Rockefeller feigned support for the public option, when it had no chance of passing (Greenwald)

[ohiodemocratic]

Greenwald today rips the phony, flip-flopping Jay Rockefeller (and the party in general) a new one:

October 4, 2009: "Jay Rockefeller on the Public Option: "I Will Not Relent"
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/04/jay-rockefeller-s-health-care-moment-45-years-in-the-making/

...

The Huffington Post, yesterday:
Rockefeller Not Inclined To Support Reconciliation For The Public Plan
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/rockefeller-not-inclined_n_472393.html

...

In other words, Rockefeller was willing to be a righteous champion for the public option as long as it had no chance of passing (sadly, we just can't do it, because although it has 50 votes in favor, it doesn't have 60). But now that Democrats are strongly considering the reconciliation process -- which will allow passage with only 50 rather than 60 votes and thus enable them to enact a public option -- Rockefeller is suddenly "inclined to oppose it" because he doesn't "think the timing of it is very good" and it's "too partisan." What strange excuses for someone to make with regard to a provision that he claimed, a mere five months ago (when he knew it couldn't pass), was such a moral and policy imperative that he "would not relent" in ensuring its enactment.

The Obama White House did the same thing. As I wrote back in August, the evidence was clear that while the President was publicly claiming that he supported the public option, the White House, in private, was doing everything possible to ensure its exclusion from the final bill (in order not to alienate the health insurance industry by providing competition for it). Yesterday, Obama -- while having his aides signal that they would use reconciliation if necessary -- finally unveiled his first-ever health care plan as President, and guess what it did not include? The public option, which he spent all year insisting that he favored oh-so-much but sadly could not get enacted: Gosh, I really want the public option, but we just don't have 60 votes for it; what can I do?. As I documented in my contribution to the NYT forum yesterday, now that there's a 50-vote mechanism to pass it, his own proposed bill suddenly excludes it.

My emphasis.

Read it all: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/23/democrats/print.html

[xchrom]

1. Recommend -- we've been had, hoodwinked and bamboozled. Nt

[Inuca]

2. This is BS

I am puzzled by Rockefeller's position on this. But to claim that he "was willing to be a righteous champion for the public option as long as it had no chance of passing" is utterly unfair and uninformed. Rockefeller has been fighting for HC for many years and he means it. Greenwald or you or even me may not agree with his positions all the time, but from here to piling insults should be a long way (and unfortunately it isn't). I really do NOT see any difference between this kind of attitude and what the other side, freepers, teabaggers, or whatever you want to call them are doing to Scott Brown, their hero until yesterday, now being demonized and insulted. It's plain stupid and wrong, no matter which side is doing it. Extremely unproductive too.

[Don Caballero]

3. Greenwald the Libertarian

ripping one of our best voices in Senate. Give it a rest Glenn and go worship Ron Paul.

[nashville_brook]

7. wow -- you've got some real issues with GG...did he steal your girlfriend or something.

b/c you're starting to sound like a jilted lover with this.

[Don Caballero]

10. Glenn is in a committed relationship with a man

One of the few reasons I like the guy. His Libertarian Utopia is another story.

[gratuitous]

12. I think you've confused Greenwald with Reynolds

I'm interested in how Sen. Rockefeller squares his past "I will not relent" stance with his present "I'm not inclined to support reconciliation" stance. Pointing out the differences and the circumstances of Rockefeller's position then and now is hardly "ripping" him.

[Trillo]

4. That's rather odd.

This OP is the 2nd or 3rd news item I read this morning, then I checked my email.

We WERE going to do an alert today pushing back against the career
right wing mole in the Justice Department who thinks he can
unilaterally absolve John Yoo and Jay Bybee of facilitating known war
crimes . But first we must AGAIN muster as much opposition as we can
to the White House's attempt today to slickly repackage the hideously
bad Senate health care bill.

All the "hope" in the world is not going to result in the slightest
bit of real progressive policy change. NO, for that YOU must ACTIVELY
speak out and KEEP doing it. Put down your "Yes, We Can" coffee mug
and step away from the slick corporate con job. Submit this action
page now, which includes a special custom function to pipe your
personal comments directly to the new White House questions form.

Why Not Single Payer? Action Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1033.php

[ThomWV]

5. I called that son of bitch's office friday and was assured he was all in favor of the PO

And my 6 attempts so far to get through to his office this morning haven't make it yet. I am fuming!

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[diamidue]

8. Feinstein is doing the same thing, isn't she?

She is getting so much grief for selling out CA water rights (in favor of a billionaire farm friend of hers) that she needed to do something to shore up her public approval. So she signs up to the public option trough - knowing full well that it has a snowball's chance in hell.

I'm convinced that there never was any support by anyone in this administration for the public option.

They are just playing games with us. These people DO NOT and never will care about the little people. We hire them, but they do not work for us. We have to stop being such suckers.

[Individualist]

9. DLCers are adept at this sort of game playing.

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. The real problem is not with enemies, but with phony "friends"

Nelson, Lincoln, and Bayh are just convenient scapegoats for "progressives" who don't want to cross corporate power.

If Nelson, Lincoln & Bayh did not exist, Rahm would need to invent them.


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(k and r)