NYT's: Liberal Revolt on Health Care Stings White House

[rasputin1952]

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — In the great health care debate of 2009, President Obama has cast himself as a cold-eyed pragmatist, willing to compromise in exchange for votes. Now ideology — an uprising on the Democratic left — is smacking the pragmatic president in the face.

Stung by the intense White House effort to court the votes of moderate holdouts like Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, liberals are signaling that they have compromised enough. Grass-roots groups are balking, liberal commentators are becoming more critical of the president, some unions are threatening to withhold support and Howard Dean, the former Democratic Party chief, is urging the Senate to kill its health bill.

<snip>

The backlash is building as Mr. Obama is under increasing pressure from his party’s left flank on issues ranging from the economy to Afghanistan. This week alone, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, declared that she would not insist that her caucus vote to finance Mr. Obama’s troop buildup, while Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent and self-avowed democratic socialist, chastised the president for reappointing Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

<snip>

Now that the Senate Democratic leadership has stripped the last vestige of the public option — the Medicare buy-in provision — from its bill, progressives are feeling doubly betrayed.

“It’s time for the president to get his hands dirty,” Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, said in a statement this week. “Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares.”

More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/health/policy/18liberals.html?hp

[MNDemNY]

1. Maybe the White House got an early X-mas present.......A CLUE !!!

:rofl: :rofl: Let's hope the take it.

[calico1]

2. Wiener is right....

When you are the President you sometimes have to get your hands dirty.

[Bitwit1234]

3. I knew Obama did not have the backbone he needed to be president

but never in my wildest dreams did I think he would let the corporate raider Rahm push him into the messes he keeps shoving him in. Why can't Obama put his foot down and do the job he was elected to do. If he doesn't get his butt in gear NOW RIGHT NOW he sure as hell is going to be a one term president. And his dilly dallying is going to let the republicans take over the house the senate and the presidency. Just wait and see.

I know a lot of people voted against Hillary just because she was a woman, but hell's bells she would be kicking congress butt and twisting arms to get this health care bill thru. One with a public option. You better believe it.

[FreakinDJ]

5. HRC is a Corporatist

What would make anyone think she would be tougher standing up to the Health Care Industry

In Fact: Why haven't we heard so much as a "Peep" out of her during the whole debate. Its just like everyone said during the primaries HRC will seel the Dems down the river if it suits her agenda

[WCGreen]

15. Why would she say anything...

She is part of the administration and far removed from the domestic side of his cabinet...

[Romulox]

24. HRC is *ALSO* a corporatist. nt

[eridani]

7. No, she'd be kissing corporate butt just like Obama

They both got their funding from the banksters. She used hers on dickwads like Mark Penn; he used his on effective organizer and great software.

[dionysus]

21. ROFL

:rofl:

[karynnj]

28. Like she did in 1993?

Name one Senator who would have taken a different position if HRC were President.

[Carolina]

34. Bill and Hill helped create the DLC

along with Liebermann! They are all super close to Rahm, Robert Rubin, and Goldman Sachs. So she would not have been any better. Actually everyone thought Obam was different but turns out he and HRC are cut from the same corporate cloth!

Time to purge the party of ALL of them

[Me.]

4. Hopefully This Will End Them Taking Their Base For Granted

If they think blue dogs and LIEberman can get them re-elected they better think again, As for getting a perspective, they're the ones who need that too. "they need to put this in perspective,” Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama’s communications director, said"

[eridani]

6. The God-given right of corporations to fuck us over is not "ideology" of course

Nor is the assumption that "free" markets are the solution to everything. Perish the thought.

[freddie mertz]

8. I'm not coming back to Obama any time soon.

He lied to me, lied to us all, then told us it was all our fault.

Screw him, screw them all.

Happy Xmas.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ikonoklast]

18. Yep. That's a big ten-four there, Rubber Ducky.

Obvious.

[brentspeak]

10. Forcing struggling people to buy insurance they can't afford is "pragmatic"?

Opposition to such stupid policy is "leftist"?

[janx]

11. People who write articles like this make so many assumptions

and use so much loaded, vague language.

[ieoeja]

12. The author's refusal to use titles is really annoying.

While "Mr. Obama" strikes me as a little rude, I wasn't sure at first if "Mr. Sanders" was the Senator or someone else. I started to go back to search through the article, but decided to keep on reading and eventually discovered that, yes, she is quoting the Senator and not some pundit/blogger.

At least she is consistent as a search for her name and "Mr. Bush" turns up plenty of hits. So it isn't typical Rightist childishness. Just laziness, I guess.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. Mr. is an acceptable way to speak of our politicians and has been in use for as long as I can

remember. I don't think it's necessarily a slight on the writer's part.

[intheflow]

26. The founding fathers decided it was better to call the president "Mr.",

as if he were a regular citizen (which he is), rather than some more exalted title that sounded like royalty. You want exalted titles? Move to a monarchy. It's not disrespectful in the least.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/thv_insider/story.aspx?storyid=85045&catid=311

[Ken Burch]

30. Every U.S. senator's office door says "Mr(or MS)", then the senator's last name, and the state

It's ALWAYS been like that.

[JVS]

33. huh?

"WASHINGTON — In the great health care debate of 2009, President Obama has cast himself as a cold-eyed pragmatist, willing to compromise in exchange for votes. Now ideology — an uprising on the Democratic left — is smacking the pragmatic president in the face.

Stung by the intense White House effort to court the votes of moderate holdouts like Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska..."

I see titles, they just aren't repeated throughout.

[charlyvi]

35. The NYT always uses "Mr."

It's a tradition with them. If you read any of their articles, everyone is Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms. It's standard practice, not meant to be demeaning or derogatory.

[Skittles]

13. they are discovering we're not a bunch of ignorant suckups

[ShortnFiery]

14. Good! It's about time that liberals are valued ... or at least taken seriously. eom

[EFerrari]

16. This may turn out to be one of the worst weeks of the Obama presidency.

First the Nobel prize & escalation problem, then the health insurance problem and now Copenhagen has completely broken down.

[BlueIdaho]

17. Is it possible they mostly stem from the same thing?

His pathological need to have people like him?

[carpe diem]

27. except his base

n/t

[dflprincess]

31. Or his inability to stand up for anything and along with his odd need

to always settle for less.

[rasputin1952]

19. I have been trying to find some follow up on all of this...

with very slim results.

I think that PO is in for a rocky time through the rest of the year. It appears that the multi-front assaults are taking their toll on the administration. I honestly believe they will recover, but this was forewarned and the warnings were not taken seriously.

The RW doesn't bother me too much, we all know they are nutcases and have no real plan, except to disrupt where they can. I find the elements of the media that leans left is far more important as to how things will develop. My reasoning is pretty simple...once the media outlets that we listen to start in on the problems, things will go downhill for a bit. Damage control and change in position are necessary, and this may be the catalyst PO needs to brings things into context for him. Timing is everything in politics, and with 48 hours I think we will see some leadership emerge from the WH. Al Franken did an amazing job shutting down Lieberman, that was a warning shot, as well as a signal flare going up to show that we are moving toward a more unified position. To avoid being a pariah, Lieberman and B Nelson will come to grips with the problems they are about to face in their states and with members of the Senate that wear a D on their sleeves.

I know I'm an optimist in this, but if this Bill goes through, there is still a hammering out in conference to come. House members are attune to what is happening in the Senate, and ALL of them are up for re-election in 2010. By reminding them that people are dying and living lives of sheer misery because of untreated conditions...WE can make a difference. I am stuck w/3 R's in the House. My Rep heres from me on a constant base, at least once, more often twice a week. I keep hammering home the death and despair he is leaving people and families in...his letters back to me have softened, although I do not expect him to go along w/anything the D's came up with, I can detect a change. He is seeing how Lieberman is being pounded, he can see Nelson being beaten up...he may be an R, but he's not as stupid as most of them. I actually thought of running against him this time around, and told him so...that brought a phone call from his office...:D



So far this AM, I have contacted the WH, Nelson, Johanns and Adrian Smith...I also wrote to two local papers and in all of them, the overriding message was that the death and suffering could be alleviated by action. I want these things to be brought up in the House/Senate conference...and I want these people to act to defend the American citizenry from as much death and disease as they can. I urge all of you to contact your congresscritters, regardless of which sifde of the fence they sit...keep the pressure on...hold them accountable,

[krispos42]

20. Mr. President, you don't compromise with a BAD IDEA

It doesn't make the idea less bad, it makes you stupid for treating it as anything BUT a bad idea.

[FredStembottom]

23. Why is it "left, leftist, left flank" to want to pull back from Right Wing radicalism!?!?!

I just want health coverage for my son who's only crime was to grow 1 year too old to be on my insurance! In another year my other son will be in the same boat.

It's becoming an entire generation of un-insured people!

It is NOT Leftist to want to help a million young people.

[pissedoff01]

25. "Let’s realize how far we’ve come, and how close we are to making history"

to enact the biggest corporate welfare in history to further enrich the goddamned insurance fat cats

[Ken Burch]

29. Progressives did what we were supposed to do-we FOUGHT BACK!

Doing nothing and saying nothing, while mindlessly cheerleading, as some here demanded we do, would only have made the bill weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker. If anything good is saved in this bill, the credit will belong to the activists who wouldn't tolerate the bullshit and the cowardice.

[budkin]

32. A fucking men... it's time Obama and Rahm stop shrugging off the people who got them elected!