Ed Schultz and Chuck Todd report that Kent Conrad's efforts to scuttle the public option are gaining traction -- and that anonymous public option "advocates" are trying to claim that co-ops would be no different than the public option:
TODD: What I would advise you Ed is get to know what this co-op is gonna' do. I've talked to some who are big advocates of the public insurance option who believe they can do things within the framework of this co-op that will make folks who are supporters of the overall big public option feel better about this.
But the fact of the matter is you're not going to get Grassley, you might not get Ben Nelson, you might not get Kent Conrad for anything that's called a public insurance option, and that "co-op" may be just better language to use, and easier to sell in some of these places.
So, as somebody said, it can walk like a duck, it can quack like a duck, you just can't call it a duck, so co-op may be the language of choice here.
Huh? What kind of idiots do these people think we are? Do they really, honestly believe that this whole fight is simply about a name? Seriously, whoever told Chuck Todd this whole fight is simply about a f***ing name is either lying or stupid or both.
After more than a half-century it's going to come down to what we call the thing? Bullshit. This isn't about naming rights. It's about the private insurance industry vs. the American people. And the private insurance industry isn't about to cave just because somebody decided not to call a duck a duck.
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig, and anybody who thinks we can't see that is both arrogant and foolish.