Posted on 12/17/2009 12:02:00 PM PST by streetpreacher
In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests.
Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them.
Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform.”
“[A]s it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America,” Dean wrote, then took to the airwaves to amplify his case.
Ed Schultz, an influential liberal radio host, declared on his “Ed Show” on MSNBC: “The base is restless. They are wandering in the wilderness, Mr. President. … They want to know, where are you? … Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout — a corporate sellout, out that. … The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry — they get a bunch of new customers.”
Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, wrote on his Twitter feed: "Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate." And "Kos" blogged: "You pass a s——-y program now that further bankrupts our nation, and we won't be talking about 'fixing' it in a few years, but whether it should even exist."
With polls showing erosion in both Obama’s popularity and in support for health reform, the White House mobilized to try to tamp down the rebellion from such essential allies.
Senior adviser David Axelrod called in to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to argue that Dean’s criticisms are "predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions."
“To defeat a bill that will bend the curve on this inexorable rise in health-care costs is insane,” Axelrod said. "I think that would be a tragic, tragic outcome. I don’t think that you want this moment to pass. It will not come back."
Liberals contend that the bill has been watered down so much that Congress should kill it and start over. The White House warns that health reform could be doomed for the rest of this presidency, and probably beyond, if it falters now.
The attack from the left comes at a delicate juncture when a delay of more than a couple of days could sink any remaining chance that the Senate can pass it by Christmas. Senate Democrats are circulating a possible schedule that would have them taking the final vote on Christmas Day.
Right now, Democrats are at least two votes shy of the 60 they need to pass the bill, with liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) saying he has not committed to vote for the bill in its current form.
The other, moderate Sen. Ben. Nelson (D-Neb.), has a completely different set of concerns, saying he’s still looking at compromise language designed to bar federal funds from paying for abortion – though the National Right to Life Committee has said the proposal by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) is not acceptable.
But Obama’s problem now is on the left. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann told viewers Wednesday night that the Senate version has become “unsupportable … a hollow shell of a bill”: “This is not health, this is not care, this is certainly not reform.”
Pulling back the curtain on White House efforts to rein in Dean, Axelrod said the former governor “got on the phone with Nancy-Ann DeParle, our point person on the health care issue, [who] went through point by point.
“She explained why he was wrong,” Axelrod continued. “And he simply didn’t want to hear that critique. I saw his piece in The Post this morning, and it is predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions.”
Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, said on “Morning Joe” that business lobbyists “are winning” on a host of Washington issues, including health reform.
“There is no cost containment here,” she said. “Reconciliation [a Democrats-only strategy requiring only 51 votes] is a very pragmatic alternative.”
Asked if she would enthusiastically support Obama for reelection, Huffington replied: “This is not really the question. … Depends on the alternative. … The American middle class was let down. … Can you really say this White House is on the side of the American people?”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) accused the Democrats Thursday of abandoning the goal of true reform to the political imperative of simply passing any bill they can label health reform.
“It's now an effort by a political party to protect itself. They're in a political panic, quite frankly,” Graham told reporters. “Nobody really cares what it is anymore as long as they can get it passed, signed, and claim a political victory. That is going to do a lot of damage to long-term health care reform efforts. And I would urge them not to do this. They're walking off a cliff.”
Peggy Noonan, the columnist and former Reagan speechwriter, told Axelrod on “Morning Joe”: “On the issue of health care, you are losing the left, you are losing the right, you are losing the center. That looks to me like a political disaster.”
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
The left does not understand that its only purpose is to keep the Slave Party in power, so that they can bring in the money handing out favors to fat cats. Fools.
Yeah, this is Fun. But it also shows that our government is broken. This piece of legislation was a turd and needed to be flushed. Great, glad to see it happen.
Now, let’s tackle:
Our porous borders (don’t call it “immigration”);
The undfunded liability time bomb;
The decay of American manufacturing;
ACORN financing;
Government spending;
Term limits;
Go ahead and pick your important issue, there are a bunch of them. I picked mine. Guess what? With the chaotic fractured government we have now, any attempt to address these issues legislatively in a positive manner is doomed to the same frustrating failure the left is going through right now with socialized health care. While in the present case we applaud that it’s a good thing, the problem is that the things government needs to do won’t get done either.
I tell ya, the whole federal system is bloated, rotten, corrupt and broken. And those are it’s good points.
Hennie come on now
Can’t you tell that its the same three Air America listeners calling in again and again and using different voices?
This is Norm from Norman
This is Achmed from Toledo
This is Hazel from Intercourse PA.
You have to love it when the Commies start to eat their own!
Now if Obama were an alpha male Bolshevik like Stalin, the left opposition would be quickly purged from the party and sent to Siberia, but being a little wimp beta male coward not even the members of his own Democommie Party are the least bit afraid to oppose Dear Leader.
Meanwhile, in the dark snowy forests the Republican Cossacks take the measure of the man...and lay plans.
How do you not go off your food? Carry on. Reports are appreciated.
Yes. If your enemy is a collectivist commie, it's good if he's also politically incompetent.
It’s beginning to feel like the winter of 1774 complete with Minutemen, Tea Parties and a Continental Congress.
We know happans in the spring on April 19, 1775...
Yup. Nothing like an incompetent collectivist!
Hmmm? In terms of the American Revolution, King George III has lost the support of the Whig Party in Parliament, although Howard Dean does a lousy impression of Edmund Burke.
They are playing us. This is nothing but a desperate tactic.
This is an attempt to triangulate and make bammy look centrist. The leftards are playing this charade for the independents. Remember, this is exactly what Clinton did when he hit his clintoncare iceberg. Don’t believe a word of it. Bammy is as Red as old Joe Stalin. Unlike Stalin, bammy is an import. Buy American next time America!!!
sorry Dimmies, once you go Barack, you can’t go back
Obama will do something desperate.
This is a good and accurate article and thanks for posting but where does Drudge have that headline up?
Are the DUmmies caving on their false messiah as well?
Someone go post this at DU maybe they will wake up too.
Some of them have finally noticed that it will bankrupt the nation? But not when it had everything they wanted in it? Talk about selective reasoning.
I never thought I would live to see the day.
A quote from DU.
The left is convinced that Obama is a sellout and the right is convinced that Obama is a marxist,
In the world of politics, we’re all bellied up to the bar of insanity and drinking deeply.
Is it that Democrats see the destruction of our nation on the horizon, and ALSO want no part of it, or is something else going on?
Throw Obama under the bus?
Now where would the little donkeys get an idea like that?
We need to start spreading the rumors that Obama is a Republican Trojan Horse with the goal of destroying the democrat party and the left from within :)
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