"The naive emphasis on bipartisan outreach from the Obama administration "

Who's naive, you or Obama?

Don't principles mean anything to you??

That said, I don't like the tax cuts either.

I disagree. I think Obama has done this just right. It's taken time, republicans scream and wail on the networks, but it will pass.

That said, the bill is not looking good. I've posted a run-down of the details and the culprits here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/obey/2009/02/why-do-maines-senators-want-to.php

Actually, it's the confederate republican wing. That is saying DROP DEAD .

C

More partisan warfare masquerading (and being accepted) as reasonable thought.

If Congressional leaders don't do what oleeb commands, then they are a bunch of evil people trying to kill us all. If "liberal" orthodoxy isn't followed to the letter, our entire society is going to collapse. If we don't spend a trillion dollars yesterday, it will be the end of America as we know it.

If I close my eyes, I hear Cheney and Bush with a different message and the same tactics. "If you aren't with us, you're against us...." Sounds frighteningly familiar.

You have become that which you hate.

Another page from Jeremiah!

Amen, oleeb.

I'll have to say that's pretty accurate. The confederates plus a few copperheads and what do we get? More disasterous ineffective policies.

If you're not for health care for everyone you are surely against many of us. A funny thing about this is that most people who are against us have health insurance. But they will have their chance to sing a different tune. I await the strains of that sanctimonious choir.

Health care has nothing to do with this bill.

Health care for everyone is a lot more than Soundbite Soldiering can account for. It is going to be a complex, multiple-year effort to do it right and to make it work. Just like every other country that has it now, they went through a transition period of whatever length to get it done.

There isn't some sort of health care wand that can be waved and all is right with the world.

Quite right TheraP! It's an excellent post.

I'm sure there is some wisdom in your admonition. Many people have chosen a part in all this which is better than merely a few. Some days I'm not sure that my part is to argue about details. Some days I think it is. Perhaps I'm best at simply counting the dead each day. That's easy enough.

Health care has plenty to do with this bill because the very worst of the sell-out Blue Dogs have lead Obama around by the nose and if any health bill passes it will be a bill that provides tax cuts to the wealthy for health insurance they don't even need and gutted policies with enormous unaffordable deductibles for the working (if any are still working by then) poor. That's how centrists compromise -give the rich what they want and give the poor a bandaid (maybe they'll let the poor choose the color of the bandaid).

Principles ALWAYS mean something or they are not principles. We will see Obama making changes as he moves forward. Let's not take the bait and agree that Obama was naive. When we do, we're taking responsibility for the failure when it was Republicans who could not cross the aisle. When the R's talk about common ground they are referring to ONLY the things with which they agree and indicating they are not compromising. That's the news that needs to be expressed all across the MSM. Republicans came to the parties but there was no housewarming present at all. They revealed who they were, as if we did not already know, but the people will know they need more Dems if they want this economy up and running again.

Obama should go on TV and call the repubs out. Ask every citizen who has a dog in this fight to call their congress critters and demand the things we need to get past this. I would bet it would get the job done. Obama has the voters on his side but that won't last forever. He needs to strike while the iron is hot. Screw McConnell.

Fair enough. If I may, I think examining all the available solutions and applying what works to the American system as it now exists would be a better use of your time than counting bodies.

I think it is time to get beyond the emotion and to the logic if we hope to get a big enough percentage on the left and right to force Congress to act. Absent our involvement, I am not convinced Congress knows enough to solve this.

I think he should stick with this small governing majority emerging.

The Democrats and those few moderate Republicans.

Then you will have the governing majority vs. obstructionist party.

The obstructionist party will get louder and kick and cry but they will not get smarter, just smaller. And people like Lindsay Graham will want to become part of the governing majority because they are not leaders, but followers.

Smart.

Then why does this group send those Democrats to Congress???

There is no large scale pressure for the Democratic Party to be a party of the left.

Jason is a Republican. Does anyone notice that his views aren't really terribly different than people around here??? They should be!!! But people around here aren't really to the left. Most people in the middle class aren't... they have too much to lose for real socialism.

great post Kali.

"We see it. We feel it. It is time to act, not to ponder or hesitate and not to vacillate over whether we should do what is right or what the worst elements in public life demand. There really is no choice, our leaders must do what is right and they must do it now."

And so as I see it, the choice is we can get angry about the cost of dithering in actual numbers of lives being lost, or we can dither about the timing not being right, the difficulty of getting it done, or the impossibility of "emoting our way out of systemic and chronic problems," or we should postpone action because "Big projects require intelligent and deliberate thought, not soundbites and false urgency."

Yeah, I'm angry and "emotive," too, Kali.

Keep counting, sister. And continue to lay these numbers at the feet of those in Congress who insist we cannot get this done.

YIKES is right.

Go for a majority in the House, which is already there. Go for 60 in the Senate and if Obama doesn't get it let the Repugnacins filibuster. The people in the country will quickly rise up against such fiddling while the US economy burns.

But this isn't news. This has been well known for decades. Thus, anyone who thought doing the same thing once again would produce a different result is, to be kind, naive.

No, change takes time. If it's naive to be a progressive, then maybe we're naive including Obama if he's a progressive.

Ya gotta accelerate before you can get going. Simple principle of physics, applies to politics too.

No, I think you miss the core idea of "common ground".

"When the R's talk about common ground they are referring to ONLY the things with which they agree and indicating they are not compromising."

Common ground is the things with which all parties agree ('all parties' is a bit loose). The challenge is exposing false ideas of differences to show how there is more common ground than "they" believed, and building bridges between areas of amibuigous (possible) commonality to allow traffic.

Some Repos need to be educated as to how their views are self-defeating, for instance. Others may have views which force them out of a consensus. Some may be bought off by minor horse-trading. And so on...

Is that 36 out of about 40 of them??

I agree. It has to become obvious. People are hurting and scared. It needs to be clear.

Obama said he couldn't do this without us. Call your senators. Write or fax or whatever...Just do so, early and often.

The moment in history requires more from the President than wasting time pursuing what we know is a dead end. How many times do you think the nation can afford to experiment with hundreds of billions of dollars in virtually useless tax cuts while the nation crumbles. There is no time to waste on chasing this shadow. Change will not come because we arrive at some Quixotic bipartisan Brigadoon. Change will come because we demand it. A quote from Frederick Douglass makes clear what an old lesson this is and why, in this emergency for our nation, we don't have time to waste on relearning it:

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Change is what the power structure does not want. We will not achieve it by politely asking for it, or negotiating for it. We must demand it, fight for it, and make it so.

Destined to fail... so you are saying that Obama intended it to fail in service to a larger purpose?

I don't believe it is strictly failing. It's producing what passes for debate, and Obama, and most Demos, are not throwing stones. Pretty soon the Repos will have exhausted themselves and their political capital. Once they are practically bankrupt, other programs will sail through.

Sacrificing a pawn can be a good move in chess. I'll leave the poker metaphors to the reader... and close by reminding us of the fat lady who ain't yet sung.

It's the same reason why investigations on the Iraq War won't happen. The ruling power elite (both Democrats and Republicans) would both be brought down!!!

Pathetic, isn't it.

Excellent point. Paul Wellstone won in Minnesota. Tom Harkin keeps winning in Iowa. There's no reason a candidate considerably left of center can't win if that candidate can connect with the people of his or her state.

I'd love to support the Green Party but all they do is send out young naive kids obsessed with the environment who knock on my door telling me about some wetland they want to save when the people on my block are concerned with kitchen table issues. They aren't going to listen to you on the environment if you can't talk to them about jobs, education and healthcare. But I do believe they'd listen to you tell them about single payer healthcare if you'd talk to them about it.

You are starting to listen to the voices in your head again.

It must be nice to stereotype all your demons into one basket. Sure saves on ammo, huh!

The problem is that the kids don't know how to effectively deal with either. Basically they function as myopic indoctrinated droids.

And if they think education and jobs aren't important issues, what are they, trust fund babies?

You get my vote for TPM Fashion Plate!!!

Well, those young folks might consider that the environment of their own genetic code might include a time bomb that goes off long before they are eligible for Medicare if they don't have a car crash first. Young people underestimate their need for healthcare.

Repubs aren't really the issue? Isn't it strange, then, that not one repub voted for the bill in the House? And, the repub caucus plans to vote against it in the Senate. The repubs certainly are the issue.

The Democratic Party issue is a different one. Our party leaders in Congress and our President appear unwilling to acknowledge what is right in front of their face - the repubs are simply playing politics with the fate of our country, attempting to make sure the Democrats won't succeed in bringing us out of the recession. Try as I will I can't see it any other way. And, trying even harder I can't understand it.

I really do hope that you're right and I'm wrong. It's just that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that what you wish were true is actually true or that anything is developing in a way that would make it so. There is no new paradigm such as the one you refer to. We can make a new paradigm where modern, liberal policies are the order of the day and that they are enacted and implemented by a federal government dominated by Democrats. But that's as far as it goes.

The confederate Republicans and their fellow travelers would rather see the nation destroyed than join us in saving it. They are unpatriotic scum and no one can work with them. And, if it's any consolation to you, I don't think Obama is unique in his continuing loyalty to the naive belief in the whole postpartisan fantasy. Most of the Congressional Democrats have believed that for the better part of the past 30 years and despite the fact that no matter how much they reach out, no matter how much they concede, no matter how much they do to find common ground it never, ever works.

Our President is a smart man, but he hasn't been on the national political scene for a long, long time and I think that is part of it. He hasn't really understood the true nature of the opposition, but he sure is getting a taste of their lying, corrupt routine now. I just hope he realizes that strategically half a loaf simply will not do on this bill and that he switches quickly to hardball and knocks it out of the partk. The soft shoe doesn't work with the thugs and moronic hacks of the Republican Party and it never will.

I stepped out for the day, but had to try to respond. Maybe the ploy was not for the benefit of the Rethugs, but for the people paying attention. If this is not a quick fix, which was doubtful in the first place, Obama gets to say they kept him from implementing his ideas. There will be more stimulus packages.

Having read both of his books last fall, I'm probably recalling how he discussed politics there.

He considers basketball to be a "full contact" sport, too.