The knives are out!!!! I have to say, though, that it makes me laugh.

[beachmom]

It's like 2003/2004/2005 all wrapped up in one neat package.

And to a certain extent, us Kerry supporters are a bit divided on the whole hcr thing & what we think of what Dean said, so that is the only thing that is different.

But wow, declaration of war against Kerry has definitely commenced, as Mass so eloquently predicted . . .

[Mass]

1. Not a surprise. However, before answering to the threads about Hamsher's post

read it first. She is twisting the numbers and adding doctors and nurses to the mix to get him first even with the presidential campaign included). In fact, among the 5 names she quotes, he comes 5th when you only consider health insurance and pharma or just pharma). She added Obama and McCain in her list, so the 3 only democratic senators quoted are Kerry, Baucus, and Specter.

I have to say this is the reason I thought the speech, and all these comments about Dean, were not a good idea. The only way it could be a good idea is if the fact the netroots are so much against it can make sure we get all the votes. But right now, rather than pressuring senators and congresspeople to improve the bill, we are busy attacking each other. I cannot see how this helps anybody. I am still not really convinced about the bill, but I hate liars and this is a bold lie she is making.

[beachmom]

2. I thought Kerry's speech was fine except, as you brought up, the 1993 thing.

Or perhaps he could have had said "some say" like Obama did in his weekly address without naming names. But I am getting the feeling that he volunteered for this role, and that he was willing to take the hits in the netroots. I really don't know.

[Mass]

3. I was not talking about him, but also Axelrod, Gibbs, and now Kirk

Naming names was making certain that it would enrage the crowds with everybody fighting everybody rather than trying to get the bill better. I cannot get why they created this mess by answering Dean. I think Kerry could have said the same thing without naming names. What is the point of throwing the blogosphere one half against the other, with both sides spewing lies and those who try to talk about issues being blasted by both sides.

[karynnj]

8. Dean named names - he said Kerry

and he said something Kerry fought hard for that is in the bill was not there.

In addition, Kerry simply pointed out what they said and asked that they take another look at the bill. Why are you ok with DEAN, who is not in the Senate and has spent less time on this than the Senators, essentially attacked the entire group who put the bill together - demagoguing it as "not reform" and for the corporations. That was the same obnoxious rhetoric he and Edwards both used when advised by Trippi.

The fact is Kerry's "charges" against Dean and Olberman, both of whom he commended, were that they were ignoring many things he and others fought for. I assume Kerry genuinely believes that this is the best bill that can pass the Senate. He is not trying to be "hero of the netroots", that is Dean and Olberman. The fact is that from the Bold Progressives to DFA to Dean and Olberman there has been a willingness to smugly discredit the people who are really working to get something that helps and can pass. BP and DFA have personally smeared Kerry and questioned his integrity.

Yet the netroots whine when their favorite "pincushion" feels the slightest attack. What is worse the Netroots dishonestly attacking Kerry's integrity or Kerry mentioning that Dean has suggested voting down the Senate bill - WHICH HE DID.

(I personally wish he hadn't mentioned 1993 - but it could have been worse - Dean lied both Gephardt's, Kerry's and his own record on Medicare and Medicaid. That more than anything started the intense war between him and Gephardt that ended up sinking both of them. Everyone shades their past, but Dean the very moderate Governor of VT, who usually had a progressive challenger, did more than most. Or Kerry could have read the Dean campaign description of his 2004 plan - and pointed out that by Dean's 2009 standards might require rejecting as well. )

[karynnj]

6. Well, if he wanted the net actists to attack him or us rather than badger

the Senators on the left to defect, from your comment that the net roots are fighting among each other rather than concentrating on their representatives - it worked.

The other thing is that I assume there is some genuine frustration that after a very hard year working on this and nearly herding enough Senators, Dean suggested throwing it all away for something many respectable Senators have said can't be done. I honestly do not see how you get 60 Senators for a public option - and you can't get most of the regulations through reconciliation - even if someone were willing to try - and NO ONE has stepped forth to say they would. I don't think we will have more progressive Senators in 2010 - who knows when we can get get more. This may be the one chance in the decade to pass this major change.

In addition, Kerry had a right to be annoyed that Dean pulled him in - and inaccurately said something Kerry is very proud of having won inclusion for is either not there or not good enough. I saw Dean followers actually accuse Kerry of lying or "not knowing the facts" of what was in the bill - that takes real chutzpah and is completely insulting. This because they couldn't admit Dean had it wrong.

But, at this point, we have 60 Democrats and hopefully they will all be there and vote for cloture. The choice is not between an ideal bill and this one - it is between this bill and the status quo. This is landmark legislation if it passes.

[beachmom]

4. So far it's just GDP and FDL. Nothing on Kos.

I hope somebody else pisses them off soon, so the let's go back to the 2004 primaries tirade ends.

[TayTay]

5. Ugly as it may seem, this is what politics looks like

I think this is a flawed bill. I think it should be passed. We need to get this done and move on to other issues.

There are no perfect bills. There was never a perfect bill passed in the history of passing bills. They are compromises. Compromise is the core principle of democracy, after all.

The whiners and gripers are going to throw big tantrums for a while. Courage, this too shall pass.

BTW, sorry for my absence lately. We are dealing with health insurance issues on my Mom. Medicare is nickeling and diming us over ending her coverage for her stay. So, we fight on.

[beachmom]

7. I'm so sorry you have to go through that.

The POTUS actually knows something about that, when his Mom had cancer.

I do miss your wise insights, Tay, and think of you often, and hope that you are holding up okay.

You are right about the bill -- not that great (& could get worse on abortion) yet needs to be passed. I have engaged in DailyKos and calibrated my comments to at least try to reason with people, without inviting too much in the way of being flamed, but it hasn't always worked out. Still, I think it is worth it to engage some to show some cooler minds have prevailed.

[karynnj]

9. Don't apologize for your absense, you have an incredibly difficult

life at this point. I know I love seeing your sane posts that put things in perspective. Good luck on the fight with Medicare.

[Inuca]

11. Best of thoughts, Tay! n/t

[ginnyinWI]

10. DU has gotten so much worse since I joined in 2004.

It was bad enough when they hated Kerry. Some only had insults but many of them had reasons and explanations. Seems like today's hatred it directed at any moving target and for the flimsiest reasons. It's gotten way too "pure" around here in the main boards! Pure "what" is the question. How many righties have dedicated themselves full time to disruption? And how many on the left have left their reasoning behind? It's like McCarthyism almost.

As a consequence DU has stopped being a place where a person can really discuss anything. If you don't go with the majority you get flamed. Sigh.

Five years ago we had so many good time here at the JK Group. I'll always remember those days--this group got me through it. But when my membership expires next month I don't think I'll renew it.
I can't support a board that allows so much hate toward Dems.

[MBS]

12. for better or worse (mostly the latter), the tone is not really much different

than the general political atmosphere of our country these days: for far too long, yelling, name-calling, finger-pointing, and hysteria-scandal-and-sensationalism-of-the-moment have substituted for mutual listening and problem-solving. Another reason to be grateful for John Kerry: while other people yell, get discouraged by the yelling and the hate and the slander, or led astray by celebrity or scandal , he just keeps his eye on the ball. In a time when a lot of people have been disappointed (with reason) by various "heroes" (see today's Frank Rich column in NYT), Kerry really stands out as a person of non-hype dedication, courageous persistence and moral integrity. In quite literal terms, he has the courage of his convictions. Kudos to you, JK :patriot:

[karynnj]

15. I will miss seeing you here

I agree with you that there do seem to be many immature people whose only response to someone taking a position they disagree with is to attack them 100%. It makes things almost cartoon like. No one (including Kerry) is a noble hero, who is 100% pure AND 100% prescient, insightful and on target on every single issue. The biggest thing missing is acceptance that someone can be inaccurate on something, but still honest - just wrong. The search for ulterior motives - even when obvious ones are given is troubling.

[MBS]

17. and, also, these guys refuse to acknowledge how progress happens

in passing legislation in a democracy. . that one step at a time, two-steps forward,one-step back approach, and the need to troll for majority votes. It can be infuriating in its inefficiency and the forced compromises-- don't get me started on Lieberman ( Ben Nelson, too, but Joementum is chief on my enemies list)--but it's a necessary part of the process. For me (I've been on independent health insurance, and may well need to -gasp- do that again within the year, so I know all that's wrong with the current system), this is a case when some progress is truly better than nothing.

[beachmom]

13. Making sense of what FireDogLake was about.

I just was hit with why Jane Hamsher and her bloggers oppose the bill. They fought for a public option. Nothing else about health care reform, in the end, mattered to them. They decided to be a special interest group for the public option. Nothing more. Not unlike abortion rights groups who also are not in the business of calling for health care reform, but preventing more restrictions on abortion. My only beef with FDL is failure to have truth in advertising. Public Option only. Or put less harshly, health care reform was a secondary goal, but the main goal was a public option. Now that the public option is gone, they put up screeds condemning the bill for things that were always in there. They should never have been taken seriously. Oh, and we all know that Jane Hamsher is a liar and attacks people who disagree with her as "traitor Dems" and paid by Pharma shills.

[wisteria]

14. The public part of Hamsher- the part I have had contact with I dislike.

She is not an impressive leader and comes accross as cold,pushy and calculating. I was going to respond to her post at first, but after I thought about it, I decided it wasn't worth it.

[karynnj]

16. Interesting - excellent analysis

Dean kind of put himself in the same position though he is less obnoxious. His website was entirely an effort to get legislators to agree to the public option. After being not rewarded with anything, he might feel that without a public option that he could claim he had a part in getting, he might feel that his efforts this year will seem to be nothing.

He might also feels that some have slighted his real accomplishments as DNC head. In truth, some did in the wake of the 2006 victories which Emmanuel and Schumer raced to the media to claim. (In the left blogosphere, he gets ALL the credit, which is wrong too.) He also got and deserved some criticism for the mess in the primaries with MI and Fl. This added to being left with absolutely nothing - even as he publicly signaled that he would like even the Surgeon General position might have left him open to this effort at relevance.

It may be that he saw that "leading" the left blogospere, as he did in 2003, is the best opening he has. Why the quotes? In 2003, he FOLLOWED the left blogospere on Iraq and they adopted him as their leader. After 2004, he did not lead on this - he backed the Korb plan in 2006, which lost out to Kerry/Feingold type plans (or calls to get out immediately). The same thing happened here - single payer and then public option were the goals of the left, before Dean created his web site and said he was for them.

I guess I can see from this why the Deaniacs reacted as they did. From their perspective, he was "right" on Iraq, he rebuilt the party single handedly, he developed the type of campaign Obama succeeded with and was right on the public option and, for all that, he is out in cold with Obama Press Secretary Gibbs, who trashed him in late 2003, ridiculing his opinion and Obamas senior aide Axelrod saying his idea to reject the bill is insane. While I disagree on many of those things, I think he has been poorly treated.

[TayTay]

18. the knives are out, but so is the pushback

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/21/817469/-Jane-Hamshers-staff

There was a lot of stupidity going around on this. I don't think the blogosphere exactly covered themselves in glory on this.

I personally think that a series of articles from Al Giordano express what I think really, really well.

Read me first: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3691/health-care-what-would-teddy-do

Then read: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3694/we-have-met-corporation-and-it-us

Eyes on the Prize. Real reform takes a lot of hard work and sometimes it takes decades to achieve. It involves pain and sacrifice and talking to others who don't share your views. You have to compromise with people and bring them along with you to any eventual decision. There is no other way, not in a democracy.

The moronic display of the last week is a blot on the liberal blogosphere. The non-debate debate that rehashed the 2003-4 primaries was a disgrace as was much of the dialogue from "progressives" on the motives, patriotism and integrity of a lot of people who have spent years fighting for health care reform. These people sound like a bunch of babies having a tantrum.

Real reform is heartbreaking. It is damned hard work and involves people who promise not to take their marbles and go home when things don't go totally their way. People like John Kerry understand that we fight for what we can get, then we go back and fight again to make it better. And you take the chances you get and improve on them.

Yes, this is an ugly process. Yes, no one comes out of it without scars. What, in God's Name, were people expecting, that the opposition would just give up? Honestly, some people need to grow up and stop whining and focus on the goals here.

[MBS]

19. Wow, Giordano NAILS it

. . .every word:
part 1, including each updates, is my very favorite, just for the ground it covers (ah, the comments about Gillibrand and the circumstances of her appointment -- beautiful :evilgrin:)
and part 2 is valuable, too.

Thanks for these. I'm going to send these around to folks.I don't have to explain anymore .. just send people those urls.

[beachmom]

20. Howard Dean has now said on MSNBC that the bill needs to be passed.

I was disappointed with him last week, but I give credit to him from walking away from the precipice. In fact, the FDL folks are becoming increasingly isolated. I participated in a diary calling out Jane, even if it was definitely flame bait. Slinkerwink posted obscenities at Al Franken yesterday. Those folks are not leaders. A better message would have been calling for more improvements of the bill -- that is what the unions did.

[Inuca]

21. I was glad to see Dean

walk back on some of his earlier statments. I like Dean overall, I think his heart is in the right place, even though his mouth sometimes goes way ahead of his brain at times. It was probably not easy for him to come back and say that the bill is worth passing afterall, and kudos to him for caring enough and being adult enough to say it plain and clear.

Obscenities thrown Franken's way?!?!?

[karynnj]

23. Same here - and I even forgive him his face saving "there were changes made"

even though the changes referred to were in the Reid proposal - not in the manager's amendment. His fans are claiming that his (and their) push was what caused those changes, when by and large, they were changes to the Finance bill that were included in the HELP bill (thanks to Kennedy, Dodd, Harkin et al) or were relentlessly pushed by people like Kerry and Rockefeller.)

Clearly Dean, who got nothing from the administration, may need to spin that he achieved something with his outsider effort, but the entire effort was melodramatic - with more than one swing against the bill in progress - and all focused on just the public option. The provision he argued for as an alternative cost restraining measure (Kerry's) was already in the Reid bill. Reid, Dodd, Baucus and Harkin deserve credit for including it - and, of course, Kerry deserves credit for sponsoring it and fighting for it.

This entire episode does suggest that Dean as President would have been too mercurial to deal with this frustrating Congress. (Even though, Deaniacs aside, he would have lost in a landslide in 2004. With mostly favorable press in 2003, he polled almost 20 points behind Bush in late 2003, imagine after the Republicans tore his record and character apart - which they would have done to anyone. Deaniacs say that he couldn't have been labeled "elitist", but what could the Republicans have done with a resident of a Park Ave (overlooking a nice part of Central Park), whose dad was a stockbroker, who had a doctor's excuse of having a bad back -- but he then spent a winter as a ski bum? They would not have had to lie on Dean's side to make Bush's National Guard look better.) Yeah, I know refighting 2004 is senseless, I really hate though that they attempt to steal JK's real accomplishment of winning the nomination and coming very close to a historic upset.

[karynnj]

24. I like Nate Silver's comparison of talking to the "kill billers to talking to the climate

change deniers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=84110&mesg_id=84110

[beachmom]

25. Nate expresses a worry I have had:

One of the reasons I consider myself to be a progressive/liberal/whatever is because, more often than not, I've found progressives to be on the "right" side of the argument. They're more empirical, more "scientific", less dogmatic, less sophistic, less demagogic, less anti-intellectual -- not always by any means but at least some majority of the time. After tangling with the kill-billers, however, I'm beginning to have my doubts.

You know, the reason why the GOP is a shell of the party it once was is because an extremist GOP base has held it hostage. I find the FDL crowd to be extremists. And that is not to say that others can't say they are displeased with the bill. It's the fact that Jane & friends are intolerant propagandists who don't care about the truth or honest debate. THAT is what is so offensive about them. Not the disagreeing part, which happens all the time. Mark my words that if the Democratic party became hostage to this kind of base, I'm out. I'll become an Independent. Because I think it is always important to step back once in a while and question one's assumptions. If you don't, your own mind becomes an echo chamber and you harden into bitter ideological circular thinking. And that is always dangerous.

I am now wondering if there weren't Republicans who could not compete with the loudmouths, who finally gave up and left the Party.

[karynnj]

26. I agree, but have been happy that a few anti FDL diaries have made the recommended list

on Daily Kos in the last few days. That is a good sign that maybe the contentious nature of Democrats might be the saving grace that rejects the type of situation that you speak of. If Jane and like minds did become the leaders of thought, I would also be an independent. However, I think that she has really isolated herself this week.

That is not to say that the left tolerates dissent from their views well. The reaction to Kerry's hour long speech on the bill that led to few days of every attack ever used against him being repeated - all because he said politely that Keith Olberman and Howard Dean didn't know what was in the bill shows there is a lot of intolerance on the far left. Note that when Dean actually learned what was in the bill, he stepped back - but few of his supporters acknowledged that he was wrong. (I still thing the Medicare comment was not needed, but surprisingly the Deaniacs didn't go after that - may because of what it really showed.)

I think the party enrollment counts show that some Republicans left. Now, I know there were extraordinary circumstances, but it is noteworthy that none of Senator Heinz's sons are Republicans. The fact is they could have supported their step father and remained Republicans.

[beachmom]

28. There are now several diaries saying we should all wish peace to

each other, blah, blah, blah. Um, no. I can't forgive yet. That would be insincere. Thing is, it's not like this is a transgression. I don't recall FDL really fighting in the 2008 election to defeat McCain/Palin. At least Markos did that. Which is why as much as I disagree with him on things, I just don't find him as unsettling as FDL. So, for Markos and Howard Dean, I will take a step back. But not FDL, which I think is morphing into another "No Quarter" (remember Larry Johnson?).

The only thing going for FDL is Spencer Ackermann, and some of the time, Marcy Wheeler (she was excellent reading through the torture memos). The rest of the site is hopeless.

When I speak of Republicans leaving I am talking over the long haul, over decades. New ones came in, but I am wondering if some left in, say, the '90s.

[karynnj]

29. I stopped even looking at FDL, because it was sickening

It was also clear that it was kind of a "closed" community, where it would have taken a lot of time to build any credibility - and then it was likely that a contrary voice would not be heard.

[Inuca]

27. 100% agree

Fortunately, the D party does not seem in danger of becoming what you describe, not yet anyway. The way the liberal dems in the Senate behaved during all this mess, in spite of the many frustrations and setbacks is a case in point. From the little that I have heard, even the House will probably not put upa real fight adn go more or less with the Senate version, that's at least the feeling I got, I hope I am right.

As to the Republicans, Specter comes first to mind.

[Inuca]

22. Tantrum is a perfect word

to describe it. ANd tantrums don't look too good when thrown by alleged adults.

[beachmom]

30. Jane Hamsher appeared on Fox!!!

Ugh

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/22/818052/-First-Do-No-Harm:-Jane-Hamsher-Cavorting-With-Fox-And-Friends

Hamsher: People on the right, people on the left are looking at the Senate and they're saying, "Nobody's there representing us." Nobody's representing the people. It's just a matter of who's in power and who's taking Pharma's money.

This is a total betrayal. Why anyone would follow her after this is beyond me. Oh, and they told viewers that if they wanted to sign Jane's petition, go to the FOX SITE.