Barack Obama could not have possibly been ignorant of Tom Daschle's brazen pimping for the healthcare industry barons and the prescription drug lords. That Obama attempted to empower such a zealous defender of the status quo, a protector of the $37 billion in profits the health insurance barons suck from U.S. patients every year, tells us all we need to know about "change we can believe in." That is: no change at all.
Howard Dean could have given us genuine health-care reform - at the very least insurance-premium ceilings, possibly even the beginning of true single-payer care, not simply mandatory insurance to ensure our eternal slavery to the healthcare industry and their obscene greed - which is precisely why Dean won't be allowed anywhere near the so-called "reform" process. He'd recognize it for what it is and would no doubt blow the whistle.
It’s unfortunate that Dean sold his soul to the Democratic party and pretended that it was the answer when HE was the answer. Howard Dean is the answer and because of this, he got screwed when he ran, just as he is being screwed now, as Barack Obama has cleaned house of Dean and continues to make one bad appointment after another.
Dean needs to come to his senses and start over. He needs to build a whole new party through the netroots with a REAL progressive, New-Deal style, 50-state strategy. We've got more money than they do. We've got more ideas. We've got more people.