Look Out...Health Care is Going Out the Window

I am not sure how this happened? Well, actually I am. Recall a post I had about Obama months ago where I asked, among other things, was Obama struggling because he was trying to be too weak and bipartisan or the election itself was a sham and reflected a sentiment against the GOP and not necessarily towards more regulation? The Tea Baggers certainly made the latter seem more important than the former, but their protest was shrouded in latent racial hostilities. Did you know, for example, Obama has had 60% of his proposals to slash government spending approved? This is a much greater % than his predecessors. You would never know that because of TARP, which has also been gradually recouping the banks' "loans."

But, now with the health care bill -- which was going to be a bit stronger after the compromise and not as shitty as the Senate version -- in a precarious position, I fear the worst. If Mass., a typically democratic state, elects that schmuck Brown and he uses his power to put the filibuster on, there is going to be some ugly politicking with few gains to be made by the Dems. How did it get to this? Was there no person strong enough to run for that seat? Why did a Kennedy not step up to the plate? If he gets elected, the Dems will have to use some arcane rules to get their ways, unless the Senate accepts the House bill, which would be good because it has a public option, but bad because it would put more Senate seats in danger. At this point, though, Nelson, Reid, and a few others look like they are going down anyway. If one is indeed a public servant and he/she saw the writing on the wall, wouldn't he or she want to go out with memorable legislation?

All of this stems from Obama's unwillingness to be combative. A great quality, no doubt; but, a sign of weakness in the face of staunch GOP opposition. There is no easy solution for him. He inherited a seriously fucked up thing and a slim majority with some very center-right Dems helping secure that majority. His mandate was ambiguous, founded on sand castles of hope and never truly seized by Obama. Busy dealing with the plummeting economy (and, based on some indicators, doing as good a job as possible), Obama went head first into the Health care debate. Perhaps hedging his bets on 2010 in 2009 and assuming the outcome of the election was in doubt early on (hey, he could have looked at the seats up for grabs and made decent predictions), decided to do this now before his mandate's consequences were spent. I don't know. But, I do know this is it for him if he cannot get the health care thing passed; and, it will put a serious strain on an already strained economy and the next generation's burden.