All the August commotion over HCR has been tough on President Obama and all supporters of progressive change. The town hall shout downs and media disinformation have taken a toll. It came to a fever pitch Sunday with the HHS Sibelius comment that "the public option is "not the essential element" to health insurance reform and Drudge's white flag. Doom was the mood on Monday.
Today as I watch endless news on the cable and surf the internets something seems to have changed. I see less "death panel" nonsense and town hall wackos coverage, more defenders of the public option and critics of co-ops, more GOP painting themselves into the corner of no.
I hear a lot of snark in Kos comments about Obama the chess master or political ju jit su. But could it be that he has made a great move by floating the no public option balloon? Has he changed the conversation by making himself the villain? Ju jit su or luck I think the argument has turned, and in our favor.
Today I saw Howard Dean on the morning shows persuasively making the case for a public option. And CNN was running a truth squad on the stupid GOP talking points. Rep. Weiner owned Morning Joe on his own set. The public option is all over the airwaves. And along with it comes a smack down on the co-ops. Nobody knows what they are and right now Dr. Dean is setting the message on them. They are too small, too inefficient, too weak to check the insurance industry. Complaints about complexity have merit and these co-ops are far to complex to sell.
The GOP is showing its true colors which in Crayola terms is stop sign red. Grassley says that he will vote no on a bill he agrees with unless enough of his party cohorts vote yes to. Sen. Kyl is calling co-ops a Trojan horse And their town hall rage is fading. Check out this HuffPo headline Reform Supporters Outnumber Critics At Town Halls
The only tea-baggers making news today are the ones who come armed. I did not think that the tea-baggers could top their image as hate filled screaming Nazi sign carrying morons. Gun toting gangs did it wow!
I have also heard an interesting meme bubbling up lately. I first heard Tom Daschle mention it in a heated exchange on MTP. He said that there either needs to be a public option or the insurance industry will have to operate under a new regulatory framework. I saw it again in this post by Mike Lux This is the kind of language that will get blue dogs on board. They can have the public "option" or rate "controls" option vs. controls is a great place for us to fight and we should push this meme.
The media has discovered what must be the most profitable paradigm for covering the Obama administration. It is Obama vs. X. They love the ruckus and whatever X is gets ton of coverage. So did Obama see this and turned the public option into X knowing that it would be brought to the front of the chatter. Or did White House mixed messages create it accidentally. Ju jit su or not I don’t care. It is working