Healthcare reform: all this for "better than nothing" ?

The healthcare plan that Obama has been pushing and that the House is now trying to get the votes to pass is the same bill that Tom Harkin and many Democrats have called "better than nothing".

This is the bill that Obama said had 95% of what he wanted but a plan that didnt have the public option, something Obama never fought for or pushed for but the one aspect of reform that matters most.

But without it, Obama's health plan is just what Harkin said it was. Better than nothing. But after all the country has been put through is "better than nothing" good enough?

The one thing that Democrats can universally agree on, is that when it has come to the entire healthcare debate Barrack Obama has not been better than nothing -- he has been a disaster. He has been a bigger problem and bigger obstacle than the Republicans talking out of both sides of his mouth and selling out the public option.

Everyone pushing for healthcare reform including most congressional Democrats have said publicly or privately that Obama has shown no leadership, no conviction, no courage, no vision and has undercut the public option,the most important part of healthcare reform.

Instead Obama's plan will create 30 million new customers for the insurance companies and make the other reforms like preventing people from being dropped for pre-existing conditions,no bargain because insurance companies will just raise rates to cover it.

To show just how weak Obama's plan is, he was in Ohio making yet another speech and told the crowd that if his plan is passed its going to reduce healthcare insurance premiums by -- ta da! -- 14%.

A whole 14%. All this for a 14% reduction in premiums? A family of four in New York is looking at insurance premiums that will top $24,000 a year and we have supposedly gone through all this angst, all this political upheaval and all this political bloodletting with congressional Democrats sticking their necks out and possibly putting an end to their political careers to vote for healthcare reform so people can see a 14% reduction in premiums?

The public option is the best and only way to radically reform health care and its something Obama has thrown under the bus, supporting it publicly but reneging when it came to taking action. He had no problem trying to twist the arm of Dennis Kucinich to get his vote but was spineless when it came to Joe Lieberman's 60th vote for a public option in the senate.This is why most congressional Democrats would rather Obama just stay out of it and let the congress handle what has to be done.

The idea now is for the House to pass the senate bill with assurances that all the things the House objects to will be removed in the reconciliation process. The problem is that bill contains no public option. But the senate says it now has the votes to pass a public option but needs the House to include it in the bill they send to the senate for reconciliation. Where is Obama on this? Ducking. Because there is evidence he made a backroom deal with lobbyists for hospitals back in August to kill the public option.

So everytime Obama made a speech since August supporting the public option he was out and out lying, something Obama has done many times before and explains why Obama has not come out for the public option now even though there are votes now in the senate to pass it.

The public option has consistently polled better than any other aspect of healthcare, and more than that, the polls show its a lot more popular than Obama himself. People want the public option a lot more than they want Obama. And why not? The public option will do more good for more people for a longer time than Obama ever will.

If it becomes clear there are enough votes in the senate to pass a public option and it doesn't become reality because of a lack of Democratic leadership, Democrats will fulfill Republican warnings of getting destroyed in November. Supposedly this bill is just a start and according to some Democratic House members they will be back to introduce and vote on a public option later.

But for those interested in taking things into their own hands now and who wish to pressure Pelosi into including the public option in the healthcare bill, her Washington office phone number is: 202-225-4965.

Why Democrats should dump Obama's health plan and pass a public option

President Obama unveiled his "new and improved" health plan last week and implored congress to pass it even it meant using reconciliation.

Of course reconciliation was something Obama could have advocated11 months ago when it was clear Republicans were united in opposing healthcare reform but instead Obama wasted 11 months and opened himself and fellow Democrats to all the political skirmishing and bloodletting that has gone on since then at the hands of Republicans and the town hall crazies.

A few weeks ago Democratic senators began to circulate a letter to Harry Reid to use reconciliation to pass, not Obama's healthcare plan, but a public option. The number started with 4 and has now grown to 35.

Obama in unveiling his plan, left out the public option, running from it once again, reneging on his promise to support it going back to 2007, then lying about having never campaigned for it. He reneged on a pledge to support it as recently as his State of the Union message. Since then, Obama has thrown it under the bus. Which is ironic since the public option according to all the polls is a lot more popular in the country than he is.And a lot more important.

Now is the time for the Democratic leadership in congress to throw Obama and his healthcare plan under the bus and follow through on passing a public option using reconciliation.

In the first place the House, which has always supported a public option will be, as Maxine Waters said the other day, "thrilled" if the senate passes a public option. The opposition to the public option was in the senate all along where there was always 56-57 votes to pass it but not the 60 needed if reconciliation wasn't used.

Second, the public option is as Howard Dean and Pelosi and most others have pointed out, the centerpiece of healthcare reform, something Obama just doesn't get because Obama is a lot on talk and not much on policy. It is the most important component of healthcare reform. A lot more important to the country than Obama himself and his entire presidency.

Third, with the public option consistently polling close to 60% approval, passing it will save the Democrats in the fall elections and probably destroy the Republicans. Not passing it will lead to political catastrophe for the Democrats and the Republicans know that too.

And fourth, the public option is the most legitimate use of reconciliation since it affects the deficit like nothing else, with the CBO saying it would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the next 10 years.

None of this can happen with Obama's healthcare plan.

The public option is the surest way to reduce costs and without it, high premium areas like New York City could see premiums rise to $24,000 a year for a family of four by 2016.

The senate and the House should ditch Obama's plan, respectfully ask Obama to shut up on healthcare and let the congress do their work, and pass the public option using reconciliation. The truth is for those Democrats who can stomach it is, Obama cant be trusted, his word is on anything is worthless and overall he has been a disaster as president. Not the diaster Bush was -- no one will ever match that -- but probably the biggest diaster of any Democratic president in history ( so much for electing someone because of their father's genes which, come to think of it is probably what got W elected as well as Obama, but for very different reasons).

Obama will sign anything that's put in front of him so its not as if the congress needs Obama's support which is worthless anyway both among most Democrats and out in the country.

With only a simple majority needed, a public option can pass the senate easily using reconciliation. Its now up to Reid to use it, save healthcare reform, give the country the most important peice of legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and save the Democrats politically come the fall elections.

Obama's NAFTAgate lie under scrutiny in Canada

In Canada its called Obama's NAFTAgate. When Barrack Obama was running for president during the Ohio primary he was caught red handed in a blatant, cynical and unconscionable lie to the people of Ohio, exploiting their pain and fear over their faltering economy and massive unemployment and using it for his own political benefit without a second thought about lying.

For those who don't remember Obama was caught lying in Ohio, making a promise he never intended to keep promising to get rid of NAFTA if he was elected, which he blamed for Ohio's high unemployment. But he never intended to keep that promise and this blatant political lie was exposed when a memo that included notes of a meeting at the Canadian Embassy in Chicago was leaked to the Associated Press

According to the memo, whose authenticity has never been in doubt, at the same time Obama was telling the voters of Ohio that if he is elected he would get rid of NAFTA, he sent one of his economic advisors, Austan Goolsbee, to the Canadian Embassy in Chicago to tell the Canadian government to ignore everything Obama was saying publicly about NAFTA, that he doesn't mean a word of it and its all for political posturing.

Extensive and accurate notes were taken of the meeting and someone in the Canadian embassy who obviously didnt think much of Obama's duplicity, leaked the memo to the Associated Press who published it.

It created a minor stir at the time as the mainstream press, who had an agenda to see Obama elected, chose not to make a major issue of it and played down the story lest an embarrassment that exposed Obama as anything but a candidate of "change" derail Obama's quest for the presidency.

But it did prompt an investigation by the Canadian government to find out who leaked the memo. And the emails dealing with that investigation, which the Canadians called NAFTAgate are now being published.

At the time, the initial reaction by the Obama campaign, which was typical of Obama's response to bad news, was to lie about the leaked memo.

At first they said Goolsbee was not part of the Obama campaign. When that proved to be untrue and that Goolsbee was indeed an economic advisor to the Obama campaign, Obama then admitted Goolsbee was an advisor but said he was at the embassy under his own initiative and not sent by the Obama campaign. When that proved to be a lie as well, Obama said Goolsbee was in fact sent but that Goolsbee was never told to say what he did. But the memo shows the opposite is true.

Goolsbee himself tried to deny it by saying the interpretation of the person writing the memo was "crazy"but documents and emails have proved what most people knew to be true at the time -- that the content of the memo was accurate. And subsequent events have proved that true.Obama did not get rid of NAFTA and has never even considered it.

The American press including people like Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, the NY Times, most at MSNBC and CNN chose to ignore NAFTAgate as a potential scandal refusing to report it for what it was -- an act of political deceit unseen since Richard Nixon, by a candidate who was claiming to be "different" and a new politician.

The new documents and emails obtained by the Canadian press through their version of the Freedom of Information Act show that the Canadian government who at the time tried to paper over the scandal over the leaked memo as well, conducted an investigation to find out who leaked the memo and what to do about it.

Additional documents show that far from their public position of trying to claim the memo did not accurately reflect the meeting, they were very concerned that the leaking of the document could hurt American-Canadian relations should Obama become president. No one privately questioned the accuracy of the memo which incriminated Obama in the lie.

Stewart Beck, assistant deputy for foreign affairs said of the memo in an email that it was "succinct, insightful and enjoyable read... Good job by Chicago!”

But others in the Canadian government were worried. The Canadian Globe and Mail quotes Roy Norton, an official at the Canadian Embassy at the time as saying in an email:

“If we're to retrieve any standing with the Obama people we need to be seen to be making it clear that we have never interpreted anything they have said to us as two-faced, cynical — whatever.”

But that is exactly what the leaked memo proved Obama to be. And as everyone has seen on other issues from healthcare reform to the middle east, two faced is what he has continued to be.

The emails between the government in Ottawa and the Canadian Embassy in Chicago not only show that Obama was dishonest with the people of Ohio and that the memo was accurate but that the Canadian government had gone into damage control to maintain relations with Obama should he be elected president.

It was the collective decision by the American media to report the existence of the memo but to drop it as an issue as it pertained to Obama's veracity, honesty, integrity and sincereity, all characteristics that have proved to be severely lacking in Obama from issues from healthcare reform to the economy.

But it was this decision by the press to look the other way over NAFTAgate that largely helped Obama win the Democratic nomination.

DEMOCRATS VS. OBSTRUCTICANS

Republicans have learned over the years that their best chance at winning elections when they aren't in power is obstruct the Democrats any way they can and hope for failure.

They do it by planting political IED's everywhere and then claim the Democrats can't get anything done. And so far, since Obama's election, both Obama and the Democrats in the senate have been playing right into their hands.

They seem to always lose the argument to Republicans because neither Obama nor anyone in the Democratic party is able to effectively frame an argument even when the Democrats have all the facts on their side.

A perfect example were the lies Republicans told about healthcare reform (something Obama has retitled health insurance reform which Matt Taibii in Rolling Stone accurately called an Obama bait and switch) during the so called healthcare summit. (Why there even was a healthcare summit with Republicans is another testament to Obama's political ineptitude and mistakes.)

During this "healthcare summit" Republicans repeated the lie over and over that America overwhelmingly rejected the Democratic healthcare plan. And the press simply played "Polly Doesnt Want a Healthcare Cracker" and repeated the lies which were a gross misrepresentation of the polls.

What Americans overwhelmingly rejected was the watered down compromise healthcare plan that came out of the senate which was cobbled together because of Republican obstructionsim and Obama's political inadequacy and lack of conviction(and maybe backbone).

What the American people overwhelmingly said they wanted was the government run public option to compete against private insurance. The most recent polls back in early January by the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 57-58% wanted the public option. And that comes after all the Republican lies and misinformation that Obama was so unskillfully unable to refute. And back in June 2009 a CBS poll showed 72% wanted the public option and 66% were willing to pay higher taxes to get it.

But Mitch McConnell completely misrepresented the polls during the healthcare summit and ignored the latest polls from Kaiser and the Washington Post.

The biggest problem with Republicans is that when they are in power, unlike the present administration, they do know how to get things done. The problem is that what they get done is always, and has always been, a disaster for the country. Republicans probably have the worst track record and are responsible for more disaster going back to the Great Depression, than any political entity since the fall of the Roman Empire.

Not only does Republican initiatives blow up in their face, they blow up in the country's face as 8 years of the Bush Administration proved. And we have only just begun digging ourselves out of the damage from those 8 years.

But Republican and conservative obstructionism is not new. It is their credo. Their reason for being. It's who and what they are. Conservatives have never been about what they want -- after all this is America and they can get whatever their abilities and talents can get them. What Conservatives are really all about is what they don't have other people to have. That is what drives them.

This goes back to the founding of the country. The country's conservatives at the time were called Tories. They didn't want revolution. They wanted to make nice with King George. They wanted to stop revolution and then went nuts when those crazy liberals in Massachusetts opened fire on the British at Bunker Hill.

The Civil War was about southern conservatives not wanting the slaves to have freedom because of what it would mean to the south economically. After the civil war, during Reconstruction they didn't want freed slaves, now free citizens, to have the constitutional freedoms they were entitled to.

At the turn of the century conservatives didn't want women to have the vote. In the 20's they didn't want people to have whiskey or a beer. In the sixties they didnt want blacks to vote or go to schools of their choice, live in houses or neighborhoods of their choice, work in jobs or professions of their choice, and never wanted blacks and women to have equal rights.

With gays its about preventing them from having sanctioned, legal relationships with the same rights as heterosexual couples, or keeping them from serving in the military. And conservatives have always wanted to keep people from having sex, in word, picture or deed.Like many other things conservatives want or believe in, it goes against the laws of nature.

Preventing gays and lesbians from serving in the military or keeping them from legally sanctioned partnerships would understandably make mom and dad and little Jimmy and Debbie feel a lot more secure not to mention making splashing around in the pool on a hot summer day a lot more fun. And let's face it, that lemonade on the veranda always hit the spot just a little bit more when sodomy was illegal.

What the health care summit made clear , as well as the entire debate about healthcare reform, is that conservatives are about preventing people who can't afford health insurance from being able to acquire it at little or no cost, and to prevent a public option that would also force insurance companies to compete in terms of both premiums and coverage . They call it socialism but have no problem with government run socialist fire departments showing up to keep their houses from burning down.

Republican conservativism has gone from a legitimate point of view to a home grown form of neo-fascism where they believe they and they alone know what's good for everyone and they covet the power to ram it down other people's throats.

Sinclair Lewis wrote that if fascism ever comes to America it will come wrapped in the American flag. And that is the conservative way. To claim they are the true Americans and that liberals are out to destroy America. The talk show whackos like Limbaugh, Laura Ingram, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter like to say that liberals hate America and many conservatives use that as their mantra and to justify what is simply their own home grown hate and inadequacy.

Liberals dont hate America, they created it. It was Thomas Jefferson who called the United States at its inception a "liberal democracy".

Who liberals hate are the neo-fascist strain of conservatives and everything they stand for -- the Tom Tancredo, racist type of Tea Party conservative who are more about fascism than freedom. But instead of facing and accepting that liberals dont hate America but only hate them, they wrap themselves in the flag so they can pretend its the flag that liberals hate instead of the people hiding behind it and their philosophy.

From the Tea Party activists who think they know what's best for America, to Republicans in congress who work hard at exploiting it, like John Boehner, waving the constitution over his head at an anti-healthcare reform rally and quoting from it only to learn later he was quoting from the Declaration of Independence not the constitution, conservatives promote the idea they are being patriotic by obstructing anything Democrats try and do.

The best way to fight that kind of self-deluded conservatism is defeat it and point out what a failure its been.

To hear conservatives glow about Scott Brown's election is to see how self-deluded they are. Scott Brown was a pro choice candidate who voted for a healthcare system far more liberal than anything Republicans were trying to block in the senate.And Brown kept the word " Republican" off every peice of campaign literature and signage he had.

What the Democrats need to do to overcome Republican obstructionism is pass a public option using reconciliation and stop playing games with Republicans no matter how much Obama wants to play with them.

When Republicans see Democrats mean business and the polls reflect approval of what the Democrats are accomplishing, their choice will be to stop obstructing and let voters decide based on the success or failure of the Democratic programs or face defeat.

And for the Democrats it means that if you believe in what youre doing then have the courage of your convictions. And forget the Republicans. And if you dont have that, then dont even bother.

911 proves Republicans have no standing to talk about terrorism

Two weeks ago Republican senator Susan Collins appeared on one of the Sunday talk shows talking about Obama having a blind spot when it comes to terrorism. Her reason was the Obama Administration decision to try the Nigerian Christmas Day terrorist in a federal court ( the fact that the Bush Administration did the same thing twice is, of course, not mentioned).

This, according to Collins and to every other Republican who thinks they know something about terrorism, proves that Obama doesn't understand the terrorist threat or that its all about it being a war.

But Collins, who said Obama has a blind spot about terrorism never demanded the impeachment of George W. Bush and neither did any other Republican, when the information was revealed that George W. Bush had known about and ignored every sign,every warning, every piece of hard intelligence, that told him the United States was about to be hit with a major terrorist attack. And he had that information from multiple sources as recently as August, 2001, less than one month before the 911 attacks. And he did nothing.

Neither Susan Collins nor John McCain, nor John Bohener, nor Newt Gingrich, nor any Republican had anything to say about that at the time. After 3000 Americans were killed, after the World Trade Center was destroyed and the Pentagon hit because of the gross negligence of Bush, Rice and Cheney, none of them, no member of the party that beats its chest over its national security credentials, demanded Bush's impeachment or resignation for ignoring not just warnings, but intelligence that could have prevented 911.

Both Richard Clarke and George Tenant, Director of the CIA testified that in the summer of 2001, Al-Qaeda chatter had sky rocketed to the highest levels Clarke had seen in his 20 years as anti-terrorism czar under four presidents. The CIA intercepts of Al-Qaeda chatter revealed that the U.S. was going to be hit with a major terrorist attack that the attack was IMMINENT, ( the translation of one intercept was, "the match has been lit",) and in the words of the CIA memo, the attack was going to be "spectacular".

Clarke and Tenant testified that in August of 2001, they were, in Clarke's words, "running around the White House like men with their hair on fire" trying to get Bush's attention regarding a major imminent terrorist attack and they were rebuffed They were rebuffed by Bush. They were rebuffed by Rice. Neither agreed to have so much as a meeting.

Clarke and Tenant implored Rice to set up a meeting with Bush telling her of their concerns but Bush refused to meet with them and went on vacation to Crawford. As a matter of fact Bush refused to have any meeting with Clarke to discuss terrorism at all in the eight months from the time he took office up to the 911 attacks.

At the same time Clarke and Tenant were trying to tell Bush about the impending attack, and in August of 2001, Bush was given an intelligence memo dated August 6,2001 telling him that not only was Al-Qaeda preparing to attack WITHIN the United States, but page 2 of the memo told him that as part of the attack, Al -Qaeda planned on hijacking U.S. airliners.( see the the front page of the NY Post accompanying this article)

The same memo also told Bush that Al-Qaeda had buildings in New York City under surveillance.

Bush did nothing. Absolutely nothing. He did nothing even though when he first took office he was told by the FBI, CIA,Richard Clarke,outgoing president Bill Clinton and outgoing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger than Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to U.S. national security in the world. Bush ignored them.

Had Bush ordered the FAA to put out a high priority alert to all US airlines and major airports to be on the alert for possible attempts at hijacking by middle eastern men after getting the information in the August 2001 PDBm that alone would have prevented 911.

Republicans who always bet they can win by underestimating the intelligence of the American people, have been complaining for weeks that it was the Democrats who dropped the ball over the Christmas Day bomb attempt because, they say, the Nigerian had bought a one way ticket to Michigan, paid cash and didn't have any luggage and that should have sent up red flags.

On the morning of 911, nine hijackers all bought one way tickets on transcontinental flights to California, none had luggage, and all paid cash buying the tickets on the spot, paying full price of $2500, when most people book in advance to take advantage of discounts. If there has been an FAA alert for any suspicious behavior by middle eastern men because of a threat of possible hijacking, what kind of red flags would that have sent up?

If Bush had at the very least taken Clarke, Tenant and the CIA's warnings seriously, had he taken the intelligence report that said Al-Qaeda was planning on hijacking US airliners seriously, had he taken seriously the warning that intercepts of Al-Qaeda chatter indicated that we were about to be hit by a major attack and it was imminent, and had the FAA issued that alert what do you think would have happened the morning of September 11,2001 when those middle eastern men bought those one way tickets with cash?

Bush blamed intelligence failures for 911 but the only intelligence failures were at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on the part of Bush, Rice and Cheney. Intelligence failures and the worst case of gross negligence related to the national security of the United States in history.

Bush should have been impeached or forced to resign. It didn't happen because of the Republican desire to cover it up and avoid the blame and the sheer cowardice of the press who to this day is afraid to hold Bush accountable.

Republicans succeeded in deflecting the blame because they rightfully knew they could underestimate the intelligence , not of the American people but of the American press.

But they may be pushing their luck. You would think that with the blood of 3000 Americans on the hands of the Bush Administration Republicans would have the sense to let sleeping dogs lie and just shut up. But it may be part of their strategy to be on the offensive and not let the truth catch up with them.

Maybe its time for the press and the Democrats, if they have the guts, to finally get the truth about 911 out in the open and place blame where it belongs. Maybe that will be the thing that shuts the Republicans up. And at the same time, let the American people know why.

Message from Massachusetts: healthcare bill not liberal enough

It's true that the Massachussets senate election was about more than healthcare even though Coakley tried to frame it that way. Voters showed Obama's influence in Massachusetts,, as in the rest of the country has waned (which shouldnt be surprising -- Obama was crushed by a landslide in Massashusetts by Clinton in the Democratic primary despite endoresements from both Kennedy and Kerry).

But many Republicans and conservatives have engaged in wishful thinking if they believe that the result indicates a move to the right. Coakley was a terrible candidate, and unemployment and the economy are big issues. But on healthcare reform,the real message from Massachusetts voters was not a rejection of healthcare reform as Joe Lieberman and some others tried to suggest. It was that the health care bill that came out of the senate was not liberal enough.

The senate bill was a vastly watered down version of what Massachusetts voters already have. And many voters interviewed before and after the election said as much and expressed a fear that the national bill that came out of the senate, if it was adopted, would give them less than they had now. And they didnt want to lose what they had. Which gave Scott Brown an ironic coalition of liberal voters as well as independents who didnt like the senate bill and were happy for him to pledge to shoot it down.

To underscore the point, Scott Brown, as a member of the state senate voted for the Massachusetts healthcare plan, the most liberal healthcare system in the country, a system than covers all but 3% of Massachusetts residents. So much for the Massachussets result being a referendum on liberalism versus conservatism. Or a rejection of healthcare reform.

The Democratic healthcare bill gave Brown a good case to make to the voters of Massachusetts that he would be the 41st vote against the senate bill, not as a vote against healthcare reform, but a vote to preserve the liberal coverage they already had in Massachussets.

And it wasnt just Massachusetts voters who didnt like the senate bill.Most liberal Democrats in the House never liked the senate version and even its supporters in the senate said "it was better than nothing". But to not for the people of Massachusetts.

And most of the country feels the same way. When polling is done on the current senate version of the healthcare bill, only 35% support it. But when the public option is included,support skyrockets to well over 50%. The most recent polls show 57-58% support a public option. The fact that Obama had buckled on the public option and dropped it is just one reason his approval ratings plummeted. And one big reason Coakley lost.

Opponents of health care reform like Lieberman choose to interpret polls showing a majority of people disapproving of Obama's handling of health care as a rejection of reform itself. It wasn't it. It was a rejection of Obama's knee buckling on the policies they wanted, the most important of which is the public option.

The question now is will Democrats get the real message on health care -- that dropping the public option is not an option and that what the country wants is a healthcare reform bill far more liberal than the senate version, something equal to if not better than the Massashussets system.

The Democrats still have options. Either kill the bill as Howard Dean suggested awhile ago and expand Medicare to cover all, or come back with another bill that has the public option and ram it through with reconciliation.

Its going to be up to congress to deliver on healthcare not Obama since he has already shown he can't handle it. Sharrod Brown, Senator from Ohio was on MSNBC saying that the healthcare bill floundered in congress for only one reason -- lack of leadership. He said it over and over, how the lack of leadership on healthcare was the problem. And he wasnt talking about Harry Reid. He meant Obama.

The real message from the Massachusetts election is that dropping the public option was not an option. Polls since the election showed that most people who voted for Brown supported the public option.

So now it's up to the Democrats in congress, especially the liberals, to take control, and understand what the bluest of blue states was saying and do something before its too late.

How Obama botched healthcare

To pass something as far reaching as healthcare reform and as far reaching as a public option, requires having the courage of your convictions.

The problem with Obama is that he has had no courage and no convictions, and as anyone familiar with his entire political career knows, he never did. For anyone who thinks he did, you can count yourself among the multitudes of the bamboozled.

When Obama was in the Illinois state senate he voted "present" over 100 times so he didn't have to vote for or against anything. That's not courage or conviction. It's political expediency so he didn't have a record on anything people could vote against when he ran for re-election.
And that is the overriding reason why healthcare reform languished, ( something I pointed out as far back as July when I said Obama was botching it) .

Obama never drew any lines in the sand because he didn't have any. He didn't give the congress any direction or any ideas because he didn't have any. And honestly, he didn't care. Yes he wanted something to pass but only so that he could say he passed it and then go on to the next thing. When it looked like it was going to be the senate version without a public option that would become law, he actually said he had never campaigned for a public option anyway. The audacity of lying.

Obama took a proposition -- the public option -- that was supported by 72% of the public according to a CBS poll, and managed to run it into the ground. The public option was a very easy sell. Somewhow he managed to blow it.

He supported the public option but then as soon as the town hall crazies showed up with their Hitler signs, Obama's knees buckled and the next thing we knew he was sending out proxies saying the public option was only a "sliver" of the health care bill and not that important and he could live without it.

The next day, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean as well as other members of congress went public saying it was the "centerpiece" of healthcare reform and had to drag Obama back to supporting it. Which he did. Until the anti public option commercials and town hall crazies made his knees buckle again and he dropped it.

This is what went on for 9 months and in the end, Obama's idea of presidential leadership was trying to pressure 59 Democratic senators who were ready to vote for a public option, to give it up to satisfy one senator, Joe Lieberman, who opposed it. Obama didn't know how to handle him. And in the end, Obama didn't care. The public option was not something he was going to fight for because he has never fought for or against anything in his life.

Obama didn't get tough with Lieberman, didn't twist his arm, didn't have any powers of persuasion and offered no carrots and no sticks when he had ample supplies of both ( but didn't know how to use them) and instead told the senate to just throw in the towel and give in to Lieberman.

They ended up with a piece of legislation coming out of the senate that its supporters said was "better than nothing". Not exactly change people believed in.

Democrats have been getting beaten in recent elections because "better than nothing" is not what people want. Those who believed in Obama in the first place were bamboozled. They need to admit it, get over it and stop waiting for Obama to turn into something is isn't and never was.

Obama caused this mess in the first place by trying to play politics, making a bipartisan bill a goal for no good reason. The Democrats had 60 votes in the senate and at least 58 ready to vote for a public option and what does Obama do? Instead of taking advantage of that majority in any way he could he wasted everyone's time with a senseless attempt at trying to molify those who were against reform in the first place.

Bipartisanship never makes anything better. It's only important if youre worried something will fail and then you want to be able to spread the blame. In 1993 every Republican in the House and senate voted against Bill Clinton's 1993 budget because they said the 5c a gallon gasoline tax earmarked to reduce the deficit would drive up unemployment, explode the deficit and send the country into a deeper recession. The Republcians batted 1.000. They were wrong about everything.

The budget passed with only 51 votes, with Al Gore casting the tie breaking vote, and the results were the greatest economic expansion in US history, the elimination of the deficit, lowest unemployment in 40 years, a balanced budget and a $5 1/2 trillion budget surplus by the time Clinton left office. So much for the value of bipartisanship.

Bi partisanship is never a worthy goal. But it does take courage to stand up for what you believe in the face of unified opposition. Obama should have fought for the public option and made his case to the American people, a case they had already for the most part, bought.

Instead Obama caused the congress to waste months trying to negotiate with Republicans who made it clear they were going to oppose healthcare reform to the end, if for no other reason then to make Obama look like an idiot. And Obama took it lying down.

Obama could have used Jim DeMint's comments about opposing healthcare in order to destroy Obama as a rallying cry, to say to the country "the Republicans are ready to deny 300 million people the healthcare reform they need just to get back at me for crass partisan purposes". He could have made the Republicans pay dearly and get the reform passed.

He didn't. He didnt know how.

Obama doesn't know how to fight because he never has. He used the word "fight" 14 times in his town hall speech in Ohio on the economy.But he never fought for the public option, never stood up to the Republicans or the insurance companies, and let 30% of the country who opposed it, set the agenda for the 70% who wanted it, because the 30% made the most noise. Obama is now talking fight, but has always been about words without backing them up. Like his promise to use public financing if he was the Democratic nominee.Or any number of other pledges or promses he's broken.

The truth is, it never should have come to this on healthcare. The bill should have been passed a long time ago and wasn't because of Obama's lack of leadership. He let the Republicans define the debate and sat back and did virtually nothing.He took a proposition like the public option which 65- 72% of the people supported back in June, and somehow blew it.

They are now talking about trying to pass aspects of the health bill piece meal. That wont work.. Not after all this. The congress needs to do something radical, to take matters into their own hands and figure out how to use reconciliation to get sweeping healthcare reform through. Reconciliation is a process they should have used immediately and they would have avoided all the rancor and bluster of town hall meetings and talking heads and $200 million in anti reform commercials.. But Obama didnt.

In the end, Scott Brown's victory shouldnt matter. The House was never going to buy the senate version of the bill anyway, which in fact they havent. And the senate was never going to have 60 votes to pass a bill with a public option because Obama didnt know how to use common sense, persuasion and a threat of losing the Homeland Security chairmanship on Joe Lieberman.

As recently as last month, two polls., the respected Kaiser Family Foundation poll and the not so respected Washington Post poll, showed that 58% and 57% respectively supported and wanted a public option. If you cant win with that kind of public support, when can you win?

So now it's finding a way to use budget reconciliation even if some Democratic senators don't like it and ram it through. If they don't ,Obama and the Democratic congress lose all credibility. And probably the next election.