Lately, I've been hearing a lot of bad analysis. A small but growing contingent of people here are trying to dispute the usefulness of the public option. Another, somewhat larger group is just certain the White House has been changing its position over and over, floating "trial balloons", and losing its nerve - basically being willing to accept any interpretation of the administration's position the AP, NYT, WP, or Politico tells them.
Both trends are alarming, because we as a community in the last month have really stepped up in being especially constructive when it comes to pressuring Congress, deflecting astroturf town hall disruptions, and rewarding those representatives who reflect the will of the people; unfortunately, at the same time, we as a community have in the last week also been emersed in a counterforce of cognitive dissonance so overwhelming that it threatens to derail our efforts.
So here are (hopefully) some facts that we can all agree on:
- The Congressional Budget Office analysis of the public option shows a $150 billion savings and a $6 billion surplus; a public option does not have to pay insurance industry executive salaries, and thus would inherently be able to offer a lower price to the consumer while forcing private insurance companies to do the same, yet will not run private insurance out of business but rather increase their customer base according to the CBO.
- Obama's position all year has been that he prefers a public option but would accept any alternative that accomplishes the same results of expanded coverage, portability, lower costs, and budget neutrality.
- If such an alternative to a public option that meets all those conditions were actually to emerge, then - guess what - we should all be open to it, too.
- However, no alternative to a public option that has been shown to bring down costs to the consumer has yet been provided. The only suggestion thus far, co-ops, have historically failed in every case at bringing down private insurance costs; the burden of proof is thus on the proponents of co-ops to provide clear and convincing evidence that this trend won't be repeated, and thus far, they have offered zilch.
- With a failure to explain how to lower consumer costs to make insurance affordable, reform is just an additional yearly multibilliondollar subsidy to insurance companies for leaving an expanding number Americans uninsured and without access to life-saving treatments.
- The insurance companies, through signals by many of their Republican spokespeople, now mysteriously seem willing to drop the ability to deny coverage based on pre-existing condition all of a sudden, which - even considering a bigger consumer base for insurance companies under a universal mandate - is still a big sacrifice; the only logical reason they would give in so easily on something that they fought tooth and nail to protect for decades is to close ranks around even bigger prize, which appears to be avoiding the public option at all costs, and if that's where they're drawing their final line in the sand, it suggests that they have concluded that it is the one thing in health care reform that can really change the system and actually force them to bring down their costs.
- Soundbites dominate the news; soundbites are also inherantly flawed because they are destined to omit something important unless the topic is incredibly simple, which policy never is
- Most media outlets are owned by corporations that are against the public option
- The potential for misinformation and misdirection between those last two factors is thus very high, and any representations of the Obama administration's position in soundbite form should be highly suspect, especially those that seem custom made to wreak havoc among the President's supporters, since they are in the interest of the writer/publication and directly against the interests of the administration allegedly being quoted; however, such soundbites are not treated with adequate skepticism in many diaries - or any skepticism at all - but taken as gospel, eagerly jumped on to reaffirm and reassure pre-existing theories.
- This trend of partial soundbite analysis (putting credence in soundbites that focus on one part of an Obama administration statement when the policy itself has been the same all along), a trend which had been emerging here all year in the health care debate, got markedly worse last Sunday when the MSM decided to follow suit, misreading a statement by Kathleen Sebelius; while it may have been somewhat helpful that "is the public option dead?" headlines forced the administration to clarify its preference for the public option as well as the continued consistency of its position, we have followed the MSM into what has now become an echo chamber of delusion to retroactively justify its own mistaken sense of reality. Everyone - in the MSM and here - is now sure there was a "trial balloon" that the White House was trying to float and is trying to guess at the motive, even though there is ZERO EVIDENCE that was what Obama was trying to do. While I am generally always one to argue for the President's ability to conceive complex strategies (11 dimensional chess as it is often mocked by critics), in this case, that simply isn't what happened here; there is no sign there was a trial balloon, whether as an intentional effort to fire up the left or to see how bad it would be, but rather that this is just the media echo chamber stroking itself, and - more alarmingly - us playing far too big a part.
As a result, yesterday's rec list was highlighted by this shining example of eloquent prose and critical analysis:
at this point I'm actually more embarrassed at the way President Obama and his side kick Rahm have managed to actually believe they have fooled anyone, because they are fools if they think they have.
Thoughtful and sober viewpoints, meanwhile, are more rare, and bear repeating:
ncrissieb
This reads like reverse-engineered journalism. For non-J-school types, that's when a reporter writes the story first, then looks for sources to whom he/she can attribute pre-written 'quotes.'
It's actually not uncommon for journalists to write 'quotes' for sources, usually presented as "Do you agree with?" or "Can I quote you as saying?" In many cases that's not deceptive; the story is 'there' but the sources are talking in muddled jargon and the reporter needs a clear, declarative sentence readers can understand. That's not reverse-engineered journalism; it's good reporting.
But in other cases the reporter can't get a source to say what the reporter wants to hear. The story isn't 'there,' but the reporter wants to write the story regardless. So the reporter writes a 'quote' couched in some context - "In general, would you agree?" or "Hypothetically, do you think someone there might think?" - calculated to get a 'source' for the story the reporter has already decided to write ... thus the term reverse-engineered journalism.
That's what this reads like to me, and it's straight out of the GOP's "Obama will sell out the left on health care" talking point from a week or so ago.
realityworld
It is a cycle. I have been watching this site just about everyday for 2 1/2 yrs now and it is the same thing over and over again.
The cycle goes like this:
1. Obama says something ---anything.
2. Media or Daily kos takes out of context and freaks out.
3. Diaries about how Obama is a sellout or like bush or blah blah blah make it to the rec list.
4. Please calm down diaries make it to the rec list.
5. People who are upset about being told to calm down write diaries about not being told to calm down-- they make the rec list..
6. The name calling starts.
7. Obama either clarifies or is proven right.
8. crickets and more crickets.
9. No mea culpa diaries.
10. It is Obama fault because we took it out of context or were wrong dairies or comments.
11. I told you so diaries- usually 1 or 2 make it to the rec list.
12. Peace for about 1-3 days-- maybe even a week.
13. It starts all over again.
It is pretty funny and sad.
Here are some things I do to keep my blood pressure down.
1. Recognize Obama allows for freedom of speech and thought from his cabinet members.
2. Hold Obama only accountable, in context, to his words.
3. Trust but verify all news articles and news reports.
4. Fully research yourself.
5. Wait at least 24 hrs before making an accusatory statement.
6. Know that some on Dailykos have an agenda and have never really liked Obama-- so they will always try to find something to write about. (whether it true/false or taken out of context)
7. Make sure all accusations have sufficient evidence and are not from someone who knows someone who has special insider knowledge from some un-named off the record source.
Fighting Bill in a talkingpointsmemo comment (h/t to aimzzz)
Well gee, why not think for a minute what the White House has stockpiled here? Can it be any more obvious that this is a "don't shoot til you see the whites of their eyes" strategy?
They have compiled hours of incriminating video tape to run as needed in the 2010 elections, from all the Republican "luminaries", spewing obstructionist and traitorous rancor. They have ugly footage of angry, ignorant "ordinary citizens" spewing hate, racism and obvious falsehoods, and carrying assault rifles to boot. They have gone WAY out of the way to float every possible concession, knowing that the Republicans wouldn't budge and would take the bait. They now have a clear field to do Health Care reform with a Public Option and with all of the ingredients that will give it the best chance to succeed.
And this has been done, in part, to provide cover for Max Baucus, Ben Nelson and their ilk in the Senate so that they can help us reach 60 votes to deny the filibuster and then vote as needed on a final bill that contains a public option. If their votes are needed to reach the majority, Blue Dogs have the cover of having fought the good fight to slow this down, which will help them in their conservative states. (Read Kevin Sack's piece in the NY Times from a couple of days ago about Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas to better understand why this is such an important component of the strategy.)
Remember when Rahm Emmanuel scolded activists a few weeks ago about running ads against Ben Nelson and other Blue Dogs? It was because the strategy was long since in operation: any Obama operation excels at counting and does their homework. They had to figure out a way to solve the Democratic votes in both the House and the Senate, and create a mechanism for centrists and Blue Dogs to get on board. And boy, the Republicans have fallen for this, hook, line and sinker. Charles Grassley, for one, could be reading from scripts written by David Plouffe and David Axelrod--perfect campaign fodder for 2010.
Do you think Obama and his crew got to where they are by being emotional and reactive? No, they outsmart people by always taking the long view. I suspected this is what they've been up to, and for me it was confirmed earlier this week by the big grin on Howard Dean's face when he made the rounds of morning and evening shows to insist that everything's on track, and again last night by the serene Mona Lisa smile on the face of Linda Douglass as she calmly endured Ed Schultz's interrogating rant.
This is Obama's way of doing business. I think his record speaks for itself.
Lars Thorwald:
If I had a nickel for everytime that I read a comment here during those days starting with "Obama should..." followed by some primary battle advice, I'd be a very rich man.
I remember how everyone wailed and moaned over Saddleback and over Bill Ayers and over all the huge mistakes Obama made. Good god, it makes my head hurt with all the armchair quarterbacking done here (me included), and how gloriously wrong all the nay-saying was.
To believe what is read here, Obama had serious missteps every week right up to the point he won the nomination. And to read it, Obama then had serious missteps every week until he won the election.
And, of course, Obama has blown it every day since inauguration. Frankly, you can forget eight years, or even four. Because Obama's chances at accomplishing anything on health care or any other issue and winning re-election is done. The first eight months sealed his fate, and health care's. Across the board it's game over, man. Game over.
Well. I hope there are enough people who will be like-minded enough to agree when I say that you handwringers will excuse me if I don't truck with a lot of the predictions I am seeing about how health care has failed and this is failing and that is failing and how Obama blew it, and how this is a one-term Presidency. And all the other predictions of doom.
Because I have seen it before.
And I am more than a little skeptical about the veracity of the Cassandra cries of the hair-pulling, hand-wringing blog commenters I read every day.
Weigh the records of what the President has accomplished in two years and the mountain of doomsaying predictions of his imminent demise, and I know how the scales tilt.
Will the reasonable voices outweigh the soundbite alarmists?
For the sake of focusing our energies in making the public option law, I sure hope so.
With gobs of insurance industry money now influencing the media debate at every level, no matter how skeptical many of us are about the President's tactics in achieving his strategy, one fact remains abundantly clear: the amount of confidence we have in the public option-opposing soundbite media cannot be greater than the amount of confidence we have in the person who was elected campaigning on a public option, or we are investing in our own defeat. Let me say that again: if we trust a source that opposes the public option more than we trust the person we elected to make it law, it is irrational to expect the public option to prevail.
There is also this: if the most pessimistic of the cynics here are right, and Obama is sounding open-minded only because he'd always planned to bail on the public option in place of an insufficient half measure - apparantely being impervious to our constant calls and e-mails to Congress and The White House - then we are screwed either way, aren't we?
However, if the cynics are wrong and Obama is on our side, then we are focusing our energy attacking allies based on misinformation ultimately originating from the very same insurance industry we are fighting against - and I just can't stomach that possibility. Can you?
Isn't it more effective for us to:
- Call, e-mail, and write the Senate and House to pressure all who are on the fence about the public option
- Go to Congressional town hall meetings and add more public option supporting voices to the crowd
- Call, e-mail, and write the Senate and House to thank all who are pledged to a public option
- Donate to thank all those who are pledged to a public option
- Call, e-mail, and write the White House to let them know we want no less than a public option, to support them in consistently committing to a program that must achieve the results the public option does, and to remind them we will hold them to that commitment
These actions are constructive whether the optimists or pessimists are right and can have no negative consequences either way, as opposed to an approach that could be disasterously counterproductive if the philosophy behind it turns out to be incorrect.
Therefore, the most rational path to our increasing the likelihood of passing the public option is to take this approach, as opposed to a hair on fire reactive response to soundbites.