Rockefeller, the White House, and Settling for "Anything"

Via Aravosis, the most vocal opponent of the Baucus bill is worried that Obama is ready to settle for "anything" on healthcare reform.

Rockefeller emerged from the Senate Democrats' weekly luncheon Tuesday afternoon, which featured an appearance by President Barack Obama's communications guru David Axelrod, wondering aloud (perhaps rhetorically) whether the White House's get-it-done message to Congress wasn't bold enough.

"David’s in there -- Axelrod -- saying we’ve got to try to get ‘something.’ So, the new benchmark is, ‘Well, if we can do something, if we can do anything, then we can say we did healthcare reform,’" Rockefeller said.

"Are we getting to the point where, if we do anything, we’ve achieved our purpose?" he said, less than an hour before announcing on a conference call with reporters that he would not vote to support the healthcare reform bill being drafted by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

No word from Rockefeller regarding this point after his meeting yesterday with the White House. What we heard yesterday from Rockefeller was a very strong focus on how bad co-ops really are. So was that because of his concern that "anything" the White House is aiming for is going to include co-ops as the public option alternative, or any other part of the Baucus debacle?

The one thing that makes me think not, that Obama realizes the Baucus debacle is DOA for too many Dems both in Congress and in the country, is the other meeting he had yesterday afternoon. More on that in a bit.