While Atrios and aimai focus on different aspects of this Rolling Stone article about the floundering "Obama Movement," I was struck by this:

The decision to shunt Organizing for America into the DNC had far-reaching consequences for the president's first year in office. For starters, it destroyed his hard-earned image as a new kind of politician, undercutting the post-partisan aura that Obama enjoyed after the election. "There were a lot of independents, and maybe even some Republicans, on his list of 13 million people," says Joe Trippi, who launched the digital age of politics as the campaign manager for Howard Dean in 2004. "They suddenly had to ask themselves, 'Do I really want to help build the Democratic Party?'"

(Emphasis supplied.) Trippi's question is fascinating to me. As we know, it is hard to figure out what Trippi is about these days (Harold Ford???), but the question Trippi asks is not a bad one. But it is not a question for a progressive to be asking. A progressive would say 'I want to build a PROGRESSIVE Democratic Party, now what is the best way to do that?'

Unquestioning devotion to Obama is surely not the way. That has always been my beef with the new Obama activist - it has been about Obama, not advancing progressive issues.

Speaking for me only

Via Atrios, a fascinating story:

Billy Tauzin, one of Washington’s highest-paid lobbyists, is resigning as president of the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America amid internal disputes over its pact with the White House to trade political support for favorable terms in the proposed health care overhaul. As the industry’s top lobbyist, Mr. Tauzin brokered the deal with the White House and Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate finance committee, last summer to limit the drug industry’s total costs under the proposed health care overhaul to $80 billion over 10 years.

[. . .] Like almost every other seasoned Washington player, Mr. Tauzin, who makes $2 million a year, bet on health care reform early – only to watch it come to a screeching halt. [. . . A]fter the health care overhaul stalled when Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate seat, some industry leaders felt the trade group had gone too far giving concessions and could lose on some important legislative issues without gaining the protection it had sought. [. . .] A friend of Mr. Tauzin, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended his role, arguing that it was not his fault the overhaul went off track.

(Emphasis supplied.) The Tauzin and Rahmbo Show to deflect blame on the health care reform debacle will be amuusing to watch.

Speaking for me only

Former President Bill Clinton was hospitalized today for heart issues. According to his spokesman, he's okay and had two stents implanted:

Today President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest. Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries. President Clinton is in good spirits, and will continue to focus on the work of his Foundation and Haiti's relief and long-term recovery efforts. In 2004, President Clinton underwent a successful quadruple bypass operation to free four blocked arteries.

Send good thoughts his way.

Update: ABC News reports Hillary Clinton is en route to New York. Follow the Clinton Foundations' twitter feed for updates. He's already a trending topic. CNN reports Chelsea is at the hospital too.

E.J. Dionne asks why there is such a heated Tea Party movement against Obama. In the process, he indvertently explains why there is no progressive movement fighting for Obama:

Most of the left simply doesn't see him as especially liberal [. . .] Obama, after all, is the man who saved the banks and the capital markets. Now the bankers are secure and most of them are still rich.

His health-care proposals stopped far short of the single-payer system that so many liberals have long sought [. . .] Obama put absolutely no political muscle behind the progressives' backup idea: a public option that could have served as a beachhead for a single-payer system.

The president is also decidedly moderate on budget questions. His stimulus plan was, if anything, too small. And Obama [. . .] endorsed a bipartisan commission to reach a deal on deficit reduction. The idea originated with centrist Democrats and moderately conservative Republicans -- and most liberals opposed it.

Sort of explains the progressive reaction to Obama don't you think?

Speaking for me only

Despite my counsel to the Villagers that there is no political return in selling the regulations contained in the Senate health bill, Jon Cohn tries here, using the Anthem Blue Cross 39% rate health insurance rate hike story. Cohn writes:

[T]he best way to avoid adverse selection, as I've argued many times, is to create one giant insurance pool--in which everybody, healthy and sick, gets coverage at the same rates. And, roughly speaking, that's what the Democratic health care bills would do, by creating insurance exchanges through which all individuals in a given state would buy coverage.

This paragraph does not even make internal sense. In what way is the creation of 50 state based exchanges "creat[ing] one giant insurance pool[?]" (Unlike the Senate bill, the House bill creates a national exchange.) But even that is deceptive. The exchanges will involve only a small part of the national health insurance pool. Most are covered through employer based plans. Cohn's argument is filled with holes. More . . .

Politico:

Labor groups are furious with the Democrats they helped put in office — and are threatening to stay home this fall when Democratic incumbents will need their help fending off Republican challengers. [. . .] John Gage, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 workers[, said] "It's really frustrating for labor, and a lot of union people are thinking: We put out big time in money and volunteers and support. And it seems like the little things that could have been aren't being done."

[. . .] Union leaders warn that the Democrats' lackluster performance in power is sapping the morale of activists going into the midterm elections. "Right now if we don’t get positive changes to the agenda, we’re going to have a hard time getting members out to work," said United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard, in an interview. “There’s no use pretending any longer.”

Rahmbo's approach has failed and House Dems will not cross the unions. It's every person for himself now. The excise tax in the Senate bill must be fixed or there will be no health bill. Period.

Speaking for me only

John Edwards can't catch a break. The National Enquirer reports he has proposed to Rielle Hunter and is buying a $3.5 million home for them to live in together. Edwards spokesman denies it.

Meanwhile, a court in North Carolina continues to deal with Andrew Young and the "personal video." Apparently, the court wasn't satisfied with Young's accounting for originals and copies of tapes and photographs and the other day entered this supplemental contempt order. The parties return to court next week.

I also can't figure out what business the FBI had taking a copy of the tape from Young's lawyer for presentation to the grand jury, as Young claims in his latest affidavit. How is it relevant to the investigation into whether Edwards knew campaign contributions were funneled to Hunter? According to Young, there's no sound on the tape and you can't make out the woman's face. [More....]

Jon Chait writes:

The left has often played a destructive role in the health care saga, ultimately helping convince many liberals that the health care bill currently fighting for its life is a worthless compromise not worth fighting for.

The other day, Kevin Drum took the same line. Indeed, it is the consensus Village Dem line.

I do not understand the point anymore. Whether you think the Senate bill is the "most progressive legislation since 1965" (the Villagers) or just marginally better than the status quo (me), it simply is not very persuasive or helpful to attack the people you want to help you pass that bill. The irony in all this is that the folks they need to convince - the unions - do not care what "the Left" thinks, or what the Village thinks or any of this. They want the excise tax fixed. And if that does not happen, they will oppose the Senate bill. Why is this political reality never absorbed? Rahm Emanuel said "'There are no liberals left to get' in the Senate[.]" Perhaps so, but he needs to get "liberals" in the House. And that won't happen without union support. That is the political reality.

Speaking for me only

John Murtha has passed away:

Representative John P. Murtha, the longtime Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, has died at age 77. His aides released a statement saying that he died shortly after 1 p.m. today at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Mr. Murtha had been placed in intensive care last week after complications from gallbladder surgery, his staff said then.

Mr. Murtha, who had an extremely close relationship with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on defense. [. . .] When he called for bringing the troops home from Iraq in 2005, after having voted for the war, his proposal stunned many in Congress and added a powerful voice to the growing forces demanding immediate drawdowns and or deadlines.

RIP.

James Joyner plays dumb for some reason over Sarah Palin's Hand-gate:

[T]his seems much ado about nothing. If Sarah Palin likes to write buzz words on her hand, so what?

The problem is Joyner knows why it became political fodder. Look at his comment in the same thread:

[. . .] Obama's teleprompter could fail, too, and goodness knows what he'd say.

More . . .

Ezra Klein recites the concessions to the GOP in the Senate health bill:

I don't think it's well understood how many of the GOP's central health-care policy ideas have already been included as compromises in the health-care bill. [. . .] [T]he GOP's [. . .] health-care plan [. . .] has four planks. All of them -- yes, you read that right -- are in the Senate health-care bill. [. . .] To the surprise and dismay of many liberals, the Senate health-care bill included a compromise with the conservative vision for insurance regulation. [. . .] [W]hen Republicans are feeling bolder [. . .] they generally take aim at one of the worst distortions in the health-care market: The tax break for employer-sponsored insurance. [. . .] Democrats usually reject, and attack, both approaches. Not this year, though. Senate Democrats [proposed] the excise tax, which does virtually the same thing.

And [. . .] we shouldn't forget the compromises that have been the most painful for Democrats, and the most substantive. This is a private-market plan. Not only is single-payer off the table, but at this point, so too is the public option. The thing that liberals want most in the world has been compromised away.

Indeed. And for what? No GOP votes. I wrote about this yesterday - if the Senate bill proponents want that bill passed, concessions to the House must be made, especially on the excise tax. That is the reality of politics. To refuse to support that is to be a "Kill the Bill"-er.

Speaking for me only

Glenn Greenwald writes about this NYTimes article detailing the whining from Wall Street. It is preemptive whining to be sure - the Obama Administration has not laid a glove on them. But it puts in mind the 1936 FDR Dem Convention Speech:

In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy; and the American people were in a mood to win. They did win. In 1936 the issue is the preservation of their victory. Again they are in a mood to win. Again they will win.

More than four years ago in accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, I said: "Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people."

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