Jay Rockefeller speaks the truth about Obama and Republican racism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Politico:

Sen. Jay Rockefeller unloaded on lawmakers Tuesday, accusing some of blocking efforts to solve urgent problems during Barack Obama's presidency "because he's the wrong color."

Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who will retire at the end of the year, made his comments during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on transportation funding, saying he's confounded by the "lack of will to keep ourselves from dropping into rivers and rolling over bridges that are no longer there."

"It's an American characteristic that you don't do anything which displeases the voters, because you always have to get reelected here," he added. "I understand part of it. It has to do with — for some, it's just we don't want anything good to happen under this president, because he's the wrong color."

Yup.

Don't get me wrong, Republicans would still oppose him ferociously were he white. But basically, if Obama were white, he'd be seen as a mostly centrist, establishmentarian Democrat (champion of market-based health-care reform, generally supportive of Wall Street and Big Business, aggressive on national security, etc.) with occasional (and always measured) forays into progressivism (belated support for marriage equality, concerned about race/racism, cautious environmentalism, etc.) As a black man, though, he's basically seen as the Other, the Enemy, a Communist, a Terrorist, anything and everything that is anti-American from a right-wing perspective.

Rockefeller's statement is something of an exaggeration, I admit. Mitch McConnell's obstructionism in the Senate and House Republicans' general opposition to anything and everything associated with Obama would have the Republican approach if Hillary had won in 2008, and one can expect them to deal with any Democratic president in a similar manner. But certainly Obama's race has aroused an ugly strain of conservatism that had previously been somewhat dormant, or at least quieter: racism and nativism. And it certainly seems to be the case that the virulence of Republican opposition to Obama is very much rooted in that strain.

Rep. Capito ahead in early polls in West Virginia to replace Rockefeller

By Richard K. Barry

Roll Call is reporting that Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito looks to be in a good position to replace retiring West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller. This is according to a poll conducted by GOP polling firm Harper Polling:

The poll tested both parties' primary fields and theoretical general-election matchups. What is clear from this early read is that Capito is well-known and, at least for now, is well-liked.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Nick J. Rahall II led the field of potential candidates and appears to be the strongest general-election nominee against Capito. In a general-election test, 50 percent of respondents said they would support Capito, while 32 percent said they backed Rahall. Eighteen percent were undecided.

Obviously this is early going. Interestingly, they point out that because West Virginia is such a cheap state in which to advertise, name identification won't be a problem for anyone by election day. By the same token, negative ads and the characterization and mischaracterization of everything everyone says will be easily put before the voters. 

One thing that seems relatively certain is that Capito will be the GOP nominee, as she polls at 71 percent against her closest potential challenger, GOP Rep. David B. McKinley, who gets 15 percent support. 

How Obama's strategy on health-care reform makes perfect sense even as the lack of White House leadership continues to be a significant obstacle

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm not sure I agree with Glenn Greenwald that the absence of the public option in the White House's new health-care reform compromise is proof of Obama's opposition to the public option:

It now seems obvious that White House's claim of support for the public option was a pretense used to placate the progressive base (in fact, it seems committed to excluding the public option very likely because it would provide real competition to the health insurance industry and is thus vehemently opposed by the industry and its lobbyists).

Let me stress that I'm not sure what Obama supports and what he doesn't -- who is sure, outside of Obama and his inner circle? -- though I tend to take him at his word that he would prefer reform with a public option. But I simply do not accept that his various public utterances in support of the public option have all been part of some grandiose "pretense," a Machiavellian plot to delude progressives.

What we know about Obama is that he is a ruthless realist. Whatever his ideals, whatever his principles, he is fully aware of what is possible, or of what seems to be possible, and he generally operates/governs within the parameters of that realism. That's how he was as a candidate and it's how he is as president.

Now, where I am deeply critical of Obama is in the area of leadership. As Ezra Klein writes:

This has been a complete and utter failure of White House leadership. They need to give this effort their support, or they need to kill it by publicly stating their opposition. But they can't simply wait for someone else to make the decision for them, which has been their strategy until now.

That failure continues. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs may very well be right that the votes just aren't there for the public option, but the problem is that the White House -- President Obama himself -- never pushed for it in any meaningful way. What was said behind closed doors I don't know, and he may well have pushed for it privately, but he never came out publicly and demanded a public option or else, using his bully pulpit to move public opinion, providing the sort of determined leadership Democrats needed.

That alone wouldn't have guaranteed success, of course, but at least the public option would have had a good shot. Now? Not.

Ezra explains:

For supporters of the strategy [to use reconciliation for the public option], that's not going to be very satisfying: Maybe there would be more supporters if the president took up the cause! It will also intensify the efforts of activists who want to prove that there is sufficient support, which means individual senators will be under even more pressure to sign the letter, which means this isn't likely to go away quietly. The White House is using the Senate as a sort of human shield here.

For opponents of the strategy, Gibbs's comments will be taken as evidence that the White House opposes the effort. I think that's actually the right interpretation, particularly given that Gibbs later emphasized Obama's intention to discuss "consensus ideas" Thursday, but it would be nice if the White House would just say what it means rather than leaving people to guess.

In other words, Obama opposes the "effort" to pass the public option through reconciliation but, if I may add to Ezra's analysis, not necessarily the public option itself (insofar as that matters at this point).

We may be critical of Obama's conservative approach to reform, of his stultifying realism, of the utter lack of leadership on the president's part, but I suspect that the White House is driven by the desire for success, and by the view that passing the compromise (and admittedly flawed) Senate bill (with appropriate modifications to appease the House) stands the best chance of success given the current political situation.

And why is that? Because the votes really might not be there. Or maybe they are, or at least could be with enough prodding, but maybe securing them, in both the House and Senate, would take too much time, and require too much prodding, too much additional compromise, too much playing off of competing Democratic interests, not least in a challenging mid-term election year.

And maybe the White House thinks that pushing through a more robust reform bill, one with a public option, by way of reconciliation would undermine the president's ability to sell reform as something other than a solo partisan effort. We all know what the public thinks of partisanship. We also know what it thinks of reform -- unpopular within the context of legislative sausage-making, much more popular when the specifics are known. And we know that the media are spinning reconciliation as a dirty word. So how would passing a reform bill, even one with a popular public option, through what is perceived to be partisan trickery benefit Obama, not least given how Republicans would undoubtedly propagandize against both the process and the substance? And how would it benefit Democrats running for re-election in November?

I certainly think that, in the long run, Democrats would benefit politically/electorally from health-care reform. Ultimately, the success and popularity of reform would win out.

But, for now, at this moment, given the current political reality, Obama's clear preference that the Senate bill be passed, with modifications addressed through reconciliation, is completely understandable. It is not what I would have preferred, and a big part of me does wish Democrats would bring back the public option, with or without Obama's support, but, at the same time, I just don't think that this reality can be denied. As Jon Chait writes:

Health care reform is still hanging on for dear life in the House. The dynamic is that the Democrats are going to lose some votes from pro-life members who insist on Bart Stupak's language. They need to make up the votes by persuading Blue Dog and other centrist Democrats who voted no for the original bill to vote yes this time. Many of those centrists said at the time of their original vote that they preferred the Senate bill and opposed the public option. Restoring the public option, aside form sucking up a lot of time by introducing another big fight, would greatly complicate this already-complicated task.

That's why Jay Rockefeller opposes adding the public option to the bill at this point. Rockefeller is the author of the public option. So it seems like the fear that reopening this debate will sink the whole bill really is the reason for the administration's reluctance. Or maybe Rockefeller's in on the pretense, too.

This seems to me to be the correct interpretation. Steve Benen adds:

I realize that Gibbs's response today seems unexpected, but it doesn't strike me as all that surprising -- if the White House thought the votes were there for a public option, the administration would have included the idea in the proposal unveiled yesterday. The fact that the president's version of reform didn't include the idea should have made it pretty clear that the White House thinks, correctly or not, that public option support remains insufficient.

I should note, though, that Gibbs's comments need not be the end of the public option. The White House is under the impression that the votes just aren't there to pass this specific measure, but if proponents on and off the Hill want to prove otherwise, there's still time to do just that. Gibbs didn't say the president opposes the public option -- Obama has said repeatedly he supports the idea, and would like to see it in the final bill -- he just said he thinks the public option lacks the support it needs in Congress.

If public option advocates want to prove Gibbs wrong, now's their chance.

To repeat, there is the distinct risk that such a move could meet with serious popular disapproval. But that's not to say Democrats shouldn't try. If the votes are really there, they should go for it -- and communicate to the public just why they're doing what they're doing. But if not, or if it would be overly costly or challenging, they should do what Obama proposes, which would at least give them a historic accomplishment to run on, major legislation to call their own, and which would benefit the American people with meaningful change to a health-care system that is unfair, unjust, and economically destructive.

Let's just be realistic about what can be done.

The public option has stalled. So what now?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sen. Tom Harkin thinks he has the votes to pass a health-care reform package that includes a so-called "public option," and he may very well be right -- it's possible, if (and it's a huge if) Democrats pull together to break an expected Republican filibuster) -- but, as of right now, the public option has stalled in the Senate Finance Committee, which, despite a Democratic majority voted today against two separate proposals put forward by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Jay Rockefeller. The problem is not so much that the Republicans all voted against them (including Schumer's compromise), it's that so many Democrats did, including Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who delusionally continues to push for a bipartisan package (without a public option) even with almost all Republicans clearly opposed to any and all compromise. (As Steve Benen notes, the Republican arguments against the public option were predictably stupid.)

We have long known that the Republicans are against meaningful health-care reform. What is so annoying now, though, is that the main obstacle is Democratic opposition in the Senate, from Baucus and Kent Conrad and so on. It is a small bloc of centrists, but it is a bloc that could side with the GOP on a filibuster (in refusing to break it, even against the wishes of an overwhelming majority of fellow Democrats).

So what now?

Well, Democrats could, and should, still push for the inclusion of a robust public option in any reform package. All it not lost yet.

And yet, as many health-care experts have pointed out, quite persuasively, you may not need a public option to achieve some of key goals of reform. And there is one country, as TNR's Jonathan Cohn writes, that is a model of how to do it: The Netherlands:

Liberals, understandably, are in agony. But they can take at least some comfort in looking overseas -- where one tiny country has managed to build a popular and successful universal health care program based entirely on private insurance. That country is the Netherlands, which several years ago overhauled its health care system and achieved most of the goals the liberal reform movement holds dear: near-universal coverage, affordable insurance, and quality health care.

Under the new system, the Dutch government has required that everybody gets insurance; in return, it makes sure insurance is available to everybody, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions or income. Although the government finances long-term care through a public program, it has turned over the job of providing basic medical coverage exclusively to private insurers, including some for-profit companies. Surveys show that the Dutch are happier with their health care than are Americans -- or the people of any other developed country, for that matter.

The "catch," as Cohn notes, is that health care in the Netherlands, however private, "operates more or less like a public utility."

Read the whole piece. It's an interesting model, and a viable alternative, though perhaps unworkable in the U.S., given the general reluctance to reform industry as vigorously as would be required. Still, with the public option in trouble, and with the distinct possibility that whatever reform package is passed will not include it, it may be time to start looking for next-best approaches, if we haven't already, that would, at the very least, be steps in the right direction and that could, eventually, lead to the sort of universal public system many of us desire.

Hey, Max Baucus, what's the point?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That's right, what's the point of Sen. Max Baucus's health-care reform proposal? Is it to win bipartisan support? Yes, probably, given that Baucus all along has been trying to work with the few Republicans who have shown a slight (if hollow) interest in reform -- namely, the GOP members of the Gang of Six. Not surprisingly, though, the Republicans in question, notably Sens. Charles Grassley and Mike Enzi, have already come out against Baucus's proposal. And it's not like Baucus's compromise appeals to pro-reform Democrats either. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, for example, has decisively, and admirably, said "no way": if there is no public option, and there isn't in Baucus's proposal, it's a non-starter. This is the position all Democrats ought to be taking.

(Baucus's proposal is actually pretty atrocious. As one former Big Insurance executive has put it, it's "an absolute gift" to the insurance industry. Though, it would seem, even an absolute gift isn't good enough for Republicans.)

Meanwhile, even moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe has stated that she won't be supporting the Senate Finance Committee's bill. Which is to say, no Republican senator will be supporting it -- or any other reform bill that includes a public option, or, for that matter, any reform bill at all.

As I've said before, it's time, long past time, for the Democrats to go it alone on health-care reform. Republicans have been obstructionist to the point where even genuine compromise is impossible -- if it was ever possible, and I suspect it wasn't. What they want is not just concessions that would render reform meaningless but no reform at all.

Republicans have shown their cards. Democrats must now pull together and do what is right for America.

Rockefeller gets serious points

By Creature

The Charleston Gazette [via Benen]:

On Thursday, Rockefeller admitted he expects little bipartisan support.

"There is a very small chance any Republicans will vote for this health-care plan. They were against Medicare and Medicaid [created in the 1960s]. They voted against children's health insurance.

"We have a moral choice. This is a classic case of the good guys versus the bad guys. I know it is not political for me to say that," Rockefeller added.

"But do you want to be non-partisan and get nothing? Or do you want to be partisan and end up with a good health- care plan? That is the choice."

The unfortunate part is that this should be obvious to all Democrats and it should be the mantra across the board (from the president on down). The public option is the point of reform. We need a big pool for the public to swim in together, otherwise we will continue to drown. If Republicans think the public pool is icky, and would rather swim with their exclusive, lobbyist friends, then they can stay out. We don't need them pissing in our pool any longer.

Panetta? Why not?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Like Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan, and Creature -- three of my favourite bloggers -- I'm not sure what to make of Obama's surprise selection of Leon Panetta to be CIA director. His extensive White House (CoS to Clinton) and Congressional experience should serve him well in a position that is, like it or not, political, but I think the intelligence community is right to be concerned. The question is, after all, just how political is he, just how close to Obama? What is needed at the CIA is integrity and independence, not an extension of the West Wing. Still, like the three mentioned above, I take comfort in the fact that his selection has shaken and stirred the Republican-enabling (and torture-enabling) Democratic intelligence leadership on Capitol Hill, notably Senators Dianne "fratricide" Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller.

Sullivan:

Feinstein and Rockefeller sense a real individual with real clout at the agency, whom they cannot control. There may have been a lack of foresight here in not phoning Feinstein ahead of time. But it is also indisputable that many leading intelligence Democrats were deeply complicit in the Bush torture program and his illegal wire-tapping. It was just as important for the president-elect to pick someone not beholden to them either.

Some are now citing Panetta's appointment as somehow "political" rather than substantive. But it's obvious that Obama has actually found someone both capable of running a bureaucracy as complex as the CIA, of a stature to be approved by the Congress and maintain good relations, and with the good sense to know how interrogation based on torture is never right and much less effective than legal methods.

It remains an inspired choice. And the critics help show why.

I'm not sure how "inspired" it is -- time will tell whether Panetta is the right man for the job or just another Tenet or Goss -- but, as Steve Benen notes in an excellent post on the reaction to the selection, it "has drawn a fair amount of praise from credible voices," including Rep. Rush Holt, former Rep. Tim Roemer, David Corn, and CQ's Jeff Stein.

Once more, as so often throughout the transition, I suppose I ought to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.