Kerry weighs in on health care bills

[ProSense]

here.

[wisteria]

1. I was j ust going to post that. It is getting interesting isn't it.

I like what he has to say about the closed door wheeling and dealing. He is right,that pissed a lot of people off.

[wisteria]

2. And, now we have this bit of "news". I hope this isn't the case.

The longer we weight the less likely anything will pass. After a year of work and political capital and this is really where we are now?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100127/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul;_ylt=AqmX0HTD_H6WOkQRGnTDPqys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNubDVyM3RsBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTI3L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX292ZXJoYXVsBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMgRwb3MDNwRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDZGVtc2xhY2t3b3Jr


"Democrats retreated Tuesday from a quick push to pass President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, lacking a workable strategy to salvage the sweeping legislation that has consumed Congress for more than a year.

"There is no rush," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after a meeting of Senate Democrats. His comments came as two centrists said they would oppose the plan Democratic leaders were considering to reconcile differences between the House and Senate bills and put comprehensive legislation on Obama's desk."

All this because of Brown's election? Come on, this is unreal that one less vote could carry so much weight. I hate to say this, but I am losing faith in my party. I cannot believe they could allow themselves to be portrayed so weakly. It is so embarrassing. Are we just going to ride out the next three years- has Obama given up trying to lead?

[Mass]

3. Brown said he would not be seated before the 11th. The Senate has said they would do nothing before

that, and is in recess the following week, so clearly, nothing will be done before the 23rd.

Gibbs said a few minutes earlier than healthcare reform was still important, but you cannot count on the Democrats to take a strong stand. This would mean an unified party, which it is not. After months of cajoling Nelson and Bayh, it takes a while to change your mode of operation and remind them that, in a simple majority vote, they are a lot less important. Reid is not know for his confrontation skills, except when he is forced and he does that very inartfully.

Example in point: today, the Senate is closed until the State of the Union (I imagine this is in order to avoid Republicans to make speeches all day long). As we know, there are no urgent business to attend to :sarcasm:

[wisteria]

4. Ah, I had forgotten about Brown's seating. And, I agree with on your other remarks. n/t

[karynnj]

6. I think it is closed because there is some kind of republican meeting

- at least that was what was said at the end of the day in the Senate.

I think the problem is not just the elected officials. This is most certainly not directed at people like yoiu who bring sanity to thread after thread in GD-P, but another problem is that the moment there has been any setback on anything, people here and in the left punditry are nearly as fast as the Republicans to pile on. Now, I am not saying that we all need to move in lock step, but it would be good if the most positive explanations got as much play as the most dire. It also seems that MA was a perfect storm, a bland, good looking guy, who played basketball, the Republican echo machine, a Democrat with a very lackluster campaign, and the anger at the status quo - and with all that he was only 5% ahead. I really wonder what JK's reaction was when she said there was no AQ in Afghanistan. If there weren't any there or in NW Pakistan, he wouldn't have bothered with 4 hearings that she obviously never watched. You would think that as she doesn't have foreign policy experience, she might have thought to call her state's chair of SFRC before the debate to run through positions. This was not a trick question.

I think that it would help if Obama would sell the outline of the healthcare bill in his state of the union, declaring the fact that it passed both Houses and he anticipates a reconciled version to be on his desk early this year as an accomplishment. The fact is this IS landmark legislation and this is the most successful anyone has been, if it is not spoken of, that validates the Republicans distortions and makes it seem the President is not proud of it. The fact is the Republicans a year ago were afraid that it would hurt them if we passed it.

I would hope that Obama balances between acknowledging how bad things are - saying that even though they are beginning to improve, the economy fell considerably and and we are still closer to the bottom than to where we wer before the crash - and making the case that there are many things getting better and speaking of what was done as well as what will be done. The fact is that every state benefited from the stimulus money given to them and it was not easy passing that.

What I hate is that the left pundits ignore that it took shill to get the budgets and the stimulus plans passed. Given the forces against him, this was much harder than it should have been - and the Republicans fought him tooth and nail. We need to at least try to counter the RW spin. It is absolutely not true that Obama did nothing.

If Obama and others can establish a positive narrative and then sell it over the heads of the Conservative Dems, this would be a lot easier. For example, why not ask the Hoosier Democrats, many union members from Northwest Indiana, to start writing and calling Bayh to ask for his vote. A Kaiser study showed that the actual features of the bill have majority approval, while the bill itself does not. To me that means that the RW have succeeded it mischaracterizing it. (I also think that there are not approve votes that are people wanting more - not taking it as this or nothing.)

[ProSense]

5. The media is spinning everything

as being dead. They're doing the same thing to the climate bill.