PEEK

Buzz, perspectives, insight and news from AlterNet

GOP's New Prayer Guru Says Gays Possessed By Demons
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on December 19, 2009 at 1:43 PM.

As the Rachel Maddow Show has recently showcased, on December 16th the Family Research Council sponsored a "Prayercast" event, attended by GOP luminaries including Senators Jim DeMint and Sam Brownback, and House Representatives Michelle Bachmann and Randy Forbes. But FRC head Tony Perkins did not lead the prayer event. That honor fell to Lou Engle, Founder of TheCall. Besides leading the capstone stadium rally for pro-Proposition 8, antigay marriage organizers last November 1, 2008 at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, Lou Engle could also be found, at a special ceremony at a Virginia Beach megachurch last summer, anointing and blessing GOP presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich.

Meet the Republican Party's new spiritual guru, Lou Engle:

[below: excerpt from 2007 Engle Los Vegas speech. see here for extended transcript.]

"My son Jesse, he's nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer, one block from the Castro District - where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He's going there with weeping in his heart. With the dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.

...He said to me, "dad," he said, "as long as I'm there I don't think the Lord will judge San Francisco." [boos, angry murmur from Engle's audience]...

He's nineteen years old. He's starting to cast out homosexual spirits out of our new converts. It's scary as hell. The whole thing's scary. But fathers are to send their sons into the darkest places."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Violent Repression of Peaceful Palestinian Protests Continues
Posted by Jonathan Pollak, AlterNet on December 19, 2009 at 11:40 AM.

On a pitch black early December night, seven armored Israeli military jeeps pulled into the driveway of a home in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Dozens of soldiers, armed and possibly very scared, came to arrest someone they were probably told was a dangerous, wanted man - Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher at the Latin Patriarchate School and a well-known grassroots organizer in the village of Bil'in.

Every Friday, for the past five years, Abdallah Abu Rahmah has led men, women and children from Bil'in, carrying signs and Palestinian flags, along with their Israeli and international supporters, in civil disobedience and protest marches against the seizure of sixty percent of the village's land for Israel's construction of its wall and settlements. Bil'in has become a symbol of civilian resistance to Israel's occupation for Palestinians and international grassroots.

Abu Rahmah was taken from his bed, his hands bound with tight zip tie cuffs whose marks were still visible a week later, and his eyes blindfolded. A few hours later, as President Obama spoke of "the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice" upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Abu Rahmah's blindfold was removed as he found himself in a military detention center. He was being interrogated about the crime of organizing demonstrations. In occupied Palestinian territories, Abu Rahmah's case is not unusual - about 8,000 Palestinians currently inhabit Israeli jails on political grounds.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Senate Reaches 60 Votes for Health Bill
Posted by Igor Volsky, Think Progress on December 19, 2009 at 9:43 AM.

This morning, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) held a press conference to announce that he would provide the 60th vote for cloture on the Senate bill with the manager’s amendment.” Nelson praised the Obama administration and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for addressing his concerns but warned his colleagues, “I reserve the right to vote against cloture vote if there are material changes to this agreement in the conference report. ”

Abortion and Medicaid expansion may have been the largest sticking points to winning over Nelson’s votes, but Nelson dodged a question about the extra Medicaid matching funds for his state and instead highlighted the amendment’s changes to flexible savings accounts (FSA), rural hospitals, and a new report that would study successful malpractice reforms “to find out more information out about it,” Nelson said.

The abortion language — which allows states to prohibit abortion in their exchanges and requires strict segregation of private and public funds — may be the most significant alternation. In the video below, Nelson lays out the compromise:

First of all there are 12 states that have banned abortion in public plans and there are 5 states that have banned abortion in both private and public plans. We wanted to make sure in this legislation that it was clear that there was no preemption of the right of states to continue to make those bans.

Watch Nelson explain how the funds would be segregated:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Why Won't the GOP Accept the Gift They Say Health-Care Reform Will Be for Them in 2010?
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on December 19, 2009 at 5:23 AM.

Bill Kristol sneeringly reminds us where he stands on health care legislation:

There's a really big snowstorm coming to D.C.tonight. It would be unsafe to ask all the staffers and Hill employees who'd be needed at the Capitol if Congress stays open all hours this weekend.... So from the point of view of public safety and personal well-being, Ben Nelson can do everyone a favor, announce today he won't vote for cloture, and let everyone stay home this weekend.

... we'll all benefit from a nice holiday break during which we can talk with the American people and recharge our batteries, and that he looks forward to seeing everyone in the New Year.

But we're hearing on the left -- I'm inclined to believe it -- that this bill is largely a giveaway to the insurance industry, with a mandate that will fill insurers' coffers but inadequate subsidies to make the mandatory purchases truly affordable. So why isn't Kristol secretly hoping this corporate-sellout bill passes? Why isn't he eager to see the insurers' pockets lined?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bill Kristol: Snow's Coming and Health-Care Reform Is Really Inconvenient for Lawmakers
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 18, 2009 at 5:16 PM.

BILL KRISTOL, PUBLIC SAFETY ADVOCATE.... Bill Kristol makes no secret of the fact that he hopes to see Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) kill health care reform. But today, the Weekly Standard editor came up with a new reason for Nelson, not just to kill the bill, but to do so today.

There's a really big snowstorm coming to D.C.tonight. It would be unsafe to ask all the staffers and Hill employees who'd be needed at the Capitol if Congress stays open all hours this weekend, as Harry Reid intends, to drive to and from work--especially since many will have to do so at night, and they won't be well-rested. So from the point of view of public safety and personal well-being, Ben Nelson can do everyone a favor, announce today he won't vote for cloture, and let everyone stay home this weekend.

Yes, Bill Kristol wants support for a Republican filibuster because it's likely to snow.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Peggy Noonan Outdoes Herself, Blames America's Problems on "Adam Lamberts" of the World
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on December 18, 2009 at 3:54 PM.

For reasons I can only blame on Twitter, I read Peggy Noonan's newest column late last night and went to bed soon after. This morning I woke up thinking, "Surely, not. It must've been some sad, low-intensity nightmare. No serious person would write an article that ridiculous."

Then I remembered: Peggy Noonan is not a serious person.

Sure, she writes for a Serious paper -- The Wall Street Journal -- and is invited to share her analysis on Serious programs ("Meet the Press"). She writes like she speaks: primly, with an air of breezy, high-class intellect. I imagine she writes beautiful cursive.

She is well groomed. So well groomed, in fact, she believes it is her right -- nay, her obligation -- to publicly humiliate those who fail at grooming. (Noblesse oblige, Mika. Don't take it personally.)

The last time I read Lady Noonan, in late November, she was being driven down Manhattan's Fifth Ave -- a perennial source of inspiration -- and was so moved at the sight of the Bergdorf Goodman building ("tall, stately, mansard-roofed") -- it instilled her with a sense of deep relief:

It looked exactly as it looked 10 years ago, 20, only better. Because it's there. New York has been so damaged by the crash, and last year at this time small shops, the ones with the smallest margin for error, were closing. And now I see more that are opening, and Bergdorf's is preparing its Christmas windows. The sight of it came like an affirmation. We're still here. I am so grateful.

Emphasis hers.

It was not the first time she wrote a Thanksgiving-themed column that celebrated the survival of the ruling class as the rest of the country went to hell. After all, impressionistic validations of her own sense of privilege are her forte. (If Berdorf survives, that means the rich survive; Food stamps? Collectibles of the goblins to the north.)

But I digress.

It appears Peggy Noonan decided this week that she is done feeling grateful about the survival of luxury goods and is back to being worried.

At first glance, it appears she is concerned about the economy:

The news came in numbers and the numbers were fairly grim, all the grimmer for being unsurprising. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reported this week that more than half of Americans, 55%, think America is on the wrong track, with only 33% saying it is going in the right direction. A stunning 66% say they're not confident that their children's lives will be better than their own (27% are).

It is another in a long trail of polls that show a clear if occasionally broken decline in American optimism. The poll was discussed on TV the other day, and everyone said those things everyone says: "People are afraid they'll lose their jobs or their houses." "It's health care. Every uninsured person feels they're one illness away from bankruptcy.

All too true. The economy has always had an impact on the general American mood, and the poll offered data to buttress the reader's assumption that economic concerns are driving pessimism. Fifty-one percent of those interviewed said they disapproved of the president's handling of the economy, versus 42% approving.>

At this point, I ask myself, "Where is she going with this?" After all, Bergdorf is still standing, so it can't be all about money, right?

But something tells me this isn't all about money.

Ah.

It's possible, and I can't help but think likely, that the poll is also about other things, and maybe even primarily about other things.

Hmmm…go on.

Sure, Americans are worried about long-term debt and endless deficits. We're worried about taxes and the burden we're bequeathing to our children, and their children.

Do go on.

But we are concerned about other things, too, and there are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns. Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.

She's really building up the suspense and if you're like me you are dying to know what this looming threat to our "core and character" is. Finally, after setting up the following parallel -- "It is one thing to grouse that dreadful people who don't care about us control our economy, but another, and in a way more personal, thing to say that people who don't care about us control our culture" -- she tells us:

In 2009 this was perhaps most vividly expressed in …

Oooh, ooh! I know! The torture memos? Bagram? Rush Limbaugh?

… the Adam Lambert Problem.

…the Adam Lambert Problem?

American Idol winner Adam Lambert? This guy?

Yes, America, Peggy Noonan has peered into the soul of our nation -- it resides somewhere near Berdorf, I assume -- and concluded that, of all the indignities suffered by Americans in 2009 -- say, paying billions in taxes for wars and bank bailouts while seeing health care reform virtually torpedoed -- Adam Lambert's highly sexualized -- homosexual -- performance at the American Music Awards -- an episode she calls, simply, "the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November" -- was the poison pill that has us all feeling so depressed. (Who knew?)

This incident, she says solemnly, was a betrayal of the American family. With this incident, the great unspoken "compromise" of American television -- pay for smut on cable but don't drag good people into it -- was "breached."

It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on and -- again, in front of your children, in the living room, in the middle of your peaceful evening -- uncorked an act in which he, in the words of various news reports the next day, performed 'faux oral sex' featuring 'S&M play,' 'bondage gear,' 'same-sex makeouts' and 'walking a man and woman around the stage on a leash.'"

"Mr. Lambert's act left viewers feeling not just offended but assaulted."

Noonan goes on to insist that she, personally, does not waste too much time worrying about such vulgar things (apart from writing entire columns condemning them). "In the great scheme of things a creepy musical act doesn't matter much." But she observes that "increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it."

So there you have it. The "Adam Lamberts" of the world are trying to impose their values on your children. Am I dreaming, or is this really a fundraising appeal from the National Organization For Marriage?

I agree with Noonan about one thing: Americans are exhausted. From endless war, from lay-offs, from the craven politicians who build their careers on false populism only to betray the ideals they claim to represent just when it matters most. People feel betrayed, yes, but not for the reasons Noonan pretends they do.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Deal Reached in Copenhagen ... And it Looks Like Crap
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on December 18, 2009 at 2:44 PM.

The first inkling of reports are coming out of Copenhagen that a deal has been reached, but it's looking like it won't be anything to celebrate. It is most definitely not a legally binding agreement either. Don't worry though, it's just the future of the planet on the line.

The Washington Post reports:

The deal provides a means to monitor and verify emissions cuts by developing countries but has less ambitious climate targets than the United States and European governments had initially sought, according to an Obama administration official and other sources familiar with the talks

The official, speaking earlier on condition of anonymity, said a "meaningful agreement was reached" following a multilateral meeting between Obama and the leaders of China, India and South Africa. "It's not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change, but it's an important first step," the official said.

The deal appeared to fall short of even modest expectations for the summit. As part of the agreement -- brokered after a last-minute meeting between Obama and his counterparts from China, India and South Africa -- industrialized and developing nations agreed to list their national actions and commitments in their fight against climate change, while vowing to take action to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius. In addition, they agreed to provide information on the implementation of their actions, which would be subject to international review and analysis.

Just to be clear, "falling short of even modest expectations," is really, really bad.

Matthew McDermott reporting from Copenhagen for Treehugger summed up the immediate reaction thus far:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Rich Guy Michael Wolff Bravely Fights Tyranny of Waiters, Flight Attendants
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on December 18, 2009 at 1:46 PM.

Do you ever wish America were ruled by the wealthy, instead of poor people working in the service industry? In Newswer today, Michael Wolff bemoans the vile oppression suffered by the upper-middle class at the hands these service-industry "tyrants". 

Mockery seems gratuitous. Also, blinding rage is making it hard to be jokey. So, just see for yourself:

Among the worst things you can do in upper-middle-class, politically-correct, don’t-call-attention-to-yourself culture is insult a service person. This is counter-intuitive because one of the things that is most often done in upper-middle-class culture is complain about service.

[...]

... while we all have experienced the tyranny of the public interface of the service economy, we continue to accept a standard of ritual and propriety which, even as we curse them privately, sees service people as an oppressed minority who shouldn’t have to be confronted with their tyrannical impulses and personal incompetence.

To do so, even though everybody has been a victim of such tyranny and incompetence, is an upper-middle-class gaucherie. It remains a signpost gaucherie even though millions of upper-middle-class people have pondered with their therapists the roots of their inability to send back a rotten dinner in a restaurant. (emphasis added.)

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Did We Expect Too Much From Obama?
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 18, 2009 at 12:39 PM.

Cross-posted from TPM Cafe Book Club, from a discussion of Max Blumenthal's Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party.

NOTE: As part of discussion that's been taking place all week at TPM Cafe Book Club, Max Blumenthal jumped off from a premise of his fine book, Republican Gomorrah, about the right's use of what he calls a "salvation narrative" to shape its politics to ask if the left did the same in its embrace of Barack Obama in the presidential campaign. This is my response.

Max Blumenthal is onto something significant here with his idea, laid out in his post, Obama, the Fallen Messiah, that the enthusiasm shown Obama during the presidential campaign by progressives stemmed from a sort of secular salvation narrative. I suspected something like that during the campaign, just gauging from my own emotional response to Obama's campaign speeches. If I, a jaded reporter, was getting that lump in my throat, then how much more deeply were activists feeling the Obama magic?

In Republican Gomorrah, Max quotes Eric Fromm in Escape From Freedom:

If we do not see the unconscious suffering of the average automatized person, then we fail to see the danger that threatens our culture from its human basis: the readiness to accept any ideology and any leader, if only he promises excitement and offers a political structure and symbols which already give meaning an order to an individual's life.

Although Blumenthal uses that quote to illustrate how religious right leaders stuck by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay even after evidence emerged of his corruption, I think Fromm's formulation applies as well to the left in its wild embrace of Obama during the presidential campaign. The apparent difference between the left and right is that the left allowed itself to feel betrayed by the cold shock of reality when Obama proved to be something that did not comport with its ideology.

For years, I have believed that America is a traumatized nation, especially in the course of the last decade. (I'll have a piece on AlterNet next week on precisely this topic.) The trauma, I believe, is felt as deeply by progressives as right-wingers, though processed through different narratives.

The American trauma of the new millennium didn't begin with 9/11; it began with the 2000 presidential election. Never before in their lifetimes had Americans seen, in an obvious way, their electoral system near to collapse. The month and a half of not knowing who the next president would be, and how that decision would be arrived at, totally screwed with our sense of self as a nation, which hinges on the perceived sense of the strength of our democracy. We're all raised on the belief of American exceptionalism. It's in our bones, whether or not we accept it intellectually. So, when the decision of our presidential election was taken by a Supreme Court fiat, progressives, understandably, were reeling.

Then there was 9/11.

Then the invasion of Afghanstan.

Then the virtual suspension of the Constitution with the USA Patriot act, and later the abuse of the FISA surveillance law.

Then the invasion of Iraq, on false pretenses -- pretenses many progressives believed were false all along. Yet they witnessed Democratic senators and members of Congress go along with the president so as not to look wimpy. Obama was among the few who voted "no" on the Iraq war.

Then Iraq got ugly.

Then there was the 2004 election, which many believe was stolen by Bush in Ohio.

Then the economy tanked.

So, yes, progressives were, indeed, a traumatized lot by the time of the 2008 presidential election. Never mind our personal stories of whatever familial dysfunction shaped us as individuals: Abuse and addiction are hardly limited to those on the right (though, as Max seems to suggest in Republican Gomorrah, they may be overrepresented in the religious right), but we use different tools to address them.

Along comes Obama, a man whose very appearance spoke to the progressive urge for racial reconciliation, and whose ability to speak to the best in us was nothing short of inspiring. And he had his own redemption story, as outlined in his memoir, Dreams From My Father. He went through a dark spell, he tells us, of drug use and racial resentment. He came from a dysfunctional family and never knew his father. He came through all this to win his way through Columbia University. Instead of going to a white-shoe law firm upon his graduation from law school, he became a community organizer -- which, for progressives, is roughly analogous what a commitment to tithing means to adherents of the religious right.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Mr. Equality Goes to Washington: D.C. Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on December 18, 2009 at 11:47 AM.

This morning at the All Souls Unitarian church in Washington, DC, approximately 150 activists and same-sex couples congregated to witness marriage equality become law in the nation’s capital. “I say to the world: An era of struggle ends for thousands in Washington, D.C.,” said Mayor Adrian Fenty (D), who also invoked his biracial upbringing and noted that it was illegal for his parents to get married 40 years ago because they were an interracial couple. Several other officials spoke, including David Catania (I), the council member who sponsored the bill. When Fenty signed the bill, he held it over his head and the room erupted in cheers.

Watch some highlights from the event:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Krugman Says Don't Kill Senate Health Bill ... Is He Right?
Posted by Jill C., Brilliant at Breakfast on December 18, 2009 at 10:03 AM.

What a cynical exercise this entire health care reform debate has been.

Now we have a situation in which Joe Lieberman, who rakes in cash from the insurance industry and whose wife is a lobbyist, and others stuffing their pockets with insurance company cash, are holding hostage real reform on the backs of those who can't afford insurance.

Today Paul Krugman joins the "Pass it, it's better than nothing" side:

At its core, the bill would do two things. First, it would prohibit discrimination by insurance companies on the basis of medical condition or history: Americans could no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or have their insurance canceled when they get sick. Second, the bill would provide substantial financial aid to those who don’t get insurance through their employers, as well as tax breaks for small employers that do provide insurance.

All of this would be paid for in large part with the first serious effort ever to rein in rising health care costs.

The result would be a huge increase in the availability and affordability of health insurance, with more than 30 million Americans gaining coverage, and premiums for lower-income and lower-middle-income Americans falling dramatically. That’s an immense change from where we were just a few years ago: remember, not long ago the Bush administration and its allies in Congress successfully blocked even a modest expansion of health care for children.

Bear in mind also the lessons of history: social insurance programs tend to start out highly imperfect and incomplete, but get better and more comprehensive as the years go by. Thus Social Security originally had huge gaps in coverage — and a majority of African-Americans, in particular, fell through those gaps. But it was improved over time, and it’s now the bedrock of retirement stability for the vast majority of Americans.

Look, I understand the anger here: supporting this weakened bill feels like giving in to blackmail — because it is. Or to use an even more accurate metaphor suggested by Ezra Klein of The Washington Post, we’re paying a ransom to hostage-takers. Some of us, including a majority of senators, really, really want to cover the uninsured; but to make that happen we need the votes of a handful of senators who see failure of reform as an acceptable outcome, and demand a steep price for their support.

The question, then, is whether to pay the ransom by giving in to the demands of those senators, accepting a flawed bill, or hang tough and let the hostage — that is, health reform — die.

Again, history suggests the answer. Whereas flawed social insurance programs have tended to get better over time, the story of health reform suggests that rejecting an imperfect deal in the hope of eventually getting something better is a recipe for getting nothing at all. Not to put too fine a point on it, America would be in much better shape today if Democrats had cut a deal on health care with Richard Nixon, or if Bill Clinton had cut a deal with moderate Republicans back when they still existed.

I respect Paul Krugman, and I do understand his points. But I am cynical enough that the idea of "cutting a deal" holds no weight when you have a bunch of miscreants like today's Republicans, for whom "cutting a deal" means "doing it their way or not at all."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Climate Talks on Verge of Collapse in Final Hours
Posted by Nick Berning, Open Left on December 18, 2009 at 9:15 AM.

There's a somber mood in Copenhagen on the last day of climate negotiations, with prospects for a strong and fair agreement feeling further and further out of reach.

A leaked UN document shows current proposals would add up to an alarming 3 degree C temperature rise and the U.S. is still refusing to budge.

Indeed, it now seems increasingly possible that rich countries' leaders may not even be able to piece together the weak, fig leaf of a "political" rather than "binding" agreement that most observers had been anticipating.

There's been some important news here over the last 24 hours.

LEAKED UN DOCUMENT EXPOSES HOW CURRENT PROPOSALS ADD UP TO CATASTROPHIC WARMING

First, a secret UN analysis of countries' current emission reduction proposals was leaked to the media. That analysis concluded that, when put together, the proposals now on the table would likely result in a global temperature rise to 3ºC above pre-industrial levels -- a catastrophic rise that would put small island states under water and cause suffering and death for millions of people.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

'Female Tiger Woods' Once Prowled Premiere Christian Right Bible College
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on December 18, 2009 at 8:21 AM.

There was talk last week about why there aren't Big Sex Scandals involving Reverse-Tigers, that is, women cheating bigtime on their spouses Tiger Woodsily. At the time, I sort of half-remembered that there indeed was such a scandal and that it had a religio-hypocritical twist to it, but I couldn't recall the details. Anyway it bugged me. Happily, though, Oral Roberts just croaked, and now I remember!

Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."

Now, his son, President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

GOP Senators Appear On TV With anti-Gay Christian Martyrdom Advocate
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on December 18, 2009 at 8:14 AM.

Last night's segment of the Rachel Maddow show provided footage, which first appeared at Talk To Action, of a Christian evangelist who is quite influential but also little known to secular Americans: Lou Engle, founder of TheCall. The Maddow segment highlighted an event noted a few days ago by RightWingWatch, an anti-health care reform "Prayercast," held by the Family Research Council, led by emergent, highly militant leaders of the Christian right such as Lou Engle and also by Republican senators Brownback and DeMint, and GOP Representatives Bachmann and Forbes.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

We Could Have Had a Public Option: Then Some Senators Lied to Us
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on December 18, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

I've seen a few post-mortems of the public option campaign kicking around the Internets.  Invariably, as more are written, some will blame the people leading the campaign for not adopting different tactics which, the authors of the post-mortems will claim, could have led to victory.

Before this line of writing becomes too widespread, we all need to remember that the only reason we didn't win the public option campaign was because a few Senators lied to us.  Unless someone can think of ways to have prevented them from lying, then these post-mortems will be useless.

Back on May 21st, there were only 28 Senators in support of a triggerless public option.  Through your tireless participation in a whip count effort, by October 8th we raised that number to 51 when Jon Tester came out in support.  By October 30th, when Evan Bayh said he wouldn't filibuster, we were up to 56 Democrats for cloture on health care reform with a public option.

From that point, the only four Senators we still needed all lied to us in one form or another.  Both Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln signed a document stating that they supported a public option, only to reverse their positions.  Blanche Lincoln's website still comically claimed she supported a public option even as she was declaring her opposition to one on the Senate floor.

Still, Landrieu, Lincoln and Ben Nelson were all part of the group of ten Senators who forged a deal on the public option that included a Medicare buy-in.  Further, immediately after that deal was reached, Harry Reid contacted Joe Lieberman to see if he liked the deal.  Lieberman told Harry Reid that he was liking what he was seeing, and just wanted to wait for the CBO report.  Further, Lieberman had supported an even stronger Medicare buy-in (for Americans aged 50-64) as recently as September 2009.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »