Will he get credit for passing a good bill?

If Obama gets a bill passed, I assure you that many on the Left will not think it's a good bill, even if it has a public option.

If they do think it's a good bill he won't get credit for it. The story will be that Obama dithered, waffled and almost sold them out until his base rose up and "made him do it".

My question is will Rahm get the credit if we get a good health care bill? I've seen lots of comments blaming Rahm for Obama's decisions. So will Rahm get the praise if Obama wins this?

In any case, I completely agree with your post.

I agree with your general sentiment, but is there any reason that the President of the United States, who won with a joyful mandate for CHANGE, is there a reason he cannot take the Blue Dogs into a room and tell them that all the $$$$$$ that they are getting from insurance companies don't mean anything if they are defeated next time?

Give the US a health care system that helps all its citizens (with ZERO republican votes) and just TRY defeating Democrats for the next couple of decades.

We all know that Baucus and Ken Conrad et al, are bought and paid for. Who do they think they are kidding?

Obama should go for broke over this. Is he afraid of losing Big Insurance? Big Pharma? Did he forget who elected him with millions of $20 donations?

Come on, David Kurtz has the right to crack wise every now and then. I think you're being a little hypersensitive to Obama jokes. It's okay, the big guy in D.C. can take it.

And... um... progressives do have a legitimate beef with him on some issues.

PS. On second thought you are right... At least they redeemed themselves later with this gripping commentary on the evils of the system...

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/digital-short-on-the-ground/1163292

Didn't they.

I know I have said this a hundred times but jobs are the most important thing to our economy. With the rest of the industrialized world doing healthcare via a centrally managed scheme we are screwed on a competitive basis if we can't cut our healthcare cost differential. That pretty much means single payer just like our competition to get us on par with their costs.

For years now the mantra out of Washington has been free trade. From the U.S. perspective that works just fine. But only if we rearrange our economy so we can compete on cost. That means we have to rethink our entire economic framework. That has been ongoing on the wage side already but on the profit side we haven't done a thing and in fact have gone the opposite way. Nor has there been the slightest willingness on the tax side to invest in our public infrastructure to gain the necessary systemic efficiencies in transport, communication or energy.

Healthcare is important but it's only one piece of this puzzle. If jobs are ever coming back we have to assess all our costs and make the necessary investment in every area. Because of our circumstances that means some cutting into profits for a period while we remake the country. I don't see we have a choice in this. We can bite the bullett or be really screwed.

Congress and Wall Street are fixated on the next quarter profits but they need to be looking at the longer term. They should be looking at writing down the mortgage losses to free up capital to finance our future. It'll hurt for a while but we have no way out of the mess they made otherwise. We have urgent capital requirements that can't wait for the six or eight years it'll take on the slow boat (to China). We were already marking time with Bush for eight years. If we continue that way we'll be two decades of standing still while everyone else is moving at light speed. Without a doubt that is the really screwed scenario I referred to above.

Obama is gaining in inches, not big steps. So it's not easy to see his progress unless one is willing to go back and re-live the Bush/Cheney Regime's abusive tenure. It is curious that there are few Obama-bots as there were Zom-Bushes. I think that is a good thing. We were not served by the unquestioned loyalty of the Zom-Bushes in any way, shape or form. So why we would seek to replicate that is beyond me. He remains stable, and perhaps that is the best we can hope to have as we dig our way, y inches, out of the crater left when Dick, Dubya, and the Zom-Bushes blew up this democracy.