Two Options: Reality, Or Where You're At...

Staying this delusional has to be hard work. Evidently Sullivan is up to the task:

Chait breaks the blogger code and picks up the phone:

The Democrats biggest worry right now, I have been reliably informed (Yes -- reporting! I try not to make a habit of it), is that they think health care has just taken too much time. The[y] want to pivot to an economic message. Writing a new, even smaller health care bill takes a lot of time...There are only two options on health care: Something that involves passing the Senate bill through the House, and nothing. There's no fantasy moderate bipartisan alternative. Once Congress gets that through its head, I think -- I don't know but I think -- they'll make the obvious choice.

So let this process play out. Let Obama use SOTU to argue that nothing is not an option and if the Republicans prove they really do want nothing, then the argument for passing the Senate bill gets stronger. But doing this now, greeting public anxiety with contempt, would be dreadful politics.

It would destroy Obama's commitment to open dialogue and respect for the process, which has already been battered by some of the necessary sausage making to get a final deal. It would make Obama look like a brutally partisan president. That would break Obama's presidency.

I see no reason why Obama should not put the GOP on the spot now and ask them how they would solve the problems we face. One aspect of this is health insurance reform; the other is tackling the debt. Put them together in the SOTU and demand action.

The truth is: Obama has the better argument. He's right in understanding that the sheer tasks of government have made it hard for him to press this message day after day after day as the Democrats negotiated with themselves endlessly. So let the impact of Massachusetts sink in, expose the nihilism of the opposition, take the black eye as a necessary evil in such a turbulent time ... and fight on.

There will be no fight, Andrew. Bambi has punted. According to Robert Gibbs, Bambi is going to "let the dust settle" and leave it to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to pick up the pieces, because, well, he's really busy with bank regulations and wars and whatnot. Even Paul Krugman, who is almost as delusional as you are, has figured out that The One simply hasn't got it in him to fight for anything.

Beyond that, when you see Democratic senators nearly knocking each other over to grab the podium and publicly state health care reform must be reevaluated or slowed down or whatever, it doesn't take a genius on the House side to understand what is being said. It's this:

For God's sake don't pass our version of the bill!

House Democrats understood perfectly what Bayh, Lieberman, Landrieu and Feinstein were saying. Even Nancy Pelosi managed to catch their drift... It's toxic. They knew this legislation had turned radioactive on them and were looking for an out. And it's now clear that Scott Brown's victory has provided them with the perfect excuse to do bail on something they didn't want. 

You know, Andrew, at some point, folks like you and Chait and Yglesias and Benen and Drum are going to have to drop the fantasy that this was either all the fault of the Republicans or some due to some institutional defect created by the Constitution. It's going to get embarrassing. The bottom line is this:

A significant proportion of the electorate has come to the conclusion that either version of health care reform represented bad legislation that was not in their best interest to support.

This isn't rocket science.

And besides, it isn't the job of the loyal opposition to tell the President of the United States how to proceed on what is supposed to be his public policy agenda. It's not like Bambi doesn't look weak as it is...

Comments

[Simon]

This is hilarious -
I see no reason why Obama should not put the GOP on the spot now and ask them how they would solve the problems we face. One aspect of this is health insurance reform; the other is tackling the debt. Put them together in the SOTU and demand action.

Demand action from who ? The republicans ? He's already outsourced the decision making on healthcare to the Democrats in congress so why not bring in the opposition. Maybe they can workshop it.

Sully, like Bambi, seems to think that the presidency is like being head of the debating club.

[David]

"Chait breaks the blogger code and picks up the phone"

That's so embarrassingly juvenile that I cringed when I read it. What's next, giving super-genius juiceboxer Ezra Klein noogies at the Capitol Lounge?

"It's going to get embarrassing."

I think we're there, my man. I think we're there. But it looks like things might get even better. Grief has many stages.

[Dennis The Peasant]

Grief does have many stages. Stupid, however, has only one. I think Andrew will be where he is for a while...

[Mike C.]

I am truly enjoying the excessive (if predictible) angst on the left over this whole kerfluffle. However, the rising angst on the ostensible right regarding the fact that Brown may not be the reincarnation of Barry Goldwater has me about one neuron twitch away from pulling a Charles Whitman.

I can deal with the whackos on the other side. It's the whackos on my own side that cause me to lose sleep at night.

I could have sworn I had another box of .44 Mag around here somewhere...

[richard mcenroe]

Between David Axelrod and Michael Steele, I 'spect there's a lot of mobying going on on the right, Mike. Don't get freaked.

[Dennis The Peasant]

Mike C.-

Just thing of it way, guessing about gives them a hobby. A much needed hobby. It could be worse... Massachusettes could have elected Mike Steele.

[JeffS]

Hmmmmmm.....there are mixed messages from the Hill on Obamacare. Invoking the reconciliation option is pretty stupid right now, but as you say, Dennis, stupid has only one stage. And panic induced stupidity can be awesome indeed.

[TmjUtah]

CFR took a healthy kick in the nuts today.

I always thought that event marked the beginning of the decline of the Bush administration on policy/integrity grounds.

They intended to defang the Democrats by staying just a little in front of them, by passing shit like NCLB and the Prescription bribe - on the premise that the Republican versions wouldn't be as bad... By 2006, they were indistinguishable from the Democrats.

I watch the clips where people attempt to show the White House sounding the alarm on the real estate bubble.

And then I remember how many bills GW vetoed.

A failure of government, not just parties. We aren't out of the woods with one remarkable special election. Not nearly.

[Nodrog]

45,000 more dead every year because they can't get adequate health coverage. Many more needlessly sick.

But you don't give a shit about that, do you Dennis?

[David]

"45,000 more dead every year"

Oh, fuck off. More meaningless bullshit. If you want to save lives, oppose "progressive" policies.

Want some tea with your whine?

"But you don't give a shit about that, do you Dennis?"

I don't know about Dennis, but I sure as hell don't. Here's a clue: it's not the job of the government to provide health care for everyone. Here's another clue: the way your hero Obama handled this bill was as tawdry and corrupt as could be imagined. That pissed off a lot of people, who -- like me -- don't believe meaningless b.s. like what you wrote, and who also don't particularly like being told what's good for us by an incompetent fuck like our president.

Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel the change!

[richard mcenroe]

Those 45,000 dead are about authentic as the 'endangered' delta smelt the Dems had to destroy all those crops to save in the CA Central Valley

[just passin by]

Nodrog,

what are YOU doing to help the uninsured? jack, or shit?

I bet both.

If you truly expect to peddle your bullshit, you better be personally involved in it. Don't be using the taxpayer's wallet to feel better about yourself morally.

[Nodrog]

Real researchers, who know who to prepare a study, as opposed to stupid assholes like David, Richard McEnroe and Just Passin By, came up with that number. It hasn't been refuted by anyone except people like y'all who think scribbling "Obama is a Muslim!" on a poster means he really is a Muslim.

And David, when your insurance company tosses you out in the cold when they discover you're genetically predisposed to unhealthy stupidity, and they find that you forgot to disclose in your application that you were treated for gonorrhea and herpes after your trip to Thailand in 1983, and then you try to go to the emergency room after you accidentally shoot yourself in the foot, then maybe you'll have different perspective on the issue.

[Nodrog]

And somehow every other civilized nation in the world manages to guarantee health coverage for all of its citizens. And somehow this doesn't always involve a dreaded "single-payer" system, such as in Germany, Switzerland, and Japan. And somehow all these countries have healthier populations and better medical care systems than the U.S.

Oh, but the last point must not be true. After all, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity all said we have the best health care system in the U.S. already. And who are you gonna believe, researchers who know how to do a scientifically valid study, or these four bozos?

[Randy Rager]

Quick, name the last three major medical advances to come out of Germany, Switzerland and Japan!

That's what I thought.

Thanks for playing, now GTFO.

[just passin by]

And look at how Nodrog avoided the question posed to him...between The Obamessiah and Nodrog, is that enough evidence to show that all pinkos are indeed cowards?

[David]

"then maybe you'll have different perspective on the issue"

Sounds like projection's in the air again! My trip to Thailand in 1983 was so on the downlow that even John Edwards couldn't cover it up.

"researchers who know how to do a scientifically valid study"

Like the super-geniuses at East Anglia? Really, of all the left's many crimes, surely the politicization of science ranks at or near the top. Hide the decline!

"Name the last three major medical advances to come out of Germany, Switzerland and Japan"

Heh. I've heard of Germany conducting lots of interesting medical experiments. Just not recently.

[Dennis The Peasant]

Nodog-

Of course I don't care. Christ, they're going to die of global warming anyway. What's the big deal?

[JeffS]

I smells me some astroturfing, I do. Nodrog is probably Lefty with a new layer of crap.

[Nodrog]

In the U.S. at least, most of the individuals who are going to get screwed by global warming are the rich, since they are the only one who can afford beachfront property.

It's nice to find out, Dennis, you're also, in addition to a "I've got my insurance, fuck y'all who don't" guy, a global warming denier. The East Anglia scientists' deceptions are dwarfed by the whoppers told by the ideologues and paid flacks posing as scientists for the oil industry.

[Simon]

Au contraire nodogs - it comes as no surprise to me that someone who swallowed that 45,000 dead per year figure also believes the same types of bullshit studies from the global warming industry.

[richard mcenroe]

"Real researchers..."

"We have top men on that."
"Who?"
"Top men..."

Source, punk.

[David]

"It's nice to find out"

It's nice to find out that there are still people stupid enough to believe what they're told to believe. Thanks for playing.

[Eric Blair]

I think Nodrog is Markg8.