Howard Dean, Movement Leader (UPDATED)

waiting for hope

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Thu Dec-17-09 11:25 PM
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Howard Dean, Movement Leader (UPDATED)

Edited on Thu Dec-17-09 11:45 PM by waiting for hope

by: David Sirota
Thu Dec 17, 2009 at 08:47

I want to take a moment just to recognize what has been recognized before, but needs to be recognized right here and now one more time: Howard Dean is a genuine hero.

In coming out against the Lieberman-gutted health insurance "reform" bill, Dean is leveraging every shred of power he can muster to create the political space for the final bill - whether passed now, or later after going back to the drawing board - to be better and more progressive. He has made a compelling case that the bill "would do more harm than good," as he says in his Washington Post op-ed today - and in doing that he has made the power struggle between Joe Lieberman's Palpatinian forces of insurance/drug industry darkness and the progressive movement far more symmetrical.

Before Dean's move, the fight was asymmetrical, as Chris Hayes noted in my interview with him on my radio show yesterday. Before Dean's move, Lieberman had the upper hand in that he was the only one who didn't seem to care whether he alone killed the bill by joining with Republicans for a filibuster. Now, though, Dean has said to progressive members of Congress that they should be OK killing this bill if that's what taking a stand for a better bill means. And you see some of them potentially starting to follow.

This is why the White House and the Beltway media is now publicly freaking out at Dean in a way they never freaked out on corporate Dems (Lieberman, Baucus, Nelson, etc.) who were previously obstructing the bill: Because Dean is threatening to change the dynamic that the Beltway was always counting on - a dynamic that relied on progressives ultimately capitulating to the Joe Liebermans, the Rahm Emanuels, the insurance industry and the drug lobbyists. That dynamic only exists if progressive members of Congress - and the larger progressive movement and general public - believes passing the bill is more important than killing it to make it better. If they and we don't believe that, as Howard Dean doesn't and as new polls show we don't, then suddenly progressive members of Congress and the progressive movement can feel free to be as cutthroat as Lieberman himself.

~Snip~

But here's the thing: It's not like Barack Obama won't be president and Democrats won't control Congress tomorrow. They can go back to the drawing board right now and have the same political topography before them when they come back to the House and Senate floors. And last I checked, when this bill was in more progressive form (ie. with a public option and Medicare buy-in) I didn't hear any of these voices in DC say the bill needed to be on a "must pass immediately" track - only when the bill was gutted are these voices now screaming for it to be immediately passed...hmm...

All of that said, wherever you come down on the substance of the Lieberman-gutted bill, it's clear Dean has created a new progressive dynamic here. He has made it more likely that something better will come out of the Congress either now or in the near future than the monstrosity Lieberman has created. How? By doing his part to create the political space and leverage for us to demand more.

~Snip~

More at Link

I'd like to repeat a comment made on Open Left to this article - "Why the rush", he asked, "to pass a very bad bill since this bill won't go into effect for years?"

Excellent Point.

On Edit - missing letter