NEON GODS

Bill Clinton: He may have been one of the best.

I've been reading Taylor Branch's fascinating book about Bill Clinton, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With The President.

Soon after Clinton was elected President he summoned his pal Taylor Branch, noted author of a Martin Luther King trilogy, and asked him to periodically come to the White House and record Clinton's recollections of recent issues.  While Clinton now has possession of the tapes, Taylor took notes and recorded his recollections of the conversations on his drive back home in Baltimore.

Taylor Branch is of those graceful writers whose words don't get in the way of his story.  It is a book that flows like a stream.  I can't do the book justice, so I'll defer to Joe Klein's review in the NYTimes:

There are, as Clinton might say, a blue jillion...anecdotes in “The Clinton Tapes.” ... The rowdy, discursive intellectual brilliance of the man is evident on almost every page, and so is the self-­indulgence, self-pity and self-­destructiveness — the magisterial excessiveness of every sort. Compared with the buttoned-up cool of the Oval Office’s current occupant, Bill Clinton is a one-man carnival — a magician, tightrope walker, juggler, mesmerist, hot-dog-eating contestant and burlesque show. You kind of miss the guy. [...]

Branch’s friendship with Clinton does have significant advantages, though. It makes possible a remarkable portrait of White House life. Clinton’s relationship with the first lady seems incredibly strong (Branch even interrupts them when they are smooching, as I did once). And the president is a wildly devoted father, even to the point of having a screaming fight with Al Gore: the vice president wants Clinton to go to Japan to smooth a crisis, but Clinton re­fuses because Chelsea needs his help studying for high school midterms. [...]

In the end, though, “The Clinton Tapes” will stand as an important work about American political life because of two dominant themes that emerge gradually — one about the man himself and the other about the nature of the current era. Clinton was a president who believed that government could help people live happier, more satisfying lives, and that America could help solve intractable issues like the Middle East crisis. He immersed himself in these issues, worked hard at them. His grasp of details — and his insights into the motivations of others — is breathtaking. As president, he proved a rare combination of fervent politician and devoted policy wonk. [...]

And that is the other great theme of this book: the struggle of a president mostly interested in policy against an opposition party obsessed with regaining power. The Republican efforts to undermine Clinton were rarely substantive and often unscrupulous. The president was impeached not because he committed anything resembling a high crime, but because the effort would cripple him at a moment when he might have gotten something accomplished — his popularity was running at 60 percent or so, the economy was booming. During the Clinton presidency, the Republicans accelerated their slide from a party of responsible conservatives to a party of antigovernment talk-show nihilists. [...]

The Bill Clinton who emerges here is a master practitioner of an art that is routinely derided — foolishly — these days: he’s an unabashed, unapologetic politician. To the extent that Branch’s portrait of the president rescues politics from ignominy, he has done a real public service; that he has done this while vividly portraying an exuberant American original is cause for joy. [emphasis mine]

Not long ago I thought that Barak Obama had the potential to go down in history as one of our great Presidents, and he may yet prove me right.  Others, mostly on the right, are certain that Ronald Reagan will be crowned as the greatest President of the 20th century...but the more I think about it, the more I suspect it may be Bill Clinton that future historians will place in the list of Top Ten Presidents.  Considering that he was under attack by the right almost from the day he was inaugurated and culminating in his humiliating impeachment, he accomplished more than most of us realize. If nothing else he left us with a budget surplus (quite an accomplishment, and one that grows even larger in hindsight).

I recommend you read Joe Klein's full review and consider getting a copy of this book, keeping in mind that the author is a close friend of Bill's (grain of salt required), but Branch's descriptions of everyday life in the White House is well worth the price of the book alone.  You will be startled at the similarities between what the Clinton's endured in their attempt to get a health care bill passed and what we just went through. I also came away with a renewed appreciation for Hillary and how much Bill respected her opinions (he should have taken her advice more often!).

--Trakker

How DARE Obama laugh and smile when there are terrorists out there trying to KILL us!?? OMG!!

Glenn Greenwald is spot on to denigrate this writer's (Post editorial writer, Jo-Ann Armao) on-line post:

President Obama wants us all to know he’s taking seriously the attempted terrorist attack of Christmas Day and that his administration is doing all it can to ensure our safety. But his words would be a lot more convincing if not delivered during time snatched between rounds of golf, swimming and sunbathing...

By staying in Hawaii, the president has sent the message that the situation really isn’t all that serious, that things can proceed just fine until he’s back. And isn’t it that kind of reasoning that emboldens our never-vacationing enemies into thinking Christmas Day is the perfect time for them to strike?

Greenwald responds,

Scampering back to Washington...would have been the worst possible thing that Obama could have done.  It would have created a climate of frenzy and panic and thus helped to terrorize the country even more -- which, one might want to recall, is the goal, by definition, of Terrorists.  The fact that Obama doesn't hysterically run around like some sort of frightened chicken with his head cut off every time Al Qaeda sneezes -- or swagger to the nearest camera to beat his chest and play the role of protective daddy-cowboy -- is one of the things I like best about him.  As for Armao's "point" about how Janet Napolitano probably took it easy because the "boss was away" -- and her belief that Terrorists will strike more on holidays if Obama isn't affixed to his chair in the Oval Office, as though he's the Supreme Airport Screener:  those are so self-evidently dumb it's hard to believe they found their way even into something written by one of Fred Hiatt's editorial writers.

Agreed.  Armao is either a typical cowering conservative or a writer for a newspaper that desperately needs to gin up fear of another terrorist attack to prop up their fast-disappearing readership. (Oh, ...).

What do conservatives want?  We don't have the manpower to compile a list of every known person who has professed to hate America, and if such a list existed it would contain thousands and thousands of names that more than one person goes by.  If we refused to let everyone with the name of a terrorist  board a plane we would be block hundreds of thousands of innocent people from ever flying again.

Maybe we should just refuse any flights into the U.S. from other countries.  We could also seal our borders with Canada and Mexico.  But what about those who are already in our country?   What about those we don't even know about?  And what about all the domestic terrorists who hate our own government, like Timothy McVeigh?  How in hell can we protect ourselves??  We're all fuckin' doomed!!!!!  OMG!!  OMG!!

Someday, a terrorist may succeed in bringing down a plane, or damaging something important in our country, or kill some innocent Americans.  When people hate you and are willing to die to punish you, there is only so much you can do to prevent it, unless you want to shut your country down and live in a police state where everyone is suspect.  In that case the terrorists have won.

--Trakker

All you righties: GROW A PAIR will ya'?

One reason I started this blog was because I needed a place to vent.  This is one of those time.

I'm so sick of the the right's whining about terrorism and how soft the Democrats are on terror.  The right loves to thump their chests and talk tough but it merely masks their deep seated fear of...well, just about anything.

Note this article in the WaPost about how the Republicans are going after Obama for not preventing the recent bomb attempt on the flight to Detroit.  The amazing thing is that the same thing happened on Bush's watch and the right's outrage then wasn't on the President, it was directed at Muslims. Now it's the President's fault.

I posted the following on the WaPost's comment section:

The real irony here is this: Republicans and the right are like scared little kids.  "Daddy, go beat up [fill in the country's name here] because they don't like me.  They make faces at me and try to hit me. They scare me. Go beat them up or kill them if you have to."

GROW A PAIR! This is a dangerous world, it always has been and always will be.  We can't block every d@mn person who hates America from boarding a plane.  I often get the feeling that many on the right won't be happy until we've nuked every Muslim country and evicted every Muslim from America.

It sickens me that the Republicans even want us to turn our back on the most basic human rights by torturing people and denying them the right to representation in court and a fair trial, just so they can sleep at night without soiling themselves.

Oh, and one last thing for all you righties who claim to be Christians: aren't you supposed to be putting your faith in God to protect you and our country, and not relying on man to do it?

What about our Pledge of Allegiance where you insist we include "under God"? Aren't you the ones who go bonkers whenever anyone questions why we must dares question why we must have "In God We Trust" on every bill and coin that comes out of our treasury?  Where is that God now? Why are you all so scared of terrorists?

I just get so sick of the right's exaggerated fear of terrorists.  Terrorists are nothing more than glorified thugs.  They are human like us.  some are very smart many are pretty stupid.  They are motivated by hate and we give them plenty to hate.  Some will succeed and some Americans will die.  We've killed far more of them than they have of us.  When you add in the number of innocent civilians we've killed in Muslim countries, it's sickening.  They killed almost 3,000 on 9/11 and we've killed well over 100,000 in Iraq alone.  But that's still not enough for many on the right.  They want us to nuke Iran and now I'm hearing rumblings about a need to go to war with Yemen.  Wow!

I know, I know, those who I'm railing against are a minority of Americans, but they have far more power in Congress than their numbers indicate, and they control a lot of the media.

--Trakker

...morphing into a third-world nation.

You may have noticed a lack of new postings here lately.  It's not because I haven't written anything, it's just that most of what I've written just never makes it to my blog because it all sounds like crap.

The recent health care reform debacle has soured me deeply on politics at the national level and has affected my outlook.  While millions of Americans don't get the kind of quality health care that Congress gets because they can't afford it, 40% of the Senators tried their damnedest to kill ANY reform at all.  Why? Because handing the Democrats a major defeat trumps everything to this Republican party. They really, truly don't give a damn about the rest of us, it's all about them.

Of the remaining 60%, a significant number of those Senators saw this reform bill not as a way to improve life for Americans, but as a way to improve their own chances of re-election.

There is just no way to sugar-coat this: most of our Senators are loathsome human beings. Are they more loathsome than Senators in the past?  Probably not, but it is becoming increasingly clear that today's Senate has become dangerously dysfunctional.

With the advent of the automatic filibuster, any legislation can be blocked by just 41 Senators. This means Senators from the smallest 20 states - plus one other, can block the will of the majority.

If you look at the 2000 census figures you see that the population of the smallest 20 states, plus 1/2 of the 21st state is less than the population of California alone!  Given that the least populous states also happen to be mostly red states, it's obvious that conservatives now have far more power in the Senate than their numbers in the country as a whole justify.

This is scary, but even more scary when currently those important 40 Senators belong to a political party dedicated to blocking anything meaningful that the Democrats propose.  It also gives opportunistic Democrats enormous leverage to demand and get publicity and special treatment in return for their vote.

I happen to believe that since the election of Ronald Reagan our country has not only stagnated but has regressed significantly compared to the rest of the world, and that is just fine with a majority of conservatives.  Many of them appear to want the country to morph back to an 1840s America when rural values ruled, blacks served their masters, and the Bible was the ultimate authority for many.

Sadly, white rural Americans still rule even as their numbers dwindle, and ironically they are all pissed and waving tea bags because they don't have even more power to block the will of the majority, who now live in cities, have skins of many hues, and see our country morphing into a third-world nation.

Other than that, my life is just peachy...

--Trakker

...and don't teach them about sex either!

A middle school in northern Virginia holds an annual United Nations event where simulated debates are held to help students understand the complexities of international affairs.

This year one of the debate was to include a mock Taliban representative to present their views.  You will not be surprised that some families objected, and hate mail from around the country poured in to the school's office.  What's sad is that the school caved.

A Northern Virginia middle school canceled part of a mock debate about Afghanistan planned for January after just two families objected that they didn't want their eighth-graders to present the Taliban's views -- even in what is clearly to be a simulation.

The annual United Nations exercise is a popular event at Swanson Middle School in Arlington, and the overwhelming majority of parents of the 248 students involved had no problem with it. The 12-page description of the assignment makes plain that it was designed to stimulate students to think critically, write persuasively and deepen their understanding of world affairs.

Many misguided critics see it differently. Since the school made its decision public Monday, it has received hate mail from across the country making the ludicrous accusation that it was trying to indoctrinate students with the Taliban's extremist positions. Some unknown but substantial part of the nation seems unable to grasp the idea that the educational system should teach young people to analyze differing, conflicting perspectives. 

Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney found that disgusting and he didn't pull any punches.

Such narrow-mindedness is self-defeating for a country engaged in two wars in societies profoundly different from ours and halfway across the globe. The Pentagon and CIA spend a lot of time studying what motivates enemies such as the Taliban in order to defeat them. We shouldn't balk at encouraging our young people to do the same.

Given the fact that when these eighth graders graduate in four years, the war in Afghanistan will likely still be raging and some of those kids might end up fighting that war.  Shouldn't they know why they are being asked to fight them? 

I'd like to know if the parents who objected and sent hate mail even know what the Taliban stands for. 

--Trakker

Liberals lose again. What are we going to do about it?

Okay, it's probably time for us liberals to tone down the rhetoric, swallow our anger, circle the wagons and take a cold hard look at why we lost almost everything in the health reform bill that was important to us.

The first thing we need to realize is that the American people are scared shitless of the future.  They are still shaken by 9/11, and they are shaken because we came close to an economic meltdown - caused by the very capitalists they have been taught to trust.  Many are out of work or are on the cusp of losing their job. They are beginning to realize the wars they wanted so badly may never end in their lifetimes.  They know we are running out of money and yet we're spending it faster than ever. They know that the Chinese - Communists! - own a substantial portion of our treasury bills, and we are dependent on them to build our consumer goods.

Is it any wonder the Republicans have been able to yank these people's chains?

Liberals point to the fact that many, probably most, of the big improvements in our lives (40-hour work week, child labor laws, etc.) are our ideas. We fought for them and they have made the lives of Americans better, but we forget that change is hard for most people and that often it takes years between a good idea and getting it implemented.  We were lucky to have two smart, courageous Presidents, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, who seized the moment and pushed through a lot of reforms.

Another problem is that Barack Obama lied on the campaign trail, promising things he knew he couldn't deliver or never intended to deliver.  Normally, people take what is said on the campaign trail with a grain of salt, but we honestly thought Obama was "The One," that rare leader who is principled, courageous, clever, and has a clear vision for a better future.  Obama is not that leader, he's a brilliant politician who is more interested in keeping the Democrats in power than in reforming the country.  In the process we will get a better country than what we had under Bush, but not the change we expected.

It's time for liberals to accept the fact that we scare the Democratic party and thus they spend a lot of energy marginalizing us.  We are already considered dangerous radicals by the Republicans and a lot of independents, so the Democrats don't have to work very hard to reinforce that idea among the rest.  I don't think we realize just how reactionary the American people are toward liberals.  Liberal, socialist, communist: all code words for "things you should hate" and those words still have legs.

Ideally we should consider forming our own organization where we can debate a platform, set our priorities, and plan strategy (or maybe pick an existing one like MoveOn.org).  We need to study history and look at how past progressives got their ideas passed into law.  Maybe we will find that it's normal, even necessary, to get defeated over and over before we can convince enough people our idea is a good one.  Maybe getting defeated and modified over time eventually makes our good ideas even better (lets give the opposition credit for seeing flaws we don't)

More than anything, we need to turn our anger into action rather than just sitting on our asses fuming about being screwed over and over by the Democrats.

--Trakker

The Growing Culture of... Stupid

We're all aware of the large and increasing income disparity in our country, but I think there is another disparity that is widening, and it's completely voluntary.  The knowledge disparity. 

The Internet, search engines, and sites like Wikipedia are making it possible for people who love and seek knowledge and the facts needed to make an informed decision to find it no matter where they live.  That wasn't the case when I was growing up in a small town in Indiana.  That's why I left.

Thus, we have more people going to college and a growing number of people who are aware of reality in the world and actively seek to constantly learn more about this world.  Meanwhile, it seems like there is a backlash against this increased knowledge and the people who re aware of the truth and expect government to act based on this knowledge.

It struck me the other day that what we are seeing today is not just a divide between the left and right, we're seeing a split between the people who recognize, embrace, and seek reality - facts if you will - and those who appear capable of believing just about anything, especially if that is what they want to believe.  You can find the latter on the left and the right, but it appears that they currently dominate the right.

Take global warming.  Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the earth is warming at an alarming rate, and that all of the evidence points to man as the main culprit.  In addition, everything we know about the effects of this global warming points to future disaster if we don't get it under control. 

This is what those who are best qualified to know have concluded.  I am not qualified to double check their data and studies, therefore I am not qualified to call them liars.  I do understand enough about how the scientific method works and have a lot of confidence in that method to eventually discover the truth, so I'm reasonably certain we're facing a crisis.

I am not alone.  This is how most truth seekers feel, which is probably why we react with such passionate outrage when we hear a Senator Inhofe call global warming one of the greatest hoaxes of all time, or read Sarah Palin's claim - on the pages of the Washington Post no less! - that the stolen climate emails prove the data used to support man's involvement in global warming was fudged to give the results they wanted.

The problem is, most those who believe the Inhofes and Palins are either incapable of or unwilling to have their minds changed by facts.  They are immune to facts.  What startles me is how much credibility the mainstream press, the mainstream conservative journals and conservative think tanks give these people.  Why? Mainly because there are large numbers of them and they are so easy to manipulate.  That equals power.  While the left struggles to build enough unity to be a viable political force, the right plays the Palinites like a fiddle.

We are now seeing an entire culture developing of dumb, uneducated people who believe they are as smart, and often smarter than highly trained people employing the scientific method to reach unbiased conclusions, conclusions that are sometimes at odds with what people would like to believe.  And instead of having their ignorance exposed, they are praised for their "wisdom" and common sense, and even encouraged to ridicule science and facts.

This is not good for our country.  When one of our two political parties encourages its supporters to reject reality and believe "facts" that are just made up, we've got a big problem.  Yet, they are united while the left, the Democrats, the truth seekers are fragmented and even demoralized by what we're seeing.  How can we fight back?  How can we reassert a love of knowledge and desire to base decisions on facts, not myths?

--Trakker

Did the White House ask Lieberman to kill the Medicare expansion compromise?

After reading Glenn Greenwald's must read post today ("White House as helpless victim on healthcare") I'm beginning to wonder if Joe Lieberman didn't suddenly decide to oppose the expansion of medicare NOT to poke a finger in the eye of the liberals he hates, but as a favor for his friend, President Obama (Joe reportedly took Barack under his wing when Obama was elected to the Senate).

Glenn makes the point that for the Democrats to continue getting the big bucks from the healthcare industry, the public option and expanded medicare could not be in the final bill, thus someone had to step up and kill the medicare expansion compromise - and who better to do it than The Party of Joe?

I've probably mentioned it before, but one of the most powerful statistical tools I learned in statistics class was the concept of "expected vs. observed" behavior, which could then be tested using something called a chi-squared test.  The concept of expected vs. observed has stuck with me since, and in fact Glenn Greenwald used it in today's post.  He pointed out how the White House acted when some representatives threatened to scuttle a bill important to the White House. 

The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday.  "We're not going to help you. You'll never hear from us again," Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen. [a quote from the Huffington Post]

But the White House never lifted a finger to threaten or browbeat the centrist Democrats who were threatening to scuttle the public option or expanded medicare or the bill itself.  It is hard not to believe this watered-down, insurance company-friendly bill is pretty much what the President and Congress wanted in the first place, but they had to go through the motions of appeasing their base before finally "admitting" that the force of the centrists and blue-dogs were too strong to overcome.  Bull.

Anyone who saw Howard Dean's call to kill the Senate bill or saw Keith Olbermann's special comment last night on his MSNBC program senses that the capitulation (if that's what it was) to Sen. Lieberman was the final straw for a lot of liberal Democrats.  Liberal's anger toward the Democratic party has been bubbling for months, but this pitiful bill that we're told to embrace "because it's better than nothing" just might be the straw that breaks the bond for good.

--Trakker

Why We Should Kill the Bill

Well, it shouldn't come as a big surprise, but once again we've been screwed.

Most liberals wanted a single payer system in the health care reform bill, but we were told it was too radical, so we compromised and began fighting hard for a public option.  We thought we had the President's support, and the support of many in Congress, but it was soon obvious that Obama wasn't going to support it, and it kept getting watered down and watered down in Congress.  But even the watered down version was too much for the Senate's corporate sponsors, so in the end we had to settle for an expansion of Medicare to those 55 and over.  Finally we thought we had a bill that we could hold our noses and support, but we hadn't figured on Senator Joe Lieberman's desire for revenge, so now we, the base of the Democratic party who - have given so much of our time, energy, and money to get Democrats elected - are being asked to support a bill that has nothing that we asked for - NOTHING!  They as much as said "Screw You!" to us, and yet if we refuse to support the bill and it dies, WE will be blamed, not Joe Lieberman.

So now we have a bill that will give insurance companies millions of new customers, many of whom we the taxpayers will be subsidizing. This is great for the health insurance companies.  Howard Dean says we should kill the bill.  Nate Silver, whom I respect, say's we're batshit crazy if we do.

There are some good reasons why we should support the bill:

1) We're told this bill is better than the status quo.  At least a lot of people who don't now have health insurance will eventually be covered.

2) The bill is not perfect but we can fix it as we go along.

3) If this effort fails it may be decades before any Congress has the guts to try again.

If this is all true, why are they appealing to US?  Aren't these reasons also true for Sen. Lieberman and Democrats like Sen. Nelson?  If we oppose the bill, why will WE be blamed if it fails?  If this bill is so god-damned important, why aren't these same arguments, and the same pressure, being applied to the actual Senators who say they will kill the bill if they don't like it?  They are the ones who do the voting, not us.  It's okay for them to oppose a bill they don't like, but we aren't allowed the same privilege?

If Harry Reid doesn't have the clout, or expertise, or the balls to get enough votes for a bill that has at least something we, the base, fought for, then what does that say about his leadership?  Don't blame us for your failures, Harry.

We must refuse to support this bill, even if it kills health care reform (it won't).  Why? Because there are dozens of issues that are important to us that Congress will be dealing with in the next year or so: global warming, our wars, the budget, entitlements, regulations, consumer protections, work to ensure banks and other institutions don't get too big to fail again, etc. Congress and the President played us like a fiddle on the health care issue. I suspect they knew all along that the public option or expansion of medicare was not going to make it into this bill, but they had to look like they were fighting hard to get the things we wanted into the bill. There are too many important fights coming up and there's no way I want to be played for a sucker again.  I want them to know we can play hardball too.

If we refuse to support a bill that we don't like, it gives us the same kind of clout Joe Lieberman has, and Harry Reid is going to have to start doing his job.  The Senate is currently a disaster and Harry Reid is part of the problem.  Right now Harry Reid thinks it's easier to screw the base than play hardball with the Democratic Senators.  We've got to change that equation.

There's one more reason to kill this bill.  Because it won't kill the bill.  They (the President and the Democrats in Congress) want it too bad.  They will find a way to pass it and one way is to give us at least the expansion of Medicare and bully Sen. Lieberman to support it.

UPDATE: Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com believes we should support the current bill, blemishes and all.  He asked 20 questions of liberals who want to kill the bill and then published the 20 answers from two liberals, along with his (Nate's) conclusion.  Like I said earlier, I respect Nate Silver's intellect because he always seems able to remove emotion from his writing, and certainly many of us who want to kill this bill are seething because it appears we've once again been kneecapped by the Democrats. (sorry, formatting and linking is not working on Typepad right now so you will have to type in Nate's blog address, but I encourage you to read his side of the story).  I'm still opposed to the Senate version of the bill however.

--Trakker

It's time to play hardball with Joe Lieberman

So, Joe Lieberman has tried for a checkmate on health care reform.  First he insisted that he wouldn't vote for any bill that includes a public option, so liberals gave up the public option in favor of expanding Medicare to those 55 and over (something Lieberman is on the record as supporting) to get Joe's vote, and now we find that he now finds even that is too much for him to stomach.

It appears that Joe's primary goal in life now is to punish liberals who punished him for supporting the war in Iraq - and if that means denying health care to millions of Americans so that he can carve a new notch on his gun, so be it.  Asshole.

Now we're hearing from the usual crowd that instead of getting mad or fighting back, liberals should just forget about this new defeat, lick our wounds, and be thankful that we're getting any health reform at all, that this is still a good bill and it will help a lot of Americans who need help...yada, yada, yada.  They don't want us to kill the bill just because it pretty much sucks.

I agree.  We shouldn't kill the bill.  Leave expanded Medicare in the bill and call Joe Lieberman's bluff.  Make HIM decide whether he is cruel and callous enough to kill the bill. Let's at least put a face on the Senate's massive failure.

All along Democratic Senators have told us not to worry, in the end Harry Reid and the health care reform bill will have Joe Lieberman's support.  Evidently they were lying or Harry Reid is a miserable failure.  Any Senate Majority Leader who continues to require a super-majority vote to pass any major bill is a failure. This is tantamount to turning the Senate over to the special interests to run.

If this much-needed health care reform bill dies, it will be a huge blow to President Obama and the Democrats in 2010, and they know it.  If we call Lieberman's bluff, I can guarantee he will have so much pressure directed at him to support the bill - WITH expanded Medicare - his head will spin. There is little chance he will kill the bill unless he wants to spend the rest of his time in the Senate in hell.

Why can't WE play hardball sometime?

--Trakker