2009 Obama Administration

The Quantico command has shown it does not respect the Constitution; now they are denying our freedom of speech.

Even with the bitter defeat of the DREAM Act, progressives need to take a moment here at the end of this tough year and celebrate the end of DADT. As MLK liked to remind us, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it curves toward justice.

The tea partiers are not the only angry people in America. Progressives who were promised change and didn't get it are getting more and more ready to take things to the streets themselves.

The divide between progressives on whether to support the health care bill is one of the most striking things I have seen in all my years in politics.

Given the stubborn logjam between progressives and conservatives on the public option and other issues, here are six different scenarios for what might happen next.

At a retreat this last weekend sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute on financial reform issues (I have to take a break from health care every once in ...

If government bails you out, subsidizes you, forces people to buy your product, or otherwise does business with you, we the people are owed some basic accountability on the other end of the deal.

Ultimately, I don't really care very much about whether Obama is a good guy or not, whether deep down he has a progressive heart. What I care about is what he does.

There is one of ray of hope in President Obama's announcement last night on Afghanistan, and that is the announcement of an actual timeline for an exit.

With the Republicans becoming locked into being the party of No, Democrats are going to need to seriously consider revising the rules of the Senate at the beginning of next term.

The insurance industry has given health reformers the best argument we ever could have had to pass a public option and the strongest possible regulations on insurers.

When Joe Lieberman turned his back on a compromise that he has been strongly and publicly supporting for at least 9 years, this Senate health care bill got too heavy to carry.

The good news is that under all the hullabaloo of the public option fight and the horrendous Stupak amendment, there is actually a lot of good things that are pretty well-settled assuming a bill gets passed.

I am excited because this is a whole lot further than we got to when I was in the White House health care war room in 1994. At every stage, I think progressives have the ability to make progress.

Democrats win by uniting their base with swing voters, not by playing the two against each other. President Obama should be the president who gets this instinctively. So how did it come to this?

Democrats have to figure out how to produce real benefits for real people now. Rather than bragging about the signs of progress in the economy when voters don't feel them yet, Democrats need to focus on jobs.

I think we're still moving forward with health care reform. The next few days will tell us what kind of deals can be cut, but no matter what, I think the strategy for progressives remains the same as it has been.

Progressives should not panic if the language on the public option, or any other major issue in the health care bill, isn't great. Don't give up on the conference committee process: this time, the House will be a player.

All the good things announced in Tuesday night's compromise are under vicious assault by the health industry lobbies, and the bad things still might get negotiated for the better in conference.

When people over the weekend asked why getting the votes for the health care bill was so hard, I would have to say: it just is -- it is the nature of the beast.

The generic Congressional polling numbers are in a statistical dead heat, and Democratic base voter enthusiasm is trending down. But, there is no reason for the party to panic, yet.

Most Democratic Senators are not going to want to have to defend the unpopular mess that is the Finance bill, and the pushback against it is gearing up.

While traditional media outlets everywhere are reporting that today's vote is a massive defeat for the public option, I don't see it that way -- in fact quite the opposite.

With polling numbers on the public option, and an activist base on fire on this issue, it is going to be more and more difficult for Democrats to vote against it when they have to vote in the light of day.

A worried Senator called me last night to tell me they were extremely nervous that the White House was on the verge cutting a deal with Olympia Snowe on her trigger-that's-not-a-trigger amendment.