Health Reform Support Increases

Oh, good, another “I=am=actually-the-progressive-and-you’re-a-left-wing-lunatic” post from Joe Klein.

Hey, Joe, where did you come up with this gem?

And given the reactionary arguments against a bill that is a massive transfer of wealth–via subsidies–toward the working poor, I’d be reluctant to call these people “progressives” as well–progressivity, strictly defined, being the notion that rich should pay a higher tax rate than the poor.

I think the “transfer of wealth” argument was about making insurance companies the massive beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse.

But feel free to restate arguments to suit your typical name-calling purposes..

What do you think of all those bribes your heroes, the “centrists,” received for their support, wingnut?

Is that what you centrists refer to as making a stand on “principle?”

This is one member of the wing who thinks liberals should find a new party to vote for, just so the “principled” moderates will have another thing to whine about.

I have too great of a head cold today to take this one on…

Claptrap. It wasn’t “the wing” – or even “the base” – which favored a public option. It was a solid, roughly 60% majority of the country. It wasn’t “the wing” – or even “the base” which favored Medicare buy-in from the age of 55. It was 70% of the country, including a huge chunk of Republicans.

There’s been a spirited debate over at DailyKos over whether it’s better to scrap this bill and start over, take it and push for improvements in later years, or withhold judgment until we learn whether it gets better or worse in conference. Moulitsas’ argument has always been, not so much that this is a bad start, as that it is a huge political loser for Democrats, so much so that we’ll be crippled in trying to move on to the (absolutely necessary) next steps.

And it’s a political loser because, rather than transferring wealth to the working poor from the rich, the Senate version transfers only from the middle class. And it does so without giving the middle class tangible benefits, especially in the near term. It also, via mandated premiums, taxes the healthy young on behalf of the sickly middle-aged. That is not bad policy at all – it’s a sound principle of community rating. But it will not be popular, and could cost Democrats their natural constituency among the under-forty.

If, and only if, the predictable political hit on Democrats is small enough to leave them solid majorities in both houses, it will be possible to include real cost controls and better equity for the middle class in the near future, and the whole mess will have been worth it. Otherwise, a Republican resurgence will ensure effective repeal.

It’s a huge gamble, but it appears the center left, on behalf of us all, has pushed all its chips to the center of the table – for a much smaller pot than was advertised when we all anted in.

Thank you.

joe, you’re being an imbecile. this poll was conducted when it was being advertised that the senate had agreed to a medicare buy-in for people 55 years old and up. i don’t know why you’re so suddenly interested in health care reform. you don’t even know the difference being the public option and single payer

If Wehner is a good example of the Left’s new allies then Heidi Fleiss is the best example of the “centrists” new allies.

How does one respond to rude, false, pointless attack?

Should I get in the dirt, or chalk it up to an immature writer that gets paid for some unknown reason?

I find it hard to believ that Time would get in the mud to insult it’s readers like this.

perhaps, Joe, you are looking for work at say FOX?

Joe -

Give it a rest on the netroots. Without them, you can forget about Senate seats for at least Franken, Tester, McCaskill, Webb, & Begich, and we wouldn’t even be talking about any kind of HCR bill.

Again, we see that a lot of the motivation for opposing the bill is because the Insurance companies might benefit,

I’m still at a loss to understand why anyone could think it would be any other way. Unless all the Republican’s who claimed thatt the public option was a trojan horse to eventually drive Aetna out of business are right, then the business of providing health insurance is was and will remain in their hands. (And don’t think that if insurance were turned into a government function, that the same people you love to hate now would simply turn around and sell their expertise to the relevant Federal Agency.) The price for taking all comers is the mandate and it’s probably about an even trade.

And for those who are insisting that Obama should have fought harder for their ideals, I’ll simply point here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/remembering_barack_obamas_camp.html

If you’re going to attack progressives at least be honest about what we stand for. We object to this bill not because it’s a transfer of wealth from rich to poor but because it’s an enormous subsidy for private health insurers.

Dirks:
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Price controls on prescription drugs, hospitals, laboratory tests and medical procedures that go beyond Medicare and Medicaid’s current, backroom negotiated price controlled floor, and that are in place in the rest of the OECD world are needed to stop the hemorrhaging, or this thing’s going to break.
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They’re not solving any problems by handing federal welfare over to industry whilst providing welfare for sub-middle class earners on the other –the classic centrist deal.
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You should know that liberals view the role of government as that of enforcer against the excesses of private industry, and since industry has reaped the rewards of decades of wild health care price inflation in the US (and nowhere else), it’s time for that role to be embraced.
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It’s not punitive, it’s necessary. It’s not vengeful, it’s good policy. It’s not reactionary, it’s appropriate.
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Centrists, on the other hand, don’t believe that’s the federal government’s role. They aren’t trust-busters, they’re trust-partners. Their deal is to let industry feed at the federal trough in return for certain cohorts being allowed limited welfare. It’s not liberalism, and so neither is this bill.
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Of course I agree with you about the “Trojan Horse” deal, but that’s what’s being promised by Joe and his ilk, isn’t it? “We’ll fix it later?”
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Pardon me if I’m unclear, my head is about to explode.

Exactly. The idea that if we as a society want to make sure that our poorest and weakest don’t die because of HC costs, we have to pay extortion money to the Liebermans, Nelsons, and AETNAs of the world.

It’s disgusting, and these guys are worse than racketeers.

Joe, are you writing this stuff just to stir up some controversy or do you really not understand?

Joe is an intellectual giant.
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And if you don’t believe it, just ask him.

destor-Joe would have to take his smuggy off long enough to know what progressives stand for. Lets understand one thing. Joe and his friends in the village know what’s best. Everyone else can either buy the load of crap they are selling or STFU.

I cant see how this is a good deal for anyone; as proposed it has no cost controls in it. It mandates for everyone to have insurance and only private. And since there is no progressive regulation to make sure the insurance companies doesn’t explode our premiums it’ll continue to sky rocket with the excuse that they now have to insure everyone.

And I don’t understand for the life of me why the right side of the isle seems so upset other than having to get an insurance (if they don’t have it) the only ones that benefit from this is the insurance industry – corporate welfare at it’s best. In essence, by not engaging in a mutually intellectual debate the right have knee capped their own responsibility, injected confusion and fear and given the centrist corporate bought and paid for politicians run the show. Now the very people that screams like banshees are going to get what they asked for; a defunct program without reform that enrich the industry they all cried would get destroyed by it. On their dime.

Instead of helping our industries to compete with the rest of the world we’re now creating our own model that serve to keep the imbalance intact and will ensure that we lose most of our manufacturing due to the constant run up on cost.

Don’t waste your time, his mind has been sacrificed on the alter of corporatist centrism, just like everything else inside the Beltway.
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But, for the still lucid, this guy has his finger on a problem that doesn’t bode well for President 54% or the Democratic Party:

To be honest, I don’t know what the president believes on anything, and I’m not alone among American voters. He introduced his recent job summit by saying that even in these times, the role of government should be limited. Really? That was a nicely nuanced reinforcement of the ideology of limited, ineffective government promulgated by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Unfortunately, it runs against all the available data and everything Democrats have stood for since FDR.

Abortion? Who knows. Gays? I suspect intellectually he believes in equal rights but deep down he thinks they’re icky. Something is sure holding him back from doing the obvious. Immigrants? He probably has an opinion, but he’s not going to waste political capital on them; he sold them out in 15 seconds on health care. Foreclosures? Nice speeches, and I’m sure it really concerns him when he hears the stories of families firsthand. But not enough to divert the cash from the lenders to the borrowers. And the problem is, the average American knows it. Job creation? Would be nice, and I presume he believes that people who want to work ought to be able to work. But when 700,000 people were losing their jobs a month in his first few months of office and over millions have lost their jobs on his watch (a process, of course, initiated by his predecessor, whose name, to my knowledge, he has not uttered since entering office), three letters should have come to mind: W – P – A. President Roosevelt had no legs to stand on, but he sure had spine.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style-an_b_398813.html

A good compromise leaves everyone upset.

Even truer of a bad compromise.

Your argument is a bit reminiscent of “They laughed at Galileo and Einstein, therefore the ridicule I receive only proves my genius.”

Although I am in the camp which views this bill as better than nothing, it was a bad, and quite possibly a suicidal, compromise.

“And since there is no progressive regulation to make sure the insurance companies doesn’t explode our premiums. ”

Not true. Three words: medical loss ratio. The Senate bill as it stands requires that 85% of premiums be paid out in actual medical fees (80% on the individual market); any balance to be refunded to the customers. 80% is about where things are now, as I understand, so the insurers will make out very well. But if – admittedly a big if – the regulation in the law is enforced, they will not be able to explode our premiums to fatten their profits.

Nice trick Joe, Instead of replying directly to the posts you change or update your original writing. I have seen this act before.

It still doesn’t increase your credibility. I use to think that you had some, perhaps I missed some of your writngs before.

Well, it’s at least good to see Joe isn’t being lavished with praise today. That was far more repulsive than his ongoing rhetoric. It’s not his support of the bill that bothers me. I’ve seen compelling arguments to that end, but not here. Joe’s raison d’être is to stir up a hornet’s nest. Obviously, if we froth at the mouth enough, this somehow validates what he perceives to be his reasoned moderation.

Curious as to who Joe thinks are the evil Netroots. Would he consider Nate Silver a part?

Check out Nate’s position on the current bill and reconciliation.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/insidious-myth-of-reconciliation.html

I suspect that Joe might agree with Nate when Nate talks about the activist left. However, I think Nate has become a voice of the online community. Just as an individual woman or Protestant or member of an ethnic group may not fit into a monolithic stereotype of that group, so all the activists on the net do not fit into a monolithic stereotype.

Clinton has attempted to “reinvent” government. But that’s not enough: government needs to be replaced. It needs to be privatized and voucherized. It needs to replace social-service bureaucrats, as [Republican Dan ]Coats suggests, by subsidizing the inspired and the altruistic.

-Joe Klein, “Stalking the Radical Middle”, Newsweek,
September 25, 1995

“$200 billion is a big number. It exceeds the combined total of federal spending on Food Stamps and all nutrition assistance programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Head Start, TANF cash payments to single mothers and their children, the Department of Housing and Urban Development*, and the National Institutes of Health.”
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Poor dumb Joe thinks he has a $200 billion cudgel with which to beat the hippies into shame. Only a Beltway centrist who has no idea about public policy and the real plight of the poor would conclude that $200 billion-dollar corporate welfare scheme written by the insurance industry and big Pharma, where every dime of that $200 billion goes into the pockets of pharmaceutical and insurance companies, doctors and hospitals and which may or may not give easier access to health care constitutes a “massive, progressive income transfer to the working poor”. What a maroon.

That’s nothing short of stunning SZ. With a bit of pride, I must say that in 1995 I was too busy boozing it up in CA/Mex to read this goon. Would be rather entertaining to see if he stands by his “then” corporatism. But shapeshifting chameleons have all manner of fancy tricks at their disposal.

Must be – I was waiting for the nearly-famous JOE KLEIN beginning and JOE KLEIN ending. Isn’t that right, JOE KLEIN?

So Klein has basically stopped trying to defend the bill on its merits? As for answering the objections from the “wing,” he hasn’t even tried to do that.

I’m not going to get too deeply into this, but I’ve noticed he has become more moderate over the years. Most biggest criticism of him of late his been his focus on what is said about him using the accompanying message as a vehicle.
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Joe doesn’t always make me happy, but I think I would rather see a shift in attitude to a more moderate stance than a shift in the other direction.
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That said, I’ve heard a lot of popping sounds in the distance today. I’m wondering if I’m hearing rw heads exploding, and if I am, is it because of your head cold, SZ, or is it because of the HCR bill passing.
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I’ve yet to see Rusty today. Did his head explode too?

I’m not into Klein-bashing, but he does come off kind of condescending today. No one likes to have a value of importance placed on him, ‘specially if it’s negative.

53_3:
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My head cold is the reason my head is exploding, not politics.
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It’s also the reason why I’m barely in this.

It’s like “you’ll take what you get and LOVE IT!”

Rusty’s busy buying last-minute gripes.

Liberals are upset because they, in large part, helped bring BO into power and, given that they were in the majority, think they’re owed something. Instead, their mandates are placed at the feet of Baucus, Joe Isuzu, Ben Nelson, et.al. and are summarily trampled upon. I don’t expect to get everything I want nor will I consider any conservative alternatives (if they had any), but how would discounting your voice make YOU feel?

That’s nothing short of stunning SZ.
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The internet is a very, very useful thing.
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When you see for yourself what the Third Way people actually believe, when you see what they will push for when they believe it’s safe for them to do so openly, you understand that there are profiteers and then there are ideologues.
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Centrism the ideology is just as scary as the theocracy of the right or the state capitalism of socialists.

You noticed the absence of a well-worn rhetorical device?
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LOL
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I’m strangely gratified by that. I must be weak from this cold.

Sorry, SZ, wasn’t clear. I knew you had a real head cold. I hope you get over it quick.
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My question should have been:
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Are their heads exploding because they caught your cold, or was it the late breaking politics?

At least Joe’s Word-of-the-Day calendar flipped from “facile”.

As for the rest it’s the same old stuff he’s been trotting out.

The idea of someone, regardless of political persuasion, standing for something is completely beyond Joe’s understanding so he mocks and pokes but never addresses.

Yeah, Shep, as I said the other day, Joe’s delusional enough (and dishonest) to think his centrism = populism. And thanks for the above Westen link. Excellent piece.
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I’d add that the pres. should be far more concerned about your disenchantment than someone like me, though we both voted for him. In your case, you gave him the benefit of the doubt for as long as reasonably possible.

Thank you Joe for giving us a quick update on the public reaction to the Senate bill. Make no mistake, this is an entitlement bill for the middle class. There are subsidies for families who earn less than $88,000/year. Insurance companies will have to spend at least 85% of premium dollars on (gasp!) actual health care. Despite the cuts in Medicare payments, the AMA has come out in support of this bill. I think the public is responding favorably because it’s what most of us actually want to see in a bill: Universal coverage with subsidies for people who couldn’t otherwise afford it. The rest is details.

I think that everyone knows that BHO really is a centrist.
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I’ve said ofen enough that his tactic of always trying to get 60 vote margins is flawed, and I still believe it is true.
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I think htat despite my criticism of him, this is certainly a very astute political win on his part. I always wanted single payer and still do, but it’s not gonna happen.
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I’m just glad this dance is nearly over…

Hey, it makes ME laugh! :+

Seeing that most media can’t focus on more than one thnig at a time, wonder what’s next – sex scandals? Just kidding.

thing.

53_3:
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Thanks for the well-wishes.
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RE confusion over exploding heads:
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It’s not you, it’s me.

“And while the bill would also provide the insurance companies 30 million new customers, it would saddle them with a strict regulatory regime: they would have to provide coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions and within prescribed community-rating bands (which would fiercely limit their ability to overcharge the middle-aged)–and that is why the insurance companies have been spending tens of millions of dollars in advertising to kill it.”

It amazes me how the Insurance companies were able to negotiate the ability to refuse coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. They overcharged, refused coverage to some, and just did whatever they wanted to do with Insurance coverage, policies and lives.

It was and still is insane.

I hope the Obama folks put in place sufficient checks and balances so that the Insurance companies will no longer operate in the unfettered and unchecked manner. This unaddressed abuse, in large part, has contributed to the morass we also know as Health care!

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/technology-savvy-criminals-are-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

Oregon JC:
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Remember that Joe and that old fool Broder believe in a mythical “radical middle” that’s just teeming with Americans who are clamoring for half a bridge to be constructed by giant cartels funded by middle-class tax-payer dollars –as long as it’s in exchange for welfare tax credits to those who earn little enough to qualify, and representatives from both parties vote for it.
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That’s their populism.

SZ, don’t tell me man–you’re the patient optimist! Joe and the Sage, still driving the discourse as we hover near 40.
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And if you get a chance, check out Shep’s above link. Long but lots of tasty morsels in there.

The centrist act is largely based on the logical fallacy that truth is only found at the mid-point between two “extremes,” as they like to put it. In logic, they call it the fallacy of the middle ground or the fallacy of the golden mean.

Klein follows the pattern like an electron bouncing it’s way through a logic circuit.He describes the Left as extremist, or elitist, and every once in a while he takes a shot at the Right, who he paints as the mirror image of the “extreme” Left. My guess is he attacks the Left about 5 or 6 times more frequently than he does the Right. It is a completely irrational argument, lacking any real substance.

The demonization of the public option has turned it into a powerful symbol, in the hands of the centrists, as they continue in their efforts to slander the Left, painting them as radicals and extremists. All of it is a futile attempt, of course, designed to pretend there is some logical value to their so-called arguments. In truth, they aren’t even using reason. They use the opposite of reason. Instead of logic, they hurl insults at liberals and conservative and then pretend they have found a secret, magical path, that leads straight up the middle of reality.

“In your case, you gave him the benefit of the doubt for as long as reasonably possible.”
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Weston really nailed what I was feeling after the (possible) final capitulation to industry’s wishes on HCR. It’s possible that the policies that would be acceptable inside the Village couldn’t be one ounce more progressive than what they are, and still keep pathologically centrist gasbags such as Klein from savaging the Obama presidency. But there’s at least room for better rhetorical support of government and progressive policy, especially at this moment of populist opportunity, and Klein’s sort of shameless politics would probably accept a little corporate-bashing as the clever populist politics it would be, as long as Obama assured the Village in private that it was merely pabulum for the masses (they love that sh*t as long as it’s spoon fed by members of the Village in good standing).
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The fact that Obama isn’t willing to even rhetorically fight for anything difficult makes him look unprincipled and weak. The bi-partisanship fetish long after any sane person concluded it was pointless made him look foolish. And the fact that, at every turn, he has let the industries that have brought us to the brink of disaster continue to secretly write the public policies of this country, makes him look as corrupt as the rest of the Village.

I liked “thnig” better. And, it makes just as much sense, when it comes to media coverage.

As much as I like to rag on Joe, I believe at this point any and all additional ragging only serves to increase his smugness.

Boy that is a lot of words to call someone a fool.

I’m probably wasting my typing but one more thing about those of us criticizing this from the left: Obama promised during the campaign that his plan would reduce costs for everyone. That’s not the case here.

Here’s Barack Obama on individual mandates ( link to Dec 2008 ABC piece entitled “Obama and Daschle at Odds on Individual Mandate” ) :

During the Democratic primary season, Obama clashed with Clinton over her support for an individual mandate. Obama’s plan would only have mandated that children be covered. He would not have extended such a mandate to adults as proposed by Clinton.
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Clinton charged that Obama’s lack of an individual mandate would result in 15 million Americans going without health insurance.
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Obama regularly shot back by saying the solution to health care is making it affordable, not making it “illegal” to be uninsured.

So I guess Barack Obama is going to veto this health care reform legislation, because the solution is obviously not to criminalize the uninsured.

Wow, Joe. Smugalicious!

@stuartzechman: I guess he won’t veto it or even oppose it. And to be fair, I am okay with people changing their minds or even accepting a compromise (and I think Obama changed his mind here) but back then when we were talking about mandates we were talking about them in an entirely different context: one where everyone could choose between a private plan and a public option.

That seems like such a simple thing to me. Government makes a plan. You pick between it and private insurance. It works if your employers offers coverage. It works if your employer doesn’t. It drives costs down by the most capitalistic method of all: more competition.

But this is what Joe dismisses as unrealistic?

back then when we were talking about mandates we were talking about them in an entirely different context: one where everyone could choose between a private plan and a public option.
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This is entirely true. If the plan were like Social Security, then mandated enrollment would make decent sense.
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The point is that there are many, many examples of Obama doing literally the opposite of the leftward things he campaigned on, and adhering religiously to the centrist promises.
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It’s not policy, it’s not changing his mind, it’s not selling out, it’s ideology. It seems as if he believes in Joe’s dogma.

“The centrist act is largely based on the logical fallacy that truth is only found at the mid-point between two “extremes,” as they like to put it…Klein follows the pattern like an electron bouncing it’s way through a logic circuit.
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Actually, I think that the complete embargo of liberals and liberalism from the Village for the past thirty years adequately explains Joe’s “convictions”, where, to paraphrase, “the paycheck is only found at the mid-point between two ‘extremes,’ as they like to put it.”

“The point is that there are many, many examples of Obama doing literally the opposite of the leftward things he campaigned on, and adhering religiously to the centrist promises.”
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I reluctantly admit that it may be partly the fact that we were somewhat taken in (“being excessively optimistic”) by Obama’s espoused commitment to important principle (which “smart liberals” are supposed to be immune to) that has caused us to be so “reactionary” at this final betrayal.

“I reluctantly admit that it may be partly the fact that we were somewhat taken in (‘being excessively optimistic’) by Obama’s espoused commitment to important principle (which ‘smart liberals’ are supposed to be immune to) that has caused us to be so ‘reactionary’ at this final betrayal.”

Measured words but, yes, many of us grizzled vets were a little giddy at the prospect of dem ascendance. Those shocked by escalation in Afghan are twats. Those who knew this was coming throughout the election, still chose to vote for BHO (b/c the other guy is nuts!) and are nonetheless committed to pressuring him to change his mind: not twats. But on several counts, his promises (civil liberties!) do not measure up to his actions.
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Now, we don’t have to be Claude Rains, feigning epilepsy when a politician says one thing during a campaign and does another once ensconced in a comfy office.
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What Obama has to come to see, from whatever pt. on the horizon, is that Rahmian-LCD approach to politics, where personal/legacy W’s outweigh W’s in the citizens’ column, is not only immoral but far less politically expedient. Somehow this has to make it through his bubble. Nothing gets through to these clowns like personal [electoral] jeopardy. All else is white noise to them. Obama starts seeing reelection as less than assured, in part b/c of his utter abandonment of the dem base, and we might see some change or, as the piece you linked to said, some full-throated conviction/passion. But I think this is more of the hope-dope–it just doesn’t seem in him to fight and if nothing else, this moment in history demands a scrapper. If only Rahm were on the people’s side. We need a pugnacious prick just like him pushing the pres.

In no way is this a massive, progressive transfer of wealth from the top down to the bottom. It’s a transfer of wealth from the treasury to both ends of the spectrum. Since the treasury is, at this point, funded disproportionately by the middle class, as corporations and the rich are enjoying the lowest tax rates they’ve enjoyed in recent memory and very likely in the history of modern taxation (even after the new tanning tax, which if it accomplishes nothing else, should hit John Boehner pretty hard in the wallet), it’s hard to be overly excited that people will derive at least some portion of the benefit from this expenditure.
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It’s certainly better than insurance companies having direct access to our tax dollars, I’ll agree with that much.
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In a functioning democracy, nothing which enjoys as much popular support as a public option, let alone a single-payer model, would ever be accurately described as an “unattainable fantasy.” But maybe I’m just being myopic.

Excellent post, Stuart.
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Incidentally, that link you discuss between public and private interests, “handing federal welfare over to industry,” is what we used to call fascism, before that joined communism as a dirty word with no substantive content.
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It was also a core characteristic of fascism that “Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social.” I think the link to current events is self evident.
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If the reasons fascism became a dirty word had anything to do with what the word meant rather than who we came to associate it with, we might want to think about that, because we practice an awful lot of fascism in modern day America. I don’t think that’s the case, I think fascism is a dirty word because we came to associate it with certain brutal regimes and the actual idea has no relevance to what’s left of the word. Still it’d be nice if we could do some objective thinking about what it is we’re doing around here, and perhaps start evaluating our government beyond shallow observations of our basic goodness.

Ah, well, we can hope the suicidal impulse extends only to the few majority senators who robbed the bill of its best features. It looks like the best that could be passed; all the leadership in the world wouldn’t have swayed the terminally egocentric and criminally corrupt Lieberman and Nelson. May they be forced to spend the entirety of their Big Insurance payoffs on losing campaigns.

[...] Health Reform Support Increases – Swampland – TIME.com [...]

allthingsinana… I wasn’t calling him a fool. I was simply pointing out that there is no logical basis for his middle of the road arguments. Some smart people resort to logical fallacy because they understand its value for propaganda purposes. Klein also works for an organization that has adopted the middle road fallacy as their corporate slogan. CNN likes to argue that they are more “objective” than their competitors because they straddle the mid point. For whatever reason, the middle ground objectivists” decided that cost savings and the public option were a radical idea and they deliberately tried to kill it. Now that their propaganda efforts have proven successful they are still not satisfied. They insist that the Left must love this bill and I imagine they will insist that we vote for the Centrist dominated Democraps again too. I imagine that if the Left would have insisted on a bribe, then perhaps there would be something in this bill for them. That may be a lesson for when it is time for the Left to decide whether to stay home or go out and vote again. Like a good centrist they should just sell their vote to the highest bidder.

somewhat taken in (“being excessively optimistic”) by Obama’s espoused commitment to important principle.

It’s interesting to sample my own thinking back from June ’08:

http://letters.salon.com/eb583ee519a5144fde49c0d25a981e61/author/index180.html

The quote that led me to that page:

I’d like to think
That I knew all along that Obama was a typical cynical politician first and formost. My reaction was reinforced when, exploring the internet I came across stickers for sale featuring Obama’s name with a peace sign for the “O”. Who in their right mind would think that Obama actually represents a “Peace Candidate”?

Certainly not I…..

I nevertheless feel strongly that it is important to work within what’s possible and that Obama is indeed the least of seventeen evils.

If we end up with a McCain Presidency, I’m going to be quite upset with the folks who today are insisting that they can no longer support Obama and that they might as well vote Green or Libertarian.

A quick comparison of the mood in America between now and 2003 will reveal that there is indeed hope. Let’s not squander the momentum.

But as for being progressive social policy, it is. Not as much as you or I would have liked (I think single payer is all that makes sense) but I’m convinced it’s better than scuttling it. And that it will be more possible to add to it and modify it than it would be to start from zero again. With what majority? We will lose seats next year under the best of circumstances.

I think Joe thinks the evil netroots is this week’s Howard Deal.

It is hardly middle of the road, it isn’t even on the road.

If the idea was to mandate 30 million people to buy health insurance from a private insurer, that is what should have been sold to the public. It wasn’t, and now poll after poll indicate that the public wants a Public Option, and are opposed to this bill. Middle of the road?

Poll after poll indicate that public doesn’t like the way BHO handled the issue. Where was he? In the middle of the road? No, not even on the road.

Klien seems to think that it can be improved later, Ha, it will be lucky if it lasts through 2012 before it is rolled back, and not even implemented.

“It is hardly middle of the road, it isn’t even on the road.”

The middle of the road is by definition not in the middle of the road. The middle is wherever the so-called “centrists” decide it is, at any point in time. The basic fallacy goes like this, A is extreme, B is extreme, C is in the middle of A and B, therefore C is the truth. The depiction of A and B is typically a combination straw man and an ad hominem attack. The middle, is relative to the two “extremes” that for the most part, don’t even exist.

It’s has seemed from all reports I read the “56% opposed” number should be read as “Oposed to what they’ve come to beleive” not “Opposed to what’s in the bill” Ranting and raving is better theater than a listing of facts, so ranting and raving is the news and opinions get formed that relate very little to reality.