Jon Cohn pats progressive activists on the head:

Disappointed progressives may be wondering whether their efforts were a waste. They most decidedly were not. The campaign for the public option pushed the entire debate to the left--and, to use a military metaphor, it diverted enemy fire away from the rest of the bill. If Lieberman and his allies didn't have the public option to attack, they would have tried to gut the subsidies, the exchanges, or some other key element. They would have hacked away at the bill, until it left more people uninsured and more people under-insured. The public option is the reason that didn't happen.

(Emphasis supplied.) I guess Cohn missed the part where Ben Nelson is still undecided (and who knows about Lincoln and Landrieu.) I wonder if this bill could ever reach the point where the Village Bloggers will say "kill the bill." I think we will certainly be testing their limits before all is said and done.

Speaking for me only

Ezra Klein asks as if the answer has not already been given a number of times. I wrote about it below, in the context of when the health care reform battle was lost but let's repeat the point - President Obama should never have allowed Max Baucus to hijack his timetable for health care reform. Because once he did, the reconciliation card was taken off the table.

This was important for two reasons. First, having the real possibility of reconciliation for health care reform would have given Obama and the Democrats bargaining power in the regular order (60 vote) negotiations. For example, if Lieberman (or Nelson or Lincoln or Landrieu) pulls his stunt in October, then you could very credibly say, 'well Joe (or Ben, etc.), we'd love to have your input in this bill, but we can't meet your demands. We'll have to do the bill via reconciliation.' As we all know, the big objections from these folks was about public insurance programs - all easily doable via reconciliation (as is Ezra's precious Exchange btw). This would be a very credible threat. Second, if they remained recalcitrant, then you DO do a bill by reconciliation.

Of course, what Ezra will NOT tell you is that he prefers the Lieberman bill to the bill that would emerge from reconciliation. You see, despite the protestations to the contrary, while the Village Bloggers had no objection to the public option (like Obama), they also don't really give a damn about it. That it is out of the bill is not really a problem for them. As I wrote earlier today, Ezra came clean on his lack of interest in the public insurance programs:

Today seems an auspicious day to republish this piece:

As citizens and activists, our allegiances have to be to the issues we believe in. I am a partisan Democrat it is true. But the reason I am is because I know who we can pressure to do the right thing some of the times. Republicans aren't them. But that does not mean we accept the failings of our Democrats. There is nothing more important that we can do, as citizens, activists or bloggers than fight to pressure DEMOCRATS to do the right thing on OUR issues.

And this is true in every context I think. Be it pressing the Speaker or the Senate majority leader, or the new hope running for President. There is nothing more important we can do. Nothing. It's more important BY FAR than "fighting" for your favorite pol because your favorite pol will ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS, disappoint you.

[. . .] Yes, they are all pols. And they do what they do. Do not fight for pols. Fight for the issues you care about. That often means fighting for a pol of course. But remember, you are fighting for the issues. Not the pols.

This is an Open Thread.

Via Charles Lemos, when the Democratic Party stood for something other than "better than Bush," and when Democratic Presidents were not bystanders, impotent or irrelevant:

John Cole takes exception to my labelling of Ezra Klein as a Village Blogger. He does this in the context of Charles Lane's attack on Ezra's attack on Joe Lieberman.

I think John misunderstands my point. The Washington Post editorial page, the Weekly Standard, Marty Peretz's wing of The New Republic are part of the Neocon Village. Obviously, Ezra is not a part of that. But there is a different Village in Washington as well. It is the Village that went after Matt Taibbi (who I personally do not care for. See Yglesias and Ezra going after Taibbi.) It is the Village that defends Obama and his people - see Ezra defending Rahm.)

My point is not to delegitimize what they do. Much of it is good and much of it I agree with. Rather it is to put what they do in the proper context. They are not "progressive bloggers" as the term is generally understood (neither am I.) They are tied to Establishment DC Dems and express their views from that perspective. It is an important function, indeed, a bridge between two distinct camps. But it is important to recognize they are in different camps. I try to highlight that fact.

Speaking for me only

Republicans claimed a scalp today in Colorado as Stephanie Villafuerte, President Obama's nominee for U.S. Attorney for Colorado, withdrew her name from consideration. Her withdrawal comes after last week's call by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for an investigation regarding the Cory Voorhies matter (background here.)

So, who's left? Bill Thiebaut, Jr. the current District Attorney for Pueblo (south of Colorado Springs) and a former state senator, and John Walsh, an AUSA in L.A. for several years, now in private practice in Denver.

Thiebaut has some good positions. He is opposed to the death penalty and while serving as Pueblo DA, called for the passage of a bill to abolish it, even though it was opposed by the District Attorney's Council and state AG John Suthers. He also opposes mandatory adult sentences for teens. [More...]

It's all academic now, but Ezra Klein finally lays out his cards on what he thought was the important part of the reform in the health care reform proposals:

Reconciliation, in other words, tips the bill towards an expansion of the public sector rather than a restructuring of the private sector [. . .] To be very clear, this is not a trade I'm eager to see reformers make. You lose too much in reconciliation, and gain too little. The exchanges are too important, and so too are the insurance regulations and delivery-system reforms. But if Democrats end up in reconciliation, this bill is going to get a lot worse from the perspective of its skeptics.

(Emphasis supplied.) Ezra was never against expanding public insurance programs. But he never thought much of them. In a sense, the bill that will be enacted is what Ezra wanted (coincidentally, it is what President Obama wanted.) Again, I do not begrudge him his opinions. I just disagree with them. I do begrudge his disingenuity in his writings and TV appearances as a "public option supporter." He never really cared about the public option. His ideal was not single payer. It was Wyden-Bennett. (Of course, both had an equal chance of passage - ZERO.) He should have been more forthright about that.

Speaking for me only

The moment is easy to spot - when Democrats allowed Max Baucus to delay delivery of the Finance Committee proposal in July.

Prior to that, President Obama had said earlier in July:

President Obama: Well, here's what I've said. We cannot delay any longer. [. . .] I think it was telling that some of you may have seen. A Republican Senator saying this weekend saying. "we're just going to delay and delay because if we can stop Obama on this, this is going to be his Waterloo. We'll break him." [. . ]. We are working as hard as we can and I've told Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi that it is critical that we see serious forward motion before people leave [for August recess.]

When Democrats allowed the Baucus stall, they effectively took reconciliation off the table, even though Obama said in July:

Via Steve Benen, Nelson is undecided:

The room erupted in applause when Specter reminded the group, "I came to this caucus to be your 60th vote." But soon after the speech, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) left the session early, telling reporters he remained undecided.

Folks think Nelson will just aim to add a Stupak Amendment. I disagree. Nelson will soon being intoning about the cost of the bill and the tax provisions. Expect the Medicaid expansion to suffer the brunt of Nelson's demands.

Speaking for me only

Cynthia Kouril writes at FDL about the Hiram Monserrate trial and sentence, complaining the judge doesn't get it:

Monserrate was charged with a felony, but convicted of a misdemeanor, so his maximum sentence was only one year. The judge however did not sentence him to anywhere near that amount of time, giving him probation and some anger management counseling. The judge DOES NOT GET IT.

It's Kouril who doesn't get it. That's the standard sentence for a first-time misdemeanor in New York. It's an appropriate sentence. The jury judge accepted there was an accident. He was convicted for the manner in which he forcefully made her go to the hospital, which she was resisting. Once outside, she calmed down, and they walked together in stride to the car. No more force required.

He was found not guilty of assaulting her with a knife. It was an appropriate sentence.

The best explanation of domestic violence fights I've found is in a Leonard Cohen song: [More...]

Perhaps this is as it should be given Reid's ineffective tenure as Senate Majority Leader:

Senators emerging from the special Democratic caucus confirm that the Medicare buy-in proposal will have to be stripped from the Senate bill in order to achieve 60 votes.

I am not seeing how Reid survives next year's election if this is true. He needed to make Obama do the dirty work. Then again, maybe the "achieve 60 votes" part is the key. Maybe Reid will propose reconciliation now. (Reid says bill will pass next week - no reconciliation then.) I seriously doubt it. I think he just signed his own political death warrant. As did Chris Dodd and others.

Speaking for me only

Next up to capitulate on? Medicaid expansion. Watch. My gawd. The WORST political bargainers in the history of political bargaining.

I confidently predict that what will be left of the health bill is the "reforms" plus subsidies subject to the Stupak Amendment so people can buy crappy private insurance.

I will oppose that bill.

Speaking for me only