White House adviser Plouffe fails to mention most of Obama's pre-existing conditions promise right after NYT & CBS report it may be dropped

Joe and I saw this coming two days ago. And unfortunately it's looking increasingly like we were right.

A day after former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is elevated to a more senior adviser status at the White House and the DNC, Plouffe pens an op ed in the Washington Post in which he seems to suggest that much of President Obama's promise to ban pre-existing conditions is now being jettisoned. Plouffe wrote in the op ed, which was certainly cleared with the White House, if not written by them:

Parents won't have to worry their children will be denied coverage just because they have a preexisting condition.

Their children? The original promise - even the bad Senate bill - protects everyone, of any age, from being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Now it's just children?

And before anyone argues that Plouffe was simply using children as an example - that the legislation could still cover everyone - look at what else happened in the last two days. CBS News reported that the pre-existing conditions promise was now looking unlikely. But even worse, the NYT talked to folks on the Hill and health policy experts, and they were told the compromise package might just protect kids under the age of 19 from being denied for pre-existing conditions. No one else.

It would sure be one hell of a coincidence if Plouffe, on behalf of the White House, is now talking about kids being protected from pre-existing conditions when the growing chatter in town is that only kids may now be protected from pre-existing conditions - that the rest of us are about to get tossed under the Martha Coakley bus.

As Joe noted the other day, the pre-existing conditions promise, for "all Americans," was the top item on the Obama transition's health care reform page. So, in an effort to appease the masses, they're now considering gutting the one provision that everyone likes, the one provision that defines the legislation. Read More......

China to promote Tibetan region?

If only there was a reason to believe that they would do the right thing to help the people of Tibet. The last sentence (below) confirms the real motive.

China's top leaders say Tibet's development must include Tibetan areas in neighboring provinces — a move likely aimed at tying the region tighter to the rest of the country after deadly riots two years ago.

Chinese President Hu Jintao told the first high-level meeting on Tibet in nine years that the development would require hard work to prevent "penetration and sabotage" by separatists working for Tibet's independence, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported late Friday.

Hu also said at this week's meeting that residents' awareness of being part of China should be constantly enhanced, Xinhua reported.

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Frank Rich's take on this very bad week in Democratic politics

As always, Frank Rich is disturbingly spot on:

Does health care matter? Not as much as you’d think after this yearlong crusade. In the Post/ABC poll, the issue was second-tier — at 24 percent. Obama has blundered, not by positioning himself too far to the left but by landing nowhere — frittering away his political capital by being too vague, too slow and too deferential to Congress. The smartest thing said as the Massachusetts returns came in Tuesday night was by Howard Fineman on MSNBC: “Obama took all his winnings and turned them over to Max Baucus.”

Worse, the master communicator in the White House has still not delivered a coherent message on his signature policy. He not only refused to signal his health care imperatives early on but even now he, like Congressional Democrats, has failed to explain clearly why and how reform relates to economic recovery — or, for that matter, what he wants the final bill to contain. Sure, a president needs political wiggle room as legislative sausage is made, but Scott Brown could and did drive his truck through the wide, wobbly parameters set by Obama.

Ask yourself this: All these months later, do you yet know what the health care plan means for your family’s bottom line, your taxes, your insurance? It’s this nebulousness, magnified by endless Senate versus House squabbling, that has allowed reform to be caricatured by its foes as an impenetrable Rube Goldberg monstrosity, a parody of deficit-ridden big government. Since most voters are understandably confused about what the bills contain, the opponents have been able to attribute any evil they want to Obamacare, from death panels to the death of Medicare, without fear of contradiction.

It’s too late to rewrite that history, but it may not be too late for White House decisiveness.

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Coakley didn't campaign harder because she didn't want to get cold

Martha Coakley really was a bit of an idiot. From Lloyd Grove:

First among equals was the senator’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, who phoned Coakley on the night of her primary victory Dec. 8 and offered to help in any way she could. Then Vicki Kennedy—an immensely popular figure who, by most accounts, would have won easily had she decided to run—cooled her heels for a crucial month before the Coakley campaign ultimately redeemed the offer. Baffled by the lack of follow-up, according to a family friend, she reached out again to Coakley, getting her on the phone and asking, “Is there anything I can do for you?” Coakley airily suggested that maybe she could hold a fundraiser. “Vicki was staggered,” this friend says....

The attorney general was “a candidate who apparently said she didn’t want to be cold,” she says tartly. “That was such a strange thing to say.” Townsend is referring to Coakley’s now-infamous remark last week defending her low-key, apparently passionless campaign, much of it spent behind closed doors meeting with interest groups and office-holders, and mocking Brown’s street-level, happy-warrior approach. A reporter from the Boston Globe asked if she was being too passive. “As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?'' Coakley bristled. “This is a special election. And I know that I have the support of [Salem mayor] Kim Driscoll. And I now know the members of the [Salem] School Committee, who know far more people than I could ever meet.''

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Obama campaign manager Plouffe stepping up role as adviser to White House

It's not entirely clear what "stepping up" someone's role as an adviser is when the person is already advising. They're not hiring him outright. They're just... well, it's not entirely clear what they're doing, other than perhaps splitting the job-baby in half. Announcing that they're "closer" to Plouffe, so that it looks like "change" is in the air, but not quite hiring Plouffe on staff at the White House since that might be too much change. Ergo, someone who is already an adviser is now "more" of an adviser, and it's supposed to be news.

As an aside, keep in mind that it was Plouffe who repeatedly labeled "bedwetters" those Democrats who were predicting we'd be exactly in the predicament we are this week. Plus ça change... Read More......

In retrospect, what would have happened had Obama just gone for the full stimulus, all $2 trillion?

The President, along with Democrats in Congress, got all wee-wee'd up when it came time at the beginning of last year to pass the stimulus bill.

Top Democratic economists, like Krugman and Stiglitz, said the stimulus was far less than we needed (Krugman talked at the time about needing at least $2 trillion, and lots of other top economists said it wasn't nearly enough). But the Republicans complained, they said that the economy was doing fine and no one was feeling any pain, so the President and Dems in Congress decided to cut back the stimulus from the $2 trillion that was needed, to a little less than $800 billion. But the Republicans complained again, so they converted around 35% of the stimulus into nearly useless tax cuts, lowering the real impact of the legislation to around $500 billion, instead of the $2 trillion we really needed.

Next, three predictable things happened.

1. Even though we only passed 1/4 of the stimulus we needed, and gave the GOP 35% of the bill in tax cuts, Republicans still eviscerated Democrats for out of control, wasteful spending;

2. The bill wasn't enough to turn the economy around and start producing significant number of jobs, fast; and

3. Because the bill wasn't big enough, and Democrats didn't defend it enough, Republicans were able to convince the public (wrongly) that the stimulus package was a waste of money, thus precluding any future stimulus plans.

So let's summarize. President Obama and the Democrats didn't pass the stimulus that was really needed, out of fear that the Republicans would criticize them for being wasteful. But in the end, the Republicans still criticized them for being wasteful, the criticism stuck and hurt Democrats in the recent election, and the stimulus bill itself was so paltry that it didn't create enough jobs fast enough, so Democrats are also being blamed for not doing enough to help the economy. And now that the Democrats need a new stimulus bill to kick-start jobs before the November election - Stiglitz says the new plan needs to be at least as big as the old one, nearly $800 billion - they have a much harder sell. All because they caved in the face of what they knew they needed to do a year ago.

So by caving, repeatedly, Democrats in Congress and the White House ended up shooting themselves in the foot. Sound familiar? They got the same amount of blame they'd have gotten had they passed a real, full stimulus bill the first time last February. And at the same time, by not passing the full bill that was needed, they helped ensure that the economy wouldn't recover sufficiently, giving them that much more blame now and in the future. Had they passed what was needed last February, the GOP would have criticized them just as much for wasteful spending, but we'd have a robust recovery with far more new jobs to rub in their faces.

And the really annoying thing is that numerous people predicted that this was exactly what would happen. Read More......

Ben Bernanke confirmation now in doubt

I don't even care about the reason. I'd just like to see him moving on. The only problem at that point is what Wall Street lapdog Obama might promote for the job. It's hard to see Obama having the good sense to find a good replacement. Will Congress stick with "the devil they know" or go for a clean break?

With the U.S. job market in disarray and voters angry at Wall Street, members of Congress facing mid-term elections in November have come down hard on the central bank and its leadership.

They say the Fed failed to prevent the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and combated the meltdown in a way that favored the financial sector at the expense of ordinary citizens.

Senators Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold brought the total of known "no" votes among the Democratic majority to four, while many others have said they were still on the fence.

"Our next Federal Reserve chairman must represent a clean break from the failed policies of the past," Boxer said. "It is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed."

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In wake of Supreme Court ruling, Obama vows to fight 'special interests'

The President made his weekly address about the Supreme Court decision on campaign spending and vowed to fight the special interests:

I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.

Strong language from the President.

(Note to White House staff: Many of us consider Pharma, the drug industry's lobbying arm, a pretty darn big special interest. That $80 billion sweetheart deal in the health care bill for Pharma, which resulted in the White House lobbying against Senator Dorgan's amendment on drug imports, undermines the messaging here.) Read More......

Yasmin Levy

I'm getting a late start today after heading out last night to see my nephew in a wrestling tournament. (He won 9-1 in his last match, so it was a happy ride home.)

My aunt introduced me to Yasmin Levy's music last week and I really like this particular song. I need to keep going through YouTube to see what else is there. Read More......