There's been plenty said on the "anonymous" White House aide's shock at the "left of the left's" fixation on the public option. It's "mystifying." Almost as if the President hadn't been going around for the last two years, in the campaign and in office, talking about how a public option was a key component of healthcare reform.
The "left of the left" comment was infuriating, no doubt, but there's more to the quote that's disturbing. Here's the full thing.
"I don't understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo. We've gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don't understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform. It's a mystifying thing. We're forgetting why we are in this."
Who's forgetting? Perhaps we need to review the "why we are in this." The "why" isn't to pass any old raggedy-ass bill, slap a big red bow on it and call it reform so the White House can put a check in its "win" column. That might be why an anonymous White House aide would want to see any old thing passed, he or she is looking for job security. His or her job is making sure that the President gets reelected.
But the "why we are in this" is a different matter out here in the world of the regular person. It's not about the next election, it's about whether this reform finally fixes the fatally broken system that has ruined real lives, millions of them.
"Why we are in this," isn't about the political winning and losing. There's a reason why so many of us have worked so hard for so many years trying to bring back a viable, strong Democratic party. It wasn't just so we could say we won. It was to bring some sanity, some balance, some transparency and accountability and humanity back to governing. There's a reason we're Democrats--because we think our ideas are better for the country. Because the Republicans are bankrupt, are incapable of governing, and are not interested in governing, only in enriching themselves and their cronies. The corporatist course they put the country on in 1980 has proven utterly disastrous for the majority of Americans.
"Why we are in this" is to fix this mess. Wasn't that what "hope" and "change" were all about? And with a Democratic House, Senate, and President for the first time in 15 years, forgive us for thinking that fixing this mess would also be the top priority for our leaders.
The thing is, winning and governing aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, in this political environment, with a crumbled economy, failing states, and the uncertainty of two wars, governing boldly, governing effectively, governing with purpose and passion will be the key to sustaining political wins--political wins that will cement the progressive policies that we need to put the country back on track. And let's not forget the fact that all of us who worked so tirelessly to get Democrats back in power need some proof that it'll be worth our while to repeat that effort.
Thus, the role of the "left of the left" in trying to keep Congress and Obama honest about "why we are in this" should get a little more respect. Even Noam Scheiber over at TNR gets the criticality of a left flank for Obama:
I have no idea whether the administration intended to shift its position on the public option over the weekend (you can make a plausible case that it didn't), and, if so, what it hoped to accomplish. But what it has accomplished seems really important and helpful. Prior to all the apoplexy on the left, the two poles of the debate were the president, who wanted a reasonable, fairly moderate set of health insurance reforms, but was nonetheless being branded a socialist or whatever, and a lot of lunatics on the right screaming about death panels and enemies lists and home invasions.
Around the conference table at TNR, we've been saying for weeks that what Obama really needed was a group of equally vocal, equally zealous critics on the left, pulling the debate's center of gravity in the other direction. And, wouldn't you know, that's exactly what's happened over the last 48 hours. We've now got a pole on the left to match the intensity of the pole on the right. (Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting a moral equivalence between the two. As far as I'm concerned, the critics on the left are basically right and the critics on the right are either insane or deeply cynical.) From a sheer tactical perspective, I think the White House and the Democratic leadership in Congress have dramatically improved their position.
The benefits arise both in the broader national debate and in the congressional negotiations. In the national debate, Obama now looks like the centrist voice of reason instead of an over-ambitious lefty (I'm caricaturing, of course, in the spirit of the cable-news coverage). Inside Congress, Obama may not get a public option, but if he doesn't, he was never going to get it. And now he can extract a ton of concessions in return, because he can point to a left-wing of his party that's ready to eat him alive for failing to deliver on it (whereas that left-wing outrage was largely hypothetical before now). That kind of leverage is extremely helpful.
If Obama wants a public option, and we can only assume from (mostly) repeated assertions from the White House that he does, this is how we get it. By having a left flank that makes him deliver it. So maybe anonymous White House aides will start showing a little respect for the ones that brung them to this dance.