"Lieberman: The Fallout"

[Clio the Leo]

Lieberman: The Fallout
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

The question is inescapable: by going on national television and threatening to join Republicans to defeat President Obama’s top domestic priority, did Senator Joseph I. Lieberman actually save the Democrats’ big health care bill?

There is no evidence that Mr. Lieberman’s role was scripted. His television comments on Sunday clearly surprised the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. The White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and other top officials rushed to the Capitol for a meeting.

And yet when Democrats emerged from a tense, 90-minute huddle behind closed doors on Monday night, they seemed more determined than ever to pass the health care legislation. Some expressed confidence that it could still be adopted by Christmas.

A sentiment among some lawmakers present seemed to be that if they were intent on not letting Republicans defeat the health care legislation, they certainly were not going to let it fail at the hands of Mr. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whom many Democrats regard as a traitor.

On some level, Mr. Lieberman appears to accomplish a goal that has eluded party leaders for months: settling a sharp dispute between liberal and centrist Democrats over whether to create a government-run health insurance plan, or public option.

Senator John D. Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia and a strong champion of the public option, said senators had talked philosophically during their meeting about their role in governing the country and their obligations to the constituents they serve.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/lieberman-the-fallout/?hp

[yurbud]

1. How will the Democrats get re-elected if they allow themselves to be bullied by a handful of corrupt

pols?

[Clio the Leo]

4. By.....

.... improving health care? :shrug:

[yurbud]

7. I hope you are right, but capitulation to the insurance industry is not a promising strategy

for doing that.

[Clio the Leo]

8. Which brings us back to the question I'm always asking....

.... if it's "capitulation" then why did the industry work so hard to stop it?

Was that to throw us off?

[yurbud]

9. they are fighting to get even the mildest of actual progressive reforms cut out when they pop up

Like the Medicare buy in and the severely deformed public option the House and Senate passed.

[dgibby]

2. I don't know,

but according to CNN, Obama wants this passed before Christmas, preferably this week, and he's summoned all 60 Dem senators to the WH today for a meet up.

[Clio the Leo]

6. And they're arriving on three little short-buses...

Those 3 sorta-school buses carrying the sens to the WH down Penn Ave...SIMPLY ADORABLE

http://twitter.com/pwgavin

[Clio the Leo]

3. Semi-related .....

Ezra Klein tweets, "Oh my. This is Lady Gaga's most shocking outfit yet."

http://tedmccagg.typepad.com/drawings/2009/12/lady-gaga.html

:)

[AndrewP]

10. LOL

[high density]

5. I'd love for Lieberman to explain how costs get controlled in this plan

I mean, think about it, 30 million people who can’t afford health insurance in our country today are going to get it under this bill. The cost curve is going to be bent down.”

Forcing people to buy insurance and then giving subsidizes is not bending the cost curve down.

[cornermouse]

11. All hail Lieberman.

He saved the democratic party by eliminating all possibility of freeloaders getting free or reduced cost healthcare. :sarcasm: for clarification.

[Lord Helmet]

12. He's flip flopping on the Medicare buy-in, something he's supported for years.

Fuck him.

[classysassy]

13. Tell Joe

that we are going to cut off aide to Israel,that will bring him around.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. Only David Herszenhorn could turn this into Lieberman helping the Democrats

Jesus, what sophistic nonsense that guy produces.