-Of-Center Bias

Brian Beutler | May 28, 2009, 9:28AM

Politico's Mike Allen let Sonia Sotomayor's SCOTUS nomination sink in for a couple days before settling on this fresh, and provocative analysis.

[T]he media's left-of-center bias is rarely more apparent than during court fights. The coverage running up to the pick was slanted heavily toward the notion of how "pragmatic" Obama's legal views are and how unlikely he was to pick a liberal.

Now we haven't done a sampling survey the way Allen apparently has, but I seem to recall at least a handful of reports about "concern" that Obama's front-runner (and now nominee) might lack the intellectual heft and good manners "necessary" to sit on the Court.

That, of course, was all basically laid to rest by the sorts of experts "concerned" reporters by and large didn't bother to call--a fact that explain why Allen's colleague, Jeanne Cummings reported today that, "[w]ith scant material for direct attacks, some social conservatives are trying to taint Sotomayor by association, namely with Obama."

It's an odd gambit to attack somebody by associating them with resoundingly popular things--but if there isn't much to criticize on the merits, I guess that's all they've got. And, obviously, that's not a sign of "left-of-center bias" either.