Just want to make something clear

[AllentownJake]

Joe Lieberman was a US Senator when the President took office, so was Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, and the rest of the GOP light crowd. None of these players are a surprise to anyone. They shouldn't have been surprised about the players in the Senate. There are about 7 people the President had to lobby in order to get his legislation passed. He should have known what was acceptable to these 7 people and he should have crafted his legislation in a way to get the most out of it. Without a public option there should have been no mandate. If you don't have the Senate to pass real sweeping Health Care reform. You don't put it on your agenda for that year. You make a step. The President didn't need to lobby Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders. He had 7 people to convince in some way. He failed. The equation is public option and mandates. You put only the mandates out there, it is a disaster of a bill.

This isn't the first time this year the Party has fucked up. They got the House to pass a Cap and Trade bill when they couldn't pass one in the Senate. They put house members on the record for their vote, and got no legislation. Sometimes you can convince a member to sacrifice his seat for progress. Doing something like this, does not encourage them to do that in the future.

Now either Harry Reid is lying to the President on what can be done, or the President is being arrogant when he tries to push legislation through congress through, or both.

[mike_c]

1. rec'd to offset the first cowardly insta-unrec....

Thanks, Jake. That's an excellent point. I think all the fantasizing about Obama's awesome chessmanship is just that-- fantasy. I think he is grossly inexperienced. Only a partial term in the Senate, and a presidential campaign-- that's pretty much the extent of his major league cred.

I can't help but think back to how badly his first "crisis" of a sort was handled-- the appointment of Burris to warm his Senate seat until 2010. What irony that Burris might now be one of our best hopes to kill the Senate HCR legislation.

[AllentownJake]

3. These are pretty awful mistakes

and his advisers should have known better, at the end of the day the buck stops with him.

[roguevalley]

24. when you become president, you become leader of the country,

the military and the party. You lead. He hasn't. He's sort of sitting there expecting it to happen. Remember how we aren't going to prosecute torture and the like? We are just going to 'reflect'. I weep for my country.

[FiveGoodMen]

29. Obama HAS led.

He has led us into a trap.

[yourout]

2. Great points....K&R

They completely screwed this up.

The first thing that should have been done was...

Threaten the loss of Anti-Trust exemptions unless insurance companies dropped the preexisting clauses and the right to drop coverage.

Then say if you want a mandate there MUST be a strong public option or a Medicare by in.

[AllentownJake]

4. One of the worst political moves I've seen in my life

from purely just looking at the politics of it.

[chill_wind]

5. For the "Fix it Later" people--

Best way to "fix it later" is with no individual mandate *now.*


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=503451&mesg_id=503456

[AllentownJake]

6. Fix it later is the most insane argument of them all

That is why we are in fucking Iraq in Afghanistan.

[chill_wind]

9. I'm not fond of it, either. But they should be demanding

at least that much. I'm not even hearing THAT.

[Goldstein1984]

7. Succinct: The situation in a nutshell

An awful lot of wasted time and political capital.

[AllentownJake]

8. He had the world by the balls

and he's hanging on now to the edge of the cliff.

[Goldstein1984]

10. Obama has three years to make things right

He just needs to turn away from the Dark Side.

Maybe Bush left some sort of virus in the East Wing?

[AllentownJake]

11. The only positive thing is that Kennedy was a total disaster his first year

He picked up the international relations thing he totally didn't understand in 1962.

Hopefully the President picks up the domestic thing in 2010. He really has spend most of his life focused on the world as a whole.

[Goldstein1984]

12. If he's paying attention...

then he'll know what to do. If he isn't paying attention to us, then we can find somebody who will.

Taking a long view, I see things getting worse before they get better, if only because thing have to get worse before people are suffering enough to force change by working outside the system. The system is designed to be stable, it can't be changed playing by the rules.

[saracat]

19. But never did Kennedy display the arrogance and contempt for the people the President

did this week. His 60 minutes interview made it very clear that he could care less about those that disagree with him, even to the point of denying they exist.

[JHB]

13. There were some other options that were also ignored...

If they'd spent a little less time fetishizing "bipartisanship" and more time hammering the Republicans for their lockstep voting pattern, it would have at least given the Republican "moderates" more room to maneuver (i.e., more cover for voting with the Dems) and might even have shaken a few more loose from the pack.

Also, less "looking forward" and more investigation of Bush-era criminality almost certainly would have turned up some things that would encourage more Republicans to distance themselves a bit from the Party Line.

[appal_jack]

22. YES!

I agree with all (OOPS, most, see edit below) that has been posted in this thread thus far. But your points are particularly important JHB. Democrats needed to show strength, resolve and commitment to making tough choices and real changes. This is politics 101, yet somehow our 11-dimensional chess player ignored it, or forgot it, or (even worse) deliberately omitted it in order to achieve a less-progressive, more corporate-friendly bill.

-app

EDIT - Egnever's (#21) post below mine that showed-up as I was still composing gives Obama too much latitude imho. Yes, the president cannot write legislation, but counting votes and horse-trading over policy and priorities is as much the president's job as it is the majority leader's. The two of them should have been working as a team to creat that space for moderate repub's to cross over, etc. as has been said above by Allentown Jake, mike_C, JHB, and others.

[Stoic]

14. The purpose is to undermine progressive legislation

This entire kabuki charade was to make sure good legislation would die on the vine and Obama's fingerprints are all over the weapon. Protect the corporate donors at all costs. Even the cost of electing a Democratic super majority in 2010. The Bourbon Democrats strike again.

[iceman66]

15. This is true.

He should have had the votes lined up before he announced such an ambitious health care plan.

I think his people just ASSUMED that with such large majorities in both Houses he wouldn't have to worry about his own party.

[AllentownJake]

16. When your 59th and 60th vote

were speakers at the other political party's convention, you probably shouldn't make such assumptions.

[iceman66]

17. Harry Reid deserves a lot of the blame here.

he should have AT LEAST secured a commitment from Lieberman on health care reform before agreeing to let kim keep his committee assignments.

He also should have kept alive the threat of reconciliation, and maybe actually CALLED OUT the Republicans for being obstructionists once in a while, instead of accepting it as the normal course of business.

[AllentownJake]

18. Harry won't be there in 2010

and it's a shame we lose a seat, but in the future, Senate and House leaders shouldn't come from swing areas.

[Waiting For Everyman]

20. Exactly. This is stupid. n/t

[Egnever]

21. The president doesnt write the laws

What part of that dont you get?

He didnt craft any legislation.

Harry on the other hand does and he should be pilloried to the ends of this earth for his abysmal failure in this health care reform fiasco.

What exactly do you think the president can do to those 7 you mentioned? Call them bad names? Put them in jail?

What leverage with them do you think he has?

[AllentownJake]

23. The President set this legislative agenda

What part of that do you understand. He said he wanted a fucking sweeping Health Care reform bill and congress started debate.

Do you think Congress chose to take up this debate?

[Laelth]

27. I think the President has tightly controlled the course of this legislation.

From top to bottom, the President's fingerprints are all over it. Why do you think John Kerry voted against importation of drugs from foreign countries? I think it's because he was pressured, by the White House, to preserve Obama's deal with big pharma.

Obama more or less "wrote" this legislation by making deals with the insurance companies and big pharma long before Congress ever started talking about it. No. This is Obama's baby, all the way, and I am not letting him off the hook. Congress is merely trying to work within the parameters that the President has already set. If Congress passes the bill, their only error will have been their failure to stand up to the President and tell him, "No, this is a bad deal for the American people."

:dem:

-Laelth

[glitch]

25. Cheer up. He got a massive escalation in Afghanistan funded.

Complete with mercenaries running their own ops in Pakistan.

[Laelth]

26. Interesting analysis. Thanks. k&r n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Mari333]

28. well, the talking heads like Tweety keep saying that the Dems

dont want to identify with the liberals. they want to identify with the teabaggers and GOP it seems. you know, all warm and fuzzy.
he even had the audacity to say Obama was too far to the left.

he lives in lala land.

I dont know WHO is giving the beltway crowd their advice, but if any of them left their bubble and looked at the poll numbers, they might wake up.

[highplainsdem]

30. K&R. Thanks for putting this into words so well, Jake.