[I just posted this at my new my.barackobama.com blog, and thought it would be appropriate here as well.]
Mister President, you'd like us all out there, twittering and calling and writing and visiting and facebooking away, supporting your Health Care Reform efforts. Well you could make it a little easier for us if we didn't have to slog through quicksand for you.
This trial balloon (at least, that's what I hope it is) about maybe you'd be amenable to a HCR bill that didn't include a Public Option...? As the kids say, WTF? Seriously? Right now, it's painful enough watching the Senate's Private Secret Baucus Caucus dismembering HCR. Are you really trying to get us ready to accept some weak-tea half-measure? Really? Is that what we're supposed to be fighting for?
Honestly, if you want our activism, then stick to your principals. You were for a Public Option in the Senate. You were for a Public Option on the campaign trail. Take another look at your office — notice that it's the big one with no corners, right? Wouldn't this be a great time to be irrevocably, unalterably, and insistently for that same Public Option? Is now really the best time to start muddying the waters with that "co-op" distraction?
If you could just hold down your end of this fight, and say, "There is a VETO pen ready for any HCR bill without a Public Option that reaches my desk" — that would make our end of the fight so much easier. I wish you would do that and I don't understand why you haven't.