I think the obligatory response to this article is: But, but, but…we Crashed the Gates!

Seriously, if we pull the plug on Obama, humiliate the Dem Congress and pre-emptively sink whatever quasi-liberal initiatives might have been pursued between now and 2012, we’ll have three years to transform Ned Lamont into a charismatic, credible candidate for President.

Count me in!

David Sirota was apparently licking Howard Dean’s balls again, judging from some comment linking to a paean he penned for Alternet. I saw it in a thread at Facebook. When I pointed out that, while I like Dean, he hadn’t won his party’s nomination and was hence spared having to actually, you know, pass legislation with a hostile minority party and several recalcitrant members of his own party, I was accused by the Hysterical Leftie Du Jour of “shutting down dissent.”

Yeah. That’s where we’re at in the “reality-based community” these days. Pointing out “reality” is akin to fascism. Plus, it damages the dewicate fee-fees of the Perpetually Poutraged set—fee-fees that are apparently much like the pinot noir grapes that Whiny Midlife Dude talked about in Sideways (I like Paul Giamatti, but that movie kinda irritated me. Obvs.)

I mean Jesus Fucking H. Christ on a Pogo Stick. Is it possible to be wistful about “Gee, I wish Obama had done X, Y, and Z?” Sure, though I think drawing a line in the sand on the public option, particularly given the Extra-Dickish Lieberman Tantrum over Medicare buy-in (“You want WHAT? Then I oppose it—because I’m Extra-Dickish!”) wouldn’t have brought us any closer to having it, and would have instead given more fodder to the “OMG PRESIDENTIAL FAIL!!” meme when said option wasn’t in the final bill.

Strategery, people.

And where is this magical Bully Pulpit from whence he can issue orders and directives that get the Lieberdouches of the world in line? Jesus, I wish people on my side would stop confusing the president with Groucho Marx on You Bet Your Life. “Say the secret word and Medicare-for-All comes down!”

Mostly, today I’m thinking about how nice it is to have a president who actually seems to understand that there ARE big problems facing this country and who wants to move the ball forward on fixing some of them. And some of those ideas go beyond “tax cuts,” “vouchers” and “deregulation.”

And P.S. Apparently there really aren’t any big penalties for not buying insurance, per Giordano. So no one is going to jail or being bankrupted if they don’t give Teh Evil Corpurashunz their populist bucks.

(2) SPECIAL RULES.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law—
‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.— In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary shall not—
‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or
‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.

It’s so weird. It’s like their telling progressive liberals stfu and let your rapist rape you for the time being while you look for a way out of the situation, instead of biting the motherf*cker’s ear off in hopes of getting away.

I rather go out fighting, just me though.

oops I meant “they’re”.

Healthcare bill that extends insurance coverage to millions of Americans now equals rape. Yeah. Can’t imagine why Obama doesn’t listen to the people promulgating that kind of rhetoric.

And I’m not sure when we took the vote on who represents “real” progressive liberals, but speaking as one, I’m happy to see this bill pass the Senate. But then, I’m probably suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or something. I’m sure somebody who has been involved in politics since way back in 2003 will be along to tell me that shortly.

I didn’t equal it to rape just gave an example of a tough situation people could see it as.

It may give millions of people access..oops sorry I meant mandate millions to now buy-in to a already messed up system only helps the insurance companies.

But I do say it’s a good thing seeing Netroots act the same way no matter who’s in the White House or who has the power in the Congress.

Hold their feet to the fire to make sure they do what’s right for the people. That’s the only way to make things turn out right.

The Netroots is acting liking like a convention of Scarlet O’Hara impersonators.

When Bush was in office and we had a Republican Congress, they were at least calm and reasonably methodical. Now, they’re barely holding their fudge.

There’s a big difference between trying to hold someone’s feet to the fire and killing the bill. Although how exactly one can hold, say, Ben Nelson’s feet to the fire if they’re not A) his constituent and B) a major donor to his campaign remains foggy. Nebraska is hardly a liberal stronghold, for starters, so doing what the liberal blogosphere tells him to do isn’t in the cards if he wants to keep his seat.

And I’ve not seen a single self-proclaimed kill-the-bill “progressive” explain in a coherent and realistic fashion how we move back to the drawing board and get a better bill in the next ten to twenty years if this one dies. That’s Pareene’s point.

Clinton’s bill went down in flames 15 years ago. How many people have lost insurance coverage since then? How many people have died because they were denied coverage because of preexisting conditions, or were kicked off their plans because of rescission? These aren’t academic questions. These are actual human tragedies that this bill tries to address.

But I do say it’s a good thing seeing Netroots act the same way no matter who’s in the White House or who has the power in the Congress.

Not really. This leads to the “Obama is no better than Bush!” line of bullshit and an insistence on purity that pretty much guarantees that your voice will be marginalized and ignored. I’m not saying give someone a pass if you think what they’re proposing is unacceptable, but if you exhibit bad faith by making it clear that ANY compromise offends some vague notion of progressive score-settling, then again—why would anyone take you seriously?

I know it feels good to use tough-talk metaphors (albeit yours is unfortunate) and act like getting legislation done is a matter of will and hanging tough and SHOWING THEM! Bush thought we could win a war that way, too. Just hang tough, stay the course, etc., etc.

I’m glad to see Oblomova kicking butt and taking names as per usual.  I’m coming here after going through the most recent Bowers’ rending of his garment.  Next, I imagine him penning a blog post on why voting for Palin-Bachmann 2012 would be a sensible move.

As for who gets to name the “real” liberals.  That’s Lambert.  He gets to say who’s a sell-out, who’s an agent provocateur, and who’s a Real Liberal.

Lambert also has the power to turn nominal supporters of health care into opponents.  I don’t know how he does it sometimes.  For the record, I approve of anything that makes the US look more like Europe.  But, I don’t think we’re ready to socialize a profitable industry just yet.

Anyway.  This post cheered me up.  About an hour ago I was muttering to myself that I was done with the progressive blogosphere. Now, I’m filled with the desire to mock it, or it least the parts of it that pumas frequent.

How exactly are we give millions of people access to health by mandating them to buy-in to it?

How is having strict restrictions put on abortion though subsides access to health-care?

Where is the competition against the insurance companies to keep them in check?

Also if I could remember a certain somebody was against mandates…”If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house,......The reason they don’t have a house is they don’t have the money. So our focus has been on reducing costs, making it available. I am confident that if people have a chance to buy high quality health care that is affordable, they will do so. And that’s what our plan does, and nobody disputes that.”

I let you guess who said that.

Also if we couldn’t get the right health care done when we have a majority of Democrats in House and Senate, exactly when is the right time?

Jane, if you’re too fucking lazy to do your own research on this (i.e., not just spit out Hamsherian talking points), I’m not going to hold your hand and make it easier for you. Sometimes things require hard work and lots of time in Grown-Up Land. Impatient “I Want My Pony and I Want It Right the Fuck Now!” types are often disappointed by this, and this is why no one takes them seriously when they proclaim that they are “the base.”

But I’m feeling charitable at the moment, so I’m going to make it easier for the Laziest and Least-Informed Little Self-Proclaimed Ear-Biter in Town to read up a little bit—before you show up here and make an ass of yourself once again.

The Netroots is acting liking like a convention of Scarlet O’Hara impersonators.

‘Scuse me, but that’s an insult to Scarlet O’Hara impersonators everywhere. It’s more like a gaggle of Aunt PittyPat’s or somethin’ thereabouts.

As for who gets to name the “real” liberals.  That’s Lambert.

Hang on. I thought it was soullite. And all this time, I’ve been trying to be more strident, rather than smugly condescending. Shit, missed the zeitgeist by that much.

Also if we couldn’t get the right health care done when we have a majority of Democrats in House and Senate, exactly when is the right time?

Apparently “never.” Which seems to be the time-frame you’d prefer to work with.

@Oblomova-Wow, you call me a child while you can’t even keep your cool. Insulting me at ever type word, Geez. You tell me to do research while only directing me to other people’s blogs or opinions.

Laughable.

Don’t have a stroke, health-care insurance don’t kick in until a few more years for adults. And I hope you have mandate money to pay for it by then.

You tell me to do research while only directing me to other people’s blogs or opinions.

Um, contained within those links are a lot of what we in the reality-based community call facts and figures. I know, they involve numbers and big words. It’s so unfair.

You come in without information, make offensive rape analogies to build up some bullshit “I’m keeping it real!” progressive cred, whine that you just don’t understand why legislation can’t pass with a simple majority (even though the “filibuster-proof Senate” has only been in the news since last fall), and then pout like the runner-up at the BumFuck Homecoming Pageant when you and your rampant idiocy aren’t greeted with open arms.

Oh, and both the House and Senate version of the bill include hardship exemptions for those who can’t afford to purchase insurance so they won’t be penalized, and there really aren’t any teeth in the penalties anyway—no one is going to jail or having their house taken away if they don’t purchase insurance through the exchanges. Gee, how is it possible such an informed activist as yourself isn’t aware of that fact?

And thanks for your concerns about my future. But I’ve been self-employed for about twenty years now, own my own house, pay for my own individual insurance, and am even (gasp!) willing to pay a higher premium and taxes if it means less-fortunate people get to access plans without being denied because of pre-existing conditions. Gosh, what a horrible progressive that makes me.

let you guess who said that.

Yeah, Jane, she said that.  And so did I since Hillary first mentioned them.  And I also wanted pony insurance in the final bill, but Lautenberg and Menendez would not hear my plea.

@gimmeabreak-I think you meant “he” not she. Pony insurance? I guess you’re talking about the public option.

From what I’ve seen the Republicans won a lot, and the Dems turned over and gave it to them.

Well, Jane, we’ve already established that what you can see is confined to the area between your butt cheeks. Now, if you want to come in and provide a coherent legislative strategy for how more progressive health insurance passes into law, given the makeup of the Senate and the existing Senate rules (you’ve heard about the Senate, right?), I’d really love to hear it.

But hey, I understand if you don’t want to listen to me because I use bad language and it hurts your fee-fees (though you’d bite a rapist’s ear off—or someone trying to force you to purchase insurance From Teh Evil Corporations, and really, they’re the same thing, right?)

actor212 was a better troll.

@BrooklynHeightsPUMA- I’m no troll. Yes I haven’t been commenting at this site for awhile, but I am no troll.

Loving the insults. I guess people here can’t have differences in opinions.

Jane, it’s not a question of “differences in opinions.” It’s a question of being able to back your shit up, and if you can’t do that, then you walk it back. You clearly didn’t understand, for example, that a simple majority in the Senate isn’t enough to pass a bill under the current Senate rules, yet you still insist upon acting as if it could have been done. Somehow. If only people were better ear-biters. Or something. (And FYI—next time you want to engage in dialogue, it might help if you don’t start by implying that you’re talking to a group of rape enablers. That shit is just fucking offensive.)

So tell us how to get a better bill passed, instead of whining about what FINALLY got worked out. And stop lying about how “this bill FORCES people to give all their money to the evil insurance companies!” when even a cursory glance at the news coverage about the Senate version makes it clear that it does no such thing. That’s not “difference in opinion.” That’s being misleading, whether deliberately or not. And people who do that in a public forum deserve to have it handed back to them. Harshly.

I provided several links that also provide a lot of fact-based analyses (like, based on the CBO estimates, for starters) of what the bill will or will not do. (Of course, until the House and Senate versions are reconciled, we don’t know for sure what the final version will be, but it seems unlikely that anything LESS progressive than the Senate version makes it out of conference.)

You don’t want to read this shit, then fine. But stop acting as if your uninformed and straight-up WRONG presentation of the facts somehow is equal to the opinions of people who spent a lot of time fighting for healthcare reform for decades. There is plenty of room for honest debate. I have no patience with people who continue to promulgate lies and half-truths.

@Oblomova- You know came to this site, read the post, left a comment. Now I am being insulted because I guess you feel I am not responding to you or “backing my shit up”. I don’t have to prove anything to you. I don’t know if you woke up on the wrong side of bed or what. But don’t take it out on me.

Stop being so eager to get in a flame war. If you’re truly an adult than act like one. That is all I have to say.

Shorter Jane: I got nuthin.

I think this bill is worse than the Holocaust.

(Ten bucks to the first lefty whiner who can top that, without mentioning Hitler by name. Bonus points if you can work in references to female circumcision and Margaret Sanger.)

Strange, I just want to know how World War II would have turned out if Margaret Sanger could fly.

Hoo-boy, against my better judgement I’m going to weigh in here.

Count me among the libtards who think this health care bill is a shit sandwich, and that we may have been better off scuttling it and starting over. That being said, I understand why some people on “my” side see this as a victory, or at least a starting point. What bothers me is that those of us who do think it’s a disaster are derided as children, morons, traitors, closet PUMAs, etc.

Intelligent people with integrity can and often do view the same evidence and come to differing opinions. And up until now I always saw those differing opinions respected here. I’m truly sorry to see that apparently slipping away.

All right, into the fray I go.  I was working up a good pout about this health care bill but I’m over it. 

We must pass a bill.  This bill has some really good stuff in it from everything I’ve read.  It’s missing some more good stuff I wanted but we didn’t have 60 votes for my stuff.  If we let our heads asplode and manage to somehow kill it, we will lose so many seats next year we won’t be able to pass a damn thing.

We need to declare this a win and get more progressives elected.  Then we can have more better wins after 2010.

@ Judas:

Intelligent people with integrity can and often do view the same evidence and come to differing opinions. And up until now I always saw those differing opinions respected here. I’m truly sorry to see that apparently slipping away.

For what it’s worth, I come down (just barely) on the “pass the shitty bill” side, but many people I respect disagree, and I can totally see their point.

Hold their feet to the fire to make sure they do what’s right for the people. That’s the only way to make things turn out right.
Comment by jane on 12/21/09 at 07:49 PM

Torture. I hope Jane realizes that holding someones feet to the fire is a torture techique. Its an old form of torture where a persons feet are actually held over hot coals or placed into a fire to exact whatever it is the torturer hopes to exact. Why does Jane use the language of torture to exact a response she insists is right for the people?

*

Judas, show me the working strategy for how we get a more progressive bill passed and I’ll sign on. That’s the sticking point. So far, what I see are a lot of people on the left shrieking “sell out!” and “Betrayal!” without offering concrete ideas on how something gets passed in the imperfect reality of what the Senate is. 

And since the historical record shows that a shitty bill (i.e., Social Security) can be improved upon, but a shelved healthcare bill goes away for 15 or 20 more years (esp. if we hand the GOP and the media numbnuts the “Dems can’t do anything and can’t pass anything” meme and hence lose even MORE seats), then that’s a pretty persuasive argument.

Oh, and the whole “It actually does help save lives” thing.

What bothers me is that those of us who do think it’s a disaster are derided as children, morons, traitors, closet PUMAs, etc.

Judas, if you can provide a plan for starting over that can get through a filibuster and the Blue Dogs, always remembering that doing so will give aid and comfort to PaleoBeckians, and you provide some solid foundation, I don’t think you’d find yourself maltreated here.

I would want you to explain why it is impossible to amend and improve this bill, and to address the millions of people who will now be covered when this bill takes effect and who would not while the better bill was on the drawing board.

we may have been better off scuttling it and starting over.

Even though I am no heavy researcher, and my head is mostly made to contain horse-brasses and stuffed owls, it just seems to me that “we may have been better off” is too vague to hang a condemnation on.

Even the term “shit sandwich” is, I think, an over-invoked Internet meme, though “SPAM sandwich” or “lunch meat” may be accurate, and also contain some of the aforementioned substance too.

~~~~

“Jane,” OTOH, who began by comparing passage of the bill to rape, Lord help us, brought nothing except whining “the dog ate my homework and all you give me is these damn opinions from other places thingies!”

And I’m really deadly serious about the “show me how it works” thing. Because I’d honestly like to know. Where does one “start over” with weakened Dems who already worked a hell of a lot harder on this bill than most people in Congress are used to, honestly, and probably don’t have the stomach for another bruising round or twelve of battle?

How does one LOSE political capital and the war of optics and somehow get GREATER powers of persuasion to bring people to heel on even more liberal and sweeping legislation, even closer to the midterms? What makes anyone think that history will be different this time and shelving a bill means it will come back in stronger form in the near future? Please find me one specific example of when that has happened, with healthcare or any other legislation, and I promise I’m all ears.

No one opposing the bill has shown me that they’ve spent much time on that part of the equation. Sorry, but it seems like Underwear Gnomes thinking from where I sit.
1) Scrap Existing and Admittedly Imperfect and Insubstantial Bill
2) ?
3) Universal healthcare with a robust public option!

Meantime, people who could benefit from accessing insurance in this plan are told to suck eggs. Maybe not directly, but that’s the inadvertent underlying message.

And since the historical record shows that a shitty bill (i.e., Social Security) can be improved upon, but a shelved healthcare bill goes away for 15 or 20 more years (esp. if we hand the GOP and the media numbnuts the “Dems can’t do anything and can’t pass anything” meme and hence lose even MORE seats), then that’s a pretty persuasive argument.

That’s pretty much why I support the shitty bill in a nutshell—that and the subsidies for the uninsured and Medicaid expansion, etc.

But just as those who are shrieking about “sell-out” and “betrayal” need to look at the hard political realities, it’s important for those who support this imperfect bill to acknowledge its very real flaws and potential political pitfalls.

I’m not accusing anyone here of ignoring the problems with the bill (they’ve been pointed out repeatedly here), but I am seeing a pattern around the intertubes of folks going from “well, this is the best we can do now” to “this is the best goshdarn piece of progressive legislation in 50 years and only a PUMA or professional pouter could oppose it.”

Personally, I find that view just as short-sighted and counter-productive as the “betrayal!” and “sell-out!” view. As usual, the intertubes force you to pick through piles of garbage for a morsel of substance, and what I’m looking for is solid information from the “nay” side on how rejecting this bill is better than the status quo and data from the “yea” side about how this bill gets improved from its current shitty state.

The Nate Silver link was great, Oblo.

As for the contents of the bill, I’m willing to go as far as to compare it to Armour Potted Meat, an agglomeration of globules better hidden between slices of white bread.

But edible withal.

I used to have a friend who said, “If you’re bleeding from the neck, you don’t ask if the tourniquet is dirty!”

I think he meant, “if you’re bleeding to death,” but you get the picture.

Well, speaking as someone who has individual insurance (for which I pay almost $400/month, but I’m fortunate in that I can afford that, I was able to pay off my home loan this year, yadda yadda yadda)—I think there is an element that Al Giordano identified of “I’ve got mine, who cares about the people without insurance?” in this.

If people are truly worried that this bill WILL mean more people get kicked off of group plans, then that’s legitimate to discuss and to bring pressure to bear on the congresscritters as this goes to reconciliation, and in looking for ways to improve it down the road.

But if it’s really about how we need to get a public option, even a weak and mostly symbolic one (which honestly was probably going to be the case instead of “Medicare for All,”) just for the pure symbolism of it, and if that sop to a cherished progressive aim isn’t present then I’m gonna burn the whole sucker down—well, then that’s just holding a lot of people who could use insurance hostage for the sake of bruised ego.

I don’t hear a lot of people on the left talking about the new restrictions on denying coverage for preexisting conditions or cracking down on rescission, and those are pretty major to me. Again, these things don’t go far enough—but if you’ve ever been denied insurance, then it’s not just academic, either. I know I mentioned before that both my sisters have preexisting conditions and they would be SOL if they lost their company insurance under present law, because NO ONE would sell them a plan. At any price.

In any case, I fail to see how spewing over-the-top rhetoric about Obama being as bad as Bush does a damn thing to move the Overton window or whatever that annoying aperture is called. First of all - if you want better legislation, elect better legislators! At all levels. For starters, I think people better start paying a lot more attention to who their state insurance commissioner is. Because turns out, that shit matters. As do a whole lot of not-glamorous and not-marquee elected offices.

That’s one of the aggravating things about this—some sectors of the netroots still ascribe to this total top-down belief system when it comes to thinking it’s all up to the president and his “bully pulpit.” The GOP, back before they went totally apeshit, were smarter about working the ground and getting their people into every dog-and-pony office they could. Somehow, lefties STILL think that getting a Democratic president elected (which of course they didn’t do on their own but good luck getting them to acknowledge that) and then screaming at him and threatening to stay home if he doesn’t deliver everything RIGHT THE FUCK NOW is a winning strategy.

But if it’s really about how we need to get a public option, even a weak and mostly symbolic one (which honestly was probably going to be the case instead of “Medicare for All,”) just for the pure symbolism of it, and if that sop to a cherished progressive aim isn’t present then I’m gonna burn the whole sucker down—well, then that’s just holding a lot of people who could use insurance hostage for the sake of bruised ego.

I agree that by the time Joe Lieberman personally punted it, the public option WAS mostly symbolic; I believe one estimate was that only a couple of million out of the tens of millions of uninsured would have even been eligible for it at that point.

And yeah, way too many people were invested in it as a symbol of their personal validation, which is always a self-centered, short-sighted, crappy motivation (see PUMAs, failed political movement of 2008, et al). But if you pick past the hyper-ego crap, there was valuable symbolism in the public option, just as there’s valuable symbolism in the current shitty bill’s power to convey a government interest in whether or not Americans get a decent health care delivery system.

So I think the public option was well worth fighting for, even in its most recent, crappy incarnation. My own view is that the good outweighs the bad in the current bill not only for the practical help it delivers to people who can’t afford or obtain insurance on their own but because of the symbolism it carries: that the health care of everyone, not solely the poor, elderly or disabled, is a legitimate concern of the US government.

I also think it’s sad and pathetic that nearly a decade into this century such a point isn’t completely obvious as it is in every other industrialized nation on earth, but that’s where we are.

Ha! And to think I sometimes wonder why we don’t get more trolls here.

Betty, I agree with you straight down the line. And now is not the time for anyone to get complacent and think “Well, this one’s done.” We DO need a real public option, and it is fucking sad that any kind of universal healthcare is viewed as “socialist” in this country.

But I consider that Medicare and Medicaid were more limited in scope when introduced. Now they are popular programs. And though what we’re looking at now is far from adequate, it does help enshrine the idea that access to health coverage is a right, and that is a huge step in the right direction. Instead of screaming at Obama and threatening to stay home because they’re so “demoralized,” I’d like to see some action on the ground for electing people at the national AND state level who want to expand public coverage. That’s where the netroots could be most effective—identifying the local races where progressives can make pick-ups. (And yes, I know Act Blue does that, and I appreciate it and have donated money there and will again.)

One more note on “betrayal,” though, which perhaps explains why it gets my hackles up so thoroughly. To me, when white progressives scream about how “sold out” they feel, I do sometimes want to tell them to sit down and shut the fuck up, because frankly, they don’t KNOW from real betrayal in their pretty little privileged worlds.

You know what was a betrayal? A Social Security Act that denied coverage to most minorities and women. You know what was a betrayal? Backing down on anti-lynching legislation to get white Southern Dems to vote for New Deal programs.  You know what was a betrayal? Sending American citizens of Japanese ancestry into internment camps in complete and total violation of any notion of habeas corpus or basic decent fairness and humanity.

And who did all those things? Why, FDR, the favorite poster boy of “Who Obama Would Emulate If He Was A Real Liberal” as put forth by some white progressives

Frankly, white progressives owe a fuck of a lot to the loyalty of blacks, Latinos, and other minorities who didn’t cut and run on the Democratic Party, though they had ample reason time and again. I would say “I’ll just ignore that lynching stuff” is a far bigger and more demoralizing betrayal than “I didn’t get you that symbolic public option I kinda-sorta promised.”

For that matter, welfare reform that kicked a lot of poor kids off Medicaid was a pretty glaring betrayal of the Clinton years, but I don’t remember a lot of progressives taking to the streets on that one. (Of course, pre-internet, to be fair.)

So yeah, while I don’t think it’s actually useful to tell people to STFU, I certainly understand the impulse, and I’m frankly shocked that a lot of longtime black and other minority activists, who have literally taken bullets (or at least billy clubs, firehoses, and police dogs) in order to advance the cause of civil rights don’t just bitchslap some of these whiny white MoFos who take the contributions of blacks and Latinos to the party for granted, and then can’t wait to shit all over the first black president with spurious comparisons to Bush and calling for alliances with teabaggers who vilify him as Satan and Hitler.

Ha! And to think I sometimes wonder why we don’t get more trolls here.
Comment by Kevin K. on 12/22/09 at 07:43 AM

I’d love to meet the troll who could live through this crew and go toe-to-toe with our commenters.  Hell, I’d consider making them honorary members!

But back to the ‘optics’ we like to sometimes talk about; the public option and expansion of Medicare was mostly just pipe dream.  For those hanging on the every word of their progressive representatives on the need to have either, remember this moment when you see their 2010 and 2012 campaign ads with them saying that.  Even progressives in progressive districts need to get re-elected and will mostly say what their constituents want to hear despite all known reality.

Yes, progressives do it too.

And up until now I always saw those differing opinions respected here. I’m truly sorry to see that apparently slipping away.

Goddammit, Judas—don’t you get all flouncy on me.

1. I don’t like the bill.

2. I don’t like “Liberal opinion-leaders” who think the best way to get a better bill is to (a) let the Republicans write it; (b) trash the bill and poison the notion of Health Care Reform even more thoroughly than Hillarycare did; or (c) retake the “progressive” end of the Democratic Party by running Judy Tenuda, Super Dave Osborne and the blue aliens from Avatar for national office.

3. I don’t like hyperventilating “rape” analogies, ever—but especially when the commenter who employs them can only frame an argument in sound-bites, headlines and “betrayal” memes…and can’t propose an alternative more workable than “Shoot foot.”

Differing opinions are as welcome here as ever. But “silly,” “pissy” and “stupid” are guaranteed a cold reception, as usual.

After reading this thread I only have one comment. Oblomova, sit back and have a smoke. You’ve earned it.

I think I need valium to get me through until this fucker is signed. Then we can all go back to hating the banks, right?

Incidentally, I’m beginning to think “corporatist” is another of those words, much like “progressive” that has been leached of all useful meaning.

Oblomova—10mg is usually good for the whole day.

...and then, the oral sex.

While I sympathize with those on the left who are having trouble accepting the Senate bill, when the racist wingnut doctor wants to make friends and kill the bill with you, it’s time to pass the bill.
Comment by Glix on 12/22/09 at 10:25 AM

Amen.

I do think the discourse here should remain civil and dissenting opinions should not be shouted down.  I personally think the bill is way below what it could be but also significantly above what we have now.  Which is nothing. I think we need to get something out there.  The Repubs know that once a bill is passed it can’t be undone.  That’s why they’re fighting it so hard.  The chore is to get a basic, rudimentary, if necessary, bill passed which establishes a right to health care for all Americans.  Then build on it.  It’s not glamorous but it’ll work.

Rumproast Admin—Please ban marindenver for her outrageous spew of reason and balance above. Thank you.

I was just gonna say—who brings tea and crumpets to a mud fight? BTW—great crumpets!

This is a great thread and I can’t add much that Obo hasn’t said. It’s just that, as left-leaning thinkers rend each other apart on the interwebz, I can’t help but to take a minute and contemplate how the fuck we got here.

I mean, I suspect it’s a little of the whole magic negro shit, but really though - what the fuck do rational people want from this Prez? How is it that Obama’s refusal to overstep the powers of the executive branch by lying about, exaggerating and obfuscating the healthcare bill to confuse, anger or irrationally scare people (vis a vis the US Congress) into adopting the bill makes him *more* like Bush in people’s degenerating minds?

When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, most liberals thought of it as the unsexy and pedantic piece of the War on Poverty legislative strategy. Yea well, who knew that explicitly banning a national curriculum would 40 years later result in large swaths of the interior US being unable to muster a workforce educated enough to accommodate a White Castle customer service call center. Point being, that even if jane herself wrote the perfect liberal bill, the law of unintended consequences means that it would still be flawed.

And ostensibly, Congress was no less “owned by corporations” three years ago when Republican President George W Bush oversaw the largest expansion of in Medicare benefits in its history.

I want real change too, but since when did the respectable position of “we have to start somewhere” become so tragically untenable in the Democratic Party?

since when did the respectable position of “we have to start somewhere” become so tragically untenable in the Democratic Party?

Just my two cents, but I think the biggest gripes are coming from pundit bloggers who’ve bought their own PR, actually believe that they’ve somehow reinvented the mechanics of politics, and can’t understand why reality refuses to conform to the framework they created.

Them, and regular folks who weren’t aware we even had a government before Dubya took office   —or, worse, until Hillary announced she was running.