Night Light

Pirate Radio

Went out to the movies for the first time in quite a while last night and saw Pirate Radio, a fictionalized take on the pirate stations that sprung up off the shore of Great Britain in the sixties to meet the unmet need for rock and roll radio there (the BBC was notoriously stingy about airtime for pop music).

It's a fun, funny, positive, uplifting film.  Worth seeing.  A couple extended sexual gags fell flat (and dragged on too long), but otherwise it was fast-paced and entertaining.

I saw a lot of albums I liked and some I didn't during the final montage of rock and roll album covers - but there was only one that made me sit up and sey "Hey!  That's not even rock and roll!  It doesn't belong here!" 

Unfortunately I can't remember what it was.  If you see the film, look for it (you'll know it when you see it) and let me know, would you?

Aging is filled with a certain among of loss and sadness, but as they played all those great songs it struck me that it's worth it to be older today if that's the price for growing up during such an exciting period in music, politics, art, literature.  I imagine people who came up in the thirties feel the same way, as did Europeans who were around during the 1848 uprisings.

Not all the music was great, but it started and ended with the Kinks - and they played "Stay With Me" by Lorraine Ellison during the closing credits.  As great goes, that's pretty effin' great, alright ...

Phantom America, Thanks For Nothing!

(Written for the Huffington Post at their request to commemorate Thanksgiving)

The heart that struggles with disappointment and sadness believes too easily that hope is a lie, a fraud, another hustler's pitch to the next sucker walking down the street. Disillusionment with Obama and the Democrats can turn dark in just this way. The audacity of hope is really the asperity of a hoax, says the wounded heart, and we're just the latest crowd to fall for the same old three-card monte.

"I know thee, I have found thee, & I will not let thee go," wrote William Blake in America: A Prophecy. "Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa; And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death." Meaning what? It could mean that we're a land born of slavery, a nation that made a Faustian bargain for its independence.

Those who are disappointed with the President's leadership - I'm often among them - might do well to remember that he had the real audacity to speak these words to our country about its beloved Declaration of Independence: "The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery."

The President was right - although, as Elvis Costello observed, "there's no such thing as an original sin." That cynical tradeoff, that dream of freedom bought on the slavery of others, had been made many times before 1776 and has been made many times since. Those of us who would judge the Founding Fathers (not a Mother among them) would do well to note how many times during the day we purchase our freedom on the backs of slaves - in Third World sweatshops and North American ghettos, in the sinking islands of the South Pacific and the carnage of bombed wedding parties on Afghan highways.

And, though this is the time where we're supposed to give thanks, even this holiday could be considered an illusion. That first settlement of 102 radical British separatists blew it from the start. Half of them died during that first winter. We idealize their Native American rescuers as kindly, Rousseauian "noble savages," but the Wampanoag only saved the colonists because they needed allies for their power struggle against the neighboring Narragansett alliance.

So those sweet cartoons we watched as kids were just another dream. This holiday was really born when a major European f**k-up collided with some indigenous realpolitik. Stephen Vincent Benét, poet laureate of the American dream, had to invoke ghosts to praise the Founding Fathers: "When Daniel Boone goes by at night/The phantom deer arise/And all lost, wild America/Is burning in their eyes."

In this idealized land even the deer are phantoms. That must mean that the USA we were raised to love and believe in is a dream, a lie, a ghost we're trained to pursue so that we'll make good and docile citizens of the Empire, right? And for that we're supposed to give thanks? Thanks for nothing, Phantom America!

Except ...

It is by dreams that we're sustained, that we survive, that we grow. Everything we perceive about our world is a conceptual and emotional construct, a mental model we build to organize and sustain ourselves in a world of nonstop information. The negative model - the one where we've always been deceived and always will be - is just as much a phantom as the positive. We need to pick a construct that reasonably reflects what is, and what can be, and use it to improve our world. As Red America rocker (and noted philosopher) Axl Rose might say, we need to "use our illusion."

Benét's "wild America" exists. I've seen it. So have you. I saw it most recently when I appeared at the Progressive Freedom Festival in Kernville, in the wild canyon country north of Bakersfield. That's native country to two of my favorite singers, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, two poets of our phantom dreams. Bakersfield is also home to Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez and who I had the privilege of introducing at the Festival. The dream is expanding year by year.

The land in the Kern River Valley is rugged and harsh, beautiful and wild. It's a very Red America up there, an extreme right-wing nation filled with retirees and bikers and residents of the vanishing agrarian nation we were when Benét was born in 1898. Their dreams have made them "tea party" Americans, but our job isn't to condemn them. Our job is to help them understand that we share a common dream. Our job is to respect their idealism and their desire to serve something greater than themselves, even if those impulses have been deformed by twisted mental models, and to harmonize their aspirations with our own.

"My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes," sang the aforementioned (and British) Mr. Costello, using the words of his colleague Nick Lowe: "Where are the strong, in whom I trusted?" They're not in Washington, at least not often enough. But they're right here, walking among us. They are us, and they carry the dream of freedom. "Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field," wrote Blake in that poem. "Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air."

"Life is not lost by dying," said Benét , "life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways." That's what happens when you lose your dreams. By all means, let's keep the pressure on Barack and Rahm and Harry and all the rest. Let's play the game the way it must be played. But personally, I'll keep repeating that question of Costello's and Lowe's, as dated and naïve as it may sound to jaded ears: What is so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

America, land of phantoms and illusions, the poets and singers have read your palm. You've had hard days in the past and more are on their way. But you have your dreams and they must never be lost. They are beautiful, they are real, and at our most precious moments they are true. They sustain us.

I will love and pursue this dream. I will see reality as precisely as I can, but I will believe. And I'll offer these words of thanks:

I know thee, I have found thee, and I will not let thee go.
___________________

Related: Fourth of July post - "The Bells Say, 'You Cannot Love the Nation If You Do Not Love the Land'"

offline

My unexplained absence, explained:  There's been a death in the family.  Perhaps this weekend I'll be writing again.

No, Rachel, No! This "Health Reform" Could Lose the Middle Class for Dems

I read with interest Mike Elk's assertion that "liberal elitism will make Sarah Palin President," as well as Oliver Willis' response that "some people are, sadly, stupid." But if Democrats and progressives are really concerned about middle-class votes - and they should be - it's statements like this one by Rachel Maddow that should concern them:

And this weekend, the House grabbed the brass ring that president after president and Congress after Congress have wanted to grab and failed: health reform at last-the kind of once in more than a lifetime historic achievement that could brand the Democratic Party and inspire voter loyalty for a generation.

Now, as a conflict-of-interest disclosure, I love Rachel Maddow's show. And she gets better every week. But when I heard her say these words on Monday's show, I felt like an actor in one of those slow-motion disaster scenes, watching a friend make a tragic mistake and wanting to shout "No-o-o-o-o- ...." (Remember, it's in slow motion.)

I think that's what Rachel was doing, too, when she went on to rightly slam the Stupak Amendment. (For an idea of how that amendment might look to a visitor from another planet, go here.) But, Stupak Amendment aside, it's this sort of rhetoric that troubles me the most right now. This is not the time for people, especially progressives, to congratulate themselves over this deeply flawed bill. There's still time to fix its most egregious flaws, which are by no means limited to the highly objectionable (and politically foolish) Stupak Amendment. I hope Rachel will reconsider.

Any possible amalgam of the House and Senate bills, as they now stand, will look very much like the plan once called Romneycare in Massachusetts. It will be highly (if not entirely) dependent on private health insurance, will lack meaningful price controls, and will be forced of necessity to leave a great many pople uninsured even after passage. (I did a back-of-the-envelopeestimate in April 2008 when many progressives were confusing "mandates" with "universal coverage" and came up with 8 million uninsured. Today the CBO says 9 million.) This bill will do great things for the lower-income uninsured - which is to be celebrated - but it will do so by placing disproportionate financial burdens on the middle class.

When politicians and health policy experts were celebrating the Massachusetts bill, only a few of us sent out warnings. But the scenario has played out pretty much the way our minority reports predicted. Politically, the Massachusetts bill - which addresses a much smaller problem than the one we face nationally - is mildly popular overall (51% favorability), but unpopular with those it has affected personally (56% negative vs. 44% positive.)

And who would that be? The middle class, mainly.1 That scenario's likely to play out again on a national scale. those who currently have health insurance will face a future of rising premiums, starting next year, which these reforms would do little or nothing to address. Most of them will not have a public-option choice, and even those that do will find it lacks cost-containment "teeth." And, while there's some credibility to Goldman-Sachs' doomsaying, the insurance companies will have a decent revenue stream that can be enhanced with further premium increases. The Goldman figures address relative forecasts which drive stock prices (will margins improve or narrow, etc.) rather than absolute revenue numbers.

This hardly sounds like "a lifetime historic achievement that could brand the Democratic Party and inspire voter loyalty for a generation." It sounds more like a bill that will help some people, leave others where they are, and place new burdens on still others. It also sounds like a bill that can be used to make political capital for the GOP, who can paint Dems as "the party that doesn't understand the middle class." With all that, plus some populist right-wing rhetoric about Wall Street's coziness with Washington, you could have a winning formula for Republicans.

Why say this now? Because there is still a chance to make this bill significantly better. Democrats can strengthen the public option, reconsider price controls, and make sure not to pass that "Cadillac" tax. (David Leonhardt's defense of it in the New York Times is based in part on a decades-old RAND study that has now been seriously challenged methodologically - I hope to discuss that at more length soon).

Nobody's going to bother addressing some of this bill's more troublesome provisions if smart, engaged progressives like my hero Rachel engage in premature congratulation, rather than providing Democrats the tough criticism needed if we are to get a better result than the one we're likely to face today. And any criticism that is provided will be read with the belief they don't really need to respond, since this group is already thrilled with at least the House's bill exactly as it's written.

____________

1This point applies specifically to families who will be mandated to purchase coverage, but will be eligible for little or no assistance paying their insurance premiums (which, as a reminder, neither the House or Senate bills would do much to contain). This will most strongly affect those who make roughly $66,000/year income and upward for a family of four, and who do not receive insurance through their employer.

Interview With the Alien (or, "The Wrath of Stupak")

The place: A quiet stretch of road, illuminated by a single beam from a shining object hovering 100 yeards off the ground. Two shadowy figures stand in the harsh light: A gray-bodied alien with tentacle-like fingers. And me.

Me: Thank you for allowing me to interview you.

Alien: Actually it is I who am interviewing you. Is this translating device functional? I mean ... (tap tap) Is this thing on?

Me: Yes.

Alien: I was monitoring your video screens this morning and observed much conflict in your Hall of Wise Legislative Councilors.

Me: You better tap that thing again.

Alien: I mean,"Congress." Is that a more accurate translation?

Me: Yes.

Alien: Specifically, I was attempting to understand your "Stupak Amendment." Motivations on this planet are often difficult to discern, but this individual's behavior seems comprehensible to us. Clearly this ... "Stupak" ... whose name is so like the ones on my planet ... has a strong wish to reproduce.

Me: No, I don't think that's it. His idea would not affect people like him, only lower-income people.

Alien: "Lower income" ... So, he desires a planet which is more heavily populated by persons with less financial resources than himself?

Me: I'm pretty sure that's not his motivation.

Alien: I have heard the term "pro-life." But those who use this term often support measures that result in the death of fully-formed humans, especially those of "lower income." Why are they dedicated to preserving what they see as life in pre-birth form, but not in post-birth form?

Me: That inconsistency has been noted elsewhere.

Alien: Perhaps this ... Stupak ... wishes people who lack financial resources to engage in sexual activity with less frequency than other humans.

Me: That might be part of it. But if you keep pronouncing his name that way, people will say that you are culturally insensitive. Guys like Bart Stupak and me put up with a lot of grief over our last names back in grade school, especially from snobby WASPS.

Alien: Wasps? I did not know your insects were sentient. But why were they "snobby" during your larval stage?

Me: They sometimes feel superior to those of us who have ethnic names.

Alien: You are Ethnic? From Ethnicus IV? With your name, I assumed you were from the Rigelian Sector.

Me: Some might think so.

Alien: This ... Stupak ... he wishes "lower-income" beings to live in a state of non-sexuality?

Me: They can have sex ... if they're married.

Alien: So people with fewer financial resources would be required to exchange exclusivity vows before engaging in sexual activity? Interesting. And then they would be required to reproduce involuntarily should they enjoy the ... what is it you call it? ... the "Act of Congress."

Me: Well, it's not the same "congress" as -

Alien: Is this Stupak ...troubled by the method of reproduction employed by humans? This thing called "sexuality"?

Me: Some people certainly think so.

Alien: It is also striking to us that the subset of humans known as "men" exerts such control over the physical bodies of that other subset known as "women." It is very reminiscent of the colonization and enslavement protocols we have seen imposed when one planet conquers another. Could "men" and "women" have originated on different worlds?

Me: They say that "men are from Mars and women are from Venus" -

Alien: Ridiculous! We have visited both planets, and neither is hospitable to humans. But it is curious to see one half of a species dominate another, merely because of the role each plays in the process of reproduction. Your planet is, how shall I say it? (tap tap) - really weird.

Me: Now you're catching on. You're beginning to think like we do.

Alien: That is a disturbing idea. Perhaps it is best if we leave before it is too late.

A Short Vocabulary Lesson for Sen. Lieberman (With Some History Thrown In At No Extra Charge)

People who label Nidal Malik Hasan a "terrorist," like Joe Lieberman just did, literally don't understand the meaning of the word. And how can they keep us safe from terrorism if they don't even know what it is?

Here's what Sen. Lieberman said: ""There are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act."

Here's a fairly concise definition of the word 'terrorism', drawn from the Random House Dictionary: "The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes." (emphasis mine)

Had Dr. Hasan become "an Islamist extremist"? It sure looks that way. But was the horrific slaughter he carried out intended to "intimidate or coerce" anyone? We've heard no evidence to that effect. These terrible killings may have just been an expression of inchoate rage. And if we don't know whether coercion or intimidation was the goal, than we certainly don't know if it was done "for political purposes."

Sen. Lieberman's statement, on the other hand, probably was made "for political purposes." And bigotry might be a factor, too, don't you think? After all, the Senator made no such statements about other shootings at military facilities.

Let's get one thing straight: This is not a liberal, knee-jerk defense of someone because he belongs to an unpopular minority (although defending unpopular minorities is generally a good practice). If we learn that Malik Hasan left a note saying "anybody who serves in the US Armed Forces must know they will face retribution," we'll know that he is a terrorist. He will have committed his murders in order to intimidate or coerce. But right now we don't have any evidence that suggests Hasan is any different than the civilian who killed 23 people at a cafeteria right down the road from Ft. Hood, shouting "This is what Central Texas did to me!"

Apparently that guy really hated Central Texas. But he wasn't a terrorist, because he wasn't trying to intimidate people or change their behavior.

So if the Luby's Cafeteria Murderer wasn't a terrorist, what does qualify as terrorism? Al Qaeda's dirty deeds do, of course. Those cowardly killings are intended to provoke US withdrawal from all Muslim countries. (No, they don't do it because "they hate our freedoms.") Christian extremist Scott Roeder's act of murder was terrorism, too, because he wants doctors to stop performing abortions. (He and others like him have nearly achieved their goal, too, which makes it pretty effective terror.)

The Irgun's bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which killed 91 people in 1946, was also an indisputable act of terrorism, designed to intimidate occupying British personnel and encourage their withdrawal from Palestine. The Irgun's behavior provoked the World Zionist Congress to condemn "the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare," much as mainstream Muslim groups have repeatedly condemned Al Qaeda.

And it's not just a God thing. Muslims, Christians, and Jews are not the only ones whose followers have engaged in terrorism. Forty years ago terrorists in Europe and the United States were likely to be non-believing members of leftist groups like the Red Brigades, Red Army Faction, or Weather Underground. Disbeliever Leon Frank Czolgosz shot President William McKinley, arguably an act of terrorism, because of his anarchist ideals. As Robert Pape's data analysis showed in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, even suicide bombers are more likely to be driven by powerlessness than religion.

When James David Adkisson killed those Unitarians in Knoxville, he wasn't trying to change anybody's behavior. He was acting out his rage against liberals - a rage apparently fomented by viewing Fox News and reading books by Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Adkisson and Hasan are similar figures, both of whom are guilty of horrific behavior (assuming Hasan's guilt and conviction, of course.) But neither are "terrorists" by any rational definition.

If we had applied Lieberman-like logic after the Knoxville shooting we would have started profiling anybody carrying a book by Hannity or O'Reilly. (I can hear some of you saying "Good idea!" Knock it off, guys - this is America.)

I believe in strong, clear-eyed work to combat terrorism. We also need an effective strategy for spotting soldiers that are about to snap and go on a killing spree. But they're not the same strategies. It's beginning to look like some serious warning signs were overlooked in the Hasan case. We need to find out what went wrong and fix it. But a tough antiterrorism policy begins with a hardnosed, non-ideological (and non-prejudiced) look at the facts. The Lieberman definition of terrorism would have us squander our investigative resources by pursuing a lot of Muslims rather than a lot of potential terrorists.

I don't mean to pick on Sen. Lieberman. It's a soul-killing waste of energy to resent any individual politician, as tempting as some of them may make it. But Lieberman's a good proxy for all the right-wingers who have called Hasan's terrible act "terrorism." (And we can drop the pretense that Lieberman is anything but a die-cut, straight-down-the-line rightist.)

I don't object to the Joe Liebermans of the world because they're conservative. I object to them because they don't know what the hell they're talking about. Their goal is indiscriminate military aggression toward the Muslim world, not effective security for the United States. They seem to believe that comments like these build a case for that agenda and prove that they can keep us safer than those now in power.

They're really proving the opposite. They're showing that they're still likely to act before they've gathered all the facts. Once again they've responded to tragedy with their patented blend of blind fear, misdirected anger, and cynical rhetoric. They're reminding us one more time how often they've failed and flailed in the face of danger. And they're demonstrating that they don't understand the real threat any more now than they did when they blundered into Iraq. Yet despite one embarrassing display after another, they keep claiming they know how to keep us safe from terrorism.

Terrorism?

They don't know the meaning of the word.

Democratic Party Out of Bounds

Who's to blame when situations degenerate?
Disgusting things you'd never anticipate.
People get sick, they play the wrong games
Ya know, it can ruin your name!
- The B-52s, "Party Out of Bounds"

Would I have voted for the House health reform bill? Probably, although I'm not sure. Would I have celebrated its passage with a festive party atmosphere, as some Democrats did? Definitely not. And here's a word to the House Dems who reportedly chanted "Fired up! Ready to go!": This isn't a pep rally. You guys traded more than you needed to trade, partially as a result of the White House's laissez-faire approach to this process, and you're gonna pay for it eventually.

This situation calls for a little less partying and a little more party leadership, a few less amendments and a lot more amends. And forgive me if I'm not bringing any "health analyst" gravitas to this discussion, but Democrats need to understand how deep the reaction is likely to be among the base voters - the same voters who failed to show last week in Virginia.

What went wrong? Why did we get such a weak bill, compounded by the violation of women's rights and dignity that has come to be called the "Stupak Amendment"? To a certain extent it represents the messiness of the legislative process, made more difficult by Rahm Emanuel's misguided strategy of recruiting conservative candidates and calling them Democrats. To borrow a neologism from the above-quoted B-52s song, you can call it "House-a-tosis."

Then there was the White House's cynical, hands-off approach to the process. After all, if you don't commit to any particular policy plank as being "the President's reform," you win no matter what passes. My heart sank during the President's healthcare speech when he said "I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last." I felt then that he would not fight for the best bill, but was determined to win any old bill, as long as it could be called "health reform."

"Any old bill" is pretty much what we got - and it's likely to get even worse once the Senate is through with it. How bad is it? I've said my piece before (see links below), so I'll defer to someone far more distinguished. Unlike me, Dr. Marcia Angell, the longtime editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, would definitely not have voted for the bill, for excellent reasons. Read her piece for a wise perspective on what the House has done.

Many Democrats and progressives will disagree with her conclusions, of course, and with my slightly milder ones. That's fine. But one argument that will not be persuasive is the overused talking point that critics are too "naive" about politics. On the contrary - most objections to this version of "health reform" are deeply rooted in pragmatism. That practical mindset applies both to health policy (ref. Angell and others) and street-level politics. And about the politics ...

I don't think many Democrats, especially male Democrats, have any idea how profoundly the House has alienated Democratic women by accepting the Stupak Amendment. The level of pain and outrage I've seen from women writers (and women I know personally) is profound and deep. Women are a core constituency for Dems, and many of them may choose to stay at home in 2010 and even 2012 if the Stupak Amendment is retained in the final bill.

I've already gone on at length about how the lack of a real public option or premium price controls will hurt working families once the mandate goes into effect. That will translate into voter anger, too.

That's why the celebrating seemed not only unseemly, but tactically foolish. The rumor from connections on the Hill is that Nancy Pelosi wept after being forced to accept the Stupak Amendment. I don't know if that's true or a well-placed story, but it certainly strikes a more appropriate tone than the jock-like chant that erupted after the President addressed House members.

You guys want to be "fired up"? Fine.

• Get "fired up" over a woman's right to autonomy over her own body.
• Get "fired up" over really "bending the cost curve" so that families can afford those mandates.
• Get "fired up" over re-inserting Medicare-based rates in the public option, rather than throwing voters' money away by giving too much to the insurance companies.
• Get "fired up" about finding ways to control runaway premiums, which show no signs of slowing down.
• Get "fired up" about the double standard that would allow states to "opt out" of the public option, but (without the Kucinich Amendment) unable to "opt out" of the private system.
• Get "fired up" over ensuring that your bill doesn't result in a massive transfer of wealth from hard-working middle class families to the insurance industry.

This isn't "ideological purity" or "naive idealism" talking. These are the words of pragmatism. Your base will desert you in droves next year if you don't fix this thing. In fact, I say this with no pleasure, but with a pretty high degree of certainty:

If you don't fix this bill before it becomes law you won't be "fired up" - you'll be fired. And you won't be "ready to go" - you'll be gone.

Base to Obama: Come In, Please
Time to Kill the Pseudo-Public Option -- and Other Things to Tell Your Representative
Three Reasons You May Be Uneasy With Health Reform

Base to Obama: Come In, Please

As Year One of the Obama Era draws to a close, the recent Arianna Huffington/David Plouffe exchange illustrates a structural defect in the coalition Obama's seeking to build. And make no mistake: Some might call it The Year of Living Non-Dangerously, but it looks more like a deliberate strategy. It's not waffling or weakness: Barack Obama wants to become the Tony Blair of American politics.

The President seems to be deliberately moving his party rightward in order to capture the political spectrum from center/right to left, freezing out the Republican Party. It worked for Blair, but will it work here? Or will he lose his base in the process, damaging his own effectiveness? 365 days after his election, here are some pointed - and sometimes painful - questions.

In many ways disappointment with the Obama Presidency was inevitable. The President consciously (and tactically) presented himself as all things to all people, a kind of Rorschach Test on which people could project their own hopes and dreams. But a million different dreams had to collapse into a single reality when the real-life Presidency began, in much the same way that a "probability wave" of many trajectories collapses into a single photon in physics.

But it's more than that. The campaign made implicit promises of trustworthiness and new-style politics, as well as some explicit promises that have been jettisoned without explanation. He reversed himself on key health care pledges without explaining to his supporters why, and he broke his promise on ending government security much the same way. His handling of government spying abuses raises our first question: Would we have ever learned about Watergate if Barack Obama had been President?

He did not run as a center-Right Democrat, nor did he promise to restore the Clinton Administration if elected. There may be good reasons to govern from the center-Right, but he hasn't given his supporters the courtesy of an explanation. And the Clinton Administration was a deep pool of extraordinary talent, so it was wise to draw from it - in most cases. But in many critical jobs - especially Treasury - his choices have been disappointingly weak.

Then there's the whole issue of governing from the center. Here the question becomes, Would Barack Obama be a better President today if he had never read 'Team of Rivals'? Sure, it's inspiring to read how Lincoln drew his bitter opponents into his government, wisely and selflessly. But, leaving aside the challenge some historians have made to that book's thesis, is the President learning that some of his rivals may not have the same high moral standards as Lincoln's? Most politicians want to please everyone, especially those that don't like them. Let us hope that this emotional impulse is not being masked in the cloak of false pragmatism. In other words, Has the President written the wrong future biography for himself? Is he aspiring to be Lincoln when the times call for Roosevelt?

Which leads us to the next question: Is the President's Big Tent big enough to include his supporters? The President has projected an almost visceral dislike of bloggers, and his Cabinet boasts few DC outsiders like the ones that formed his initial base. Rahm Emanuel showered progressive activists with "F bombs" recently. By contrast, during his Presidency Bill Clinton spoke with warmth and empathy about the ragtag protesters at Seattle's World Trade Organization meeting. Many get the sense that Obama sees young (and not so young) activists as foolish and naive, a source of unpredictability and disorder that just makes him uncomfortable. That impression may be false, but it is an impression nevertheless.

Pace Mr. Plouffe, the base's disappointment with the President is not based on "frustration with the pace of change." It's based on their fear that the President may not really be interested in fundamental change. If that is anyone's fault, then to a large extent the blame lies with the President - and his advisors and communicators.

Some (in the Administration and elsewhere) may say, Who cares? What difference does it make if a group of granola-eating activists and bloggers is unhappy? We've got a center-right coalition to build. We're about the hard work of day-to-day governance. But Democrats would be foolish to assume that any future election will be an easy one. A dispirited base damages a campaign at its foundation, and at its heart. Perhaps the President should consider a sit-down with his critics on the Left, as well as those on the Right. If nothing else, he should use them as an excuse for passing legislation he supports anyway.

Compromise is the lifeblood of politics, as long as it's not done too quickly - or too cynically. Obama's lack of specificity on health reform and his willingness to defer to Congress could be seen as expediency, or as more Rorschach Politics. (As long as it's called "health reform" and it passes, we win. ...) Unnecessary compromise dilutes the outcome, especially when one's opponents lack good will.

We wish the President every success at Year One. We remain guardedly optimistic, despite the disappointments. We would pitch in and help ourselves, if we were welcomed. And we recognize that politics is hard, messy, and filled with compromise. But, if greatness is a combination of talent and historical need, this President has the potential for greatness. So the final question is this one:

Does the President understand that compromising with cynics can lead to a half-cynical outcome?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/base-to-obama-come-in-ple_b_344363.html

Time to Kill the Pseudo-Public Option - and Other Things to Tell Your Representative

The other day I wrote that the final Democratic bill was probably going to be worthy of support, however compromised it may be in certain ways. It should be understood that progressives won't get everything they want, or anything close to it, in the first go-round.

But, while it's wise to be realistic, there are two critical tests for reform: Is it an improvement over what we have today? And is it structured so that further improvements can be made as it becomes politically feasible to do so? There are significant problems with both the House and the Senate versions that could cause the final bill to fail one or both of these tests.

The biggest flaw lies in the House's failure to produce a robust public option - that is, one that fully employs the administrative efficiencies and negotiating power of Medicare/Medicaid. A robust plan demonstrates and delivers the advantages of a public system, while bearing the disadvantages of such as system as well. (And there are disadvantages: For example, doctors could disenroll from the plan in large numbers if pricing is too aggressive.)

A robust public plan that's made available to all Americans on "a level playing field" could allow people to compare and contrast the advantages of public vs. private insurance, then make their own decisions. The House plan doesn't do that. As a result, my long-standing fear seems likely to come true. The plan will have low enrollment and little power to negotiate, causing the CBO to state as fact what I've long considered possible: That the public option could become a dumping ground where private plans jettison sicker people, while lacking the efficiencies of scale or negotiating power to get better rates or administer itself more economically.

As a result, says the CBO, a public plan's premiums might be higher than private insurance. While the CBO's word isn't gospel, it's entirely possible that they're underestimating the cost of any "public option" we're likely to see this year. The likeliest political outcome, once the House and Senate bills are combined, is a non-robust "public option" with a state-by-state opt out. The CBO didn't consider the opt-out when it came up with its shocking (to some) estimate.

So how small would the public option plan be in the end? The CBO projects an eventual 6 million enrollees. Compare that to UnitedHealth, which had 32,702,000 members in 2008. Or Wellpoint, with 30,622,000. Or Aetna, with 16,318,000.(1) The public option would barely make it into the top 10 US health insurers. And the opt-out provision could enrollment by another 20%(2) or more.

Remember: No other insurance companies will be told where and how they can compete - only the "public option." How is that a "level playing field"? The end result is likely to be something called a public option, which is used primarily to placate progressives - and which provides the political cover needed to force people to pay usurious private-insurance premiums. When this pseudo-public plan fails to deliver savings, reform opponents will use its failures as proof that public insurance doesn't work.

That would make the watered-down "public option" worse than no public option at all. One suggestion: Write or call your Representative and ask that they either restore the robust plan or ask the party to publicly admit its failure to deliver while shutting down this option altogether. And while you're on the phone, here are a few other things you might mention:

The Wyden "Free Choice" Amendment: The President and other Democrats told the American people they would provide "all Americans" with the choice of a public option. Instead, they've artificially restricted access to it (while leaving private insurers free to pursue everyone). The Wyden Amendment will deliver what the Democrats promised, and will lower overall health costs.

The Kucinich Amendment: The so-called Kucinich Amendment would have allowed states to opt out of the Federal system to create intrastate single-payer plans. It was approved by the Education and Labor Committee, but was stripped from the final House bill. The end result? The Senate says states can "opt out" of the public option, but the House says they can't opt out of the private system. That doesn't seem right.

Tolerable premiums and out-of-pocket costs: It's hard to ask a family of four living on $88,000 to pay 12% of its income in premiums, yet still face $1,500-per-person copays and total possible costs of $10,000 per year. (That's better than the Senate version, however.) These provisions have to be made less onerous for working families. Health analysts used to employ a guideline that said 12% of family income should be the total expense for healthcare, or the "ceiling" on possible health costs, not - as this bill would have it - the floor or minimum cost.

No dumping or foul play: Many of the insurance industry's bad behaviors are banned by the House bill (which, complaints aside, has many good features.) But there need to be stronger protections against subtle abuses designed to drive sick people out of private plans. These abuses might include planned provider shortages in needed specialties (e.g. oncology, high-risk neonatology), delays in claims payment, and obstructionist use of prior authorization program.

Make drug costs manageable: Jane Hamsher describes the perils faced by breast cancer patients, and those with other conditions that require expensive patented drugs. Many of Jane's concerns will be addressed by the bill's caps on out-of-pocket costs, and by the elimination of lifetime maximums. But more should be done to ensure that drugs are made generic as quickly as possible, and to restrict the insurance industry practice of labeling them "experimental" and refusing to cover them.

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(1)The large plans have been losing membership over the last two quarters as employees are laid off during the downturn and become ineligible under group health plans. They would be likely to gain these enrollees back under reform, however, through the insurance exchanges.

(2)Many of my friends and colleagues still say most states wouldn't dare opt-out and face the public's wrath. I still say they're dreaming - especially after that CBO report. A candidate for Governor in Virginia already said he's leaning toward opting out - and he was the Democrat.

Read more at: http://editorial.huffingtonpost.com/tmp/individual-entry-archive22.html