Obama managed to be all over the place on healthcare reform. Pretend he was championing it while making secret deals with pharma. he pretended he favored a public option while leaving it all to the Gang of 6 in the senate and having his people cheering for the coops and trigger option.
But now, with thwo public option amendment being defeated in committee it seems Obama has to finally take a position. This is the Politico headline
Public option fate in Obama’s hands
He has been so wishy washy on it that at this point everyone thinks he is on their side
Public-option supporters a….. they’ll take their chance with Obama at the helm because he’s declined every public opportunity to remove the government option from the table.
But also
more moderate Democrats could point to a variety of statements where Obama is cool to the idea of government-run health care — including saying during his speech to Congress that it’s just one option for driving down costs and ratcheting up competition, but not the only one.
I am consigning this for future analysis as it’s one of those “shit or get of the pot” situations.
I am hoping for all our sakes he’ll do the right thing. But if he doesn’t, the defeat of the public option will be squarely his responsibility (unless one buys the version of evil Rahm keeping Obama prisoner in the basement or attic) . B0bots such as Michael Moore won’t be able to put the blame exclusively on
Democrats who have been cool to President Barack Obama’s call for meaningful health care reform
I am waiting to see: if Obama fails to support the public option at this crucial moment – will Michael Moore and minions work against Obama himself? or would that imply admission that they were used as patsies last year? Let’s hope that the Olympics issue will leave him enough time for this one.
7 comments
September 30, 2009 at 2:43 pm
cj
It’s going to be interesting. 🙂 When you sit on the fence too long, the pressure from both sides can get pretty ugly. And it’s not just the public option! The Lightbringer has managed to back himself into a corner on everything, from Gitmo, Afghanistan, & health care, to the CIA and the economy.
OT, but Michelle Malkin (I know, ick, but she may be onto something) claims that Valerie Jarrett’s company “Habitat” holds rights to the proposed land where the Olympics would be held. Hmmm.
September 30, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Susan
“By filing posted complaints of election fraud to the Attorney Generals in selected states, you can help clear the path to articles of Impeachment”…(Did you read “The End Game”?) Great read.
http://jbjd.wordpress.com/
September 30, 2009 at 6:53 pm
cj
They’re dropping like flies & this one’s a big one. Obama’s in more trouble than he thinks:
Gore Vidal:
…”Last year he famously switched allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama during the Democratic nomination process for president. Now, he reveals, he regrets his change of heart. How’s Obama doing? “Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.” America should leave Afghanistan, he says. “We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.” The “War on Terror” was “made up”, Vidal says. “The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction’. It has wrecked the airline business, which my father founded in the 1930s. He’d be cutting his wrists. Now when you fly you’re both scared to death and bored to death, a most disagreeable combination.”
… Another notable Obama mis-step has been on healthcare reform. “He f***ed it up. I don’t know how because the country wanted it. We’ll never see it happen.” As for his wider vision: “Maybe he doesn’t have one, not to imply he is a fraud.
… Vidal now believes, as he did originally, Clinton would be the better president. “Hillary knows more about the world and what to do with the generals. History has proven when the girls get involved, they’re good at it.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6854221.ece
If he’s losing the sophisticated, cosmo-Euro-lib crowd, then it might be all downhill for him now.
September 30, 2009 at 7:37 pm
chatblu
The Hopium Express is beginning to derail.
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