Dodd: Dems might need a month off from reform

[The Northerner]

Source: Politico

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd said today that Democrats may need to take more than a month off from the health care debate to regroup, saying it is up to President Obama to lead the way.

Dodd is the first congressional Democratic leader to suggest such an extended break, signaling that Democrats’ may be much further from a workable endgame strategy than they have suggested in the days since Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat and ended the Democrats’ 60-vote majority.

The comments are sure to raise questions about whether Democrats are giving up on reform. A month-long break would almost certainly kill any momentum health reform has left, making it that much harder to pass.

"Maybe we do need to take this time — look, it didn't work, this process — and say ‘Look, I want all of us to take a month,’” Dodd said. “It isn't as if you'll have nothing to do around here. There's a lot of other issues that could fill up the time of the Congress while we sat down and see if there wasn't some way to resolve these differences and come up with a health care bill."


Read more: http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0110/As_health_care_cools_Senate_Dems_tackle_jobs.html#

[PassingFair]

1. Oh. My. God.

This is our representation.

:crazy:

Time OFF?

We need get moving!!

[Solly Mack]

2. I'm telling ya..someone get a band-aid

self-inflicted wound in the making

[FarCenter]

3. The Senate is basically done -- it is up to the House now

The House can either pass the Senate bill or let health care reform die for this adminstration.

[Krashkopf]

13. KILL THE BILL!!

Counting on the Progressive Caucus to quitely take this terrible bill out behind the barn and to mercifully put a bullet through its brain.

[NorthCarolina]

4. Must be tiring to craft crappy legislation like the Senate HCR package

Even when the Insurance and Pharmaceutical Companies do the bulk of the work for you....oh, but that voting part....damn, couple days of that and you need a few months off.:eyes:

[fascisthunter]

5. geezus

[xxqqqzme]

6. I thought he was retiring. But he's just tiresome!

Isn't this the opportunity to be bold and push the agenda? Are there threats against his family or something?

[Demit]

7. slimebuckets.

[elocs]

8. Well, they've been piddling around with this for 8 months now,

so how many more months will it take? The Republican strategy of delay has worked out perfectly for them concerning HCR. It's time to either fish or cut bait.

[Bragi]

9. A relevant Abe Lincoln story

During the Civil War, President Lincoln was always critical of generals who wouldn't fight, and none irritated him more than General McClellan.

The Army of the Potomac under McClellan took a particularly extended rest after Antietam. McClellan took a vacation to see his family and then besieged Lincoln with requests for new horses, suggesting that his existing stock was tired.

Lincoln wrote back: "Pardon me for asking, but what (have) the horses of your army done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?"

Sums up my reaction to the idea of the Dems taking a month off from reform.

[PATRICK]

15. McClellan would have been

right up there today, the Right stuff and all that. Willing to divide the country and lose the war to keep his way of non-doing things justified. Lincoln would have been ruined six ways to Sunday in ways the corruption and slanders of his time could never imagine.

[QUALAR]

10. Caught

Dodd got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and is now a lame duck who has way too much power to negatively influence any meaningful bank regulations. He appears to be ingratiating himself with the financial sector for future employment. Reid needs to threaten his chairmanship if he continues the obvious shilling for Wall Street.

[Jumping John]

11. So 1000 people a week dying because they have no insurance and Dodd says that is fine - Dems need

to take a month or so off. "Cause they were lying all alone and now they have to use stall tactics like Snowe did. And then says there are other issues that they can fail with.

[Jefferson23]

12. What he said about Obama leading the way I agree with. Obama

needs to frame this conversation the way he wants it to go, not the way the Republicans and phony Democrats want it go.
I want to see Obama's plan and it better include a fight for meaningful reform.

[PSPS]

14. Translation: We need a vacation from this stage show

I guess it's hard work pretending that you're doing something positive when you're real goal is to do nothing positive at all.

I found this particularly amusing:

"it is up to President Obama to lead the way."

Yeah, like that's going to happen anytime soon.

[defendandprotect]

16. Evidently Dems still can't say --- MEDICARE FOR ALL . .. EVERYONE IN...NO ONE OUT!!!

[David Zephyr]

17. Dodd, whose state is home to America's insurance cartel, is already working for his new employers.

He's "in transition" from Senate to Insurance whore right now.