Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Obama Makes Expansive Case For Public Option, Strong Moral Case For Reform

Happy Hour Roundup: Big Speech Tonight!

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Weiner: “I Don’t See Any Way” I Can Vote For Bill Without Public Option

The Plum LineGreg Sargent's blog

Happy Hour Roundup

* A Pelosi hedge on the public option? Brian Beutler notices that after meeting with the President today, Nancy Pelosi said that the public option is still the best way to go — “for the moment.”

* But a Pelosi spokesman says her position has not changed, and sends over her full quote:

“And that’s why — but he said, if you have a better idea, put it on the table. And so if somebody has a better idea of how to do that, put it on the table. For the moment, however, as far as our House members are concerned, the overwhelming majority of them support a public option.”

Hmm.

* Glenn Thrush says there’s no doubt Pelosi is still gung-ho behind a public plan.

* Is Harry hedging? Harry Reid said today that “something like” the public option will survive the leglislative process.

* Jane Hamsher starts talking primaries for any House liberals who support a public option with a “trigger.”

* Are the right and left even remotely equivalent when it comes to “mainstreaming the fringe”?

* Paul Krugman on why the public option matters in political terms:

Let me add a sort of larger point: aside from the essentially circular political arguments — centrist Democrats insisting that the public option must be dropped to get the votes of centrist Democrats — the argument against the public option boils down to the fact that it’s bad because it is, horrors, a government program. And sooner or later Democrats have to take a stand against Reaganism — against the presumption that if the government does it, it’s bad.

* Speaking of the need for Dems to think big politically, others have already linked this, but it’s a must-read: Former top Obama adviser Steve Hillebrand telling Ben Smith that Obama “needs to be more bold in his leadership.”

* In an interview with ABC News, House progressive leader Raul Grijalva expands on hisearlier comment that supporting a trigger amounts to “surrender.”

* And Eric Kleefeld notes that Mark Foley — he of the House page scandal — is hosting a new radio show called “Inside the Mind of Mark Foley,” a title that’s presumably supposed to make you want to tune in to it.