McCain rips transparent, post-partisan president for closed-door “pep talk” with
Dems
HotAir.com
It’s always fun watching Maverick work off some of his bitterness towards The
One over last year’s election and this is no exception. So painfully slow was
the news this afternoon, even by usual Sunday standards, that not only is
Obama’s dopey rah-rah session with Senate Democrats the lead story on Drudge
right now, but the only real news to come out of it is what wasn’t
mentioned there — namely, the public option.
Obama spoke for roughly 30 minutes and did not take questions, senators
said afterward.
Reid told reporters that Lieberman had approached him after the meeting to
note the absence of the public option, but that folks shouldn’t read too much
into Obama’s silence on the issue. “That doesn’t mean it’s not an issue,
because the president didn’t talk about it,” said Reid.
Obama’s reluctance to stand up for the public option has been a source of
contention between Reid, who is pushing for it, and Obama. Reid has asked five
progressive senators and five conservatives to work out a compromise on the
public option. The group will meet again Sunday afternoon, though without
guidance from the president.
White House spokesman Bill Burton also mentioned insurance reform and
affordability in his statement about the meeting, but neglected to mention the
public option.
He didn’t mention Nelson’s abortion amendment either, which will be
introduced as early as tomorrow. I remember reading last month, after
Lieberman’s much-publicized announcement that he’d filibuster a final bill that
had a public option, that it was all smoke and mirrors and that Joementum
wouldn’t stand in the way when the time came. Really? Check out this bit from an
interview he did with the Journal this past week. Does this sound like a guy
who’s preparing to have an eleventh-hour awakening to the glories of
government-run insurance?
Why is he adamant? Mr. Lieberman says that while he is not “a
conspiratorial person,” he believes the public option is intended as a
way for the government to take over health care. “I’ve been working
for health-care reform in different ways since I arrived here,” he says. “It
was always about how do we make the system more efficient and less costly, and
how do we expand coverage to people who can’t afford it, and how do we adopt
some consumer protections from the insurance companies . . . So where did this
public option come from?” It was barely a blip, he says, in last year’s
presidential campaign.
“I started to ask some of my colleagues in the Democratic caucus,
privately, and two of them said “some in our caucus, and some outside in
interest groups, after the president won such a great victory and there were
more Democrats in the Senate and the House, said this is the moment to
go for single payer.’” So, I joke, the senator is, in fact, as big a
“conspiracy theorist” as me. He laughingly rejoins: “But I have evidence!”
No wonder Obama’s meeting one-on-one with Queen Olympia in the Oval Office
again. If Reid decides he can’t afford to piss off the left by dropping the
public option, they’re likely going to need not one but two votes (at least) to
get to 60: Lieberman’s a lost cause and Blanche Lincoln would be committing
kamikaze by voting yes. Expect to see reports of Oval Office meetings with Susan
Collins sometime soon too.
Exit question: How low will Obama’s numbers go if he’s forced to drop the
public plan just weeks after breaking the left’s heart with a surge in
Afghanistan? What’ll be left of the cult of Hopenchange?
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