The word is that the Senate version of the healthcare reform bill will have the public option, but only if Barack Obama actually asks for it:
There is a growing sense on Capitol Hill that the White House’s refusal to weigh in more forcefully in the health care debate could come at the cost of a public option for insurance coverage.
Democratic aides said that a “handful” of senators who are skeptical of a public plan likely could be persuaded if not to support it then at least to oppose a Republican filibuster, if the administration were to apply a bit more pressure — or even guidance.
(emphasis mine)
Barack Obama has two problems here:
- He is desperate to sign something, anything, as in keep him away from toilet paper, into law that he can call “healthcare reform”.
- He still wants everyone, including the Republicans, to like him.
So he is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory because he does not have the guts to even try to win, even though it appears that Harry Reid is pretty much begging him for some backup on the public option.
I know that it is only 9 months into his term, but it’s already screaming “1 term wonder” in my ear.
I hope you are wrong. The swipe at FOX was-I think-to stir things up and unleash others to continue to expose Fox.
He seems to be moving on speaking forcefully about the bankers and others.
I'm hoping that he will go around blasting blasting various other cretins, like those on Wall Street, in a general campaign to weaken the GOP and conservative Blue Dogs.
If he ups the underlying resentment against the entire coterie of sleaze bags and then begins to focus his rhetoric on health care, he may actually get a public option in health care by undermining the conservatives in general.
I'm hoping that while doing this, he'll also be using Presidential Power to push the public option.
I'm hoping he's been husbanding his ammunition until now.
Maybe I'm simple minded or too innocent, but it seems likely to me that lessons learned by FDR and LBJ are being used here.
I simply don't believe in "12 dimensional chess", and Occam's razor applies.
I'm not sure what "12 dimensional chess" has to do with old time political maneuvering.
Maybe I've seen too much New York and Boston politics.
However, he's going around smacking those that have needed smacking for quite some time now.
He's free now that we're past the Baucas blockade, and he seems to be finally going on some offense encouraging the surrogates on these issues to go on the attack.
This is not as aggressive as I think he should be, nor do I think he should get bogged down on any one of these-especially Fox "news."
After signaling that it's time for the base to go on full attack, he should turn most of it over to surrogates and focus on health care.
He should let loose the troops on all these people in general, then focus his ire on the Health Insurance industry and the financial sector.
He may feel he's finally in the situation that he's forced to do what he wants to do. They've finally "made him" support the public option in FDR's construction.
Americans are not too ideological, but they like a fighter-especially if they think he's clearly on their side.
Is Obama actually working this way, I can't know for sure, but this strategy has played out successfully in the past.
Old Pinko
An addendum would be that we all must continue our efforts to "make him."
Old Pinko