Here's a twitter exchange I had today with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo
(I've reversed the order so read from top down):
I hear official DC is agreed: just wouldn't be right to pass HC reform post Scott brown victory. Welcome to Broder-Brooks-ocracy.
about 5 hours ago
from Tweetie
@
but my impression is that it's the left (Weiner, Grijalva) and not the evil centrists who are abandoning hcr on Hill. No?
about 5 hours ago
from web
in reply to joshtpm
@
many shoes still to drop. But that is our impression. The real story of the last week has been the silence of the centrist dems
about 5 hours ago
from Tweetie
in reply to kausmickey
@
but "official dc" resides in the commentariat not the right flank of the Dem caucus
about 5 hours ago
from Tweetie
in reply to kausmickey
a)
Fair enough. Just don't ever saddle us New Dems and moderates with Broder again, OK? b)
Let the record show that, in the crunch, it was the "progressive" left that bailed on health care reform
. Arianna bailed too
! c)
I'm sure many progressives have talked themselves into thinking that the Senate bill is just so awful--no public option, keeps the insurance companies in business, the Pharma deal, etc.--that doing nothing is better. If so, they are deluded. When do they ever think they are going to get this close again? Do they think a bigger, better, lefter Obama is going to sweep America off its feet anytime soon?
The argument that the Senate's scheme would be such a disaster that it would poison the public on reform-- made explicitly
by local Double-A League radical Robert Scheer--is a special stretch, calling out for a semi-Freudian excavation of progressives' subconscious impulses. After all, isn't it much more likely that, if the Senate scheme fails for lack of a public option, then a public option, or Medicare buy-in, could be added later? Maybe the real fear on the left is that the Senate bill might work
. (Then the public option would
be in trouble.)
Some observers would argue "progressives" are simply more comfortable staying angry and on the outside. It helps them stoke their followings, or raise funds, or get on MSNBC. I'd say it's more likely that recalcitrant House members like Raul Grijalva are simply advancing their left objections as a handy cover for the universal trans-ideological self-interested Congressional political survival instinct: they don't want to pass a bill and lose in 2010
in a wave of independent, swing-voter displeasure .
...
In any case, it's revealing, as Marshall said, that the "center" hasn't been playing this covertly self-preservationist game, at least in public. Not that they have to do it when Anthony Weiner is doing it for them
. ...
Update:
When the most plausible, optimistic scenario for passing health care reform is outlined by .... Dick Morris,
you know you
're in trouble:
Nancy Pelosi’s strategy is to delay and let the impact of the Brown win in Massachusetts be blunted by time. Meanwhile, she will propose amendments to the Senate bill and submit her proposed changes to the upper chamber. Harry Reid will tell her that such a bill is dead on arrival but she will demand a vote. When the measure is rejected (or fails of closure), she will go back to her caucus and say, "I tried, but the Senate would not accept any of our amendments."
More:
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio
tells TPM
he's been meeting with House "progressives"
who don't want to pass the Senate bill in part because "it really writes them out of having any impact."
Pathetic, no? Is it that they want to show lobbyists they can deliver, they want to impress voters with Kabuki,, they're just juvenile--or they really don't want to pass a bill? ...
8:26 P.M.
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Game Change
Outtakes:
Left on the cutting room floor when
New York
magazine
excerpted the juicy Edwards bits from Game Change
were these rather forceful sentences from the book itself, about St. Elizabeth:
What the world saw in Elizabeth: a valiant, determined, heroic everywoman. What the Edwards insiders saw: an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazywoman.
They said it! I don't know the truth. I don't think any of the embarrassing, wacky incidents recounted in the book quite add up to that last word. But it would still explain a lot. ... 9:23 P.M.
___________________________
I dont thnk I've seen an uglier mass-market sedan than the new Mercedes E-Class
. A pretentious pile of dreck. Makes Chris Bangle look like Pininfarina
. ....
9:30 P.M.
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