The same old story happens again and again. Dems in the House pass reasonable legislation, and Senate Dems dicker with centrists and Republicans over "compromises," weakening the legislation step by step over many weeks, only to find zero Republican support in the end.

The public has no idea what is going on, and just blames Democrats, who appear to be in charge in DC. Now it is happening gain with vital public spending for national economy recovery -- state aid, unemployment relief, and adjustments in taxes and Medicare payments. This legislation is not just important to this or that group. It matters for keeping any semblance of national economic growth going, for creating and saving hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The President, Congressional leaders, and Democrats of all stripes should be yelling day in, day out, that REPUBLICANS ARE SABOTAGING NATIONAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY. AND PREVENTING JOB GROWTH, JUST FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. That should be the message all the time, led by the President. Stop the murky compromises and the whining about "helping the unemployed." Stop pretending this is about the deficit -- nothing will hurt the deficit more than delayed economic growth. Say what it happening in terms of the national interest.

Republicans are not "compassionate" toward the unemployed, complain Democrats and bloggers. Sorry, folks, that is not what is happening here.

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My most recent entry ended up with the extension cut off. Here is more of what I have to say, provoked by the senseless hysteria among liberal commentators, led by MSNBC and HuffPost.

Many liberal pundits are making absolute fools of themselves bashing Obama over the Gulf spill. They are just emoting and have no solutions anyone could try. There is no easy out on this, and the patience to build and support adequate government oversight of industries is the key here, as in many other areas.

It is not just right-wing government bashers and wealthy corrupters who have destroyed the nation's capacity for governmental decision-making. It is also
short-sighted liberalism that tries to turn everything into a personal crisis, and assumes that presidents are omnipotent commanders. Since the 1970s, liberalism has emphasized rights, identity politics, and action through courts or presidential orders. It has neglected the patient business of building government and creating enduring majorities through Congress.

In this case, it is simple. If liberals do not support Obama and the Democrats for the next two election cycles, a rabid Right will be back in control, and America will devolve further into ineffective gridlock and rising inequality. Even the gains that have been made so far, a pretty good health reform, student loan reforms, improved financial regulations, and so forth, will quickly be weakened and reversed if the Republicans regain Congress and the presidency. Liberals right now should not be joining in Obama bashing on the oil spill. They should be focused on Republican blame and hypocrisy -- and should pressure the Senate to vote for good energy legislation.

There is nothing in this oil crisis in an already oil-soaked region that should prompt liberals to turn against Obama. This crisis was caused by the decades-old oil regime and the evisceration of government by "conservatives" and conservaDems. Bashing
a moderate liberal President who is trying to turn things around, but needs time and patient support, is just plain self-defeating for liberals. People seem to imagine that Obama could somehow "order" a new environmental/energy policy or wave a
wand and clean up the already-dirty Gulf. They are dreaming -- and their childish thrashing based on these dreams is undermining a valuable opening in U.S. politics.

As for last night's address, it was ok, not great, but there was little more to be said, and I am not sure it should even have
been said from the Oval Office. Today's major victory -- forcing BP to contribute $20B to an escrow fund -- is a much more important step.

President Obama gave a reasonable speech from the Oval Office last night, outlining specific steps his administration has taken and will take to hold BP accountable for stopping the oil spill and paying the full costs of cleanup and economic restitution. More important, he explained how he would toughen regulation going forward and outlined goals for Congressional action this year on clean energy legislation. It was a good enough speech about an impossible situation -- a situation for which Obama is in no way to blame. The BP oil spill disaster is a direct result of decades of eviscertation of federal oversight of a wealth, rapacious industry. This is one of many examples of a failure of democratic government that Obama is struggling to correct -- and for which he needs patient, sustained support from Americans, especially liberals.

March 21, 2010, the first day of spring, was momentus for U.S. social provision -- a junture like the enactment of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965. Ending a bitter winter of discouragement, Democrats used their momentarily large Congressional majorities to put the nation on a better path in health care policy and politics. The job is not done; new struggles are coming, and it will take one to two decades to realize the promise of affordable, quality health insurance for all Americans. But this is a huge fork in the road, shifting anti-government right-wingers onto the defense, and putting progressives in a position to argue for ever-more-effective regulation, improved subsidies for the less-well-to-do, and expanded public health programs ("Medicare for More and More").

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the greatest heroine here; and President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid also deserve major credit. Regular Democrats like many of us who read this blog made a big difference, too: after the Scott Brown debacle, we told our elected Representatives in no uncertain terms that they would not have our further support if they did not "pass the damn bill." You can be sure they heard us. For once, the Democratic Party base refused to accept passive fraidy-cat-ism in the face of a setback. Use your power or we don't much care if you lose it, we told the Congressional Democrats and the Obama White House.

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As we wait to find out if the Democratic Party will round up enough votes to pass health reform, proving they can deliver on a priority they have declared for more than half a century, much of the media focus is on House members from swing districts who face tough re-election battles. But here is an even greater puzzler: Why are Democratic committee chairs in the House, members of the leadership, allowed to vote against this key priority and keep their posts?

Reportedly, Ike Shelton (D-MO) and Collin Peterson (D-MN) are firm "no" votes, and other committee chairs are wavering. Agriculture Committee Chair Peterson, in particular, presides over huge patronage decisions -- why in the world should he be allowed to retain his chairmanship if he opposes health reform?

Can anyone picture the Republican Party putting up with such perfidy in its leadership? Win or lose on this huge vote, this has to change: Democratic members of the House of Representatives may be able to vote as they please. But no one who opposes a major party priority in a key vote of this magnitude should remain in leadership positions, or expect to achieve such a position in the future! Democrats need to get their act together.

The next two to three weeks will determine whether the United States gets on a better track toward including all citizens in health coverage and controlling costs in the public interest. This is NOT the moment for Democrats to posture and bargain -- remember, this is in part what lost us MA, that mess in the Senate over the Cornhusker Kickback and other unseemly deals. Scott Brown made use of these deals -- he pointed to Democratic dysfunctionality. Speed and simplicity are crucial right now, as Obama and the House and Senate leaders put together what they must to get this done. This is a time for the Indians to listen to the Chiefs.

At the risk of irritating people on the left, this is NOT the moment for "progressives" to demand a public option. Nor is it the moment for either pro-choice feminists or pro-life Democrats to derail reform.

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As comprehensive health reform slowly dies inside the five yard line, Democrats in DC are at the fingerpointing stage: House Dems blame Senate Dems and vice versa. Obama is giving nice speeches, a cross between Carter preachiness and Clinton anti-Congress triangulation, trying to convince us all that he is "still fighting for health reform" and -- the real subtext -- that Congress, not he, will be to blame when it stalls and dies.

None of us in the center-left community should buy this. Obama will be held responsible by history, and he should be held responsible by all of us right now, if he does not get comprehensive health legislation done with huge Democratic margins in both houses and a bill pending that has passed the obstructionist Senate.

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Last Tuesday in MA, Obama and the Democrats suffered a setback -- and ever since they have run around like chickens with their heads cut off turning it into a rout. We learn that Obama will probably downplay health reform in the State of the Union address, engage in unconvincing rhetoric against bankers, and endorse a deficit-cutting commission to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare. All in the name of empty "populism" without any payoff for actual people.

Letting comprehensive health reform die is the chief symptom of preemptive capitulation. Obama and the DC party have spent a year on this, and now Obama is pretending it is not his issue, even as Congressional Democrats are dissolve into House versus Senate quarrels.

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My husband Bill and I were at our Cambridge polling place at 7am this morning, as a steady stream of voters marked the simple ballot. People at this solidly Dem precinct had determination on their faces, but the mood was as somber as this gray, snowy day at one of the downest times of the year, with holidays and Patriots both done. Coakley has little enthusiasm on her side -- Brown supporters were waving signs in the street even in liberal Brookline yesterday. It will be miraculous if she eeks out a win, and it is very possible she will go down to resounding defeat.

The national media will be full of doom for Obama, Democrats, and health care reform, and this is a moment to see what Democrats are made of. Defeat or minisucle victory in today's Massachusettes Senate election, etiher one, brings Democrats to a moment of truth. They must come out fighting, bold and more unified if they -- and the country -- are to stave off the disaster of a failed presidency. A loss of momentum, a descent into timidity in the White House and gridlocked division and Congress, will mean the end of Democratic fortunes for many years, and further sentence America to decline and right-wing extremism. To avoid that, here are the steps forward:

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The 2009 health reform end game -- yes, the end of the beginning is in sight -- has been excruciating for progressives. Reforming health care in the real world in which we live means paying to include millions more Americans while fending off all of the tricks America's privileged, left and right, use to resist paying taxes; and it means finding ways to use public regulations and subsidies to put health delivery and finance on a more sustainable path for us all, while watching key mechanisms like the public option shrink and disappear to buy the votes of a few weasly "Democrats" in Congress who want to guarantee profits for private insurers.

Understandably, some progressives see what's left at the end of these struggles as not worth their support. But history tells us this is mistaken. We should take the many big steps forward that are on the table now -- above all the expanded entitlement, the regulations of private insurance, and the increased subsidies for the less fortunate -- and accept that true "health care reform" remains a multi-year, multi-election struggle. Social Security took several decades to become universal and adequate; Medicare did not include cost controls or key benefits for many years. Both programs moreover, had to be improved and defended at the same time, because conservatives attacked and tried to dismantle, even as liberals fought to improve and expand. The same will happen here.

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I hope there is no truth in the reports that the White House is telling Reid it will not help cement the 60 votes for an up or down decision on a Senate bill with the opt-out public option -- Option Squared we might call it. This is the least Obama can do -- stand firmly behind this compromise. He and Emmanuel need to cajole and bargain and speak up to get this done!

If Obama's White House does not come through, progressives should let him understand that we will have little enthusiasm for him and for Democrats going forward. It is not just Congress that has skin in this game -- so does Obama for 2012 and for all his policy decisions going forward. Many of us on the moderate left have put up with a lot of wavering and disappointing decisions from him. We won't accept a betrayal of even Harry Reid (!) on the last reasonable prospect for a public option in health care reform. Indeed, we will not accept anything less than enthusiastic mobilization for this public option.

Get off the dime, Obama! Tell your weak-kneed Clinton advisors to stop signalling cave-ins or "I told you sos" that will just encourage backsliding in the Senate. Back up the Democrats in making something of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in heath care reform. If you want continued support with other steps toward middle-muddling-caution, this is the price: get a decent health reform law signed into law. Otherwise, face fired up Republicans versus tepid and disillusioned Democrats. You will not like the result.

The 2009 battle over health care reform is soon going to come to a head in national debates and legislative specifics. President Obama will re-set the agenda when he speaks to Congress, and in all likelihood sheer survival instincts will prompt Democrats in both House and Senate to generate some legislation that can be taken to conference and finally signed by the President. For progressives, it is already clear that the final result, if anything at all, will be much less than we hoped -- and perhaps much less than might have been possible if this battle had been better waged from the grass roots to the White House.

But that is the way it always is: there are compromises and half-measures in the end. The issue for progressives right now is how can we push for compromises that open doors politically, that promise to get all Americans covered somehow and spur interest groups in the future to work for shared arrangements that can manage costs.

Rather than remain fixated on one mechanism -- the "public option," make or break -- progressives need to be clear about principles for weighing trade-offs and compromises. And we need to think about how future developments might unfold from half-steps taken now. This kind of over-time thinking is tough in a 24-hour news/blog cycle and in an atmosphere where ephemeral polls are given too much weight. But it is vital,

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Fellow Americans, and fellow Democrats and Obama supporters, we are at a moment of truth, a pivotal turning point -- in the form of what happens in the next days and weeks with robust, universal health reform. A fork in the road socially, economically -- and politically. It could go either way depending on Obama and the Democratic officeholders many of us worked so hard to elect. They have the power to act, but will they use it -- or lose it?

If at this remarkable juncture Obama and the Democrats cannot enact a robust health care reform -- with a strong nationwide public option, cost controls, and nearly universal coverage -- I would not want to be in charge of fundraising and mobilization for them in the 2010 and 2012 elections! Most of us who supported them last time will of course not vote for a Republican.. But if Obama and the Democrats cannot act now on a once in a half century challenge and opportunity, they are not worthy of extra energy. And those of us who wrote big checks last time will tell the Democrats -- especially in the Senate -- to hold pharmaceutical fundraisers instead.

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The sight of this new President before all of assmbled official Washington is, in its way, as extraordinary as the other standout moments of this past half year: Denver in Mile High; election night in Grant Park; the DC Inaugural. All of those showed Obama directly amidst throngs of the American people, yet even here, amidst the new official Washington, he speaks to -- and for -- the citizenry. Repeatedly in this speech, Obama presented himself as fighting for a people of goodness and resolve -- for a better, shared future for all Americans. This is a very effective way for him to marginalize political enemies and call elites as well as regular citizens to greater personal and social responsibility.

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After months on the campaign trail, newly inaugurated President Obama may have hoped to work from home, govern from the White House and spend every evening with his kids.  Fuhgetaboudit.  After just a few weeks it is obvious that Obama and associates in the White House and the Cabinet have to keep traveling around the country, with the President himself going out of almost every week like a medieval king in the preabsolutist era making a "progress" from region to region.  The United States is in crisis while DC talking heads remain as irresponsible and out of touch as ever; they are like the aristocrats of Old Regime France well after the revolution had started.  To escape the aristocratic death grip, Obama must do all kinds of outreach -- including to Republicans with real world responsibilities -- in the states and cities across the country that are grappling with the concrete human and business realities of this gathering depression, as well as living out the consequences of the terrible policies of the past several decades.

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