Is Obama Cannon Fodder?

You betcha! And long may they continue.

As Krugman notes, Obama's health care proposals are somewhere to the right of Richard Nixon's.

@M. Spector: Well, I don't for a moment doubt that Obama desires the most progressive healthcare system achievable. Krugman's point is the forces in opposition to that vision have proven dominant in the debate. Do you think the best tactic for progressives is to attack Obama on the premise that if he only had backbone he'd keep sticking his chin out, or to look deeply within themselves to find the energy and courage to actively engage in the argument for universal healthcare in every forum they can find, on the premise that in a democracy those who show up to vote get to decide?

The Democrats have the White House and a filibuster-proof majority in Congress. If Obama really desires the most "progressive" healthcare system achievable, then why is he walking on eggshells? Why isn't he fighting for what he supposedly believes in?

He wasn't afraid to "stick his chin out" when it came to giving a $9-trillion bailout to Wall Street.

His immediate predecessor in the White House didn't hesitate to run roughshod over the Constitution, public opinion, international law, and the basic tenets of human rights. Why can't George W. Obama grow a spine and do what's right if he really is such a progressive as you think?

@M. Spector: I just don't think it is as simple as you portray it. Krugman's point, and I agree with it, is that electing a President who is smart, telegenic, and who has a long record of supporting a broadening of the collective wellbeing doesn't complete the task. It is only a step in completing the task. Further, I am suggesting that it is counterproductive to act on the mistaken belief that is the sum total of the task by then blaming the President when objectives are only partially met. I appreciate the depth of emotion felt, but there has been no betrayal.

Obviously not, if the President in question is George W. Obama. Electing him accomplished nothing if he can't or won't deliver the goods.

How do you see completing the "task"? By biting your tongue as he backslides, or by holding his feet to the fire?

ETA: Hey, I managed to fit in four different metaphors in a two-line paragraph. That's gotta be some kind of record.

And here's what many Americans are hearing about Obama from their "news sources":

Audio here: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200908310007

UnionSupporter, why not respond to what M. Spector said:

What now stops Obama from (for example) pushing through a single-payer system?

More to the point, why did he abandon the single-payer concept before the debate even started (where, as you claim, "the forces in opposition to that vision have proven dominant in the debate").

I don't blame Obama at all. I never, for one single second, heard him even promise anything particularly and clearly progressive during his campaign. I debated here with people who wanted to believe (don't know why) that he represented some transformational change.

He didn't. He doesn't.

So to repeat, I don't blame him at all. I blame those who created, and who incredibly continue to create, illusions about what he would "really really really" like to do, only "they" won't let him.

@Unionist: I think it works like this: Those who have an interest in protecting the healthcare status quo, in alliance with the many other interests who see this debate as an opportunity to inflict damage on the President or simply need a guise through which to channel their racist fears attack and own the public debate. Some Members of Congress from the Democrats buckle under the perception of a public strongly against change and withdraw their support for the vision of universal healthcare. Obama no longer has authority to push that vision through Congress.

The status qou own the debate. Do we expect the President alone to turn that around, or is there an obligation to take personal responsibility for that debate? Is it easier to attack someone from behind, to "hold their feet to the fire", rather than face down the corporate interests and racists and our neighbours who regurgitate FOX and to be accountable for how effectively we do that? And if his feet burn, then what?

Obama is losing the health debate - but he can still mobilise and win

We have the Hope. Now Where's the Audacity? [11] by Peter Dreier and Marshall Ganz

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Thanks, Younge makes a similar point:"The problem is not that the right were organised but that - with a few exceptions like Durham - the left has not been. At the very moment when he needed the "movement" that got him elected most, it appears to have largely stopped moving."

How do you demonstrate support for the President to do the right thing? Send him an email supporting universal healthcare - good, he'll know he has another voter. Bring the same message to your Congressperson - even better. Engage in the debate in your community and take personal responsibility for how others understand the issue and vote - excellent.

"Holding his feet to the fire", whatever that means, may be therapeutic, but does little to advance the project.

The problem is not that the "movement" that got Obomba elected has deserted him. The problem is that he has deserted them.

And since you've now raised it twice, I will say that holding his feet to the fire means telling him, in large numbers, "Give us single-payer public health care or we'll elect someone who will in 2012." 

That's what will advance the "project".

And Dreier makes clear the falsehood that Obama has the hammer in Congress: "Obama would like, but doesn't need, Republican votes to achieve his goal. But seven conservative Democratic senators -- led by Max Baucus (Mont.) and including Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) -- oppose the public option as well. So by shilling for the insurance industry, they've made it thus far impossible for Obama to take advantage of the Democrats' majority in the Senate."  

I really  dislike the term "canon fodder" it is truly dehumanizing, and deflects away from the reality that it is people who are the "fodder".

I know..I know... it is in reference to Obama, but it does not matter, it is a nasty term that needs to fall into disuse.

Buckle under the pressure of losing substantial campaign contributions from the insurance industry is really more like it.

@M. Spector: "...or we'll elect someone who will in 2012." If you have control of that sizeable a majority, then why not simply turn out to the townhalls now, why not dominate the call in shows now, why not show up in the hundreds of thousands to the steps of Congress now? Why wait 'til 2012 when you can taste power now? Show some audacity!

I live in Toronto. Where do you live?

The health care debate is being lost because Obama and the Democrats ain't in it.

And somehow that's your fault and mine, apparently.

Naw, no one is sitting in judgement of the rabble-rousers. We're enjoying the opportunity to sit in judgement of Obama. I am happy to see the discussion move to laying the fault at the feet of all Democrats, not just Obama.

I think that if it was down to Obama's decision as to how to reform US healthcare and the president's decision alone, then there wouldnt be the debate and hub-bub that's happening now. But then there are US congress and senate to consider. Additionally there are lobbyists with access to those doing the voting on reforms. In Warshington, it really will be a collective decision. And it's rigged in favour of those with the deepest pockets and who lobby hardest. Like Jack said about it to Lou Dobbs, Canadians have fought those battles already in this country. Americans will eventually learn that they cant afford to pay too much money to private enterprisers delivering some of the poorest national health statistics in the developed world. 

As I said HERE, I agree with this quote from Howard Zinn:

@ M. Spector: That helps, didn't know you were an anarchist. Cheers,

I'm an anarchist because I agree with something Howard Zinn said?

In the same post I linked to I also agreed with Dr. James Hansen.

I guess that makes me a rocket scientist. Who knew?

I did. Oh, what a wild weekend of us pretending to be rocket scientists. So many failures, so many laughs.

Who's Blocking Health Care Reform Now? Blue Dogs? Senate Dems? House Progressives? Or the White House Itself? (excerpt)

"For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones." Ronald Reagan

Tough answers here in the blog-o-sphere.

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Obama's Mistakes in Health Care Reform

Obama's "mistake" was to think that he could do a Jefferson imitation in the cesspool of today's ignorant American opinion and Republican vice.

Ta Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic:

I think what you saw yesterday was very predictable. Again, big media sets up this narrative of the "Make or break" speech. Again, Obama shoots the lights out. Again, Obama says something innocuous, "no illegal immigrants will be covered." Again, a Republican overplays his hand. The temptation is to say that Obama planned for August to happen, that he baited his adversaries, the way Deion Sanders used to bait quarterbacks. Probably not. Still, the catch-up speed is incredible. . . .

I keep meeting lefties who tell me Obama's "too soft" with these guys, and I keep looking at them like they're crazy. I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is something deeper at work here, something beyond the policy fights. I think a lot of us don't just want Obama to be effective, we want him to exact some measure of revenge. It's smart to understand the difference between the two, and moreover, how the desire for one can undermine the other. A section of conservatives love Sarah Palin because she drives liberals crazy. That she drives a lot of other people crazy too, and hence undermines herself, is beside the point.

Let's not make that mistake. Besides. If it's blood on the walls you want, the GOP is doing fine by itself.

You very carefully edited out these words:

And all Democrats will vote for Obama all the time?  That isn't how I understand the US system.

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Well, we can let Alexander Cockburn and Ta Nehisi Coates duel over whether it was tactical genius or plain stupidity, but I think the point Krugman was making still stands. Transforming America will require less armchair time and more doorknocking, fundraising, telephone banking, envelope licking and townhall attending. And a great measure of faith. No reason why it should be any different than here.

And it will require someone far more courageous and farsighted than Mr. Obomba.

When the opposition's like this, how courageous and farsighted do you have to be?

The opposition has always been like that.

A Senate committee has approved a bill to reform US healthcare, a key step in President Barack Obama's attempt to overhaul the system.

Senators voted by 14 votes to nine to pass the bill, with one Republican joining Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee in voting in favour.

Senator Olympia Snowe became the first Republican to back the proposals.

Krugman's right.  Where is everyone who got out the vote for Obama?  Did they think that everything they hoped for would simply unfold on inauguration day?  Or maybe they suffer from movement fatigue?  What they need are more pitchforks, and fewer pitchmen.  Only in America!  Here too, perhaps.

No pubic option!  Ha!  (Moran!)

So health care reform is moving through to the next stage....

It passes the first hurdle. I'm not sure how far Clinton's reform attempt proceeded before it was scuttled.

What a great day, the Senate finance committee passed a bill that will FORCE all Americans to buy insurance from insurance companies plus it gives those companies almost a billion dollars of government money. That is the kind of reform the industry has bought and paid for. 

There can't be more than 50 people in that picture.

Obama needs to get a public option passed to have any credibiity as an agent of change.

The Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout

obama recently increased the emergency state AmeriKKKa's been in sicne 9/11 it was up on the whitehouse website.

He aint for shit like M Spector said he hwas a huge majority he could do it if he wanted.

That's the key word though.

Bun dis sellout.

This thread title makes no sense.

Obama is a toady for corporate America, but he will be duly rewarded for his services once he's turfed out of office, and thus cannot be said to be "expendable."

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