"After I listened to a few angry town-hall meetings on the radio, the situation was clear to me. Democrats had to meet this pseudo-populist challenge by rolling out the real thing, the New Deal vision that is their party's raison d'être."

"Maybe Democrats are afraid it will hurt their standing with those generous fellows on K Street if they channel Harry Truman and say what needs to be said: That government can be made to work for average people. But it will hurt even worse if they refuse to say it."

Isn't it interesting that the same Republicans who pushed through both a massive unfunded tax cut in 2001 and the costly Iraq war (also not included in the annual budget for 6 years) will not support health care reform that covers all Americans? If they don't value public health care plans, why don't they resign en masse from their Federal health plans, from Medicare, and from the VA benefits that some of them are participating in?

I think that arch-conservative Winston Churchill was right in his view of state-funded national health care in Great Britain:

"The discoveries of healing science must be the inheritance of all. That is clear. Disease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman simply on the ground that it is the enemy; and it must be attacked just in the same way as the fire brigade will give its full assistance to the humblest cottage as readily as to the most important mansion. Our policy is to create a national health service in order to ensure that everybody in the country, irrespective of means, age, sex, or occupation, shall have equal opportunities to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available."

I'm an Obama supporter who worked for him long and hard in 08. Now Democrats are trying to mount effective campaigns here in SC for Governor (held by Sanford) and Senate (Demint) in 2010. And thats where I get off the bus. I will not support Corporate-dominated Republican-lite Democrats with my volunteer time or money.

Yes, its a litmus test. And its such an important issue, that I would rather vote for a Republican if she or he promised true health care reform after another failed Democratic effort. Some Republican politician somewhere might figure out that it will take a Republican (aka Nixon goes to China) to take on the corporate health care and insurance industry and achieve true change. Whats truly discouraging is that all of Obama's personal tales of the broken health care system may have been campaign rhetoric. I see no sign of a President's realistic understanding of how insurance companies, health care system game the system and will continue to do so unless confronted by true competition.

As far as Geithner is concerned, he played a key role in initiating the bailouts of Fall 2008, working closely with the Bush administration. So with Bernanke heading the Federal Reserve and Geithner as Sec. of Treasury, we have two men who were key factors in developing the disastrous polices from 1999 to 2008. This does not seem like real change. Unless President Obama changes course pretty quickly, he's going to be led off the cliff by his own economic advisors.

Actually, the lesson could be, "makes you not want to go along for a million dollar a year joy ride with the first corporate bazillionaire who comes along" three seconds after you leave your Senate Majority leader post.

Agree with the previous posters who bemoan the classic insider gossip-mongering of Cooper. Is this really what TPM has come to-- "Who's in, who's out, what the real behind the scenes story is!" --without discussing the propriety of Daschle leaving the Senate and literally a day later, signing on for a car and driver and a million bucks a year for duties which included....what? That's what I'd be interested in reading about.