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'No, No, Don't Say It' Takes On Drunk, Thieving Toddlers [VIDEO]

2009-12-23T21:28:02Z

One of the major topics that maybe the media has failed to address is the sad Yuletide tale of a four year-old boy from Tennessee who drank some beer, put on a dress, and went around stealing his neighbors' Christmas presents. Well, that changed Wednesday, as Air America's Megan Carpentier debuted a new show: "No, No, Don't Say That."

Megan was kind enough to invite former Jezebel editor Moe Tkacik and me to contribute to the discussion, and I think we more or less hit all the key issues: door condoms, the comment sessions of Chattanooga-area television news websites, incarcerated parents, and my lingering concern that the child might be related, in some way, to awesome alt-country troubadour Ryan Adams, whose "Drunk Santa" is a Christmastime staple at my household (no matter what my wife says.)

Please enjoy, if applicable.

[WATCH]

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Dem Pollster: Don't Expect Obama Bump From Health Care

2009-12-23T17:42:24Z

When Bill Clinton addressed a crowd of mildly despondent progressives at the Netroots Nation conference this past August, he made a prediction. If health care reform were to pass, the former president said, it would result in a massive uptick in Obama's popularity.

"Within a year, when all those bad things they say will happen don't happen, and all the good things happen, approval will explode," Clinton declared.

A polling bump has served as an alluring carrot to win over Democrats skeptical of health care reform. But not everyone is convinced that the sheer fact that legislation passed will do wonders for Democrats in the world of public opinion.

"Bill Clinton has always been a better strategist than I have been," Mark Mellman, a prominent Democratic pollster, told the Huffington Post. "But, you know, I would not be surprised if we don't see that... I wouldn't be surprised if [Obama's] ratings stay fairly close to where they are. And for two reasons: first of all, the real weight that is holding down the president's approval rating is the economy. There is just no question about that is the real impediment to his approval ratings improving. To pass health care reform on Christmas Eve is not going to improve the economy the day after Christmas. Secondly, at this point this is still a pretty controversial bill. When people know the content they are for it, and when they don't know the content they are pretty divided. So I'm not sure there are going to be a lot of people jumping for joy [when it passes]."

"I think [Obama] is going to get some credit for being effective here and I think that would help him," Mellman added. "But I would be surprised if we saw a big jump in approval ratings. We may see them for a day or two, but I don't think it is going to last very long."

Public opinion prognostication is inherently chancy. But if any pollster has a good grasp of the health care debate, it is Mellman. A highly respected Democratic adviser, he has been consulting Senate Democrats about how to properly sell the reform package they are poised to pass. His advice to those who have spent months engaged in the process is a bit dour: The debate's not over. As Mellman sees it, public opinion on the legislation should remain malleable months, if not years, after passage. Placed in a news vacuum -- as it was during the August recess -- the bill can be painted in the most nefarious of lights. And so, even though Democrats may gain momentary relief by getting the legislation done, they shouldn't rest on their laurels.

"There is going to be a prolonged process here, even after the bill passes, of selling the bill," Mellman said. "The naturally tendency of the legislative process is to move on. You pass legislation, breathe a sigh of relief, and move on to another bill and stop talking about that which is already done. That can't happen here."

Mellman noted that some of the legislative perks from health care reform won't kick in for years down the road; the bill's supporters will be championing abstract achievements. Nevertheless, he said there are immediate benefits to which Democrats should and can point -- namely the prohibition on abusive insurance industry practices.

As for internal party divisions, Mellman said he expects progressive critics of the bill to eventually come back into the fold.

"There is no question that there are a meaningful chunk of voters out there who think this bill did not go far enough in reforming health care," he said. "I think at the end of the day, the people who think this bill didn't go far enough will come to recognize the political realities: which is there aren't the votes to go further. And the only way to get something more than this is to add even more progressive Democrats in the Senate. So their electoral enthusiasm should be increased, not decreased."

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Snowe Opts Out: Votes To Proclaim Health Care Bill Unconstitutional

2009-12-23T15:35:46Z

If Democrats had any hopes of winning Sen. Olympia Snowe's vote on a health care reform bill, the Maine Republican likely put an end to them on Wednesday when she cast a vote expressing the view that a key element of the legislation is unconstitutional.

Snowe was one of 39 Republicans who voted in favor of a resolution, introduced by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) that the reform bill, and in particular the individual mandate for people to purchase coverage, violates the Constitution's Fifth Amendment and the Commerce Clause.

The measure was ultimately defeated when all the chamber's Democrats voted against it. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okl.) was the only member not voting.

It was, as one Senate aide noted, another effort by the GOP to "kill this bill."

It also seemed to lock Snowe into a no vote on the whole bill. It's hard to imagine her expressing the opinion that the health care legislation is unconstitutional and then turning around weeks later and supporting it.

On a related note, the Senate acting on a bi-partisan basis agreed to move the time for the final vote on health care reform from 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning to 7:00 a.m. The window to get home in time for Christmas is, indeed, closing.

President Obama Discusses The Meaning Of Christmas With Children

2009-12-23T15:16:28Z

Hey, kids! Remember that time, a few weeks ago, when President Barack Obama's address at West Point pre-empted a planned broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas on ABC? The postponing of that beloved Christmas special caused the mayor of Arlington, Tennessee, Russell Wiseman, to go so crazy in the face with rage that he felt obligated to dump the following helping of word-goulash into the nearest online social media hole:

Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim [sic] president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation [sic] about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'....

Well, here's a video of Obama's visit to Washington, DC's Boys and Girls club, during which he finally gets around to that dissertation on Jesus:

[WATCH]

Here's the key excerpt:

THE PRESIDENT: I think one thing that's important to remember is that, even though there's a lot of fun at Christmas, you know, you got -- especially when it's snowy like this, so it's pretty outside, you got the Christmas tree, you got the Christmas cookies, you've got presents. You know, I think that the most important thing is just to remember why we celebrate Christmas.

CHILD: I know!

THE PRESIDENT: Do you know?

CHILD: The birth of baby Jesus.

THE PRESIDENT: The birth of baby Jesus, and what he symbolizes for people all around the world is the possibility of peace and people treating each other with respect. And so I just hope that spirit of giving that's so important at Christmas, I hope all of you guys remember that as well. You know, it's not just about getting gifts but it's also doing something for other people. So being nice to your mom and dad and grandma and aunties and showing respect to people -- that's really important too, that's part of the Christmas spirit, don't you think? Do you agree with me?

CHILDREN: Yes.

Anyway, someone should really call out the president for indoctrinating these children with these terrible lies about this person, Jesus Christ, who sounds like a socialist.

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The Rational Case For 'Kill The Bill'

2009-12-23T14:00:44Z

Over the past week, the media has trained its myopic eye on those in the progressive community who, having seen that the health care reform plan emerging from the legislative process will fall well short of providing all Americans with affordable health care, are urging that the bill be killed. The dominant attitude of the mainstream media seems to be that this response is irrational. John Harwood, to offer just one example, has likened these advocates to drug addicts. (By contrast, the people who continue to hallucinate up "death panels," are, I guess, simply people who have an interesting and serious point of view on the matter!)

It's important though, to note, that the Howard Deans and Jane Hamshers of the world neither want LITERALLY to destroy President Barack Obama's domestic agenda in a fit of ideological pique, nor do they want to consign millions of uninsured Americans to their deaths. In fact, they desire the opposite: more Americans safely insured, and more electoral success for Democrats -- the kind that comes when Democrats actually keep their promises. You want to talk about people who are, in fact, high on drugs? Let's talk about the Democratic strategists and their journalistic enablers who believe letting down the base is a good thing.

Columbia University Professor Lincoln Mitchell has a post up on these pages on the dynamics of the debate. Let me grab one part of a larger piece that is eminently clarifying:

Progressives who oppose this bill are not being obstructionist, making the perfect the enemy of the good, or sabotaging their president. They are taking the position that history has shown us that opportunities to reform health care do not come along very often, making it essential to get it right when those opportunities arise.

This is precisely what informs those who take the admittedly extreme-sounding position that the current legislation should be scrapped and the effort to reform the health care system restarted. What they recognize here is that what's been driving the reform effort in the first place is a crisis, a crisis of mounting costs to our system and diminishing returns for a populace that's struggling to stay afloat financially and remain in good health.

Pushing the reset button on this process restores the crisis and thus restores the urgency that forced Obama and the Congress to take up the measure in the first place.

Advocating this position is a rational response, if you are up on current events. Anyone who has been paying attention to the news over the past year understands full well that our Congress allowed the financial system to get worse and worse and worse until finally, when the economy was at last at the brink of an apocalypse, they finally acted. Furthermore, if you've been paying attention, you'll know that even in responding to the crisis, not enough was done to ensure that a similar near-apocalypse wouldn't happen again. The overall intent of the so-called "bill-killers" is to not allow a similar sense of false accomplishment occur in the arena of health care.

It's worth pointing out in addition, that the whole "our only opportunity comes with a crisis" idea was something that was floated by Obama's own Chief Of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, who said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." The bill-killers are simply taking this to heart.

And the fact is, if the Senate language survives to be signed into law, America will still be in the throes of a massive health care crisis that will need to be reformed with all immediate haste. This is evident in this portion of a graphic created by Igor Volsky, promoting the virtues of the Senate bill:

[The word "reform" sort of belongs in scare-quotes, frankly.]

As you can see, by treading right up to the line set by Joe Lieberman, the Senate leaves 23 million Americans without insurance. No one is hallucinating this! And unless Volsky is saying that the 23 million who will remain uninsured represent an acceptable number of needless deaths, I'm sure he'd agree that this means that America will still be in dire need of health care reform on the very next day after "health care reform" is signed into law.

But the problem is, after the health care bill is signed, all of the momentum to reform the system is going to drain away. Legislators will have come through what will be regarded as a grueling fight that they won't be too keen on taking up again. The president is likely to celebrate the event as a momentous historical accomplishment instead of doing the right thing -- offering the correct and sober assessment that his efforts led to a bill that is sorely lacking.

And the media, embodied by simps like John Harwood, will declare the matter settled and get on with the process of writing the stories they are good at writing -- who won and who lost politically in the health care fight. The historical achievement of politicians will outweigh the matter of how that supposed achievement falls on those 23 million uninsured.

If you want to know who is really drug-addled, it's anyone who seriously believes that the John Harwoods, Chris Matthewses, Jon Meachams and Fred Hiatts of the world give a tinned shit about how this legislation actually affects real Americans. If you don't stand to gain or lose political capital, you just don't show up in their reporting.

And so, all the "bill-killers" hope to achieve here is the maintenance of the very real urgent needs of their fellow citizens, before everyone rushes to drown themselves in the waters of Lethe.

PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST:
Lincoln Mitchell: Improving the Health Care Bill After It Passes Will Not Be Easy

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The Case Against Reporting Sarah Palin's Status Updates

2009-12-23T13:55:08Z

Dave Weigel is, as usual, making a ton of sense, this time with regard to his unwillingness to do reporting on the neverending dispatches from Sarah Palin's Facebook account.

Last week, PolitiFact.com announced its "Lie of the Year": Sarah Palin's claim that the health care bill might create "death panels" that would kill elderly or disabled Americans. It was a lie, the editors pointed out, because Palin's claim was based on a mangling (by Michele Bachmann) of false claims by Betsey McCaughey -- that the bill would mandate end-of-life counseling, and that rationing would deny care based on "level of productivity in society." That phrase was Palin's invention.

Palin responded to the PolitiFact article with a post on her Facebook page, claiming that, actually, the CBO's assessment that it would be tough to cut the rate of increase in Medicare is the sort of thing she had been talking about all along. That's obviously not true. But political reporters are taking note, filing stories about what Palin wrote that don't add much more context. I really think this is a humiliating exercise.

The problem is that Palin has put the political press in a submissive position, one in which the only information it prints about her comes from prepared statements or from Q&As with friendly interviewers. This isn't something most politicians get away with, or would be allowed to get away with. But Palin has leveraged her celebrity -- her ability to get ratings, the ardor of her fans and the bitterness of her critics -- to win a truly unique relationship with the press. She is allowed to shape the public debate without actually engaging in it.

Weigel adds a lot more to his argument, so I'd urge you, as usual, to hie thee hence, and not limit yourself to my excerpting.

But I'd like to underscore the fact that Weigel is absolutely correct, here: Sarah Palin has won a tremendous concession from the media, in that she has gotten them to blithely accept a set of rules of engagement that she has invented. There are a number of reasons the media is willing to just accept these terms, and chief among them is traffic. Simply put, Sarah Palin is the clickiest thing the internet has going these days, and that creates an incentive to cover everything she does, up to and including ghost-written Facebook updates and word-soupy Twitter bleats. As I've said before, the irony of Sarah Palin's overarching anti-media pose is that she could do more harm to the media if she's just curb her prolific tendencies.

But the curbing works both ways, doesn't it? And by accepting Palin's terms, the press ends up cheating themselves on the back end. I'll once again point out how remarkable it is that Sarah Palin, who is universally acknowledged as a major player in the conservative movement (if not the Republican movement), a potential future Presidential contender, and a one-time candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States, has never once appeared on any of the traditional, Sunday-morning political shows. Now, I've been watching those shows faithfully for the past two years, and I am under no illusion that she will encounter some sort of intellectually rigorous interrogation, but the unalterable fact is that she refuses to participate in this forum out of pure cowardice.

So, yes: if reporters want to actually engage Sarah Palin in questioning, they should stop pretending her various posts to online social media -- to which no one in the world requires reporters to access or penetrate, anyway -- represents some sort of blockbuster, journalistic "get."

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McCain Emerges As Front Man In GOP Efforts To Claim Reform Mantle

2009-12-23T13:15:02Z

The way Democrats secured the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster of health care legislation has exposed them to accusations that they have abandoned the "reformist" platform that swept them into office.

No cameras were allowed in the room where the final bill was written. And legislative sweeteners were added to the product to win the support of wavering members.

Senate Republicans, hell-bent on extracting every piece of political flesh they can in the current debate, quickly seized the initiative. And when they did, they turned to a familiar, self-proclaimed reformer to wield their message.

In a withering address on the Senate floor on Sunday, Sen. John McCain accused the president and Democratic leadership in the Senate of abandoning pledges of accountability and transparency during the reform process.

Pointing to the deals cut with the pharmaceutical industry, the American Medical Association and others, the Arizona Republican insisted that Democrats had "set up a tent out front and put Persian rugs out in front of it" - greeting special interests with specific gifts.

Recalling President Obama's campaign pledge to televise negotiations, McCain noted that "there has never been a C-SPAN camera" in the rooms where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) crafted the final version of legislation. Drawing attention to some of the sweeteners that were put in the bill to win the support of conservative Democrats, McCain scoffed that there were now "new words in our lexicon," including the "Cornhusker Kickback", in reference to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and the newly recoined term "The Louisiana Purchase" in reference to concessions to that state's Sen. Mary Landrieu.

McCain's new high-mindedness didn't impress New York Time's columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote on Thursday that while McCain "used to be such a constructive independent that some of his Republican Senate colleagues called him a traitor. Now he's such a predictable obstructionist that he's in the just-say-no vanguard with the same conservatives who used to despise him." She concludes: "With President Obama, McCain's objections seem motivated more by vendetta than principle."

McCain has indeed proven to be less than a willing negotiator since returning from the campaign trail to the Senate. But his Tuesday rant wasn't just another reflexive broadside. Republican Party strategists say the GOP senses a serious opportunity to portray itself as the party of transparency and reform. They know from their own history that the legislative process is inherently messy, requiring the type of back-room dealing that was recently witnessed. That makes those in power susceptible to claims of corruption - and particularly so when they vowed to hold themselves to higher standards.

Health care legislation may be impossible to stop. But the GOP plans to gain from its fallout.

"I think the difference here is that Obama and the Democrats promised things were going to be different and obviously it is not different," Ed Rollins, a longtime GOP strategist told the Huffington Post. "Obama set the bar very high and he will be measured by his own words and I think to a certain extent when David Axelrod and Harry Reid are saying that this is the way it has always been done, after they ran a campaign saying they wanted to change the way things were normally done, that will really hurt them."

"A cornerstone of Barack Obama's appeal to the American people was the promise that he was something totally different," said Alex Conant, another GOP strategist. "But the way his health care legislation came together was Washington politics as usual. When you consider the backroom deals made to pass this bill, coupled with all the earlier broken promises like bringing lobbyists into the Administration, a pattern emerges."

"What really strikes me about the health care debate is how it's been handled. We've been told that hearings will appear on C-SPAN. They haven't." said Larry Farnsworth, an aide for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. "But as a former Republican leadership aide, what I find most appalling is that they've turned to and cut a deal with Billy Tauzin on behalf of PHARMA. If you remember, six years ago when we passed the prescription drug bill, it was called a boondoggle on the floor of the House by Nancy Pelosi... Now, suddenly, they're working with the same person."

"This provides Republicans an opportunity for the contrast that eluded us in 2008 and 2006. One of the most troubling discoveries in the polling data from 2008 was just how far removed we were from being the party voters associated with the reform mantle," said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney's campaign. "The health care reform bill and its process are vehicles for the way voters view Washington: partisan, chaotic, unmanageable, wasteful."

Such criticisms call for some context. Republicans, while in power, held no negotiations where C-SPAN could see them. And the gift to Big Pharma that was Medicare Part D will likely still dwarf the benefits the industry will get from the current legislation.

As Craig Shirley, another longtime GOP consultant, noted: "There is an opportunity for Republicans here, but the problem is they are just as beholden to corporate America including the pharmaceuticals and the insurance companies as are the Democrats. Ideology and principles are not factors here. This is simply about raw, naked, unethical power."

Moreover, while Obama has not followed through on some of his pledges regarding transparency, he has on others, and has overall brought some additional sunlight to the legislative process. Indeed, while McCain and others argue that the president abandoned his pledge for transparency, others insist that it is precisely because the legislative process has been so open that Democrats have endured charges of being bought and sold.

"President Obama campaigned on transparency and accountability," said Stephen Wayne, a political science professor at Georgetown University. "Now, what we have seen is the transparency because Obama allowed Congress to detail the legislation. But, when you detail the legislation you also see the deals made either for Nebraska or Louisiana and these other states. So you can argue that the transparency has hurt the administration in claiming the reformer mantle."

WATCH McCain's floor speech:

Jane Norton, GOP Senate Candidate, Sits Silently As Obama Called A Muslim

2009-12-23T10:49:08Z

Former Colorado lieutenant governor Jane Norton, one of the five candidates competing in the Republican primary for the state's 2010 Senate race, is distinguishing herself with her full-hearted embrace of the tea party crowd.

Appearing at a recent coffee-shop event with Colorado voters, Norton sat silently while a female attendee declared twice that President Barack Obama is a Muslim and while a male attendee insisted that the president -- who he deemed "an idiot" -- wanted to let babies die on the side of the road "with the garbage."

"Well as you can tell there is a lot of passion around what is happening in our own country," Norton responded to the crowd, rather than correcting either individual. "And how we can channel that into positive constructive ways that will get our vote out it is going to be absolutely critical."

Also at the event, Norton praised the "tea-party movement and the 9/12 groups" for pushing a right-wing populist, anti-Washington agenda. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee highlighted that exchange in a video it sent to reporters on Monday.

Colorado remains a hub of arch-conservative politics and anti-Obama sentiment despite its recent Democratic leanings. One month ago, an auto dealer in the state gained notoriety when he put up a billboard asking whether Obama was a Jihadist and demanding a birth certificate be produced for the president.

So it's not all that surprising that Norton, in an effort to curry favor with the more impassioned voters, would tolerate that kind of over-the-top rhetoric. Indeed, the National Republican Senatorial Committee worked behind the scenes to get Norton into the race.

And yet, the willingness of the general public to stomach this kind of conspiracy-theory vitriol seems limited.

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Obama Accused Of Abandoning Health Care Principles In New Ad

2009-12-23T08:26:01Z

The health care reform debate may be dying down in Congress, but the ad wars continue.

On Wednesday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee unveiled a new spot in which it all but accuses the president of abandoning the principles of his health care reform agenda. Tackling the two provisions that rankle liberals the most, the PCCC highlights footage of Obama himself rejecting the efficacy of an individual mandate and insisting that a public option for insurance be part of the final legislative package.

Using Obama's words against him is particularly effective a day after he told the Washington Post that he didn't campaign on a public plan and challenged his critics to identify any "gap" between what he campaigned on last year and the health care legislation Congress is on the verge of passing.

The group is airing the ad in Wisconsin -- in addition to Washington D.C. -- in hopes of persuading Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) to drop his support for a bill without an additional element of government-run insurance. The goal is not necessarily to kill the Senate's legislation, but to use political leverage to make changes once it goes to conference committee with the House.

The initial ad purchase is a modest $40,000. But, as is their usual formula, PCCC will raise money online for more airtime.

"President Obama should frankly feel ashamed that he promised Americans a public option, got people to believe real change was possible, and then never truly fought for it -- instead, pushing a mandate that he specifically campaigned against," said Adam Green, co-founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee in a statement accompanying the ad's release. "Hopefully, our ad inspires one brave senator to represent the will of the people and insist that a public option be in any final bill."

Did Obama Campaign On The Public Option? Yes But Not Entirely

2009-12-22T18:43:39Z

President Barack Obama, in an interview with The Washington Post, said on Tuesday that in the two years leading up to his election he "didn't campaign on the public option" for insurance coverage.

Could that possibly be true? A plan for government-run insurance has been the focal point of the soon-to-be-concluded health care debate; the catalyst of white-hot partisan warfare; and the provision that progressive and conservatives alike have deemed the arbiter of whether legislation is a success. Is it possible the political world was, by-and-large, confused when they assumed this was what candidate Obama had wanted?

Not entirely.

The Obama campaign clearly did incorporate the public option into its health care agenda. The then-candidate signed a statement put together by the pro-reform group Health Care for America Now, which included the provision as part of its principles for reform. On issue forms Obama filled out for several publications he pledged to "create a new public health plan for those currently without coverage." His campaign arm, Organizing for America, continues to champion a "public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can't find affordable coverage with a real choice." The White House website says that: "The President believes [public health insurance option] will promote competition, hold insurance companies accountable and assure affordable choices. It is completely voluntary."

It does, indeed, seem fair to say that a public option for insurance coverage was a component of the Obama health care agenda. But exactly how serious a component was it?

An examination of approximately 200 newspaper articles from the campaign, as well as debate transcripts and public speeches shows that Obama spoke remarkably infrequently about creating a government-run insurance program. Indeed, when he initially outlined his health care proposals during a speech before the University of Iowa on March 29, 2007, he described setting up a system that resembles the current Senate compromise - in which private insurers would operate in a non-profit entity that was regulated heavily by a government entity.

"Everyone will be able buy into a new health insurance plan that's similar to the one that every federal employee - from a postal worker in Iowa to a Congressman in Washington - currently has for themselves," Obama said at the time.

In the following months, reporters would remark, as did Robert Pear of the New York Times, that Obama "says he would 'establish a new public insurance program' for people who do not have access to group coverage." But it's not clear that their reference was a non-profit entity modeled after congressional coverage or the "government-run plan" that progressives pine for today.

By December 2007, however, Obama clearly had endorsed a government-run option. In a speech at the Iowa Heartland Presidential Forum, the then-Senator declared that if he "were designing a system from scratch" he would "probably move more in the direction of a single-payer plan,"

"But what we have to do right now," Obama added, "is I want to move to make sure that everybody has got coverage as quickly as possible. And I believe that what that means is we expand SCHIP. It means that we extend eligibility for some of the government programs that we have. We set up a government program, as I've described, that everybody can buy into and you can't be excluded because of a pre-existing condition."

In January 2008, meanwhile, Obama submitted an issue form to Ebony Magazine, in which, as the third principle of his health care reform agenda, he promised to "require all employers to contribute toward health coverage for their employees or toward the cost of the public plan."

By that point, the press, commentariat and widely respected health care observers all were reporting the government-run plan as a component of the Obama agenda.

On May 31, 2007, Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and a New Yorker staff writer, wrote in The New York Times that both Obama and then-candidate John Edwards, were offering "a choice of competing private plans, and... a Medicare-like public option, too."

On September 20, 2007, Ezra Klein -- then a staff writer at The American Prospect and now with The Washington Post -- wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times in which he said that "all of the Democrats" in the primary field had offered the option of "a government-run insurance program modeled on, but distinct from, Medicare."

On February 12, 2008, Jonathan Oberlander of the University of North Carolina, told NPR's Fresh Air that Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton both "would create a new public plan similar to Medicare."

"And do we have any sense of what those public plans would look like?" the host asked.

"They have been fairly vague about that, as candidates often are in this election season, other than to say it would be like Medicare," said Oberlander.

On February 26, 2008, meanwhile, Jacob Hacker, the so-called "godfather" of the public option, offered much the same synopsis. In an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, the Yale University professor noted that both Clinton and Obama would require employers to "provide coverage to their workers or enroll them in a new, publicly overseen insurance pool." People in this pool, he added, "could choose either a public plan modeled after Medicare or from regulated private plans."

On July 30, 2008, The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn wrote that Obama was gravitating closer and closer to making the public plan a prominent feature of his health care platform. "[He] not only included an optional public plan in his eventual blueprint for universal coverage; more recently, he also tapped Hacker to be on his campaign's health care advisory committee," Cohn wrote.

On August 18, 2008, Cohn followed up on his story, writing that Heather Higginbottom, the Obama campaign's policy director and now White House adviser, considered the public plan "an elemental pillar" of the proposal. The President, Cohn added (channeling Higginbottom) "is prepared to defend this fall even if, as expected, Republicans attack it (falsely) as a "government takeover" of medicine."

The general press, naturally, followed suit.

Fortune Magazine, on July 7, 2008, wrote that "At the center of Obama's plan to help ease the middle-class crunch would be a requirement that nearly all businesses provide health insurance or contribute to a government-backed "purchasing pool" that includes private plans and one public plan like Medicare."

The Chicago Tribune, on August 21, 2008, wrote that Obama, "would require employers to offer health benefits to workers or contribute to the cost of a new public plan"

The National Journal on August 23, 2008, reported that Obama's health care plan "would require insurance companies to compete in publicly structured exchanges not only with each other but also with a government-run insurance plan. 'Wherever possible," Obama said in an interview last year, he wants to harness "market mechanisms to bring about change.'"

There are countless other examples as well; but remarkably few other times in which Obama himself was quoted supporting an additional program of government run insurance. His campaign never pushed back on the report. If anything, it seems they clearly constructed a health care strategy that embraced the public option as one of several principles of reform.

It also, however, seems clear that the philosophical attachment of the candidate to the issue was limited. Obama would discuss the public option more frequently once he took office. But on the trail he almost always highlighted other elements of his health care agenda first. As one progressive activist who has worked on health care reform for the past year put it:

"What I think [Obama's] point was [in making his statement to the Washington Post], is true. The public option was not his number one talking point on the trail. Hell, it wasn't even number 12. The public option didn't become the central part of health care reform until after [he entered the White House]."

Rep. Grijalva, Key House Progressive, Close To Conceding The End Of The Public Option

2009-12-22T16:06:16Z

In an interview with The Plum Line's Greg Sargent, Representative Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) indicated earlier today that he might be able to support health care reform legislation that hewed closely to the Senate bill.

That's of some import -- as the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Grijalva represents those House members who are most likely to draw a line around retaining the House's public option when the bills reach conference committee, a move that would end up ensuring the final legislation's filibustering in the Senate.

Grijalva seeks a concession that might be workable under the circumstances: he'd like to "move up the implementation date for insurance coverage and make it more in line with the earlier date in the House bill." Via Sargent:

I asked Grijalva if he could support the bill if such a change were made, even if it lacked a public option or other similar concessions sought by liberals.

"It would sweeten it somewhat," Grijalva said, "if they speed up the coverage mechanism."

He added: "That would be something I'd have to look at very closely."

Grijalva is aware that what looks passable at the moment will nevertheless allow millions of Americans to continue to fall through the cracks in the system, and told Sargent that his progressive caucus "would continue fighting for some kind of public component."

It's pretty to think that someone will continue to fight for actual health care reform after the bill Congress is likely to produce is passed. And those efforts might be actionable if, say, President Barack Obama were to sign the bill into law with the sober acknowledgment that while they advanced the cause of reform, they ultimately missed the mark. But it seems to me that the measure of reform we're likely to gain will be celebrated "Mission Accomplished" style -- so I have to wonder where the political will to fight for what Grijalva wants is going to come from.

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Landrieu Now Facing Anger From The Right, But Predicts Re-Election

2009-12-22T14:59:19Z

Under fire throughout much of the health care debate from the left, conservative Democratic senators are now getting an even harsher reception from the right.

The angriest accusation: that they sold their votes.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) was pilloried during an appearance on C-SPAN Newsmakers for the $300 million in emergency Medicaid funding that she secured for her state in the Senate's legislation. One self-identified Republican caller proclaimed that she had engaged in political prostitution -- trading her vote for the funds. Another called her "nothing but a Judas goat selling out for thirty pieces of silver" who would lose her next election.

"You know," Landrieu chimed in at that point, "being in public office isn't easy because we have to listen to situations like this.

"I'll say it again and I'll continue to say it, I did not vote for this bill because of [the Medicare funding]," she added. "I voted for this bill because it's going to lower costs for Americans, it's going to give the private market the boost and the reform it needs to do a better job for all consumers in our country. It's going to expand the life of Medicare for nine years, it's going to reduce the federal deficit, and it's going to bring efficiencies to a system that is wasteful, abusive and out of control. I know there are some people that don't believe that. Time will tell. And I'll tell that gentleman I've been elected three times to the United States Senate, and I will probably be elected again. Thank you."

Landrieu isn't alone. Both she and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) have been called prostitutes by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The Nebraska Democrat also secured Medicaid funding for his state -- a legislative coup that was deemed either the "Cornhusker Kickback" or "Cash for Cloture" depending on the reporter or medium.

Nelson isn't up for re-election until 2012. Landrieu, meanwhile, runs again in 2014. So they have three and five years respectively before voters decide their fates. Unlike, say, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) -- another swing-state Democrat who is up for re-election in 2010 -- both Landrieu and Nelson stand to actually benefit from the health care provisions they secured, rather than be blamed for the messy process that produced those provisions.

Evan Bayh's Wife Reaping The Benefits Of Health Care Reform

2009-12-22T14:43:59Z

Stephen Colbert once remarked, "There are some things that everybody knows, but nobody says."

He was referring to something that I've endeavored to point out as the debate over health care reform has taken shape: namely, the fact that many of the lawmakers who have curbed the effort for effective health care reform are clearly acting against the authentic wishes of their constituents in favor of personal enrichment and the promise of swollen campaign war-chests, courtesy of powerful, moneyed interests.

Those interests are reaping the rewards of having their demands met. And, amid the exploding profits that the health insurance industry is enjoying as a bill that would eliminate market competition wends its way through the legislative process, Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald zooms in on one example of how this disconnected decision-making process manifests itself, to our detriment:

Just to put this boon to health insurance stocks in perspective: according [to] an Indianapolis Star article from June, Evan Bayh's wife, Susan, "owns from $500,001 to $1 million in employee stock in WellPoint, the Indianapolis-based insurance giant on whose board she sits." That would mean that the value of her personal holdings in that one health insurance company alone, in the last six weeks alone (since [Senator Joseph] Lieberman and her husband began menacing the public option), would have increased by a value of between $125,000 and $250,000. As part of the bonanza of health care industry board positions she magically received since her husband became a Senator, Susan Bayh is given a quarter-million dollars each year in stocks and stock options from Wellpoint. That's just a microcosm for considering how well Obama's so-called "special interests" have done as a result of this health care bill.

This is the divinity that shapes our ends, and I can promise you, it will go largely unremarked upon by your media.

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Bill Press Becomes Intern For Bernie Sanders

2009-12-22T13:15:07Z

Radio talk show host Bill Press has become an intern for U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-V.T.), the liberal commentator told the Huffington Post on Tuesday.

The move is not some impulsive late-career change on Press's part. Rather, it is an effort to make it easier for him to report from Capitol Hill.

On December 8, Press was denied a request for media credentials from the Congressional Radio-Television Galleries, effectively limiting the type of on-the-ground journalism he was hoping to do on the Hill. Soon thereafter, the radio host petitioned Sanders for an internship with his staff in hopes of circumventing the red tape.

"I am officially a Senate intern of Bernie Sanders'," Press told HuffPost. "I am his in-house Senate reporter. Basically, I'm reporting on news from Capitol Hill."

Press, who moved to Washington D.C. in 1996 to take over the liberal post of the now-defunct CNN program "Crossfire," says that he will cover news conferences and hearings for Sanders staff. Naturally, the material will also be used for his morning radio program. "There is more than one way to skin a cat," said Press.

Conventional efforts to gain access to the Hill on Press's part were rejected after the seven-member executive committee of the Congressional Radio-Television Galleries determined that his program was too aligned with political advocacy. Specifically, the committee pointed to language on the radio host's website urging viewers to call Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and convince the lawmaker to support health care reform.

In an interview with Politico, Press pointed out that several members who denied him entry work for notably political outlets, including Salem Radio Network -- an organization that hosts such conservative talkers as Hugh Hewitt, Bill Bennett and Michael Medved.

Press is still looking to get credentialed, which is likely when a new board is instituted. Until then, he is assuming the role that is traditionally filled by wide-eyed college students. Only, he will share his experience with a massive radio audience and not merely his immediate family.

"Given my record [with the board] I was quite nervous I would be rejected [by Sanders]," Press jokingly said. "Now I'm proud to be the newest member of Bernie's staff."

Parker Griffith's Party Switch: He Won't Be Missed, He Won't Be Welcomed [UPDATED]

2009-12-22T12:50:48Z

Parker Griffith can't win.

Earlier today, it was reported that the freshman Representative from Alabama's 5th Congressional District has decided to switch parties, from Democrat to Republican. Politico calls the news a "jolt" to House Democrats, but it seems pretty clear that the only "jolt" they are concerned with is the one to his backside as the door to the Democratic caucus closes behind him. Meanwhile, conservative activists are already painting Griffith as the second coming of Dede Scozzafava.

As Media Matters was quick to point out, Democrats basically lost a party member who pretty reliably voted against their initiatives anyway. Griffith was a "no" vote on Lily Ledbetter, the stimulus package, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Affordable Health Care For America Act and financial reform legislation. On top of that, Griffith particularly fetishized having a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, which the administration plans to scrap. On his website, Griffith called the missile shield the "best stimulus," mainly "because his district contains the base for Boeing's ground-based missile defense research."

Of course, the Tea-steeped conservative movement didn't exactly welcome Griffith with open arms, either. Here's RedState's Erick Erickson:

That is a huge blow to Barack Obama. Griffith was an extremely endangered Democrat.

We should now hope him be an extremely endangered Republican in a primary. We will not fix the GOP's problems if we keep allowing people who are not one of us to suddenly switch the letter next to their name and magically become one of us.

"We can pick this guy off and get a real Republican in that seat," says Erickson. The Club For Growth, which famously got Democrat Bill Owens elected in New York's 23rd District, says the same thing:

Griffith's voting record is far from conservative, too. Granted, he voted against the Big 4 - Obama's first budget, the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and ObamaCare. However, his vote on the budget is slightly deceptive since he originally voted for 9 of the 12 spending bills that make up the budget. And he voted against all the Stimulus amendments that would reduce its size.

But just a quick perusal of 2009 shows that he voted YES on the 2009 pork-filled Omnibus; YES on Cash for Clunkers, NO on waiving the harmful Davis-Bacon provision, and had a pathetic 0% score on the 2009 RePORK Card.

This party switch signals Griffith's nervousness, but it doesn't signal that his incumbency is safe.

If Griffith has a friend in all of this, it's the National Republican Campaign Committee. Over at True/Slant, Michael Roston reports that the NRCC has done Griffith a solid today -- by very swiftly removing all of the disparaging attack ads they once deployed against him. Ben Smith helpfully grabs one of the few that remain:

[WATCH]

UPDATE: Dave Weigel has even more on the reception Griffith is receiving from the right. Griffith's switch has done nothing to deter his Tea Party opponent Les Phillip, who told Weigel that it "would do nothing to deter his bid" for Griffith's seat. A spokeman for Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks, who the NRCC had been giving nominal support, is staying in the race for the seat as well. And the disparagement of Griffith doesn't stop there:

The harsh reactions of Brooks and Phillip were in line with the reactions of activists in Alabama's fifth congressional district.

"He's an S.O.B.," said Dale Jackson, a conservative radio host who's pasted a banner reading "Parker Griffith Cannot Be Trusted" on his Website. "He's a liar. Michael Steele should be ashamed of himself. The NRCC should be ashamed of itself for not coming out and immediately repudiating this guy. He was unacceptable a year ago and he's acceptable now? A year ago, they were saying this guy was a murderer."

MORE:
Conservatives Not Ready to Embrace Party-Switcher [The Washington Independent]

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Dem Strategy Memo Says The 'Good News' Is That Democrats Haven't Done Enough On Health Care Reform

2009-12-22T12:28:37Z

According to some new strategy memo that's going to fix everything, Democrats should not worry about all those polls that indicate an increasing opposition to the emerging health care reform legislation. Why? Because some of the people saying they oppose health reform are actually for it. What the what? Here's Politico's Mike Allen, attempting to explain this:

In a strategy memo to be provided to Democratic senators on Tuesday, Mark Mellman, CEO of The Mellman Group, reports that public polls are giving a distorted picture of the level of opposition to health-care reform. That's because in many of these polls, "opponents" include people who think the current proposals do not go far enough.

"The individual elements of the legislation are very popular, as is the bill in total, when it is explained," Mellman writes. "Moreover, the public continues to trust Democrats and the President over Republicans to deal with the issue. The news media has recently highlighted polls showing double-digit margins in opposition to the current healthcare plan. But these cursory stories often neglect to mention two salient facts. First, these poll questions fail to give any content, any specific meaning to the reform proposal. ... Focus group research makes clear that voters know little about the substance of the plan ... Second, public poll analyses often ignore the fact that a chunk of opposition to the current plan comes from those who support reform, but would like to see Congress go further."

In other words, here's your good news, Democrats: You haven't only pissed off people who don't want reform, you've pissed off people who do want reform, as well! You have expanded the universe of opponents even beyond the inevitable number of people who just oppose reform for philosophical reasons and who oppose it just because they don't understand what the current plan will do. (Wonder whose fault that is, by the way!) Pop the champagne!

Naturally, I'm overjoyed that somewhere, out there, there's a Democratic strategist who's figured out that polls often lump together dead-ender opponents, the insufficiently informed, and people who are aggrieved that their legislators haven't delivered on their promises under the single banner, "OPPOSES THE HEALTH CARE REFORM PLAN." I was beginning to wonder if anyone was going to notice that people were reacting with dismay at the death of the wildly popular public option. It's just too bad that the public response to the larger failings of legislators is being spun as "good news."

But hey! I guess we can take solace in the "discovery" that opposition to the health care reform effort isn't based solely on discontent that President Barack Obama is trying to do much, as the conventional Sunday morning wisdom has been telling us over the whole year. Rather, it's because a lot of people think that the Democrats are weak, waffling, and not doing enough to fix the nation's myriad problems.

There is one pinched and perverse way in which all this is actually "good news" -- and that happens to be the only way that Politico looks at the world. It is a view also shared by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. According to this school of thought, pissing off liberals is of no consequence; no, is actually something devoutly to be desired. Pissing off liberals shows you're actually a reasonable, moderate person -- and what are the liberals going to do about it, anyway? Somewhat shockingly, Emanuel actually spelled this out to the Wall Street Journal the other day, plain as day, for all to see. And reading Politico as a direct emanation of Rahm Emanuel's amygdala (that part of the limbic system most closely associated with reward and fear) almost never steers you wrong.

But seeing this abundance of contempt as the pony in voter discontent leaves out the issue of voter enthusiasm. And on that matter, let's jump to Time's Michael Scherer:

The 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia were initially talked about by Obama allies as a test of the President's organizing power. By the time the votes were counted, however, with Republicans winning two Democratic seats, no one at the White House wanted to claim any responsibility. That's because the remarkable enthusiasm that greeted Obama's victory in 2008, with record turnout among independents, blacks and young people, had gone away, along with the minions of Obama organizers. "I think that we all thought, and I think that the President thought, that they would stay with it because we would create this movement," explained [Celinda Lake, of Lake Research Partners], at a recent reporter briefing organized by the Christian Science Monitor. In fact, the enthusiasm gap bodes poorly for 2010, when Obama will be trying to minimize losses in the House and the Senate. According to the recent Battleground poll, just under two-thirds of Democrats say they are extremely likely to vote in upcoming elections, compared to 77% of Republicans and Independents.

There is something all those folks becoming disappointed with Obama and the Democrats can do -- they can stop voting at all.

So good luck with this "good news" come 2010, guys!

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Gibbs: Obama 'Absolutely' Did Everything To Get Public Option, Despite No Talks With Lieberman

2009-12-22T11:28:49Z

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted once more that President Obama did everything he could to get a public option through the Senate, even if the administration never talked to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) about his opposition to the provision.

On Tuesday, Gibbs reiterated that President Obama "absolutely" did everything he could to ensure that a government-run insurance option was part of the final legislative product. Pressed by the Huffington Post as to why no one from the administration ever reached out to Lieberman to alleviate his concerns about the proposal, the press secretary said he didn't want to "rehash" the past.

"I think the president has been clear on what he supported," Gibbs said. "I think members of the Senate have been clear on what they didn't support. The president believes... health care reform that will pass the senate contains about 95 percent of what he wanted out of health care reform. And the president is quite pleased with the product and looks forward to signing comprehensive health care reform."

The remarks were part of a broader effort by the White House to sweep Democratic dissension with the Senate's health care bill under the rug. Gibbs noted that on Saturday White House health care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle spent 45 minutes talking to Gov. Howard Dean -- perhaps the most high-profile progressive critic of the bill -- about his concerns. After their conversation, claimed Gibbs, Dean acknowledged more positives with the final bill than he initially let on.

"I think all of them are certainly entitled to their opinions," Gibbs said of progressive critics. "Again, we would not be at this point in health care reform were it not for the president's leadership. We would not be at a point where we were a couple of votes away, not in people but in sequencing, to getting health care reform through the Senate."

"The president and his team will continue to play the role they have throughout the process and that is working with leaders in the House and the Senate, discussing with them the options," Gibbs said earlier. "I think the role that he and his team have played up to this point has gotten us to the point where health care reform is not a matter of if, health care reform now is a matter of when."

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Gibbs Mocks Steele's Speaking Fees, Calls Him Delusional

2009-12-22T10:55:50Z

The White House quickly pounced after news broke that Michael Steele was charging up to $20,000 in speaking fees in addition to his official gig, mocking the RNC chairman for delivering criticisms of the health care bill for profit and calling his reasoning '"delusional."

Pressed about a remark Steele made Monday, in which he insisted Democrats were "flipping the bird" to the public in the form of health care legislation, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs asked how much money Steele was paid for "that interview." Later when a cell phone ring interrupted the briefing, and someone cried out that Steele was on the line, Gibbs insisted it would cost $30,000 to answer that call.

The quips were both delivered with a Cheshire-cat smile. On Tuesday morning the Washington Times reported that Steele, who earns $223,500-a-year in his RNC post, was charging roughly $10,000 to $15,000 for appearances at "colleges, trade associations and other groups." The moonlighting was condemned by former RNC chairmen Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. ("Holy Mackerel!") and Jim Nicholson. But Democrats also gleefully jumped on the news -- in addition to going after the substance of the RNC chairman's latest round of health care criticism.

"I think if you look back, just to give everybody some context... [Steele's remark] was, I think, predicated on the fact that he had in his mind deduced that the White House had pressured the Congressional Budget Office into coming up with statistics that are good for the bill... The notion that this White House is in cahoots with the CBO is delusional to put it mildly. So I would suggest this for the RNC and anybody else in the Republican Party: There are millions of people who do not have health care this Christmas ... instead of giving chippy interviews it might be good to be part of the negotiations and the solutions."

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Burris's 'Night Before Christmas': Senator Backs Reform With Rhyming Poem On Senate Floor (VIDEO)

2009-12-22T10:12:23Z

On the Senate floor Tuesday morning, Roland Burris (D-Ill.) chose an unusual way to demonstrate his support for health care reform legislation emerging in the Senate, despite his previous threats to oppose any bill that lacked a strong public insurance option.

The medium he chose to deliver the message: poetry.

"As this debate draws to a close and my colleagues and I prepare to vote on a health care reform bill, I recognize the long hours and tense negotiation have left some nerves and tempers frayed," Burris said.

"That's why I come to the floor today. Although our work keeps us away from our family and friends for much of this holiday season, I see no reason why we can't share good cheers with one another right here in Washington. So in the spirit of the season, Mr. President, I would like to share my own version of a classic holiday story with my good friends on both sides of the aisle. And it goes something like this":

Mr. President: It was the night before Christmas

It was the night before Christmas, and all through the Senate
The right held up our health care bill, no matter what was in it
The people had voted a mandated reform
But Republicans blew off the gathering storm
We'll clog up the Senate, they cried with a grin
And in the midterm elections, we'll get voted in
They knew regular folks needed help right this second
But fundraisers, lobbyists and politics beckoned
So try as they might, Democrats could not win
Because the majority was simply too thin
Then across every state there rose such a clatter
The whole senate rushed out to see what was the matter
All sprang up from their desk and ran from the floor
Straight through the cloakroom and right out the door

And what in the world would be quite so raucous?
But a mandate for change from the Democratic caucus
The president, the Speaker, of course Leader Reid
Had answered the call in our hour of need
More rapid than eagles, the provisions they came
And they whistled and shouted and called them by name
Better coverage, cost savings, a strong public plan [sic]
Accountable options. We said, 'Yes, we can.'
No exclusions or changes for preexisting conditions
Let's pass a bill that restores competition
The Democrats all came together to fight
For the American people that Christmas Eve night

And then in a twinkle, I heard under the dome
The roll call was closed, and it was time to go home
Despite the obstructionist tactics of some
The filibuster had broken, the people had won
And a good bill was ready for President Obama
Ready to sign and end health care drama
Democrats explained as they drove out of sight
Better coverage for all, even our friends on the right.

WATCH:

Reid's Gifts To Nelson And Landrieu Push Snowe Further Away

2009-12-21T17:09:52Z

The perks that Senate Democratic leadership put into the final health care bill to win the support of conservative caucus members may cost them the one opportunity to secure a bipartisan bill.

On Monday, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the only Senate Republican who has voted for a version of health care reform, said that she was offended by the sweeteners that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) threw into health care legislation to win the votes of individual senators.

"I think we all should be concerned about all of these last-minute arrangements and sweetheart deals considered in there," said the Maine Republican. "I don't think that that is fair, frankly. As one who has worked on the policy for as long as I have and as long as I have and my staff, I just think that, in all fairness to all parts of the country, I think it is important that the policy be equitable."

Snowe, who voted for the Senate Finance Committee's version of reform, has said she is not inclined to back the current version produced by Democratic leadership -- though she hasn't fully ruled it out. It wasn't because her home state of Maine wasn't getting its piece of the pie, she insisted: "I didn't ask for carve-outs for Maine. That wasn't what I was all about."

It was because the legislation has been tainted by parochial interests.

The Maine Republican wasn't alone. On the Senate floor on Monday, a host of Republican senators -- none of whom have engaged in honest brokering during the health care debate -- excoriated Reid for the legislative sweeteners he added to the final health care product such as the $300 million in Medicaid funds for Sen. Mary Landrieu (deemed "The Louisiana Purchase") or the $100 million in Medicaid relief for Sen. Ben Nelson (described either as the "Cornhusker Kickback" or, cleverly, "Clash for Cloture"). Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) set the tone early when he declared that "votes have been bought."

The carve-outs -- as they have been called -- have had the side effect of pitting Republican lawmakers against the needs of their constituents. Sen David Vitter (R-La.) was forced weeks ago to come out against needed health care funding for his state, and was berated by local and national Democrats for doing so. On Monday, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) walked the same plank.

Taking to the floor around midday, the Nebraska Republican said he was heartened to see local constituents rise up in disgust against the deal that Nelson made on their behalf.

"Less than 24 hours after [the] announcement of the special for Nebraska with virtually no warning, no preparation to speak up, 2,000 people gathered in Omaha, Nebraska; Nebraskans, who in one voice, cried foul," said Johanns. "Nebraskans are frustrated and angry that our beloved state has been thrust into the same pot with all of the other special deals that get cut here. In fact, Mr. President, they're outraged that a backroom deal for our state might have been what puts this bill across the finish line. You see, Mr. President, I fundamentally believe that if this health care bill is so good, it should stand on its own merits. There should be no special deals, no carve-outs, for anyone in this health care bill. Not for states. Not for states. Not for insurance companies. And not for individual senators."

In actuality, the sweeteners are proving more difficult for Democrats to defend than they have been for Johanns and Vitter to vilify. Progressives begrudgingly acknowledge that it sends a bad message when Democrats appear to be "buying" Senators off, with only a perfunctory nod to the defense that these paybacks won't kick in until 2016.

The most common response has been that this is simply the seedy underside of the legislative process. And that it is better to have a bill with these perks than no bill at all. On Monday, however, Reid scrapped those lines in favor of something more novel: casting the carve-outs as politically virtuous and a reflection of a particular senator's legislative acumen.

"That's what legislation is all about," Reid told reporters. "It is the art of compromise. In this great country of ours, Nebraska has many different problems than does New Hampshire. Michigan has many different problems than does Georgia. We have a wide range of different needs throughout regions of this country."

"I don't know if there is a senator who doesn't have something in this bill that is important to them," he concluded. "And if they don't have something in it important to them, then that doesn't speak well of them."

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Key Dem: The Public Option Will Be 'Revisited'

2009-12-21T15:02:32Z

One of the public option's strongest Congressional supporters insisted on Monday that while the Senate is poised to pass health care legislation that does not offer consumers a government-run insurance plan, he will bring the idea up again -- most likely after that bill is passed.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told reporters that the public option is not dead. "It will be revisited," he said. "I'm just saying, I believe it is so vital and so important that it is going to be revisited. Believe me." The Iowa Democrat said that "even next year," senators "may be doing some things to modify, to fix, to compliment what we've passed here."

The idea of pushing for the public plan as a stand-alone piece of legislation sometime down the road has been championed by other supporters of the provision.

Harkin did not blame the White House for the absence of a public plan in the Senate's bill, as his colleague, Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) did in a statement on Sunday night.

Also unlike Feingold, he hinted that he was giving up for now. Asked whether he would consider reinserting the public option into the legislation during the conference committee set to commence between the House and the Senate, Harkin replied: "I didn't say that. I said it would be revisited."

Acknowledging that, philosophically, he favors components of the House's version over some in the Senate's, he nevertheless said that when he goes to conference committee it will be as an advocate for his chamber's product.

"I always say when we go to conference we are going to stick with the Senate side," Harkin said. "Look, I'm a conferee, I have to fight for the Senate and I will fight for the senate but we will have to make compromises with the House."

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), likewise, insisted on Sunday that the conference committee would have to produce legislation that mirrored the Senate's or risk losing key conservative Democratic support. Asked about this process on Monday, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) kept mum.

"We have to pass this bill in the Senate first and we will worry about the next steps at a later time," he said.

Harkin: Michael Steele Is Redefining The Word Obnoxious

2009-12-21T14:10:26Z

One of the Senate's most soft-spoken members, Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), unleashed a little pent-up frustration on Monday, telling reporters that RNC Chairman Michael Steele was redefining the term obnoxious with his latest histrionics.

On Monday morning, Steele held a conference call with reporters in which he called Democratic Senators crafting health care reform "cowards" who are "flipping the bird" to the American public. Harkin, along with a host of other Democrats, were asked about the remarks during a press conference touting the American Medical Association's endorsement of their bill.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) deemed Steele's comments crass and inappropriate for "someone who has the title Mr. Steele has." But Harkin, standing off to the side, was seen rolling his eyes as he whispered into the ear of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)

Asked after the event why he seemed surprised by what Steele had to say, the Iowa Democrat replied.

"I didn't seem surprised. It is not the first obnoxious thing he said. I mean, the guy gives new definition to the word obnoxious. You know. He says outrageous things."

A small grin entered Harkin's face. At which point his press handler declared: "Thanks everyone" while pulling the senator away from the pool of reporters.

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Securitization Is Back! Investor-Owned Mortgages Have High Re-Default Rates, Says Report

2009-12-21T13:23:44Z

The securitization of mortgage loans has been blamed for helping cause the financial crisis -- and now it seems to be complicating recovery efforts.

About half of all modified investor-owned mortgages, undertaken to help troubled borrowers and investors looking to cut losses, re-default within six months, according to a new quarterly report by federal bank regulators. These are loans that are sliced and diced and sold to investors in the form of securities.

That compares with a 25 percent re-default rate for modified loans held in-house at banks, according to data as of Sept. 30.

The high re-default rates for investor-owned mortgages underscore the difficulties faced by the Obama administration in trying to stem the growing foreclosure crisis. Through the end of November, ~~2 million~~ 3.6 million homes have entered foreclosure this year, according to a spokeswoman for RealtyTrac.

The administration's nine-month-old $75 billion program, Making Home Affordable, aims to help three to four million distressed homeowners avoid foreclosure by modifying their mortgages to a more affordable monthly payment. Of the nearly 760,000 modifications that have been enrolled in three-month trial plans, less than 32,000 have transitioned into permanent relief for homeowners. Nearly 87 percent of the modifications under the administration's program are for investor-owned mortgages.

The administration's program largely does not address what many experts believe to be the root cause of foreclosures -- homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

Being "underwater," or having negative equity, "is the most important predictor of default," argued Laurie S. Goodman, senior managing director at Amherst Securities, during a Congressional hearing earlier this month.

Speaking on behalf of her firm, she said: "We are concerned that if policies continue to kick the can down the road -- working with a modification problem that does not address negative equity -- delinquencies will continue to spiral with no end in sight."

The data released Monday largely confirm her argument.

More than 99 percent of mortgage modifications that include cutting principal are for those mortgages owned outright by a bank, meaning they are held in the bank's portfolio. Nearly 37 percent of portfolio loans involve cutting principal.

Modified portfolio loans also have the lowest re-default rates: Just 25 percent of them re-default within six months, versus about half of investor-owned mortgages.

Investor-owned mortgages include those held by government-owned mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Of the 17,412 mortgage modifications last quarter that included principal cuts, 80 were for Fannie Mae-owned mortgages; 54 for Freddie Mac.

"This difference may be attributable to differences in modification programs and the servicers' flexibility to modify loan terms to achieve greater affordability and sustainability," notes Monday's report.

Forty-four percent of Fannie Mae's modified loans re-default within six months; the rate is 47.4 percent for Freddie Mac.

Which raises the question: why isn't the administration pressuring Fannie and Freddie to cut principal?

Monday's report on loan modifications does not include data on the performance of the government's modification program. But it does look at loan modifications undertaken by the banks themselves. Prepared by national bank regulator the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and national thrift regulator the Office of Thrift Supervision, the report covers nearly two-thirds of the nation's home mortgages.

READ the report below:

OCC and OTS Mortgage Metrics Report, Third Quarter 2009 -

Big Labor, Big Concerns: Obama's Approach Causing Tension

2009-12-21T13:01:02Z

When two of the nation's largest unions held emergency meetings last week to discuss potential opposition to the Senate's health care bill, the White House paid close attention.

Administration officials were in touch with their counterparts at both the AFL-CIO and the SEIU as each discussed the merits and downsides of the legislation. Days later, when both union groups put out statements -- neither formally opposing nor supporting -- the Senate bill, the White House quickly called to go over the details and the potential fallout.

The attentiveness of the Obama administration to labor's concerns is the latest reflection of an increasingly sensitive relationship between the two. Eleven months into office, President Obama has proven to be one of the most union-friendly White House occupants in recent memory. His staff is in constant contact with union officials, granting them access and input given to few other organizations. And yet, on some of the major legislative items, his administration has disappointed labor: an economic recovery plan that was too fixated on Wall Street, the punting of the Employee Free Choice Act until 2010 and the willingness to drop a public option for insurance coverage.

Labor leaders are loath to publicly criticize Obama, in part because they remain acutely aware of the benefits of staying in his (and WH chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's) good favor. But in private, there is a growing "frustration," as one union official put it. And as it became clear that the Senate was settling on a health care bill that taxes high-end plans (which cover many union members as well as other workers) and includes no additional government-run plan for insurance, a hint of that frustration seeped to the surface.

"What I want the president to do is to work with the conferees on the issues that he has said from the very beginning are important to him and say we have a chance to get some of those done, particularly the ones that relate to making sure that people who don't have insurance will be able to afford what is made available," SEIU President Andy Stern declared in a conference call this past week. "We need his moral suasion. We need his personal involvement and we are totally convinced that what we want done is what he wants done. And all we can do is maximize the effort."

Implicit in the remark was that, up to this point, Obama had provided neither the "suasion" nor "involvement" needed in the debate. It was hardly the most controversial of statements. Indeed, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) echoed the sentiment days later. But coming from Stern -- the closest of the president's labor allies -- it was, as one union hand pointed out, "hard to dismiss."

Stern isn't alone in believing the president can and should do more -- though he may be the most public. Other leaders in the labor community have, for the time being, held their guns. The ALF-CIO's president Richard Trumka, for instance, is giving Obama some leeway for the way his legislative agenda has played out.

"I don't think anybody disagreed from our side that health care is an important issue and ought to be moved," Trumka told the Huffington Post. "So what have been [Obama's] priorities? Now I'm not going to be their defenders. They can do that themselves. But his priorities right now are health care and jobs, reforming the economy, employee free choice act, as part of the effort to reform the economy, as part of a jobs package."

"He has been given a tough hand of cards," Trumka added. 'You know, he got an economy that was falling apart. He had two wars going on that he inherited. And he got a Republican Party that says no to everything. Did you see the fiasco yesterday [when GOP Senator Tom Coburn demanded that a 767-page amendment be read in full]. I mean, come on."

But a measured defense is hardly the same as a ringing endorsement. And when the AFL-CIO decided how to approach the Senate health care bill, Trumka came down harder than the SEIU -- much to the chagrin of the White House.

In reality, both Stern and Trumka are in the same tricky place: cognizant that the administration is, broadly speaking, an ally, though angered by the realization that the president didn't step in as health care reform was being gutted. Internally, the push is for them to take a hard line against the president. Externally, the White House holds many sticks and carrots.

"They're getting intense pressure from the bottom up: locals, union members are really pissed," said one labor aide. "They are afraid of the international unions selling out. And so union leadership is being squeezed from the bottom by members who don't want a shitty bill and from the top by Rahm holding the [Employee Free Choice Act] over their heads."

The outcome, in the end, may simply be that labor barks but doesn't bite, pressures Congress and not the administration and hedges its expectations and resources during the next major legislative debate. As one official involved in discussions with the labor community told Ben Smith of Politico: "They won't oppose [health care reform]. But they will definitely say tough things in the press."

Dick Cheney 'Conservative Of The Year,' Says Human Events

2009-12-21T12:40:34Z

Dick Cheney has spent the past year participating in "happy-ending" interviews, giving himself awards, making speeches in front of his friends and basically just trying to take credit for keeping America safe after 9/11 without having to take any responsibility for the means by which said safety was achieved. So, naturally, white-mustachioed anger-sack John Bolton thinks Cheney deserves to be "conservative of the year."

What seems to most impress Bolton, writing for Human Events, is that time Cheney gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on the same day that President Barack Obama gave one. Sure, one guy is setting actual policy, and one guy is re-pimping his old ideas in front of a crowd of glad-handers, but we shouldn't let the fact that only one of the participants in this Makin' Speeches Duel-Off had anything at stake get in the way of Bolton working his way to climax:

So, a major Cheney speech at AEI shortly after leaving the vice presidency was neither surprising nor aimed at the new Oval Office occupant. What was surprising, unprecedented and even unpresidential, however, was the Obama Administration's reaction. Instead of leaving it to allies in Congress, Cabinet officers, or the media to debate the former Vice President, the White House scheduled a speech by the President himself on precisely the same topic. Even more amazingly, they scheduled it on exactly the same day as Cheney's AEI speech, May 21, two hours before Cheney was scheduled to start his remarks. Political commentators searched their memories and clippings files, but no one could come up with another example of a President's so directly taking on even a former President, let alone a former Vice President.

So nervous were Obama's stage managers that they did not realize until too late that they had made a serious mistake by having Obama go first, thus allowing the amused Cheney and his waiting audience at AEI to watch Obama's speech and then directly critique his arguments as soon as Obama had finished. Tellingly, Cheney didn't have to alter the text he had already prepared, because he had already correctly anticipated and written out refutations of all of Obama's central arguments. The White House politicos had tried to set a trap, but had succeeded only in trapping their own President.

Yes! It was a cunning trap that had no discernible effect on the Obama White House's policy-making decisions!

Still it's hard to argue with Bolton in that the Obama administration did do their part in making the whole affair seem like a connected debate on foreign policy. What is amusing is that Bolton simultaneously gives Cheney credit for making the most of going second that day -- which apparently afforded him the chance to do some sort of improvisatory "direct critique" of Obama's speech -- while at the same time giving Cheney credit for not having to improvise at all. That's sort of an "either/or" situation, John!

At any rate, DNC Press Secretary Hari Sevugan scoffs, "What does it say about the current crop of Republican leaders that the 'Conservative of the Year' is the face of a previous administration who regularly scored approval ratings in the 20s? No new ideas, no new direction, no new leaders -- your GOP giving new meaning to 'The Party of No' every day."

A more substantive point was made by Dave Weigel over at the Washington Independent: "...there is a strong case to be made that it's on foreign policy and civil liberties issues that the Obama administration has been most disappointing to the left and most encouraging to neoconservatives."

That's the thing: Cheney has basically spent the year pointlessly whining and carping about policy differences that have more or less failed to materialize. Naturally, I'm assuming that it was the high quality of the whining and carping that put Cheney so high in Bolton's estimation.

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