Could They Be That Smart?
Okay, for anyone who hasn't been on top of the last two thousand or so one minute Internet news cycles, the long-dreaded, much anticipated sell out occurred. Obama sold out all of us who worked so hard for him to the insurance companies or the Republicans or possibly the people who make Vicks Vaporub or something. And we're all just really, really mad about it. Not me, 'cause I'm too emotionally drained from my three days of being mad at John Mackey, but as soon as I recharge my anger batteries, I'll be mad too, unless, as seems to happen from time to time, whatever it is we're mad about turns out not to have been true.
That's the difference between us and the Republicans. When we find out what we were mad about wasn't true, we stop being mad about it and move on to the next thing. Republicans, by contrast, never let the mere fact that the thing they were mad about was a lie get in the way of keeping a good rage going. On the contrary, truth can never be bad enough to work up the kind of all-consuming rage that it takes to be a Republican these days.
Anyhoo, just to recap, on Sunday, Secretary Sebelius dropped some broad hints--immediately seized upon by our ever professional political press as THE only thing she said on Sunday of any consequence--that the Administration might be willing to sign a bill without a publically run insurance company as long as there's some equivilent mechanism that provides real competition for the insurance companies which, she was too polite to mention, are essentially participants in a rather massive tacit monopolistic conspiracy. Meanwhile Conrad went on Fox and blathered the same crap he's been blathering for a couple or three weeks now about the votes not being there for the public option.
Immediately, "progressives" threw a big Intertubes hissy that's gone on for better than a thousand news cycles now.
However, being, as I mentioned, fortuitiously too tired of being mad to get mad for some whole other reason, I noticed something kind of interesting.
On Sunday, Sebelius broadly hints that we might give up on the public option to get Republicans on board and today, less than 1700 news cycles later, the RNC comes out and says no, even that's not enough--your "co-ops" reek of competition for the insurers which, being free market purists, we will resist to the the last bullet. Which, you may have noticed, is not necessarily a metaphor with us these days.
And that's when I started wondering. Is this what Obama and Emmanuel and the other smart folks in the White House were after all along? Did they cook this entire thing up to smoke out the Republicans, call their bluff? Was the entire purpose of the exercise to provoke Republicans into admitting that even if Democrats get onboard with Kent and Max's excellent adventures in bipartisanship and give away the whole deal in return for a J.C. Penney give card with $24 left on it and a piece of slightly used gum that Grassley scraped off the bottom of the conference table, they're still not going to vote for it?
In short, did they send Sebelius out to reenact the Munich Pact (or possibly the Vichy governent or Tokyo Rose--Republicans are so much better with these half-literate historical comparisons than we are) in order to provoke a response from the Republicans that would force Conrad, Baucus, Nelson, Landrieu and the House Blue Dogs to face up to reality? Specifically, to the reality that they're just jerking off, that there is no deal to be had that gets them what they most crave--Republican cover to protect them from attacks from the right next time they're up for reelection. And that they're going to have to man (or woman) up and pick a side, at least to the extent of voting on the cloture motion.
Could they really be that smart that they could predict the Republican response to offers of giving up on the public option?
And the answer, my answer, at least, is I just don't know. I don't even know enough to have an opinion. I'm honestly not even hazarding a guess. No one ever accused me of being less than a full on supporter of Obama, but even I am not prepared to claim they're that smart. They're scary smart, but smart enought to foresee the Republican response with sufficient certainty to go ahead and provoke yet another liberal snitstorm to do it? They have better info than we do. They've got more political skills than any White House team in decades. But I still don't know.
What I do know is this. Stuff like this keeps happening to them. Time and again during the campaign and throughout his presidency, they've done stuff that seems inexplicable, wrong or ill-advised, or even a Betrayal of All For Which We Worked so Hard for and Gave so Much, and a few days or weeks later, it turns out to have been exactly the right thing to do despite the fact that it made those of us who already supported them all sweaty and angry.
If you play cards, sometimes you run into someone who you think is a lucky fool, but who keeps leaving with your money in his pocket. At a certain point, you are compelled to stop attributing it to luck and play pots against such people on the assumption that they know what they're doing. But I've also found that when when people are inclined to attibute awe-inspiring skill to me for a play that was really just blind luck, it's best to just let them do it. And in any case, it's not clear where luck ends and skill begins because most of the time "luck" is what happens to people who maximize their opponents' opportunities to make mistakes. And whether they herded the RNC into this or whether they just got lucky, the fact remains that this snide press release was a huge mistake.
I think many of us are forgetting about those bullets---Obama is keeping things as cool as possible, given that (as Frank Rich has pointed out) there are a bunch of volk that are having trouble keeping their heads from exploding because of a schwarze in the Weisse Haus. It is definitely not indicated right now for the First Dude to make a heroic stand. I'd like him to be around a bit longer.
Obama also knows it's not just him; the polarization is dangerous, sounding like the socialism charges of Kennedy years, with renewed racism thrown in.
August 17, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good to see you, Tom...
August 17, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steve, I had to check to see if I had written this...(LOL!)
August 17, 2009 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Were they this smart when they didn't include foreclosure cramdowns as part of the stimulus package and promised to do it separately. The banks are again raking in the dough and even more homeowners are being foreclosed upon. I can't take much more of that brilliant strategery.
The GOP is kicking his ass in the Health Care PR war & the progressives are demoralized by his lack of leadership in saying he will not sign a bill without a public option. Who cares about checkers or chess? Healthcare reform is not a game. Obama needs to stop screwing around and lead.
August 17, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes leading means taking the longview and letting your enemies over extend themselves. This whole debate will be changing soon just like the weather.
August 17, 2009 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean like Young Frankenstein, "Could be worse, could be raining"?
August 18, 2009 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Think Blazing Saddles when they build a fake town overnight and then lure Hedly Lamar's goons into attacking the potemkin village.
This is a pretty stupid argument this country is having right now. Republicans attack our plans as "socialism" and "government takeover" when in fact it'll open up the rigged monopoly health insurance system and make it a real free market (like say car insurance?) and rein provider costs by paying for what works instead of what is just most expensive.
In response what do we do? Defend Canadian government run health insurance and UK socialist government run hospital systems which are nothing like the plans that are proposed.
August 18, 2009 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
A free market, in the liberalist sense, is conducive to monopolies, oligopolies and trusts. It is not some mythical candyland.
August 18, 2009 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly right. This is the core problem with the democratic positioning on reform.
August 18, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
We know that the current public plan, Medicare spends three times for a patient in Miami what it spends on a patient in Portland. This has to do with the way health care is delivered in those two places, not in the type of insurance people have.
We know that certain integrated hospital systems and multi-specialty group practices that deliver organized, evidence based care do so at much lower costs and higher quality than your average health care provider. If we used the current system of regulation, and the payment incentives in Medicare to push the rest of the country in that direction we would have solved most of our problems.
The "public option" is no more absolutely indispensable than is tort reform, and yet each hold sway over left and right respectively that is more akin to religious dogma than a concern with providing high quality affordable health care to the whole country.
Reorganizing the health care system using the proven models of the "islands of excellence" , rather than carrying on about the nature of the insurance system should be something that the entire country should be able to get behind (although, weirdly, there are people who argue vociferously against developing the scientific evidence necessary to understand what constitutes the best possible care).
Instead we are left with all this heat and too little light.
August 18, 2009 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Based on no evidence whatsoever :) I'm willing to bet that the difference between Medicare costs in Portland and Miami can be attributed more to healthier lifestyles and younger patients in Portland along with a more preventative approach there. As we know, terminal, end-of-life patients account for a large percentage of HC costs. Medicare is nationally regulated though it does negotiate prices regionally, so that may be a determinate, but how does Medicare compare to private insurance in those places? This is not to say that Medicare isn't in need of some reform and can't be improved. But a strong public option, in lieu of single payer, will incentivize lowering adminsitrative, unnecessary costs (in many forms) and excessive profits.
August 18, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm, your winning hand is a few cards short. Apparently if we have a cluster of docs who specialize in back surgeries, then, by gum, the elderly in that area get a much larger number of back surgeries. BTW, the back surgeries either result in "same", "slightly worse", and around 10-20% slightly better. So does one have the surgery or take pain meds, apply the heating pad, and wait a week?
This is what happens when one pays money for a particular service (back surgery)....we get doctors who perform them and (believing these same docs trustworthy, honest and otherwise godlike) get paid for them. Funny how if one gets paid for something and is in an area with a lot of trusting folk like our elderly tend to be.......then these same elderly listen to these standup docs (who after all are godlike) and have the surgery.
August 18, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, cube, I don't disagree that the problems you've laid out exist. But this is also true for insuarance and HMO's. There is one neurosurgeon serving our area. I was told years by him years ago that surgery for a ruptured and two other damaged discs wee about what you say (may help, may not and more remote could make things worse). It didn't matter anyway, I could not afford the deductibles and co-pays and hidden charges that I received just from steroid injections by my gouging insurance co (who was no worse, actually better, than the four other insurers we've had since then).
Of course, the inverse, denying needed treatment, is rampant with insurance cos. Fraud is a big problem in all types of health care coverage. Outright fraud, billing for things that didn't take place or over-billing almost everything, probably dwarfs doctors' recommendations for unnecessary surgery.
As I said, a large portion of HC costs go to end-of-life care. Do you think some Drs. or hospitals are milking those treatments? Is back surgery that may help more indicated than keeping someone alive on a machine (for years, perhaps) that has no chance of recovery and has no quality of life? I'm not making an argument either way, but it is a discussion that should be had, regardless of boo! terms like "death panels."
Your deal.
August 18, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly...cut 'em off at the pass. Maybe they wanted to see the cards the Republicans would play. There are trial balloons floating all around this issue.
Oh, I forgot that Harvey Korman's character hated that phrase. I love Blazing Saddles. Brilliant, just brilliant!
August 18, 2009 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Depending on which issue you are discussing - while we wait for the enemies to "overextend" ... real Americans are being tossed into the streets. The long view in this respect says sooner or later all Americans will be homeless and the banks will have used the taxpayer funded bailout to consolidate ownership of the majority of residential property in America. Wait long enough to enact a truly progressive solution and the problems sort of solve themselves, eh?
August 18, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do not underestimate Obama. He lets the other side put all their cards on the table, then plays his. Been like this since he entered the primary.
That's Chicago style, baby.
August 18, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the input. Most of the countries exposure to President Obama is limited, mine is more so having only returned to the country last year.
If an honest man can reach the zenith of Chicago and Illinois politics it says a lot for his will to succeed in his endeavors.
August 18, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steve,
Thank you. After I regained some semblance of sanity (or not),I had these same thoughts but not with the depth and exquisite detail you posted.
Geez, I hope..............
I know he's that smart - and this does seem like something Rahm would rub his hands together and smirk with glee over - so, yeah, I can go there too.
Greatly appreciate and strongly rec'd!
August 17, 2009 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the risk of being a ditto-head....oh, shit, I already am.....Ditto.
August 17, 2009 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
An interesting read, Steve, thanks.
It's true that news cycles are now generated every nanosecond and each one has the potential to trigger massive convulsions in the blogosphere.
I don't think the recently publicized lack of backbone demonstrated by the administration regarding the public option is part of some brilliantly orchestrated plan, though.
Maybe that's just an exercise in intellectualizing.
August 18, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama had already floated the "no real public option" a week ago when he said it would be self-sustaining not federally funded (how's that for public?). Besides Sebelius, his spokes people reiterated the message (it's not "essential").
Obama says he has not really decided to drop it yet, but he he has already dropped it, stepped on its head and buried it by signaling congress he'd accept 'less than.' If anything saves it, it will be the fact that the Repubs and insurance lobbyists aren't thrilled with co-ops either.
Why is every 'bout-face by this administration painted as some kind of ingenious 3d chess or sly rope-a-dope? Perhaps the better question is who are the dopes being roped in (I’m thinking all of us out here in the nobody world)? And for those who suddenly believe the public option was just a little something extra, a few sprinkles on our cone, and not that big of a deal, what do we have without it? Look at the Kennedy-Kassenbaum Bill of ‘96- portability, no denial for pre-existing conditions (in most circumstances), computerization of records, simplifying administration, strict fraud and abuse controls, a pilot program for subsidizing the uninsured, medical savings accounts and tax breaks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Sound familiar? But (from the radical leftist WaPo):
August 18, 2009 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is every 'bout-face by this administration painted as some kind of ingenious 3d chess or sly rope-a-dope?
Two answers to this question. The "every" part of your question is the result of selective perception on your part. As to why some about-faces are "painted" as "3d chess," the answer would be "because many time, that's turned out to be the case."
As long as we're asking questions based on selective perception, however, I could ask "why is every tactical feint, adjustment or headfake by this administration treated as the greatest betrayal since Judas kissed Jesus?" Or, here's one: "why is every suggestion that there may be more going on than those who are emotionally invested in seeing grave betrayals want to see gets dismissed with the snide, discussion killing '3d chess' cant?"
August 18, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
No you’re right, Steve, I should have said “many.” “Every” is one of those absolute terms, kind of like universal. I hear the WH now talking about “near universal” health care. Is that like being a little pregnant? You can attack my question as hysterical, but I’ve been hearing these same rationalizations since early in the campaign. Can you list those ‘many” instances where the administration was just playing rope-a-dope?
As far as the “discussion killing '3d chess' cant,” first, excuse me for thinking counterarguments were part of discussions, and second, I did a quick search here for Obama, 3d chess and rope-a-dope,. Maybe the search was flawed but I found only one comment - one of mine as it happens from a truthseeker77 blog in May. I’ll post it in full to show how “every suggestion that there may be more going on than those who are emotionally invested in seeing grave betrayals want to see gets dismissed with the snide, discussion killing '3d chess' cant?":
“I’ve liked Obama since his speech at the Kerry convention (he’s an impressive orator). He’s smart, eloquent, charming and, I believe, has his heart in the right place. He has poise as they say and always appears confident and strong, but is he?
When he ran for the nomination I read everything I could about him (not his books). What I noticed early on was that the higher he moved up in political stature, the more he played ball with the fat cats. He went from a progressive community activist who supported the Palestinians to assisting nuclear power corporations. He is, above all, a politician.
I understand that he wouldn’t be president if he didn't play the game, but instead of playing to the right and swinging to the left after election, he did the opposite (actually started after locking up the nomination). These are not just signals or feints, this is where he’s going; what he’s doing. There will not be a 180 turn around at some time in the future. He's not playing some ingenious 3D chess game. He’s not pulling a rope-a-dope. This is where he’s landed and where he’ll stay- that seems to be the way it works in politics.
But these are not times for compromise and conciliation. His economic bailout included some good things in the stimulus, but not near enough, while the bank bailout is going to throw tens of $trillions down a hole instead of reforming the system. Making the "banks" bigger instead of breaking them up is a hurt that will keep on hurting working people for decades to come.
I love the things like the recent rollback on the fraud and usury that is the credit card industry, the promise of a new green industry, rebuilding infrastructure, greater college assistance and revamping regulating agencies. OTOH, health care, transparency, revamping regressive taxation, cutting military, reversing globalization trends (outsourcing and in-sourcing), immigration reform and other noble ideas are being or likely will be compromised away.
We can hope that Obama is the exception and once established and strong enough will become a true “change” agent but the longer he burrows into the DC establishment, the more he winces every time someone impugns his toughness on security or the economy, the less chance of that change. This is not the time for capitulation to achieve modest gains but for revolution. If that sounds like shrill radical leftist nonsense as our media would have people believe, tell it to Thomas Jefferson and company.”
PS $Trillion giveaways to Wall St. and health care reform that won't reform heath care are betrayals. They have real effects on people's lives.
August 18, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! You did pin Mackey's ass to the wall in pretty spectacular fashion.
My theory is, they did it to get a reaction out of us.
Because, as everyone knows, Dems are afraid of guns and won't go near those damn town halls if there's a gun sighting within 500 miles.
So how to get the left to levitate with anger and loom larger than the craziest town hall free-for-all?
Take away the public option on the Sunday talk shows.
'Cause everyone knows that's where all Dems can be found on Sundays: watching TV and munching our spicy-tofu-and-smoky-bean-scramble breakfast burritos (in a low-carb wrap) from Whole Foods.
I don't think our theories are mutually exclusive, btw. But don't tell anyone about mine. ;-)
August 18, 2009 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think both you and Steve may be correct.
Since all we've been hearing is DEATH PANELS DEATH PANELS DEATH PANELS, perhaps the White House was seeking to judge the intensity of support for the public option.
August 18, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"They're scary smart, but smart enough to foresee the Republican response with sufficient certainty to go ahead and provoke yet another liberal snitstorm to do it?"
All parties involved in this "snitstorm" are very predictable. The Republicans have no interest in health care reform and are not going to vote for it no matter what. Obama knows this, always has.
Liberals have been demanding the public option since day one and have gotten riled up a hundred times before about any hints of the provision being dropped.
The media, always looking for what they call news, will cherry pick whatever they think will get a rise. Then other outlets will pick up the story and run with it without any original twist or thoughts on this "new" development.
So really, in my opinion, it's not about them being scary smart. They just know their targets very well. If indeed this was their plan all along then the best thing that came out of this is that the MSM is actually talking about the public option - something that's actually IN the bill. Not death panels.
If this was their plan all along, what's truly scary is how all parties were so easily manipulated. I can hear Rahm now.
August 18, 2009 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't really think it takes all that much smarts to know conservatives won't sign onto a deal, any deal, democrats might come up with. On principle, they just aren't going to do it.
Even though this places republicans and blue dogs in a very small box, they really don't care. They have but one very highly focused goal. They want Obama to fail. Nothing else matters and everything they have undertaken since election day confirms this. Plain and simple this is their reaction to the repudiation of republican control, the Bush presidency and of the country having unanimously elected a black man to replace Bush.
In the eyes of republicans they have suffered the ultimate insult and I don't expect they'll get over it soon. Maybe never. All the inexplicably nutty behavior comes down to this very simple idea. They seriously screwed the pooch for eight years and they just can't come to grips with that reality or with voters confirming it by holding them accountable. It sucks to be them.
August 18, 2009 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, they are not that smart.
What makes you think house and senate moderates actually want some competition-based cost-controls? I have seen none. The moderates are protecting their own state's local insurance monopoly-cum-cartel. See here for where that co-op idea came from:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/has_kent_conrad_solved_the_pub.html
On the face of it, this isn't a concession to republicans, it's a concession to moderates. And it's a concession that gives away everything insofar as cost-control measures are concerned. Is it perhaps some secret jedi trick to convince moderates that they actually want cost-controls despite themselves. So perhaps this administration is not just smart, but can do magic with the Force...
Could we just please cut out the 'He has a cunning plan' crap at this point...?
August 18, 2009 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your point might be better served by recalling that the "cunning plans" were always horrible.
At any rate, reading your argument gives me the distinct impression that you and NCSteve are, as it were, completely talking past eachother.
August 18, 2009 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans - The only people I know who would rather drown, than admit they are in water over their heads.
C
August 18, 2009 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
The weirdest thing, to me, is that politicians would be willing to go against a 65-75% popular support measure. Sure, there are the lobbyists and donors, but even the most blatantly corrupt congresspersons typically want the feigned cover of a closer split.
I am not sure how much smarts is really needed to know what the RNC will say at any given time; the "village", silly as it is, is an accurate moniker at times. The players are probably by and large aware of the level of posturing their rivals are engaged in and so on, making it easier to predict responses.
We here also tend to forget reality, amidst all the earth-shattering news and cyclopean tidal waves that every Republican talking point makes in the field of sheep that is the American Public, and the desperate defensive measures that must be undertaken to avoid the Democratic Party collapsing when the wave hits.
There is very little polling - and what little there is, is not really asking the exact question - to estimate how people are reacting to "death panels" and other ludicrous propositions by the Republicans but my perhaps needlessly optimistic feeling is that it is starting to sink in to more and more people, at a deeper level, that what remains of the Republican party is either morally bankrupt or completely insane. The thrashing corpus is expending its energy screaming louder and louder to make its diminishing 25% seem like 50%.
You should read the above rhythmically, like a poem, it is much more fun that way.
August 18, 2009 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The weirdest thing, to me, is that politicians would be willing to go against a 65-75% popular support measure. Sure, there are the lobbyists and donors, but even the most blatantly corrupt congresspersons typically want the feigned cover of a closer split."
Yes there is support for it, but you wouldnt knwo that from the way the media talks about it.
The public plans sounds awful and unpopular according to the rightwing jackasses at CNN et al. For them, some gunnuts at townhalls are the barometer of the public, despite the polling and despite the resounding defeat of the GOP last year
August 18, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I had a thought that perhaps they dropped this bomb to piss off the progressives and get us motivated, as a response to the town hall crazy.
But honestly, I think they were just signalling their willingness to cave without a fight, to see whether or not we'd shit our pants. If we had thrown up our hands and walked away, a cave would be forthcoming, Congress would come together in September and sing kumbaya, and Obama could get his first grade spelling bee Mr. Congeniality trophy, because the only thing that seems to matter to the Rahm's of this world is winning, not what you win. They live by the theory that America loves a winner, and any win can be spun as a decisive victory. But American actually loves a winner who kicks ass. America also loves a loser who goes down swinging.
Please remember that the progressive victories of 2006 happened despite Rahm's longview 6-Year Strategery of picking up a couple of seats in the House every two years so that Obama could enjoy a slim majority during his second term. If we had capitulated to Rahm's plan in 2006, there wouldn't be a healthcare reform discussion this year, because Congress would still be Republican.
August 18, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we had capitulated to Rahm's plan in 2006, there wouldn't be a healthcare reform discussion this year, because Congress would still be Republican.
This often is forgotten in the rush to label Rahm The Greatest Strategist Ever Who Brought The Democrats Back From The Brink.
Howard Dean? Never mind.
August 18, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rahm is a shitty strategist. He made that abundently clear during his battle with Dean. I won't say Dean was "clearly" right at the time, but it was certainly clear to me.
However, he's an excellent, if not infallible, tactician. That's why he was brought on board.
August 18, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post as usual.
I think it was a trial balloon and got the appropriate pushback.
Nate read this right.
But the problem remains, and the WH knows it:
How do we get the votes in the the Senate?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/how-many-votes-does-public-option-have.html
We probably only need 50, and for the other 10 to vote for cloture.
I think progressives should focus on this.
Maybe 5 people in the Senate are all that stand between us and passign a good HCR bill.
August 18, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Answer Frog - Is there historical precedent for a circumstance in which at least 10 more Senators voted for cloture than actually voted in favor of the bill that came to a vote?
It's a nice idea, but I don't know how realistic. I believe it would pertain to those Senators whose true desire (to support a public option) was in conflict with their wish not to offend conservative constituencies. I'm not sure that there are that many Senators who are much more liberal than the constituents who elected them. On the other hand, if public support for a public option grew substantially between now and crunch time, there might be less of a conflict a hence a greater chance to close off debate and decide the issue by majority vote.
August 18, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just dont know. I would think it would be taboo to fillibuster your own president and party on what is essentuially their party platform. It's traitorous. I think many of them would be apt to vote no but vote for cloture.
But I gues sit is up to these individual senators.
August 18, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wheel Ted Kennedy in, on a gurney, for the cloture vote, then we'll see who has a soul.
August 18, 2009 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are Obama and Rahm really that smart? I suppose, for any long-game player, only time will tell us for sure. As you said, Obama has played his election hands more smartly than most of us would have. That's why I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, that is, until he proves such benefit to be unwise. Either way, the proof of this pudding should be available for tasting by the end of the year.
August 18, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Short answer, yup.
Slightly longer answer. While the story hasn't run its course as yet, some of you will remember when Eric Holder called for special prosecutors when Obama had seemed to indicate these weren't necessary. Some of us thought then, and still thik now, that Holder would never have said what he said with out consulting and strategizing with Obama before hand. As one comment here read: He plays chess while everyone else plays checkers...or as I thought--hey, this is the political version of rope-a-dope.
I love your reference to the one minute internet news cycles and how appropriate following the week when we're introduced to the "nanostory" by the book club gurus.
August 18, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. But if the game really *is* checkers and Obama plays chess ... you end up with a huge bank bailout that fails at providing relief to the homeowner resulting in a mystical magical foreclosure crisis that many credible economists predicted. Hence America's burgeoning tent-villages that will become increasingly less "campy" once the summer turns to winter. (sticking with Dija's example upthread). The example is far from an anomaly.
I think asserting the impression of Obama's skills as you do requires narrowing the universe to the subset of actions that result in an apparent non-negative outcome and applying the concept of decisions based on omniscience by retroactively construing motivations to fit observed outcomes.
If it helps you sleep at night ... cool. But it doesn't seem to be a very intellectually honest view of the political landscape or Obama's actual performance.
August 18, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember the old video game Wolfenstein? Well, there's a secret room in the game complete with a phone number to call if you ever accidentally find it. As for this health care reform and the public option, I'm sitting in that secret room and I think you just stumbled into it. I've had a suspicion that it seemed to odd that Obama and his immediate staff would surrender so quickly on the issue. I've suspected they were sending a subtle message to the Democrats in both House and Senate to rework the issue to make it more palatable for the public to swallow. Of course that also means undermining the republican opposition too, especially seeing how they've played out the trump cards in their hands. But you really hit the point of the exercise - make the republicans take the stand and defend themselves on the issue all the while pointing out their deficiencies and their total lack of understanding the issues at stake.
August 18, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
But what was the point of the room and the phone number? Did you win a Wolfenpony?
August 18, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Naw ... I found it while on a friends computer. Since it was a multi-layer maze - 16 to 18 levels, maybe 20 or 24 - the one room was suppose to be nearly impossible to find. But all one has to do is start out and always make the same turn - always left or right if you prefer - and you'll find the way out and anything else that most people just walk by without even noticing.
August 18, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
That would be "Castle Wolfenstein," the granddaddy of all 3-D shooters. "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" came out in 2001.
And "Wolfenstein," the third game in the series, was just released today as it happens.
(Uhhh, yeah, I went out and bought it at lunch.)
August 18, 2009 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
How's the new Wolfenstein?
August 18, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Haven't played it yet, but the website (wolfenstein.com) is looking gruesomely awesome.
I haven't actually played a 3D shooter since sometime in 2007 or so, but I'm pretty much resigned to going into full blown Cheeto-eating teenage troglodyte mode for a whie for this one.
August 18, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
But who answered when you called that secret phone number? Phone sex line? Psychic Friends network? Rush Limbaugh's pharmacist? Who?
August 18, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I want to know too.
August 18, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is also another little tidbit - and that is that insurance companies are not subject to anit-trust laws. Obama, by executive order can change that without congress. Perhaps he is using that as one of his "aces in the hole". I don't know that of course, but I am not giving up on this President after only 7 months in office and considering all he is dealing with, I am giving him an A minus.
He didn't work that hard to get here only to blow it. I can't and won't believe that.
Hang in there folks. The best is yet to come
August 18, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just in case you didn't already see it.
To be clear, if there was a plan, and, I am not saying there was, I think it was a plan to throw cold water on the intractible "bipartisan" Senate Finance committee negotiations. The objective would have been to force Baucus, Conrad and the other so-called "moderates" in and out of Finance that there was absolutely no deal to be had that could possibly garner Republican votes in the senate. That being the case, it's time to throw in the towel on the "bipartisan" negotiations and start negotiating a bill that the so-called moderate Democrats in the Senate will, at a minimum, allow a vote on.
When you put what Grassley's been saying about how he'd vote against the "compromise" he's supposedly been negotiating if he didn't get buy-in from other Republicans with what Kyl and the RNC have said in the last 2000 news cycles, that should be clear even to as dumb a son of a bitch as Ben Nelson.
Was there a plan? Again, I'm not being coy. I simply don't know. And the reason I don't know is that I'm not inside the loop and I don't have the power to read minds at a distance.
Whether intended or not, however, that's the effect it's had. Maybe someone will even ask Conrad about it next Sunday.
As to provoking a liberal snitstorm, one thing these guys have shown is that they will take actions that provoke one if they think the action is necessary and deal with soothing our injured sensibilities when and if they have to because they know that as long as we like the ultimate result, our whining is irrelevant.
August 18, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your speculation on tactical planning behind the HHS statements seems implausible. I think the idea a progressive snitstorm was provoked to change the news cycle from focus on death panels and teabaggers to policy debate and pressure from the left far more likely - and a more predictable outcome (assuming this wasn't simply another case of administration folks going off message).
But if this view is correct progressive reaction is far from irrelevant, it is crucial to Obama's ploy being successful. Those who council quiet, unequivocal support of Obama (exemplified by not voicing dissent) do neither their fellow democrats nor the president any favors.
August 18, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least you acknowledge there's a tactical purpose directed toward accomplishing the goal.
August 18, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I may not have this right, (wouldn't be the first time), but I think Grassley was quoted as saying that even if he got everything he wanted personally he still would vote against the bill because he couldn't sell it to other republicans. To me, this would seem to indicated your hypothesis has some merit to it.
I used to play a game with black and white tiles, surround the tiles and change the color to whatever color was yours. I remember times when it looked like I had an insurmountable lead--twenty counters or more--then my opponent would make a move I hadn't seen and all of a sudden I would have about four counters left. I think Obama would be very good at playing that game.
August 18, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are right except that it requires very little cunning to know that the Repubs will braggingly move the line as a response to any concession. That they have predictably done so beyond any possibility of agreement now leaves the BlueCross centrists' cloak of bipartisanship exposed as make-belief, no longer supposedly covering their corrupt backsides.
August 18, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
People here have to much time on their hands.
The idea that this was some kind of planned deep strategy to uncover the REAL position of the republicans is beyond silly.
I guess everyone forgets these people all talk to each other and leak to each other and spy with each other and,well you get the point.
Add to that all the heat the white house has taking over this and if you still think this is some brilliant strategy ,have I got a co-op for you!
August 18, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're going to see what you want and expect to see. No shortage of that around here, me not excluded.
But it's not about "uncovering the Republican position." Of course they knew what it was. We all did.
It's about getting them to say it in public and turn it into news so our our vapid, brainless, Broderized MSM will take it out of the realm of the insidery Beltway cocktail party chatter they so relish and turn it into actual news that gets heard by the people who don't follow the news as closely as, say, we do.
It's directed at getting that information out to the passive majority you hear saying "well I still want to know more what they're planning to do about x" when all the information they could ever want to know about x is out there on the Internet, if they'd just get off their fat asses and go find it rather than waiting for the teevee to spoonfeed it to them.
It's about killing the media myth of "bipartisan compromise" that's still getting so much worship from the MSM by forcing them to report that there's no such thing.
But, that said, you may have noticed I also alluded to the possibility that they had no such plan and just got lucky.
August 18, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
answer this for me, suppose Obama had just come out and said" my line in the sand,is the public option".
now what would he have lost and gained, compared to what is going on in the debate now?
ps.
this is not an attack on you:)
August 18, 2009 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wasn't sure this was a serious post; however, you as well as, several others have shown me that it is a viable strategy. The opposition must once more be exposed as THE PARTY OF NO.
August 18, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mine is not an attack on your either steve, but I think you all are really going through a lot of unnecessary hoops. The first thing we all have to do is stop reacting to every misleading headline. That's for starters. I think poster Tom Wright has it right.
Obama is no dummy by any stretch and probably one of the smartest presidents we have had so far. He's not going to throw away all the goodwill he received from the election. Just take a deep breath and relax. Obama has some aces he has not yet played yet. At least that's MHO
August 18, 2009 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would also like you all to check this blog written by a friend who is pretty knowledgeable on the subject of health care. His other blogs are also available at this same website but I think you all might enjoy this one.
Two things happened this weekend that President Obama and the Kathleen Sebelius
underestimated the public's passion for the public option not only with
progressives but with the mainstream public. This miscalculation may have come
off the heels of the teabagger protests against any government run healthcare as
their opposition has been magnified by the main [...]
You may view the latest post at
http://planetpov.com/2009/08/18/reports-on-the-death-of-the-public-option-are-greatly-exaggerated/
August 18, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs continued to insist Wednesday that Ms. Sebelius didn't mean to signal the White House was abandoning the public plan. A senior Democratic congressional leadership aide said weekend statements were calculated to test Republican responses.
August 20, 2009 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink