I just finished watching
Dennis Kucinich on MSNBC and I cannot honestly tell you I am stunned or even mildly surprised. I'm more like somewhere between amused and disgusted. He categorically told
Lawrence O'Donnell that he will absolutely vote
NO on the Senate health care bill that must clear the House if we want as much as rumor of reform. With that statement, Kucinich joins the ranks of the nabobs ranging from every right-wing Republican to every right-wing obstructionist Democrat like the aptly named
Bart Stupak.
Kucinich firmly stated he will go thumbs down on any bill that does not include a "robust public option." Nice idea. Too bad the option does not have enough political support to get through Congress. Hell, we don't know yet if there's enough votes to even get the watered-down Senate bill that Dennis opposes through a Democratic House where all you need is a simple majority.
Indeed, the nose counting in these final days before a showdown vote is so razor-close that it just might be
Kucinich's naysaying which could block the legislation.
Kucinich's intransigence has prompted some to declare that Kucinich could become "the
Ralph Nader of health care."
But such a statement is an insult to Nader.
My readers know that I supported Nader in 2000 (being the premature anti-Liebermanist that I was). In 2004 I editorialized that he should not run, in part, because he had failed to build on his earlier run. Not to mention that
he had gotten in bed with cultists like Leonara Fulani. And
I wrote that Nader's 2008 "campaign" was tragi-comic.
But I always defended and would defend his right to run, precisely because presidential politics is NOT a zero-sum game. When you are offered three or four or six choices then you have a real option. Your conscience may lead you to vote for one among many without "taking away" a vote from someone else who you do not or cannot support. It's an open-ended choice.
This is not the case in Congress. Here we have the ultimate zero-sum equation. There are no choices except up or down, yes or no. If you don't vote for a bill, you are voting against it. Period. You are not taking a third position by opposing a less than perfect reform. You are literally joining forces with all of its opponents.
I have always been skeptical of Kucinich not because he is too far left. But because he is too far detached from effective politics. I saw his primary "campaign" up close and personal in Iowa in 2004 -- the ultimate venue for ground-level retail politics-- and he did virtually nothing. Late in the game, he hired a single staffer for the entire state. The point being he squandered the energy and political capital invested in him by naive supporters. I can honestly say he did little, nay, he did nothing to build any movement out of his campaign other than to move his face in front of the cameras of the televised debates.
Here we go again. We now have a black and white choice. Either we pass a flawed health care bill that provides access to private insurance for 30 million Americans without it. Or we do nothing. And in so doing, let the Republicans pick up another 15 or 20 seats beyond the 25 or so they are already destined to win in November.
Dennis Kucinich is no Ralph Nader. He might as well be another
John Boehner.
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I just finished watching Dennis Kucinich on MSNBC and I cannot honestly tell you I am stunned or even mildly surprised. I'm more like somewhere between amused and disgusted. He categorically told Lawrence O'Donnell that he will absolutely vote NO on the Senate health care bill that must clear the House if we want as much as rumor of reform. With that statement, Kucinich joins the ranks of the nabobs ranging from every right-wing Republican to every right-wing obstructionist Democrat like the aptly named Bart Stupak.
Kucinich firmly stated he will go thumbs down on any bill that does not include a "robust public option." Nice idea. Too bad the option does not have enough political support to get through Congress. Hell, we don't know yet if there's enough votes to even get the watered-down Senate bill that Dennis opposes through a Democratic House where all you need is a simple majority.
Indeed, the nose counting in these final days before a showdown vote is so razor-close that it just might be Kucinich's naysaying which could block the legislation.
Kucinich's intransigence has prompted some to declare that Kucinich could become "the Ralph Nader of health care."
But such a statement is an insult to Nader.
My readers know that I supported Nader in 2000 (being the premature anti-Liebermanist that I was). In 2004 I editorialized that he should not run, in part, because he had failed to build on his earlier run. Not to mention that he had gotten in bed with cultists like Leonara Fulani. And I wrote that Nader's 2008 "campaign" was tragi-comic.
But I always defended and would defend his right to run, precisely because presidential politics is NOT a zero-sum game. When you are offered three or four or six choices then you have a real option. Your conscience may lead you to vote for one among many without "taking away" a vote from someone else who you do not or cannot support. It's an open-ended choice.
This is not the case in Congress. Here we have the ultimate zero-sum equation. There are no choices except up or down, yes or no. If you don't vote for a bill, you are voting against it. Period. You are not taking a third position by opposing a less than perfect reform. You are literally joining forces with all of its opponents.
I have always been skeptical of Kucinich not because he is too far left. But because he is too far detached from effective politics. I saw his primary "campaign" up close and personal in Iowa in 2004 -- the ultimate venue for ground-level retail politics-- and he did virtually nothing. Late in the game, he hired a single staffer for the entire state. The point being he squandered the energy and political capital invested in him by naive supporters. I can honestly say he did little, nay, he did nothing to build any movement out of his campaign other than to move his face in front of the cameras of the televised debates.
Here we go again. We now have a black and white choice. Either we pass a flawed health care bill that provides access to private insurance for 30 million Americans without it. Or we do nothing. And in so doing, let the Republicans pick up another 15 or 20 seats beyond the 25 or so they are already destined to win in November.
Dennis Kucinich is no Ralph Nader. He might as well be another John Boehner.
Follow me on Twitter by clicking here.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I saw the same interview. You’re being too kind to this fookin’ prick, Marc. There are 1.3 million people in Ohio without health insurance and Kucinich wants to berate his own party for not passing a more perfect bill. He’s the epitome of the ideal being the enemy of the good.
I’m really starting to wonder about the judgement of the good folks in Ohio’s 10th District continuing to send Captain Tin Foil to Congress.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Wait till you get to page 2
http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/2004/02/This-Conversation-With-You-Is-A-Meditation.aspx
March 8th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
I just can’t help being very ambivalent about this bill. Let’s keep in mind the reports last year that industry lobbyists were ‘helping’ write the legislation and also the former CEO who in testimony before congress offered what he felt was a more appropriate name for it: The Health Insurance Corporation Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.
Thirty million uninsured gaining insurance – no one is going to argue against that, but just how defective of a product are they going to be getting? Insurance pools are nothing but theory at this point. And last I heard, there were close to 50 million uninsured. What about the other 20 million?
What kind of loop holes have the lobbyists written in to the bill regarding pre-existing conditions, preventing sick patients from being dropped, yearly out-of-pocket maximums etc. Let’s not forget that we’re talking about a legislative body that can’t even effectively regulate cable TV.
I think there are way too many question marks to characterize this a ‘zero sum’ situation. I try to avoid pondering whether passage of this bill will help the Democrat’s fortunes next election but that seems questionable also.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
One last point about Kucinich. His holding out for a ‘robust public option’ is a joke. The last I heard of the public plan was that funding was to be channeled through private insurers similar to how Medicare uses private insurers as fiscal intermediaries.
Kucinich and Pelosi’s threats to hold out for a public plan were never any more than phony populist rhetoric.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Lets let Dennis speak for himself:
Kucinich: Why I Voted NO
Congressman Kucinich 111th
Washington, Nov 7, 2009 -
After voting against H.R. 3962 – Affordable Health Care for America Act, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement:
“We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.
“Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.
“But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies — a bailout under a blue cross.
“By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states “since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.” Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that “money will start flowing in again” to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.
“During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The “robust public option” which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.
“Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy — in which most Americans live — the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.
“This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.
“Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.”
# # #
March 9th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Google Bill Moyers Journal
You will get PBS
Then this from March 5th:
March 5, 2010 — Full Transcript (print)
Bill Moyers sits down with former insurance executive turned public health advocate Wendell Potter, who argues that all is not lost in the healthcare bill and details what he likes about the legislation.
Then, single-payer advocate Marcia Angell on why she thinks the debate over reform needs a fresh look at the economics and delivery of the care promised in the bill. And, Bill Moyers checks in on viewer mail. (March 5, 2010)
You can retrieve the transcript
March 9th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Remember Dennis was kicked out of office years ago for standing his ground over how to handle a utilities company scam—and later re elected because he was proved right.
Its one thing to disagree with him on TACTICS but calling him stupid, disconnected or irresponsible is bullshit.
I am sure there are many pithy little proverbs about compromising with the devil…
March 9th, 2010 at 9:27 am
The worst, Marc, is your equating his stand with the opposition.
And what is “too left”? I think this bullshit term needs some specificity. Is that code for too principled?
Like maybe Sister George in Brazil or the rest of your friends who were mowed down in Chile?
March 9th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Gee, was King “too Left”? He paid for his principles with his fucking life as have countless others.
“too left” to me is an ideological tool. Someone who uses words like Sergio such as making excuses for murder/repression under the banner of ‘revolutionary justice’…a Strelnikoff character.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Here we go again is right. Marc Cooper did much, much, MUCH More than be “prematurely anti-Leiberman”, he was thick as a brick with the various hard rightie media hacks who created various false stories (Love Story, Love Cannel) that put W in the White House. In his common cause with Coulter, he wrote an
attack piece on David Brock (When he DARED to defect from the side Marc secretly loves, by publishing “Blinded By The Right”).
Marc explained to his readers how goodly Ann tried to help
the miserable mainstream democratic psycho.
Marc big old soft spot for McCarthyite war monger Christopher Hitchens seems the heart of his silly attempts to demonize Sidney Bluementhal. But ask yourself what
happened there and, sadly, what side Cooper was on.
Hitchens would leave (and slur the hell out of) The
Nation when they dared to differ with W on the Invasion
of IRAQ(!!)) and to this day Cooper says “golly, do we
have to agree on everything?” How laughable. How
PATHETIC.
One could say much, much more about this, but
the true proof off any of this would be Marc Cooper’s
writing. I’d love to see an anthology of Marc’s work
(1990-2008) put into print. Wouldn’t it be thrilling
to reread Marc’s last piece before 9-11?
He told us how much he LOVED
all the attention the Gary Condit Scandal was getting,
because it remind us of more wonderful Bill Clinton
sex jokes?
Easy bottom line here: Kucinich clearly IS Nader,
and Marc Cooper is coming from a place of very bad
conscience. The Nadar/Kucinich line is not outrageous,
stupid or entirely wrong. But we never give it it’s due:
Ralph said in 2000 that “things were going to have to
get worse before they get better.” I’m sure Dennis feels
the same way on health care.
Trouble is when things DO get worse, the Nadar/
Kucinich people never want to own up to there part
in the sorry little drama. Remember Marc Cooper’s
endless “let’s look the other way, Bush’s Presidency
is OVER” posts that started about a year into his second
term? Remember his endless attempts to hang
Bush’s war on the Dems?
This is a pathology. It’s what makes it possible
for Cooper’s “reporting” on the Democratic Primary
to appear on a page of the Weekly with a cartoon
calling Hillary Clinton a “two faced, castrating bitch.”
Coop’s newfound pragmatism came eight years,
two botched and stupid wars and one melted down
world economy too late. Better late, I guess,
than never.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Now here is an example of how one can blame the idiot Democrats/progressives who never load the cannon when they are given the fodder:
http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/blog/article/8388/
All the stupid fucking rationales of the gun knobs evaporates before this little tale of woe and toddler death. Because over and over the idiots who get off on having guns like to leave them around…
March 9th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Claiming that this bill is an improvement over what we have now is a big assumption. Others have pointed out its numerous and serious deficiencies so I won’t repeat them here. Supporters of the bill claim these deficiencies will be mitigated or eliminated over the years and that this version of HCR can therefore be made more progressive after it’s passage.
That claim is also a big assumption. Just because Germany and Switzerland effectively manage private health insurers doesn’t mean the US will do the same. The regulatory requirements that protect the public could easily be weakened or simply ignored, especially if a Republican administration comes to power.
That said, I’m supporting the bill’s passage mainly for political reasons. Republicans are entirely united against it’s passage and are doing all they can to stop it. That in itself is cause enough to support it. The Democrats need a major victory and the Republicans need to be defeated. Sometimes it just comes down to politics.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I agree with Marc’s characterization of Kucinich’s position on the health care bill. I could accept his position and those of the Churchillians if there were any reason to believe that we would get a substantially better bill in the next few years. But that is not at all likely to happen. So I believe that opposition to the Senate bill from a “progressive” perspective is very wrong.
As for Kucinich himself, I have mixed feelings. Unlike our host, I am not put off by his efforts to harmonize spiritual and political analysis, and to observe the effects one has on the other. I think it is good. I agree with him that many of the more ‘challenging” Catholic doctrines–like transsubstantiation– are analogous to those held by other religions. All this is fine. If at the end of the analysis, though, one is going to represent one’s working class constituents by voting against health care reform, I think some important links are missing.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I would love to respond to these brilliant comments but am currently too busy transcribing them. When finished I will mail them to the 30 million people whom this bill would have covered to inform them that in the learned opinion of a gaggle of armchair “pwogwessives” they do not have the right to the same shitty health insurance that most of the rest can afford. I will also add that next time they are sick they should go fuck themselves and that if they cant squeeze into an ER they can resort to reading one of Kucinich’s favorite books — A Course in Miracles. Because that is what they will need to heal themselves.
What jag-offs you be.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Clearly no loaf is better than half a loaf.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I have to go with Marc — holding up Healthcare reform simply because it doesn’t meet a Puritanical Principle only shows why guys like Kuicinich and Nader will never be President and should never be in positions of real power, they’re more interested in their soapbox than getting things done.
He claims to be a people’s champion. The irony is that the only people who will applaud him are upper middle class liberal types (rich old hippies, college kids, guilty trust fund babies and Hollywood elites) who already have healthcare. I wouldn’t be surprise if some Blue Dog Obamaholic primaries him on GP this year.
Yes, he’s principled, but he shows a real weakness of lefty activist types — thinking that stridently doing nothing in the name of progress is better than slowly inching towards change. Your Buddha cypher isn’t a political consensus.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
yeah, like Nader never got anything “done”. do you guys ever really listen to the regurgitated knee jerk garbage you say?
its this rubbish coming from people who fancy themselves “lefty activist types” that are always the death of progress.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
demonizing a guy like Kucinich rather than focusing on who the real villains are is what is truly galling…that and the historical fact that appeasement usually is a bad idea.
such as the US now being blackmailed into appeasing both Turkey and China on two separate issues. Gee, would it be too principled to tell Turkey to fuck themselves with their nah, no genocide shenannigans and then have to haggle over having use of their air space strategically? Its a slippery slope. But at least in those two incidents its the way of geo politics to slime each other or uriah heep it in order to supposedly get a deal. Internally its disgusting to go that route.
and from what i can gather all those people Marc thinks are going to be covered is a fantasy…and I am one of them. I’ll send you a love letter after the bill passes…
in my state they have worked out a deal with several private insurers for a supposedly affordable option. uh huh: $500 plus and there are still pre existing exclusion clauses.
my guess is its better not to pass the bastard and allow the initiative of regional activists do what San Fran and some other cities and even states have done.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/09/china.animals/index.html
yes, appeasement is such a good idea. China such a civilized, wonderful country…we cant get healthcare but China at least may strike a blow for civilization by taking cat and dog meat off the menu.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Oh screw Kucinich. He’s a goofy dufus who is now making a mistake of his lifetime. Yes he has taken some excellent positions during his career and some equally STUPID ones. We could review his 30 years as an anti abotion advocate for example but I guess that would also be unfair. He’s a humann not a God. When he does something stupid he deserves to be called stupid. Cut out the worship please. he’s about to vote on the same side as every retrograde Republican. He deserves to be driven from office with pitchforks.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
In the vein of the news story parody someone posted here a few weeks ago: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/breaking_news_some_bullshit
March 9th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I hope Kucinich can do the principle math. His principles will allow 48,000 people to die each year. Not bad.
Unless he already knows the votes are in and this is just a bit of theater.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Here are the rights to health care that currently exist.
Health Care and the Left’s Perverted Definition of ‘Rights’
Can we stop using the word “right” when it’s not really one?
March 9th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Proof will be in the pudding. This topic has been batted around several times now. Lets see what happens..
March 9th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Kucinich was voted of office as mayor as his city went bankrupt. Why so much hagiography over what is essentially a failed politician. Exactly what legislation has he been able to pass thru any coalition bldg for all his years in Congress? How does he stack up against a Wellstone or a Feingold or for that matter a Teddy Kennedy or even Henry Waxman? They actually got meaningful progressive stuff DONE. Dennis has spent his time running a political prayer circle.
And by the way, defenders of Dennis, what’s the story on Bernie Sanders who is now supporting passage of the bill Kucinich opposes? Is Bernie now a tool of Big Pharma in your eyes? Get a dose of reality.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Well, Marc, Kucinich is a favorite of the Firedoglake “firebagger” idiots, who would rather have things get worse, and have people die, than get even part of what’s needed, soon. Those people want to “primary” Sanders (HAHAHAHA!). They are a prime example of Internet-age “progressive” EPIC FAIL if I have ever seen one.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:37 am
The point is the demonizing of Kucinich and now scapegoating him for what may prove to finally defeat this clap trap of a bill is what is revolting.
Kucinich is not responsible for what may be the demise of the bill but the fuck wit phony Dems, chicken shit Dems and the amoral, soulless shits parading as humans–Republicans–supping on mammon are.
Kucinich is just saying the bill is a piece of crap and despite what one personally thinks of DK’s record the bill has been scrutinized by many who find it more damaging than useful.
We now have one side saying oh, oh, it might do a little good and we can keep chipping away at it or, it will penalize those who can’t pay; enrich the private insurance sector and set the ball rolling to strip out existing programs. START OVER and KICK ASS.
The Republicans actually have a plan and are always executing it. They are well financed and they always know how to exploit the brown shirt mentality.
How did that joker take the MA election? Oh, right, its all whats her names fault for not shaking hands and kissing babies. BULLSHIT.
You guys are not aware of the fundamental collective psychological issues that are rendering the so called progressives impotent. Over and over in the past years there has been a refusal to pick up the gauntlet, fight and become cohesive and strategic.
The Wellstones and Kennedys et al had to battle mostly alone at the mercy of the fickle, finger pointing, whining blamers that most so called liberals become who mostly want to hero worship someone then claw them apart if they don’t deliver in two minutes.
I was amused that Marc’s criticism of DK was that he wasn’t a huckster self promoter only hiring one staffer to lead his campaign! Nader squandered his political capital! NOT…its up to those who don’t have the ideas to rally and help implement the ideas of those that actually can articulate them.
Obama is the perfect example of the empty idea hyped to infinity and signifying nothing.
Those with substance are usually not charismatic or good at self promotion. Sometimes yes…mostly no. What that means is its up to people who have a moral center to recognize what is right and to act on it and not be dependent on some demagogue to lead them out of the wilderness.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:42 am
I must say Obama has quite the wardrobe now with all that sartorial splendor everyone imagines for him.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:34 am
Anna Churchill’s posts here are a good example of why it would be better to take half a loaf than nothing at all. The time she has spent bloviating could have been spent organizing the kind of movement it would take to get Congress to enact single-payer etc, ie a HUGE movement of activists dedicated enough to moving heaven and earth. We haven’t seen a movement like that in years, and given the ease of tap tap tapping on those keyboard keys as a substitute for actual organizing, we are not likely to soon.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:34 am
“START OVER and KICK ASS.”
You’re such a toughie Anna. Isn’t this exactly what your mortal enemies are saying too??
Regardless of what the wingnuts say on both sides of this Bill, when push comes to shove and it is time to vote, every single leftwing nut will vote for it, including and especially Dennis the Menace….and Anna if she could, and every single rightwing nut will vote against it. Like all radicals, they love making a spectacle and especially running their mouths.
The extremists are good at one thing, starkly defining and separating the differences in ideologies, personally attacking and demonizing anyone showing any signs of reason and compromise pissing off and driving potential votes toward the opposite side, and generally scaring the living shit out of the ordinary apolitical public that actually have a life instead of a fucking jihad.
In short, they are not only anti-democratic, but are wreckers of democracies. The seeds and genesis of every horrible dictatorial totalitarianism massacreing genocidal regime that has every existed.
Dennis will take what he can get for HRC when it comes time to shut up and put up. It moves the USA one step closer to communism after all, and he is not as dumb as he looks and acts….but just as radical.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:44 am
There is only one chance in hell Dennis votes against HRC, he knows his vote will not be needed to pass it.
He wants to act like a martyr, but not if it means the death part.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:51 am
“START OVER and KICK ASS.”
The sad truth is that very, very few of the individuals and left organizations taking this position have any actual plans or strategy for building the kind of movement necessary to make Congress vote the way they want on this or any other “left” issue for that matter. I have been having this debate on a left science list I participate in, and those screaming the loudest are members of “socialist” groups who will be off on other issues as soon as the health care reform bill crashes and burns–and also if it passes, despite the opportunities it will provide to organize for something better once the basic principle of universal health care is established in law.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:14 am
What Balter said. Amen, both times.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:42 am
Speaking of the “other” Kucinich…
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/03/usda-vet-blows-whistle-on-food-safety-violations/
March 10th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Gee, do I have to repeat: start over and kick ass. Thats my point…and I have repeatedly excoriated the “left-liberal” yahoo brigade for lack of focus or strategy. Whining that DK is now to blame for a piece of shit of a bill not worth the paper its written on– not passing just surpasses itself in the mind bending illogic that keeps so called “progressives” in perpetual retrograde.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Gee, do I have to repeat? Self-indulgent loudmouths do the progressive cause no service because they’ve got nothing else going other than being self-indulgent loudmouths–no strategy to win people over, nada. That’s my point, now swallow it and digest it.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:03 am
December opinion by Howard Dean. I don’t know how diff current proposed bill is:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121601906.html
He enumerates the “pros” but still says its too damaging to take up.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Balter, one has to repeat with you because you continually take what someone says out of context and twirl it around to suit your point of view…and ego.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Anna,
You’re stepping into a pile of dog shit on this one. Balter’s very elementary point is that the demand to start over isn’t backed up with any real strategy–nothing in such an admonition indicates anyone is going to have the votes to get something done. What makes anyone think that–today–single payer is going to be more popular than the weaker bill in play? If you have a compelling argument (an argument, not a shout), I’d love to hear it.
Your demand that we “KICK ASS” reminds me of a person that reported to me who used to tell her reports to “work smarter not harder.” This is a nice little bit of management claptrap, but in the end, her people didn’t get better. Wanna know why? Because they didn’t know, and she couldn’t tell them, how to get from A (harder) to B (smarter), just like you don’t know how to get from A (This bill) to B (single payer).
Now, please go run a marathon, but DO IT FASTER.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:14 am
There are far better people than you, Balter, who have given reasoned opinions that conclude the bill is damned and will cause more damage than good.
The argument is down to those that should be working together scapegoating, whining and name calling rather than trying to understand the very real concerns over such a piece of compromised legislation passing and looking ahead to the consequences.
It is tiresome that no one will look at just what the bill will do and won’t its all buying into empty ideas just like everyone bought into the empty phrases of ‘hope’ and haha ‘change’ hahahahahah.
With the carcasses of the economy stinking and rotting all around and the proof that NOTHING HAS CHANGED regarding reform in the insurance and financial industries a little reality check on just where the work needs to be done FIRST is in order.
The focus– in my view– needs to be on tackling the underpinnings of what needs to be oversight and a set of laws reflecting civilized ideals back in place. That needs to happen before anything else can move forward. Dealing with the fact Democracy is derailed and the crazies are at the helm needs to be addressed FIRST.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:23 am
There are far better people than you, Balter, who have given reasoned opinions that conclude the bill is damned and will cause more damage than good.
For example?
The argument is down to those that should be working together scapegoating, whining and name calling rather than trying to understand the very real concerns over such a piece of compromised legislation passing and looking ahead to the consequences.
That self-awareness train rolls by and Anna refuses to get on.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:24 am
I think the time for ASS KICKING regarding HCR has long since passed. Obama had his best chance last year when his approval rating was 70%, when Republicans were flat on their back, and there were no Cornhusker Kickbacks and Big Pharma deals to sour the public on reform.
Marc once said that Al Gore had nobody to blame but Al Gore for losing the 2000 election. Similarly Barack Obama will have nobody to blame but Barack Obama if the current HCR bill fails to pass.
March 10th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Simply being “correct” doesn’t automatically open the gates of heaven in politics. In blackjack, having the wisdom to win a few, lose a few but staying in the game for the key moment when the deck is “right” is the way to win ..at least that’s been my experience.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Obama’s Sec’t of HHS, on bended knee before the health insurance industry:
“Ms. Sebelius complained that “over the last year, we have seen tens of millions of dollars, by the insurance industry, spent on ads and lobbyists to help kill health reform.’’
The secretary said she could not understand such efforts, because Mr. Obama was not trying to “eliminate the private insurance market and go to some kind of single-payer system like Europe or Canada.’’”
I’d be all for ‘starting over’ if we had an administration with some courage. Obama is way to timid to ‘kick some ass’. He didn’t even play the ‘Medicare for all’ card (supported by 72% of Americans) or even the ‘public plan’ card. This administration caved before the game started and are now begging a sector of corporate America to support a bill that seeks to regulate it, and claiming that they can’t understand why they won’t support the bill.
These clowns are not the people you want in charge of reforming health care.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
A somewhat more reasoned view of that meeting.
March 10th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Ed Watters,
What actual evidence of your soap opera scenes is there (begging the insurance sector)? He made a deal straight up with strings attached. There seems to be a tremendous temptation on the part of every blogger in the world to suppose, because they have the floor, that this is a race to show-off how much smarter they are than Obama. That is, the minute after he was elected. What is that?
Granted, “single payer” never sat at the table..but this is the realm of the winnable, the possible, the do-able..It is strategic.
This is how progress happens in the world 2010, not like the “film of your mind” where James Stewart gets Claude Raines to break down in tears and admit he was lying on the floor of the Senate.
March 10th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
randy, I have posted the “examples” several times. your turn to Google.
I have stated several times if the bill gets a foot in the door and allows for continued ability to break down the entrenched interests and stupidity and actually puts people on the rolls then GOODY. But if it is going to be the old two step: one foot forward some people get healthcare that would not have but then it strips existing programs and kills off more than maybe it supposedly initially saves plus raises rates and a host of other warned about horrors….nu?
March 10th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
The battle lines are being drawn…Obama is kicking some ass and people are organizing:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/10/obama.health.care/index.html?hpt=T1
March 10th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
note the part about a poll saying not many Americans want a bill but they like “specific” issues…meaning most Americans are too fucking stupid and can only relate on a selfish level when it is spelled out to them YOU WILL BENEFIT IN THIS WAY.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Michael B’s point about the carpers not doing the political work is a good one – but “in fairness” it extends to liberals and Obama supporters, and I include myself, who didn’t make a big push early enough in the game in support of a bill that was at least as “progressive” as what was being talked about by the Dem candidates in the primaries and Obama in ’08. We dropped the ball and it got picked up by right-wing strategists and the FOX/talk radio nexus who were able to stir up a bunch of low-informaiton types and crazies driven by their inchoate resentments and irrational fears. We screwed up. Obama’s team shares some of the blame for this – but they also were dealing with numerous large piles of shit and we should have watched the President’s back.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
edwatters relayed: The secretary said she could not understand such efforts, because Mr. Obama was not trying to “eliminate the private insurance market and go to some kind of single-payer system like Europe or Canada.”
I’d like to see Democrats take on the Insurance Companies the way Republicans take on unions. We should be always looking to fight them, weaken them, and when necessary destroy them.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I have posted the “examples” several times. your turn to Google
Horseshit
March 10th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
no, randy, your response is ‘horseshit’. go back to all the threads this topic has come up.
and right on Johnny Holmes.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
if you scroll up, randy, i cited the Bill Moyers show that recently featured two people who dislike the bill, but one says there are some redeeming features– same guy originally nixed the earlier version.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
now, who is full of “horseshit”.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
You are. Who said it would do “more harm than good?”
If you can’t cite your own points, Anna, you’re just lame.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Let me dumb this down for you: if it does more harm than good, then it makes the status quo worse. Do you honestly believe that this bill would? If so, you need to explain how.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I’m sorry but the “left” rejectionists of HCR are totally off-base. If you want to see single-payer, help get the bill passed – establishing principles of universality, assistance to individuals and families that can’t presently afford coverage, a regulatory environment and models for cost control – and then work for single payer at the state level. The bill provides for this and the “left” should see that as their opening if they’re serious. Take it from Bernie Sanders…
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/the_state-based_single_payer_s.html
March 10th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
You got it ALL WRONG, Marc!
Dennis was on Jon Weiner tonite (KPFK) and said that some 40 senators are ready to sign on to a public option, something Obama said he really wanted.
The move is procedural. DK will not sink the bill. Don’t mistake the manouvre for substance.
Even you, Marc, remember the words ‘public option’.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
This is old news. Actually 41 Senators are currently supporting a public option amendment, but I’ve looked at the list of those who haven’t yet signed on and they’re going to hit a wall at 46 – and that’s if they’re lucky. It’s questionable whether a public can be passed by reconciliation – may not meet the test, which is why very pro-public option Jay Rockefeller has yet to sign on. Dennis Kucinich holding his breath won’t have any impact at all. He’s currently out there doing Boehner’s work by diminishing public confidence in the bill. Also, my guess is that by the time the new CBO scoring comes out, Pelosi will have the needed House votes.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I’m skeptical about the virtue of raising sports metaphors to political strategy. “Start over and kick ass” strikes me as a misplaced metaphor at best. “Start over” we all understand, but it seems to me that the 2009-10 attempt is the start-over after the disaster of 1992-3. How many times do we have to explain that when a big idea goes down in flames, future political generations don’t want to burn themselves on it. It took a long 15 years of people being turned down by the hundreds of thousands as they applied for health insurance for us to get where we are now. And the purists turn up their noses and condescend to explain that where we are now isn’t far enough, so let’s just quit. Then we will wave our magic wand and make something wonderful happen.
See, that’s where this argument is missing something. If it takes 216 votes in the House and maybe 50 in the Senate to get something passed, I don’t see where the “kick ass” applies. It’s not a goal line stand or a rugby scrum or a hockey fight, it’s a legislative body counting votes. Precisely whose ass do you intend to kick? In this case, the counter argument actually has legal validity: “You and what army?”
The challenge of changing things in our political system is enormous, and victories come incompletely and far apart.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
ttp://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/03/10/filegate
March 10th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
“Granted, “single payer” never sat at the table..but this is the realm of the winnable, the possible, the do-able..It is strategic.”
You never know what’s possible until you try. Obama didn’t even try. A lot of things happening lately that weren’t do-able 40 years ago: a black man in the Whitehouse, a female nominated for vice-prez by Republicans…
March 11th, 2010 at 8:39 am
“A lot of things happening lately that weren’t do-able 40 years ago: a 1.9 Trillion dollar debt in one year, an additional 1 Trillion dollars debt per year rosily estimated by the President over the next 10 years, a 34 Trillion dollar debt from already existing gov’t health care ‘entitlements’ alone, near depression from a rape by the capitalists….etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Now we are being asked, no forced, to bend over and take it in the ass from the other extremist this time. At least the conservative capitalist raped us in the missionary position.
What exactly is it about a broke, busted, bankrupt, maxed out, no jobs, no incomes, no credit depression do you not understand Mr. Ed? What is about the differences between now and your chances of getting more ‘rights’ and ‘entitlements’ at a better time do you not get?
This has little to do with how the President proceeded to add another entitlement programs to an emaciated public body. It has everything to do with the timing of it. He could have been a hero, but alas, just like the fucking capitalist extremists, he has turned out to be just the other side of the same fucking coin. He decided not to be hero and heal. He decide to be fuck us too instead. You got your organism, now it’s my turn.
The public is very well informed Mr. Reg. Total fucking denial!
March 11th, 2010 at 8:44 am
What you see as “trying” is old school: Lots of bombast, rhetoricals, grandstanding….and subsequent failure. Obama hasn’t been “trying” he’s been accomplishing. You’re just not used to martial arts in government: using your enemies strengths against them. Obama knew he’d be pilloried by the left but his ego is not involved in the Clintonian way. It’s about progress in the truest sense of the term. Can you honestly imagine any other political figure in America who could have taken HCR this far without it being taken down with scandal or self-immolation?
March 11th, 2010 at 9:00 am
In your hysteria over those big numbers, Jim, you forget that the point of health care reform is to reduce costs (as well as expand coverage), since HC costs are the primary driver behind entitlement growth.
Also, the debt explosion happened because of the Reagan tax cuts and most recently because of the Bush tax cuts. In case you forgot, there was a surplus under Clinton.
If we want people to have health insurance, and the other benefits we’ve come to think of as civilized, then we need to find the political will to raise taxes.
Also, as a % of GDP our current debt is not that terribly exceptional.
Come down off the ledge…it’s going to be OK.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:02 am
It begins to get even creepier when the self-appointed ‘intellectuals’ begin to deride the intelligence and lack of knowledge of the very public masses they claim to fight for.
We know what’s good for them. We know what they need. They need the ‘informed’ the ‘educated’ the ‘smart ones’ to look after them, requiring of course, huge fucking centralized ‘planning’.
Sound familiar??
Let’s take a look at what the latest Trillion dollars of debt, added to the masses credit cards, did for them by the centralized planners. With a 25% unemployment rate in construction and a 3% fucking rate in centralized planning, guess were the credit card money went? Even the dumb fucking uninformed masses would know this one. The largest majority went to bail out over-spent, over-hired, over size government of course.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:41 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/house-afghanistan-debate_b_495132.html
March 11th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Conspiracy Theorist?
In 2002, Kucinich introduced a bill (H.R. 2977) to ban various forms of “space-based weapons” including bans on “exotic weapons systems” such as “psychotronic, or information weapons” and “plasma, electromagnetic, sonic or ultrasonic weapons.” Included in his list of banned weapons were “chemtrails” a term coined by some for jet contrails, vapor emissions that trail behind jets, which some think cause changes in weather or other more pernicious harms to the public. In 2000, four federal agencies wrote a joint fact sheet to debunk the chemtrails myth and Air Force Fol. Michael Gibson wrote a letter to Congress saying, “In short, there is no such thing as a ‘chemtrail’ — the actual contrails are safe and are… natural phenomena. . . . They pose no health threat of any kind.” Kucinich quietly rewrote his bill to omit the chemtrails reference. (Akron Beacon Journal, 3/16/2002)
12:46 ·
March 11th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Actually, Jim R, the better informed the public is about the HCR, the more they support it. And polls show that support is steadily increasing – now back to about dead even between supporters and “low-information” types who got rattled by GOPer and lobbyists lies, which were rampant and too often unchallenged in the media.
You truly have to be “low-information” not to understand (a) that this HCR bill actually lowers the long-term deficit according to neutral calculations of the CBO and, (b) that reform that begins to put cost controls in place – as this legislation does – is the only way to keep skyrocketing health insurance costs from bankrupting the country. The status quo is untenable – and you can’t regulate the insurance companies on stuff like “pre-existiing conditions” unless you bring everyone into the system, as this does. You yammer a lot a about how “Obama could have been a hero”, but I’ve heard nothing from you that actually presents a credible alternative to this modest reform bill. And of course, single payer could have solved many of the cost issues more simply and truly brought health care into a manageable % of GDP, but you would have fallen for even bigger distortions and bullshit on that one than you have on this. I honestly don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
March 11th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
it is interesting that not a single voice here suggests that, while they themselves on balance would vote for this DEEPLY flawed health bill, they still respect Dennis Kucinich for insisting on SOME bottom lines in his struggle for truly progressive health care reform.
It’s either my way or the highway?
March 11th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
The bottom line is getting help in the real world to folks without insurance, with pre-existing conditions and losing their health care if they lose a job. All the rest is posturing.
March 11th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Cloudy, I’m with you. Cooper isn’t able to simply disagree with someone, he has to be a complete ass about it.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Alex Koppelman at Salon:
[A]ccording to the Web site GovTrack, of the 97 bills Kucinich has sponsored since taking office in 1997, only three have become law. Ninety-three didn’t even make it out of committee.
The three that were enacted are, in chronological order from first to last: A bill “to make available to the Ukranian Museum and Archives the USIA television program ‘Window on America,’” a bill “to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 14500 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as the ‘John P. Gallagher Post Office Building” and a bill “proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously.”
March 12th, 2010 at 6:19 am
Paul Krugman on the current HCR bill:
Who to believe: a Nobel Prize-Winning economist who has been a strong critic from the left of the president or a serial out-of-control ranting id?
In other words, you’re still full of horseshit, Anna.
March 12th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Krugman, former employee of Enron and the Reagan administration, is a Kennedy-style liberal: leftish on social issues, middle of the road on economic.
For a Nobel economist, he doesn’t give anything solid to back up his claim that Obama’s plan will probably be less expensive than current estimates.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
he doesn’t give anything solid to back up his claim that Obama’s plan will probably be less expensive than current estimates.
Except for that wild-eye band of lunatics at the CBO.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Wow, he spent a year on the Council of Economic Advisers and nine months as a consultant to Enron, quitting to start his column for the Times.
For a Nobel economist, he doesn’t give anything solid to back up his claim that Obama’s plan will probably be less expensive than current estimates.
He doesn’t have to. The CBO has answered that already.
Krugman answers Anna Churchill’s typical shrillness: she claimed it would do more harm than good. To do that it would have to be worse than the status quo. No one has offered a scintilla of proof that it would be worse than the status quo.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
The CBO has given an estimate of how something that doesn’t even exist yet will perform over the next ten years. Krugman suggests (without any specifics, just an analogy to oil wells) that the CBO is erring low.
This guy’s in the center of elite opinion which is well to the right of public opinion on this issue, so he doesn’t really have a whole lot of credibility in my book. I hope, if the bill is enacted, that the CBO is right but more importantly, where are the savings going to come from?
Am I the only here who remembers reports last year of insurance industry lobbyists ‘helping’ Baucus and his staff draft the legislation? It’s been well documented that the 1996 Telecommunications Act was written by industry lobbyists – the insurance industry has a lot more muscle than the cable companies. I suspect that the burden of the cost reductions won’t fall too heavily on the insurance industry.
And I surely wouldn’t want to have to navigate through the insurance pools. Does anyone remember how user-friendly Medicare part D was, and who the big winners were in that fiasco?
If you aren’t incredibly ambivalent about this bill you are forgetting a lot of history and, as to whether it does more harm than good, anything that’s said will be speculation until the thing is foisted on us.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
PS: does anyone have a link to the actual bill and/or analysis of it from a non-beltway insider?
March 12th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Krugman is to the right of public opinion on health insurance reform ? Who knew.
March 12th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
“Krugman is to the right of public opinion on health insurance reform ? Who knew.”
A guy that’s been associated with the Reagan administration and Enron, yet writes some fairly progressive op-eds, it’s kind of hard to tell where he is on the spectrum.
One thing that’s beyond debate: elite opinion is well to the right of public opinion on HCR.
March 12th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
“Except for that wild-eye band of lunatics at the CBO”
“He doesn’t have to. The CBO has answered that already.”
Sounds like Randy and Dan O feel that Nostradamus ain’t got nothin’ on the CBO. Fellas, keep in mind that this is the same CBO that predicted, back in ’93, that NAFTA would result in a net gain of jobs for the US. Now, I couldn’t find any follow up study by the CBO on NAFTA but the Economic Policy Institute, 10 Dec. 2003, calculated 879,280 U.S. jobs lost due to NAFTA between 1993 and 2003.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/10/obama.health.care/index.html?hpt=T1
“But Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University, suggested that Obama’s anti-industry comments are part of a strange Kabuki-like dance with health insurers that is intended to build popular support for a bill that insurance industry executives actually want.
“They’re going to get 30 million more customers equipped with government subsidies to the tune of $100 billion a year,” Reinhardt said. “Their whole book of business now is $800 billion and shrinking, and $100 billion is a sizable extra.”
Reinhardt said his suspicions were raised when the industry failed to mount a robust campaign opposing the bill and then hiked premiums in the middle of the debate.
“They are not this dumb,” he said. “The industry knows they’re going to get a whole lot of extra customers.”
The anti-insurance rhetoric that followed those rate hikes “deflected the public from being angry about this and into being angry at the insurance industry again,” he said. “This bill purports to tame the industry when, in fact, it makes it richer.”
Reinhardt added, “These guys don’t care if they’re regulated. They know only one thing: It’s the bottom line.”"
Any bill that strengthens the health insurance industry is counter-productive to HCR.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
I find the “debate” over passing or not passing this bill as about as relevant as debating whether global warming exists. It’s IDIOCTIC to insist that the hcr bill has terrible shortcomings. Duh. Indeed, it’s so bad that I can only think of one thing worse: doing nothing in the name of the purity.
Thanks, Reg for digging up Kucinich’s legislative record. Or, in this case, non-record.
I’m also amused at how ready some folks on the left are to declare criticism of certain “heroes” as being off limits. We are all human being, damnit, and we all have flaws and shortcomings. That includes Dennis Kucninch, Noam Chomsky and the man in the fucking moon,
March 13th, 2010 at 7:44 am
“A guy that’s been associated with the Reagan administration and Enron, yet writes some fairly progressive op-eds, it’s kind of hard to tell where he is on the spectrum.”
Krugman was a mildly liberal economic technocrat who had worked for various administrations and taught mainstream apolitical economics and then got mugged by reality – i.e. the Bush administration. The fact that his roots aren’t ideological is what makes his commentary particularly useful these days. He’s progressed and changed – understands that the politics drive many of the debates that economists like to think of as “abstract” but has retained an essentially pragmatic core. He fancies himself to Obama’s left, which he clearly is rhetorically. After all, his job is to write columns pushing the best ideas, not to get legislation passed on several fronts. If you want a pretty good insight into Krugman’s passage from technocrat, textbook author and corporate consultant to one of the most trusted, effective and widely read liberal voices in the current political sphere, check this out:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_macfarquhar
March 13th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Reg:
I read the article and recalled some of his writing. The bulk of his writing is mildly liberal and some is uh, pretty disgusting:
On the effects of globalization, he sounds like your typical Kennedy-style liberal: “(t)he world needed more sweatshops, not fewer. Free trade was good for everyone” including “foreign workers (who) weren’t earning American wages and didn’t have American protections, but working in a sweatshop was still much better than their alternatives—that’s why they chose to work there.”
As it turned out, globalization was better for some than others including Mexican farmers who were unable to compete with US subsidized corn that flooded their market sending them to urban areas in search of Krugman’s preferable alternatives.
To his credit, I remember Krugman ripping Bush, Cheney etc for using 9/11 to push their reactionary agenda and later he was one of the few in mainstream media to point out that Bush’s tax cutting and spending spree resulting in unprecedented deficits, was designed to limit the amount of money available for subsequent Democratic administrations to spend on social programs.
Lastly, and on-topic, he offers a warning:
“When Robin and I started writing about health care, single payer was clearly the way to go. And then bit by bit you start saying, ‘O.K., you take what you can get.’ There’s a trap I’ve seen some people fall into—you let your vision of what should be get completely taken over by what appears possible right now—and that’s something I’m trying to avoid.”
I think we all need to avoid that trap.
March 13th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
AND….. speaking of “heroes” let us not forget how some hero worship dies hard. Marc Cooper always like the “quirky” Lindsey Graham, as well as trash journo Dana Milbank. Well well well, take a trip over to Glen Greenwald and see what those two are cooking up. The anti-Clinton bounds seem to be like some secret society, and Coop will look the other way at ANYTHING a fellow brother does.
March 13th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Third Charmer: One of my departed Dad’s favorite sayings was: “Go piss up a rope.” Thought you might find that interesting.
And yes, I am a slavish uncritical follower of both Lindsey Graham and Dana Milbank. Busted. I also enjoy firing .357 magnums and racing 400hp V-8s. Sometimes, I kill fish.
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