The Glenn Greenwald Dramatic Reenactment of the Health Care Timeline

[KoKo]

The Glenn Greenwald Dramatic Reenactment of the Health Care Timeline

A play in two acts:

Progressives: We want a public option!

Democrats/WH: We agree with you totally! Unfortunately, while we have 50 votes for it, we just don’t have 60, so we can’t have it. Gosh darn that filibuster rule.

Progressives: But you can use reconciliation like Bush did so often, and then you only need 50 votes.

Filbuster reform advocates/Obama loyalists: Hey progressives, don’t be stupid! Be pragmatic. It’s not realistic or Serious to use reconciliation to pass health care reform. None of this their fault. It’s the fault of the filibuster. The White House wishes so badly that it could pass all these great progressive bills, but they’re powerless, and they just can’t get 60 votes to do it.

A MONTH LATER

Progressives: Hey, great! Now that you’re going to pass the bill through reconciliation after all, you can include the public option that both you and we love, because you only need 50 votes, and you’ve said all year you have that!

Democrats/WH: No. We don’t have 50 votes for that (look at Jay Rockefeller). Besides, it’s not the right time for the public option. The public option only polls at 65%, so it might make our health care bill — which polls at 35% — unpopular. Also, the public option and reconciliation are too partisan, so we’re going to go ahead and pass our industry-approved bill instead . . . on a strict party line vote.

Props needed: football (optional), left over from prior seasons’ FISA and war funding performances. Slightly used, but never seems to get old.

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This is why, although I basically agree with filibuster reform advocates, I am extremely skeptical that it would change much, because Democrats would then just concoct ways to lack 50 votes rather than 60 votes -- just like they did here. Ezra Klein, who is generally quite supportive of the White House perspective, reported last week on something rather amazing: Democratic Senators found themselves in a bind, because they pretended all year to vigorously support the public option but had the 60-vote excuse for not enacting it. But now that Democrats will likely use the 50-vote reconciliation process, how could they (and the White House) possibly justify not including the public option? So what did they do? They pretended in public to "demand" that the public option be included via reconciliation with a letter that many of them signed (and thus placate their base: see, we really are for it!), while conspiring in private with the White House (which expressed "sharp resistance" to the public option) to make sure it wouldn't really happen.

The only thing I wonder about is whether Washington Democrats are baffled about the extreme "enthusiasm gap" between Democratic and Republican voters, which very well could cause them to lose control of Congress this year. By "enthusiasm gap," it is meant that the very people who worked so hard in 2006 and 2008 to ensure that Democrats became empowered are now indifferent -- apathetic -- about whether they keep it. Even as crazed and extremist as the GOP is, is it remotely possible that the Democratic establishment fails to understand not only why this "enthusiasm gap" exists, but also why it's completely justifiable?


http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/23/democrats/index.html

[DirkGently]

1. It IS starting to look a little odd ...

The public supports the public option. There appear to be enough votes to pass it under Reconciliation. And the White House says today, "No. Sorry. It's just not politically possible."

Not "politically possible," why, exactly? No one seems adamantly opposed besides the GOP and the insurance industry.


Weiner had some very pointed observations on Rachel tonight. "We've got to stop triangulating against ourselves."

[BR_Parkway]

8. Not politically possible means "we've taken too much $$ from the opposition"

and if we do this, they might give even more money to people to run against us

[flyarm]

2. no PO and a tax on my health care ..I will never vote again..for either party..ever!

and the Dems will never see another dime of my money or my time!

[PSPS]

3. So what?

Neither your vote nor your money is needed. Elections turn on media buys and insurance companies have plenty of money (soon to be even more what with those compulsory payments you'll be making) to "insure" they get the legislator (and legislation) they want. And, yes, this includes obama.

[Vinnie From Indy]

4. The truth is a bitch for those paying attention!

Greenwald has it right again!

It seems undeniable to me that there have been a great many Democrats over the last two years that have given every bit of lip service to a public option either knowing or hoping that it would never get to a point where they would have to vote on it. I am quite certain in my mind that the Obama insiders felt this way. They would give the public option a place in Obama's speeches knowing that he would never see a bill on his desk with one included.

The fact is that many Democrats are having a very difficult time trying to serve two masters - the American public and the corporate interests that have the money to get re-elected. Sadly, now our representatives have to face corporate interests with even greater power over their ability to get elected or re-elected. Imagine being a candidate and having Big Pharma tell you in private meetings that if you do not vote a certain way they will drop ten million, twenty million or more in your district against your candidacy.

[TankLV]

5. And they'll still wonder why I and MILLIONS of others "sat out" the next election...

Harry Reid can kiss my ass, along with "Saint" Obama...

feh...

[bbgrunt]

6. and you have to wonder if these weasel democrats

can look past their sweet campaign contributions to understand that they are engendering a HARD right takeover of this republic (if you can keep it--HA--not if it has rotted from the inside out!)

yes, I think they know.

[depakid]

7. ...baffled about the extreme "enthusiasm gap"

A whole lot of them are going to be baffled out on their asses come November over behavior like this.

Unfortunately, along with them will be a LOT of state and local politicians- just in time for redistricting.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- these types are far WORSE enemies for the party and the nation than any Republicans.

[southernyankeebelle]

9. That is why democrats will lose big time. I have already wrote e-mails

to the President, Reid and Pelosi and told them no public option, they will lose 4 votes just in my family.

[yurbud]

10. we need some litmus tests for Dems that will flush the corporatists out

not ideological but corruption ones like the party will NEVER support, endorse, or share a forum with a candidate who went from being an elected official to a corporate lobbyist, CEO of a corporation, or corporate board member, or whose spouse or immediate family members perform any of those functions.

We give retired pols a nice pension. They can teach or help Jimmy Carter build houses for the poor, or something like that, but that's it.

[Jefferson23]

11. How many times do we need to read a solid case for public funded

elections before we have it? Perhaps not in my life time, but I hope so for the sake of my children and their future.