Relosi Pushed Obama to Back Comprehensive Reform
The New York Times reports it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who pushed President Obama to back a comprehensive health reform bill instead of something scaled back after Democrats lost their supermajority in the U.S. Senate.
"In a series of impassioned conversations, over the telephone and in the Oval Office, she conveyed her frustration to the president, according to four people familiar with the talks. If she and Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, were going to stick out their necks for Mr. Obama's top legislative priority, Ms. Pelosi wanted assurances that the president would too. At the White House, aides to Mr. Obama say, he also wanted assurances; he needed to hear that the leaders could pass his far-reaching plan."
Said Pelosi: "We're in the majority. We'll never have a better majority in your presidency in numbers than we've got right now. We can make this work."
Politico also reports that it was Pelosi who "made it clear she would accept nothing short of a big-bang health care push" -- dismissing an "incrementalist" plan pushed by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/03/21/pelosi_pushed_obama_to_back_comprehensive_reform.html#disqus_threadNYT: Pelosi & Obama REVIVED Health Care Reform
The NYT went through an article going through the motions onto how we got where we are today. The process was pushed primarily by two people. President Obama and Speaker Pelosi.
Pelosi and Obama revived the Health Bill
Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff wanted to move onto other items. A reasonable request in light of the victory of Scott Brown. No one would blame President Obama or Speaker Pelosi for going for small ball after that.
Scott Brown, the upstart Republican, had just won his Senate race in Massachusetts, a victory that seemed to doom Mr. Obama’s dream of overhauling the nation’s health care system. The White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once Ms. Pelosi’s right hand man on Capitol Hill, was pushing Mr. Obama to scale back his ambitions and pursue a pared-down bill.
But they didn't go that route. They couldn't. They both shared a moral imperative that they had to pass the bill. They had to find a way to do this.
Now, in what could become a legislative Lazarus tale — or at least the most riveting cliffhanger of the Obama presidency so far— the House is set to take up the health bill for what Democrats hope will be the last time.
For Mr. Obama, who vowed earlier this month to do “everything in my power” to see the bill to fruition, the measure’s passage would be an extraordinary triumph. Its defeat could weaken him for the rest of his days in office.
That Mr. Obama has come this far — within a whisper of passing historic social legislation — is remarkable in itself. But the story of how he did it is not his alone. It is the story of how a struggling president partnered with a pair of experienced legislators — Ms. Pelosi and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Reid — to reach for a goal that Mr. Obama has often said had eluded his predecessors going back to Theodore Roosevelt.
The New York Times calls it a "legislative Lazarus tale". I call it dogmatic persistence. They both knew that this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Rahm, I'm sorry to say, didn't see it that way. But it really doesn't matter what Rahm thought about the matter. Rahm has done an excellent job in implementing the President's plan once that decision had been made.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/21/848452/-NYT:-PelosiObama-REVIVED-Health-Care-Reform
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
