Best wedding announcement photo ever

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Feingold blames Obama for losing public option

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold:

Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle.

In all fairness here, it's not like Feingold threw down the gauntlet either. Without his vote, the bill can't pass. But we never heard any of the liberal Senators saying definitely that they wouldn't vote for this without the public option, etc. So it's not a surprise that they got rolled. Read More......

China hit with blame for Copenhagen failure

And for starters, despite what some are saying Copenhagen was a major failure. Not even close. While many are turning towards China now to lay blame, that may not be entirely fair. It's not that China hasn't been an obstacle (much like the US for years) but this event was poorly organized and had signs of failure prior to even starting. China may have been wrong, but since when has that regime bent under pressure on deals that were doomed from the start?

It's going to take a much better effort to make this happen. There appears to be a gap in leadership on the subject at the moment. As right as the the movement may be, it needs to be much more proactive instead of making the (wrong) assumption that everyone buys into their plans. The US alone is going to continue being a tough sell until the climate change movement gets its act together.

The deal, finally hammered out early yesterday, had been expected to commit countries to deep cuts in carbon emissions. In the end, it fell short of this goal after China fought hard against strong US pressure to submit to a regime of international monitoring.

The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, walked out of the conference at one point, and sent a lowly protocol officer to negotiate with Barack Obama. In the end, a draft agreement put forward by China – and backed by Brazil, India and African nations – commits the world to the broad ambition of preventing global temperatures from rising above 2C. Crucially, however, it does not force any nation to make specific cuts.

"For the Chinese, this was our sovereignty and our national interest," said Xie Zhenhua, head of China's delegation.

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Markos on Obama on MTP

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Media still doesn't get why left is upset with Obama and Reid

From Peter Baker in today's NYT:

Of course, to many on both sides of the aisle, there is a less sympathetic narrative. To the left, Mr. Obama seems increasingly to lack the fire to fight on matters of principle.

Almost. Just drop the "on matters of principle" and you've got it right.

President Obama doesn't seem to lack the will to fight on matters of principle, rather, he seems to lack the will to fight on anything. There's a huge difference. Markos of DailyKos was on Meet the Press this morning. David Gregory asked him something about liberals being "idealistic" or something. The implication being, that this battle is between those who accept reality and those who are naive.

That is not what's going on.

The blogosphere might have been idealistic 5 or 10 years ago, when many were new to politics. But they're not new now. And some of us have been working in national politics for twenty years. Our anger is not rooted in our naivete, or our idealism. It's rooted in our realism. We know that when you fight for something in politics, you can very often win. But if you don't fight, you'll never win. We are upset at the President and the Congress because no one fought for the public option, for the President's own campaign promise. (As David Gregory rightly noted to David Axelrod during the same broadcast.)

The President and Congress never really fought for a specific plan. Sure, they made a lot of noise about wanting "reform," but the White House was never behind a real "campaign" for health care reform. They simply enabled some of the worst suspects in the Senate to come up with a "compromise," then sat back and did little while the entire process unraveled. (And mind you, what kind of a compromise do you get when the lead Democratic Senator that Obama picks to run the negotiation is dead-set against Obama's own campaign promise, and the GOP members are even worse?)

What's a campaign look like? Think GOP and Harry & Louise. Think what the Republicans did earlier this year, sending their minions to shut down the health care town meetings this past August. Think about the incessant GOP messaging on death panels, and killing granny. That's what a campaign looks like. It looks like hard-hitting messages that catch your opponents off-guard and sear your definition into the minds of the public. It is not simply sending the President to do a few speeches, and his wife to do a few Web videos. (And when a member of the opposition stands up and boorishly yells at you during your biggest speech on the topic, and the public is aghast, you don't go and change the bill in order to meet his concerns, confirming his assertion the bill was wrong, and you a liar.) A campaign is not waiting until your major promises are gone, and only then getting Vicki Kennedy to write an op ed.

Those of us who have been in national politics a while know what a real campaign looks like. This was not a real campaign. And that is why so man of us are so upset with our leaders. Not because we expected the impossible. But because we expected them to actually try. And they didn't. Read More......

New health plan will have the same overseer as Members of Congress, but definitely not the same benefits or costs

You'll keep hearing that the Senate bill, in lieu of a public option, has established a new program to be administered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal entity that oversees health insurance for members of Congress, their staffs and other federal employees (the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.) In fact, talking points from the Majority Leader's office tout that point:

Health insurers will offer national plans to Americans under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management, the same entity that oversees health plans for Members of Congress.

Sounds good. But, don't be fooled. Yes, it's the same overseer. But, the treatment for members of Congress vs. those who need the new insurance plans will be very, very different:

Under Mr. Reid’s amendment, the federal Office of Personnel Management, which provides health benefits to federal employees, would sign contracts with insurers to offer at least two national health plans to individuals, families and small businesses. At least one contract would have to be with a nonprofit entity.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies could offer a single national plan. The new national plans would be separate from the program for federal employees, and premiums would be calculated separately.

Indeed, the Senate bill insures that the programs are kept separate:

The details were revealed Saturday through a "Manager's Amendment," offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. The amendment specifies that OPM cannot reduce the staffing or funding which currently goes toward administering FEHBP in order to meet this new responsibility. It requires OPM to maintain seperate risk pools for FEHBP and the "multi-state plans," as they're called--which means that the legislation wouldn't affect benefits or premiums for FEHBP enrollees.

Can't let the masses muck up the insurance for those who receive benefits paid for by the masses. The new plan will not only be separate, it will be unequal.

How many times do you think Mary Landrieu has ever had to call her insurance company to complain about a denial of coverage? Do you think Joe Lieberman ever had to call his insurance company to fight because the insurer wouldn't pay a bill? That never happens to them. But, none of us will get that level of service. We'll just continue paying for it. Read More......

Joe Biden: Meet Ben Nelson

The White House has finally decided to engage in an aggressive effort to pass health care bill. Better late than never, I guess.

Vice President has an op-ed in today's New York Times. Guess what? He supports the Senate version of the bill. There's an explanation of why the bill is so good with repeated references to not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. We get it.

But, Biden's op-ed has a very misleading line:

If the bill passes the Senate this week, there will be more chances to make changes to it before it becomes law.

Biden may tell us that, but if he's implying the bill will be improved, it's highly unlikely. Most of the not-so-perfect elements of the Senate bill came from the two most important Senators EVER: Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. Over the past few days, Obama's team and Harry Reid worked very hard to garner the elusive 60th vote for cloture from Ben Nelson. Yesterday, Ben Nelson had his own press conference to make a few things clear. I watched him. One thing he said was that if there are "material changes" to the Senate bill in conference, he won't vote for cloture. Here's my report:

Nelson also said there will be a "limited conference" between the House and Senate. If there are ""material changes" to the Senate bill in conference, he will vote against cloture. So, Ben Nelson now runs the House, too.

And, this:

“Without in any way intending to be threatening, to be more in the mode of promising,” Mr. Nelson said, “let me be clear, this cloture vote is based on the full understanding that there will be a limited conference between the Senate and House. If there are material changes in that conference report different from this bill that adversely affect the agreement, I reserve the right to vote against the next cloture vote. Let me repeat it. I reserve the right to vote against the next cloture vote if there are material changes to this agreement in the conference report. And I will vote against it, if that is the case.”

I suspect any changes from the House would be viewed as "material changes" by Ben Nelson. So, stop trying to spin the American people. There may be more chances to change the bill, but that won't happen. If any changes are made, the White House will lose Ben Nelson's vote. I seriously doubt Joe Biden would write an op-ed in the New York Times castigating Nelson if that were to happen.

UPDATE @ 11:17 a.m.: Biden should meet Kent Conrad, too:

Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster would not hold together unless the Senate bill emerged largely intact from a House-Senate conference.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

No surprise, the talk shows are almost all about health care.

The White House has dispatched David Axelrod to do its spin on NBC, ABC and CNN. Howard Dean, who spoke out forcefully against all the compromises in the Senate bill -- and was forcefully attacked by Team Obama and its allies, is also on Meet. Those two aren't appearing head-to-head, although that would have been interesting. Also, Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos will be on the panel at Meet the Press.

The other shows have a lot of Senators, ten altogether. I'm sure we'll learn so much from a bunch of Senators. They're always so interesting and so informative. Although, I imagine many of them are pretty cranky. They've had to work non-stop for almost a month now.

Here's the breakdown on who is appearing where:

As noted, Meet the Press has David Axelrod and Howard Dean. Then, there's the panel with Markos, Tavis Smiley, Joe Scarborough and Ed Gillespie.

ABC's This Week also has David Axelrod. Then, the show has two Senators: Dick Durbin and Jon Kyl.

Face The Nation has a bunch of Senators: Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the ever painful Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and one-time President Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

CNN's State of the Union also has Axelrod. And, the GOP voice will be that of Senator Lindsey Graham.

Fox also has a panel of Senators: Kent Conrad (D-ND), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John McCain (R-AZ). Makes no sense for Democrats to do FOX, but no one can get the professional Democrats in DC to understand that. Read More......

Eddie Cochran

It was a very late night despite starting aperitif at 6PM yesterday. We had a fun 85th birthday party for our neighbor and things continued until well after 1AM. Bouncing back from these marathon meals is getting more difficult with age but hey, if our 85 year old friend can do it, why not?

The snow has returned again to Paris. Nice big flakes at the moment though it looks wet, so it probably won't stick around for long. We had our own blizzard the other day when 2, maybe even 3 inches blanketed the streets. One centimeter is generally enough to trigger chaos on the roads here. Read More......