Regular readers know that my speculative view was that President Obama never really cared about whether a public insurance program would be included in the vaunted exchanges. If they were in, he was ok with that. If they weren't, he was ok with that too. He mouthed a preference for the "public option," but never did anything to try and get it in (by contrast, he fought hard for a tax on so-called "Cadillac" health insurance plans.) I never paid much attention to the "Obama dealt the public option away" stories. Whether he did or didn't, by making clear he was not going to fight for it, he made its demise pretty likely.

That said, Jonathan Bernstein's questioning of the "Obama killed the public option" story bothers me -- not because he questions the story, but because his claims regarding what he accomplished are clearly overblown. The title of Bernstein's piece is "Obama never secretly killed the public option. It’s a myth." Bernstein has no way of knowing this. What he attempts to do, with some success, is undermine the story that it has been demonstrated that Obama in fact "killed the public option." I think he did a good job of debunking that claim. What he has not done is provide any evidence that "Obama did not kill the public option." I do not think "the President killed the public option." But I am positive Jonathan Bernstein has not disproven the claim.

Speaking for me only

Kevin Drum:

We liberals keep thinking that anti-tax fever has to crest any time now, and I remember a slew of magazine pieces predicting exactly that around 2006-07. But it hasn't happened yet. Or, more accurately, I guess I should say that Democrats are still scared witless by the idea of proposing a broad tax increase, and the evidence suggests they're right to be.

What evidence is Kevin Drum referring to? The last time taxes were raised in the United States was in 1993, by Bill Clinton. He won reelection in a landslide. The issue is simple - what is the best policy? Because good politics follows good policy. What's even more interesting is that here is an issue where the President of the United States does have immense power - he can veto any measure on the question of the Bush tax cuts. Indeed, he can do it AFTER his last election campaign, November 2012.

This is one issue where the President has the dominant hand. He should play it.

E.J. Dionne notes:

Here is a surefire way to cut $7.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Do nothing. That’s right. If Congress simply fails to act between now and Jan. 1, 2013, the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire, $1.2 trillion in additional budget cuts go through under the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, and a variety of other tax cuts also go away.

Matt Yglesias writes:

Here’s the thing you should keep in mind about the long-term deficit. Under current law, the Bush tax cuts will expire. [. . .] There is absolutely no need to get even a single Republican to assent to this plan.

Absolutely everything you’ve heard over the past year or month or week about various “bargains” or deals flows from the fact that Democrats have taken this idea off the table.[. . .] This creates a crippling bargaining weakness for the Democrats. The Republican negotiating objective is low taxes, but the Democratic negotiating objective is bipartisan agreement.

(Emphasis supplied.) You don't say?

The strange thing about the “super committee” process is that it’s been clear from the beginning that the Democrats will end up surrendering one way or the other. That’s because of the way the “trigger” has been structured. The automatic cuts are supposed to be evenly divided between domestic programs that Democrats want to protect and defense programs that Republicans want to protect, but Democrats also favor protecting those defense programs. [. . .] That means Democrats have merely re-created the original debt ceiling problem for themselves. They don’t want to agree to an all-cuts deficit reduction, but they really don’t want to experience the alternative.

You don't say.

Open Thread.

Really long day at work -- just getting home, haven't seen the news and I'm going to watch the X-Factor and Harry's Law and call it a night.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Two suits, one in Minnesota (good NFL case law there) and one in California:

The initial lawsuit was filed in Minneapolis. Minnesota’s Anthony Tolliver, Detroit’s Ben Gordon, free agent Caron Butler and Derrick Williams, who was chosen by the Timberwolves with the second overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, were named as plaintiffs.

A second suit was filed in California. Plaintiffs include New York’s Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, free agent Leon Powe and Kawhi Leonard, a rookie who was acquired by San Antonio during the 2011 draft.

I liked what David Boies, attorney for the players, said:

"If you’re in a poker game, and you run a bluff, and the bluff works, you’re a hero. If someone calls your bluff, you lose. I think the owners overplayed their hand," Boies said. "They did a terrific job of taking a very hard line and pushing the players to make concession after concession after concession, but greed is not only a terrible thing — it’s a dangerous thing."

This situation interests me, so expect a lot of coverage.

Over the past year, Republicans have learned something important about negotiating budget deals with Democrats: If you don’t like their offer, just wait a couple of months.

See also The Madman Theory of Political Bargaining.

Open Thread.

There were at least 14 DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state today. More than a dozen people were arrested.

Tonight, DEA Special Agent in Charge Matthew Barnes issued this statement:

"The DEA will exercise its investigative authority to pursue criminal actions for any violation of federal law, when warranted. This includes investigating organizations or individuals that grow, manufacture or distribute any illegal drug to include marijuana, and those who rent or maintain a property to facilitate drug trafficking."

There's plenty of criticism over the strategy of allowing Jerry Sandusky to be interviewed by Bob Costas last night. Legal observers almost universally have declared it a flop. Apparently, the interview was scheduled just with Sandusky's attorney, but his attorney decided 15 minutes before it began to make his client available.

Today, Sandusky's lawyer was on the Today show. He put forth this reasoning: [More..]

A second e-mail sent by coach Mike McQueary has surfaced in the Allentown Morning Call. In this Nov. 8 e-mail, McQueary says he did stop the alleged attack on a young boy by Jerry Sandusky, and that he discussed the matter with police.

"I did stop it, not physically, but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room."

....[I] did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police.

Neither the Penn State police nor the Pennsylvania State Police have responded to requests for information from the paper about the e-mail.

I wonder how many careers will be ruined before this case is over.

Here's the ruling of Judge Michael Stallman finding the Occupy Wall Street protesters have no First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park and denying their request for a restraining order against law enforcement.

The case is Matter of Waller v City of New York, Index No. 11295712011. While the court said it assumes that the First Amendment applies to the owners of Zuccotti Park, the owner has the right to adopt reasonable rules to maintain a safe and clean publicly available space. It said the movant (protesters) had not demonstrated "the rules adopted by the owners of the property, concededly after the demonstrations began, are not reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions permitted under the First Amendment." [More...]

Bloomberg flattens OWS Zucotti Park site. Reports available all over.

Discussions of Penn State all over.

Other stuff. Reports all over.

Open Thread.