Erica Werner of the Associated Press writes that, darn it, that House health care bill is just way too centrist for the taste of House progressives. But, gosh, kicking and screaming they're willing to support it, even though it just caters way to much to the concerns of moderates and conservatives.
WASHINGTON – They may not like it, but many House liberals look ready to accept a compromise health care bill, putting Democratic leaders well on the way to delivering on President Barack Obama's call for overhaul.
After claiming for months they couldn't vote for a bill without the strongest possible government-run insurance option, liberals are putting aside their disappointment over the weaker version in the legislation for a historic chance to remake America's medical system.
"The current language is far weaker than what I would have preferred, and I think that is also true of the Progressive Caucus," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Friday. "But because I did not come up here to participate in gridlock and acrimony, I have told leadership that I am willing to compromise."
Obama privately told House liberals they should chalk up a win.
This is theater, and it's not even good theater. It's a bad off-Broadway farce. They got what they wanted all along, knowing that single payer was was a non-starter, they got the public option as the camel's nose under the tent. Once such an entitlement is established they know full well that scaremongering and demagoguery will very likely take it where they want it to ultimately go. Single payer.
Don't fall for it, moderates. The public option doesn't represent "consumer choice" or "competition." It represents yet another government intrusion in the private market designed to distort and eventually eliminate the private market. It's 1990 pages of smoke and mirrors, strobe lights, and special effects. The progressives are feigning disappointment at something that they know isn't the least that could be passed, but the most, and something that they know can later be transformed into what they're after. Single payer.
The politics now work in their favor, if the press continues to report it this way. Gosh, those progressives really are ready to meet the conservatives halfway, but the "make Obama fail" caucus of Republicans (and moderate Democrats, which will go unmentioned) just has no interest in getting anything done. Remember that in the minds of the press, bipartisanship exists not when Democrats try conservative ideas (when have they ever?), but when Republicans vote for the most liberal ideas.
10/31/09 0630: And speaking of theater. Call this one Feigned Excitement.
White House officials announced Friday that they had counted exactly how many jobs were created or saved by recent stimulus spending: 640,329.
Exactly? Wow. That must be some precision data.
So how many were saved and how many created? They don’t know.
In a briefing with reporters, officials acknowledged they can’t tell the difference between jobs “saved,” and jobs “created” by the $787 billion stimulus package.
They said they also can’t tell the difference between private sector jobs and government jobs.
And they said that they had found and corrected significant errors in the data submitted in 57,000 separate reports to the federal government by Recovery Act funding recipients
And in the Understatement Of The Year category, the winner is
“The data isn’t perfect,” [Recovery Act Czar Ed] DeSeve said. “Further updates and corrections will be needed.
On further review, I'm pretty sure they'll find 640,330 jobs really is the number. (via Hot Air)