In one of her debates with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (who's forgotten more about health care than hacks like Kent Conrad will ever know) said Democrats needed to insist that their plan provide universal coverage (which Obama has always been lukewarm about), or else the opposition would "nibble it to death." Well, as usual, Hillary was right.  The Republicans and their crazed wingnut hordes have been nibbling away like the killer rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and they may very well succeed in getting President Obama to sign a shitty bill.

But missing from this depressing story in today's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/health /policy/06lessons.html?_r=1&ref=poli tics) is any indication that Barack Obama himself -- who's been lauded for playing chess while lesser politicians played checkers -- has much interest in the health care endgame from a policy standpoint.  He seems prepared to sign anything, which might be why, at each potential inflection point during the course of the debate, he has chosen to make himself invisible.  And politics abhors a vacuum.

This is the problem with Democratic strategists in general and Obama in particular.  They're still afraid of looking too liberal.  So in the end, because they refuse to lead, they look weak, even in victory, as they pass a milquetoast bill that they then have to sell -- without conviction -- to a still skeptical public.

But maybe this time, the Democratic base might get royally pissed off.  What -- really -- have we got to lose?

(From my blog http://partisandawn.wordpress.com/)

[I got tired of obsessing about health care on my little blog (http://partisandawn.wordpress.com/) and succumbed to some sort of Colridgean trance. It's more or less the same wingnut bashing I always do except I got to use cool words like "eftsoons."]

It is an ancient Governor,
Who, at the wedding feast
Of Piper Palin, grips the arm
Of a Republican high priest.

The priest quick blanches, stark with fright;
His lips go ghastly pale.
"I fear thy skinny hand," quoth he.
"I hate thy gruesome tale."

Whereat the ancient Governor
Replies in steely tones:
"Listen you will to my tale, until
Its dread doth invade thy bones.

I was a Solon, great and good
(So should we all fain be!) -
But idly did I twin my `Self'
To John F. Kennedy.

O cursed` be that awe-full name!
I acquired his roving eye:
Whence women - whom my fancy struck -
O'er me might wail and sigh."

The priest crieth, "Stop! I'll brook no more!
Thy tale is so oft-told,
That men crouched here do quake in fear
Of aping your sins so bold."

The ancient Governor grows now stern.
"The People have spoken loud.
They cherish not our Candidates:
You men of your `virtue' proud."

The priest looks down - "Carry on," saith he -
For he kens the diamond truth:
Whispers of hypocrisy
Are plague in the voting booth.

And so the ancient Governor,
Resumeth his tale of woe,
As if to cauterize the wound
His Party doth vainly show.

"Emails! Innocent and pure!
With such my doom began:
Eftsoons their subject lines did turn
To Maria's golden tan,

And to her wond'rous fleshly globes,
And to her celestial kiss,
And to her curves, and to her soul -
Thus born: my desperate bliss!

Short-lived my bliss, short-lived indeed,
My lies compounded so:
Tall tales of Appalachian Trails
Vanished in the truth's warm glow.

Humility - I've learned it hard.
Take heed, stout friends of mine:
On my gray headstone wags will scrawl -
'He shagged the Argentine!'"

                    *       *       *

The wedding feast went forth as planned;
The high priest took his place.
He nothing thought of aught he'd heard
Of a sad man's sad disgrace.

In a rational world, today's Republican Party would be little more than a kooky fringe group, like the Larouchites. Unfortunately, we live here. And in America 2009, on the nation's premier business channel, the utterly discredited economic theories promulgated by George W. Bush and Company are still considered sacrosanct. I guess it's comfort food for CNBC's shell-shocked viewers, who cling to the fantasy of becoming swashbuckling Wall Street Jedi.

Last evening on the network, Arthur Laffer, legendary father of a ridiculous economic curve, teamed up with Larry Kudlow to denounce the administration's plan for saving the nation's banking system. Hallelujah! This was the first unadulterated piece of good economic news I've heard in weeks. If Kudlow and Laffer think the Geithner plan is a train wreck, then I'm getting bullish on America again. Those guys are always wrong.

Then, this morning, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Judd "We Hardly Knew Ye" Gregg went on Squawk Box to complain about the deficit. No--really--they did. These "Republican moderates"--who never met a two trillion dollar war they wouldn't put off-budget--had the audacity to pose as penny-pinching guardians of the public till. Forget the fact that their supply-side snake oil has turned fatally rancid. Hutchison and Gregg deserve to be tarred and feathered around the clock solely on the grounds of criminal hypocrisy.

I'm no big fan of President Obama's rhetorical choices, but on substance, his speech the other night was excellent. His obsession with bipartisanship drives me up a wall, but it appears to be part of a long-term strategy. I'll just have to get used to it. But what about the rest of the Democrats? You know, the ones who aren't President? Well, when they're not actually legislating, they need to be out there trying to terminate--with extreme prejudice--the Republican Party's current raison d'etre. Condescension and ridicule--as well as the truth--should be their weapons of choice. Let Obama take the high road.

The stakes are too great, and there's too much to do, to risk letting the GOP get their hands on the government again. The proponents of such a dangerous and bankrupt philosophy need to be exposed ASAP.

Cross posted on http://www.sternlywordedletters.blogspot .com/

That's the number of House Republicans who voted for the stimulus bill, despite the best efforts of a Democratic president to water it down for them. Is this how we're going to spend the next four years?

The Republicans aren't going away and they aren't going to change. I don't care how many Michael Steeles they trot out to "put a new face on the party". They're wedded to a right-wing, trickle-down ideology because 1) their base demands it 2) it's lucrative and 3) its simplemindedness makes it a powerful campaign tool--in the right circumstances.

This is not a good year to be a Republican, yet Barack Obama insists on giving them credibility. (If he really thinks the GOP is brimming with good ideas, we're in big trouble.) On substantive terms, getting more Republican votes than are absolutely necessary is going to make virtually all legislation worse. That's just a fact. So the only justification for pandering to them has to be that it's part of a long-term political strategy.

Does Obama believe that spending quality time with John Boehner is going to pave the way for a grand, bipartisan compromise on health care or anything else? That doesn't pass the laugh test.

Maybe he thinks "going the extra mile" will make the GOP look obstructionist and strengthen his hand with the public. That might happen, but he'd better not be counting on Wolf Blitzer to hammer home the message. At Think Progress, they're complaining about continued Republican dominance of the cable news guest list. Duh! What do they expect? Barack Obama has made bipartisanship the lodestar of his presidency. (As if the corporate media needs any more incentive than it already has to prop up Republicans!)

Then there's the outsized influence of David Axelrod, Obama's uber-Rove. His job in the White House is to prepare for 2012. Here's how I see his political calculus:

"I'd rather not have to re-invent the wheel. We won with a feel-good campaign in 2008, and my client has a nice-guy image worth its weight in votes. So--where do we stand today? For the foreseeable future--don't bring up foreign policy!--elections will be won or lost on the economy. But here's the thing--to a great extent, this recession will end when it ends. We might be able to ameliorate its awfulness, but how much credit will we get for our efforts? What's the difference between 9% unemployment and 8.5% unemployment? Barack is still going to get hammered. Is it worth it to fight for better policies and risk alienating the media? They're so touchy when it comes to their precious bipartisanship. In this case, half a loaf is way better than a whole loaf. After all, the world will still need us in 2013."

Does Obama see it like this? Who knows. But he certainly hasn't embraced the James Carville strategy--which I endorse--of throwing your drowning opponent an anvil.

It's going to take a long time to clean up the mess in this country. Politics needs to be about something. Democrats need to set the terms of the debate. They need to be clear about their solutions while attempting--respectfully--to highlight an unbroken line of Republican failure stretching from Hoover to Reagan to Bush to Boehner. They need to discredit--respectfully--the GOP and its policies the way the right-wing discredited the New Deal. (They can leave the vicious name-calling to the blogosphere. I'm more than happy to do my part.)

Of course, presidents may have their own priorities. That's why Obama needs to be pressured.

From my blog-- http:://www.sternlywordedletters.blogspot.co m

               There is a deep-seated craving common to all
                men of words which determines their attitude
                to the prevailing order.  It is a craving for
                recognition; a craving for a clearly marked
                status above the common run of humanity.
                "Vanity," said Napoleon, "made the Revolution;
                liberty was only a pretext."
                               --Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

Too many progressive websites now serve up identical daily fare: endless praise for Barack Obama; relentless criticism of Hillary Clinton; and, above all, great torrents of mathematical argumentation explaining why the contest needs to end immediately.

Some on the left are worried about potential Democratic disunity in the fall.  Many more seem dazzled by Obama's apparent charisma.  Still others are simply incapable of dealing rationally with the Clintons.  (Jonathan Chait of The New Republic called Hillary a "fratricidal maniac" for not yielding to the dictates of Obama math.  Whatever, Jon.)

But there's another reason for Obama's popularity among bloggers--indeed, among much of the left-of-center commentariat from TNR to The Nation.

They need each other.

Hillary Clinton may or may not make a good president, but one thing's for sure--she won't be reinventing the wheel.  No transcendental speechifying.  No post-partisan mind-melding with Mitch McConnell.  A Clinton presidency will contain its fair share of divisive politics.  We pretty much know what that looks like.  Some of us even welcome it.

For many bloggers the problem with Hillary isn't that she's a shrieking, mendacious harpy.  That's for their comment sections.  The problem is that her candidacy doesn't provide them with a subject worthy of their talents.

Enter Barack Obama, a slick politician peddling an extremely vague blueprint for change that cries out for further explication.  In due course, from the fertile steppes of progressive cyberspace, appears a multitude of bold theoreticians and stalwart number crunchers, all eager to work overtime constructing an intellectual framework to support the Obama hype machine.

Right now their efforts are concentrated on ensuring that no renegade superdelegates or pesky voters in Michigan and Florida threaten the Obama campaign's Fortress of Inevitability.  Leading the charge is Josh Marshall, and what a sad and sorry spectacle.  Once an indispensable source of honest progressive journalism, TPM has lost all credibility by becoming little more than a clearinghouse for the latest Obama campaign spin, sprinkled with a few Clinton smears.  (Has a more shameless Washington suck-up artist ever revealed himself?)

As long as the mainstream media has the Clintons to kick around, they'll be in lockstep with the Obamasphere, at least until their McCain fetish overpowers them.  If Obama manages to get elected, an unfortunate dynamic will emerge.

The media has no interest in promoting a Democratic agenda--ever.  Obama will be expected to fulfill his canpaign promise--as caricatured by the press--to end all the "partisan bickering" and start compromising.  If he doesn't...Well, Time magazine has some vintage Clinton-era "Incredible Shrinking President" covers they can recycle.

Obama won't relish getting photoshopped into that particular picture.  His universal health care plan will start looking even less universal than it does now.

Howls of protest will come from hardcore policy wonks, but Obama needn't worry--the big brains at Open Left, along with the rest of his online vanguard of hope, have his back.  They're currently seen waving his old Iraq speech in front of Hillary Clinton like Van Helsing brandishing a crucifix because they're not sure he's very committed to progressive solutions.  It's no big deal, though.  Obama is transcendentally transforming American society, and something so grand takes time.  The policy will have to wait for the politics.  Someday Congress will be full of Wellstone liberals.  Someday.

Eric Hoffer:

               What de Remusat said of Thiers is perhaps true
                of most men of words: "he has much more vanity
                than ambition; and he prefers consideration to
                obedience, and the appearance of power to power
                itself.  Consult him constantly, and then do
                just as you please.  He will take more notice
                of your deference to him than of your actions."

At least we still have Paul Krugman.

Thus far Barack Obama has been subjected to virtually no media scrutiny and--much more importantly--has been the target of no Republican attacks.  It is therefore ludicrous to make any claims about his ablity to defeat John McCain.  It's like saying the Dolphins will beat the Patriots provided the Patriots don't take the field.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton have been around for a long time. They have rich, compelling and complicated biographies full of many successes and not a few failures. The public knows who they are.  Democrats who think they can turn McCain into a flip-flopper or Hillary into Miss Congeniality are living in fantasyland.  A few things can be done at the margins, but the candidates cannot redefine each other.  They will try, of course, but the public will soon tire of it.  A McCain-Clinton race will end up being more about issues than personas. The Democrat will win that race.

Barack Obama's campaign was going nowhere until Obamamania spread throughout the land.  There's a very good reason for this--when the spotlight was on him alone, he couldn't deliver.  His paper-thin resume and his lack of a coherent agenda made people wonder what all the fuss was about.  Only when he became bathed in the reflected light of his supporters' adoration did he become viable. His campaign has now reached the stratosphere, but it's the political equivalent of a Ponzi scheme.  It's fundamentally about nothing--by design.

Obamamania will weaken. The media and the Republicans are going to put the spotlight back on the candidate. He has defined his movement, but he has not defined himself.  I don't know what he's going to come up with, but it better be good.  

After 9/11 George W. Bush put the country on a permanent war footing and created a new role for himself--The Decider.  In so doing he revitalized his presidency and greatly expanded and solidified his political base.  His most rabid supporters now saw little difference between Osama bin Laden and Harry Reid.  They were both enemies of Bush and needed to be defeated by any
means necessary.  In this domestic war confrontation was unavoidable and to be welcomed.  His base demanded it, and Bush was happy to oblige.  It was the source of his power.

In the wreckage of the Bush presidency Barack Obama has pursued a different means of obtaining power.  He would end the political wars and declare himself The Uniter.  In this role confrontation is his enemy and must be avoided.  (This does not apply in Obama's current struggle with Hillary Clinton because she is seen as a Divider.  She and her supporters just don't get it.  Once they are disposed of, Obama can begin bringing us together.)