Life plays funny tricks on you. In families and among circles of friends it sometimes happens where you are mourning one person's death at the same time a new baby is about to be born, or a wedding is about to happen. Yesterday was like that for the progressive family, and it feels like the last couple of years have been that way all the time.
At the same time we mourn the loss of the commonsense, bi-partisan, utterly moderate idea DREAM Act for immigrant students, we celebrate the long delayed and absurdly painful passage of the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". What one hand giveth, the other taketh away. Through the unfortunately standard combination of Democratic bad luck, dysfunctional Senate rules, and poor political decision making, we couldn't have even a moment or two to celebrate a big victory without a horribly painful defeat happening the very same day. This is the story of the last two years. In early 2009, we get the biggest investment in public jobs and infrastructure when every progressive economist was screaming at the top of their lungs that the amount of money in the stimulus bill is way too inadequate to deal with the economic crisis at hand, so we see the official unemployment rate rise to 10%, and voters think the stimulus didn't work. We finally get a version of comprehensive health care reform, but it doesn't include the one thing most progressives were most passionate about, the public option. We get a banking reform bill that does some great things to rebuild the regulatory structure, but it does nothing on the most important problem to deal with, breaking up the big banks. Democrats pass wonderful policy changes that would be highly popular if any actual voter living outside of DC knew about them- equal pay for women, tax cuts for the middle class embedded into the stimulus bill, a big improvement in the student loan system, a bill finally regulating the tobacco industry, a measure to help protect consumers from bank rip-offs- and then never again talk about them.
So this weekend is one of those classic bittersweet moments for me. Both of these issues are really personal to me. I was in a lot of those White House meetings in 1993 trying to figure out how to get out of the corner Sam Nunn and Colin Powell had painted us into on gays in the military, knowing that if we had a showdown on the floor of Congress, we would get our asses kicked and get a policy locked in that was terrible. The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise was a truly bitter pill to swallow, the best we thought we could do given the political dynamics in front of us at that time, and I have been hoping we could finally do the right thing for 17 years since, so this is a truly great day for me. But I have also done a lot of work on the immigration issue, and I have looked into the hopeful and earnest faces of the students who were fighting for the DREAM Act. These young people know the promise and ideals of America better than most of us that grew up here. they know the words on the statue of liberty. They know the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address and the I Have A Dream speech. They know what America is supposed to be, and I know they are bitterly disappointed today, and I am disappointed with them and for them.
For the sake of the Democratic party and the broader progressive family, for the sake of our spirits and psychology, this should have been managed better than to put this great victory and this bitter pill together. When your troops are battered and their morale is beaten up, to finally have won a big victory on such an important issue should have been a moment of pure joy, but it got messed up. Democrats need to figure out how to take these victories and highlight them rather than pairing them with something awful.
Having said all that, even with the bitter defeat of the DREAM Act, progressives do need to take a moment here at the end of this tough year and celebrate the end of DADT. It is an important victory for all of us, not just for gays and lesbians. Progress has been made, justice has finally been done, and we should glory in it. We should give credit where credit is due, to all those brave gay and lesbian soldiers who have served their country twice, in our wars and in the cause of justice. We should give credit to the LGBT movement that made this happen, to the insiders and outsiders whose combined efforts made it happen. And we should give credit to the politicians who finally pushed it through all the barriers and hoops and prejudice to make it happen. Change is never easy, even when it should be, and it never feels like you are winning when you are in the heat of battle. But as MLK liked to remind us, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it curves toward justice. It will curve someday toward justice on immigration, and on the other issues we are still fighting on. We just have to keep battling.
On election night, 2008, when the word went out that Barack Obama had been declared the winner, there was quite literally dancing in the streets. All over America, people hungry for change and fed up with eight years of George Bush running our country into the ditch were overjoyed that hope had been chosen over fear of more of the same. Young people, black people, immigrants, and all kinds of Americans who wanted a new day were out in the streets dancing and celebrating. A friend visiting from Sweden's Social Democratic Party was out on U Street in DC as throngs danced their butts off, weeping with pure joy, and he turned to a friend and said, "Are all American elections like this?" The answer is a big no; election night 2008 was different because it felt like change was coming.
A couple million people showed up for the inauguration, shattering all previous records. In early 2009, one of DC's big progressive groups, the Campaign for America's Future, announced their annual conference, for years entitled Take Back America, was changing its name (to America's Future Now) because, well, America had been taken back from the right wingers who had been governing it. I had just written a book (The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be) about how progressives had every so often in our country's history been able to create a big change moment, and I was on my book tour telling audiences that we had a chance at creating another one.
A year later, it all feels a lot different, doesn't it? A version of health care reform is still alive, but struggling mightily and so weakened by concessions to insurers and drug companies that there's a palpable sense of disappointment by the progressives who have been fighting for it. Climate change legislation is stalled in the Senate after barely getting through the House in highly compromised fashion. There's been no action on labor law reform. The Obama administration has deported more undocumented immigrants than Bush did in 2008, and there's still no movement on long promised immigration reform. The war in Afghanistan has been escalated twice by President Obama. Almost 20% of Americans are unemployed or under-employed. Financial reform is on the verge of being watered down to almost nothing, and the big banks on Wall Street are still running roughshod over the rest of us- economically and politically.
It's time for a different kind of dancing (and marching and chanting and raising hell) in the streets - the kind where regular folks tell the politicians and the special interests we aren't going to sit around let them ruin our country.
More on that, and two event announcements, in the extended entry.
This morning, Lieberman announced he will introduce legislation to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the Senate. Heretofore, the Senate did not have a companion bill to Rep. Murphy's Military Readiness Enhancement Act, H.R. 1283. For a variety of reasons, the best avenue for repeal remains the defense authorization bill which will be coming up in the coming months (if you recall, the Matthew Shepard Act regarding hate crimes protections was attached to last year's bill as a means of passage).
Via press release, Servicemembers United, a lead group on this issue, outlines the Obama Administration's important role in that process:
In response to the opportunity presented by this historic testimony, Servicemembers United recently resurfaced its "Set End-date / Delayed Implementation" model for repeal legislation and made the case for the introduction and adoption of such legislation in 2010. The proposal would see to it that full repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law gets locked in this year while also allowing the Pentagon time to complete it's analysis.
To strengthen the prospects for the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law and to reduce political risk, the President can still order the Pentagon to include "Set End-date / Delayed Implementation" repeal language in one of the legislative policy transmittals that will soon be sent to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees by the Department of Defense. These policy proposal packages serve as indications of White House and Pentagon support for policy changes to be included in the next National Defense Authorization Act.
Additionally, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee could insert Senator Lieberman's new bill into the Chairman's mark of the Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, which will soon be drafted. Such a move, especially in combination with the Presidential action through Pentagon policy transmittals, could turn out to be the path of least resistance for repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law and could help shield vulnerable members of the President's and the Chairman's own party.
I would say rather than "the President can still order", the President needs to order that language included. A lot of cautious lawmakers are watching that language for signs of what the Pentagon wants, and for political cover. And, as Joe Sudbay writes, if the repeal language is in the bill, it will take 60 votes to remove it. In other words, the Senate leadership and the Obama administration play an important role here.
Related, tomorrow the Palm Center at UC-Santa Barbara will release a 151-page study looking at implementation of repeal in other countries, with some key findings:
The 151-page study, which updates existing studies on gay service members in Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and other countries, offers the first broad look at the issue in foreign militaries since Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for an end to "don't ask, don't tell" earlier this month.
The report concludes that in foreign militaries, openly gay service members did not undermine morale, cause large resignations or mass "comings out." The report found that "there were no instances of increased harassment" as a result of lifting bans in any of the countries studied.
In addition, the report says that none of the countries studied installed separate facilities for gay troops, and that benefits for gay partners were generally in accordance with a country's existing benefits for gay and lesbian couples.
On implementation, the study said that most countries made the change swiftly, within a matter of months and with what it termed little disruption to the armed services. Mr. Frank said the study did not look at what happened if the change was implemented gradually because, he said, "I don't think any of the militaries tried it."
Mr. Frank's report cited a 1993 RAND study on the effects of allowing openly gay members to serve in the American military, which concluded that "phased-in implementation might allow enemies of the new policy to intentionally create problems to prove the policy unworkable." On personnel policy decisions of this nature, the RAND study said, "Any waiting period permits restraining forces to consolidate."
This echoes what Rep. Sestak, who has experience overseeing Navy organizational change while serving in the Pentagon, said during our interview: implementation can be done within a matter of months and without separate shower facilities or the like. And legislative action on repeal should occur this year, not at the conclusion of a "study" next year.
I've been keeping an eye on the latest developments regarding Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal. It's become clear that the most interesting questions are no longer concerning repeal and whether it will happen, but what the implementation will look like, and you can tell that by the signals being given. At today's Armed Services hearings, Sec. Gates is expected to name two advisers- one civilian, one military- to advise the Administration on steps to implement repeal, and according to the WaPo, planning alone is expected to take up to a year. He is also expected to announce the "Obama rule" on third-party discharges, about which the Palm Center says the devil is in the details:
The Palm Center has announced that President Obama's executive changes to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, expected to be announced Tuesday, could significantly impact the lives of gay troops. The expected statements from Defense Secretary Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen would protect some service members from investigations based on third-party allegations and set a new standard for what constitutes reliable sources and credible information that trigger a "don't ask, don't tell" investigation. It is also expected that the military brass will announce changes to the adjudication of potential discharges, whose effect could be to require a flag officer to sign off on any discharge for it to move forward.
"This 'Obama Rule' could provide a new standard for 'don't ask, don't tell' investigations," said Dr. Aaron Belkin, Director of the Palm Center. "Depending on how it's implemented, the executive action taken by the President could be seismic. 'Don't ask, don't tell' has rested on the belief that the presence of openly gay service members is always bad for the military. The new Obama Rule would mean a shift in the military's focus toward keeping gay troops, reflecting the military's belief that they are as essential as their heterosexual peers."
Belkin also said the effectiveness of the changes would depend on what message was sent by top civilian and uniformed leaders to the officers responsible for approving discharges. "If new discretion is being granted to two-stars, then the actual impact of the Obama rule will hinge on whether the President, the Defense Secretary, and the Service Chiefs send a clear signal that discharges are to be minimized," Belkin said.
Recent media reports have suggested the Pentagon leadership may promote a lengthy process of implementation that would unfold over several years, a prospect that Palm Center experts found problematic. Dr. Nathaniel Frank, Senior Research Fellow at the Palm Center and author of "Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America," said the impact of the expected announcement would depend on an operational timeline that emphasizes strong leadership and swift implementation.
Meanwhile, Sen. Levin, who is chairing the hearings, has an op-ed out calling for caution and deliberation in any repeal effort.
There are a whole number of ways this could be done. It could be swift implementation overnight, or the Administration could slow-walk it with a 15-year plan, complete with segregated showers and pilot programs of integrated units. Or there could be another "compromise". Later this week I'm going to be exploring what the range of possibilities and what an ideal implementation would look like. We still have a ways to go in terms of making sure the votes are there for repeal, but a new front is opening up on how and when repeal will be implemented- an effort which is also critical to keep an eye on.
Kerry Eleveld with the Advocate reports, and John Aravosis confirms, that 20-25 LGBT donors and organizational leaders called an emergency meeting in private on Wednesday to discuss Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal and the shaky ground on which it appears to be. There was no consenus at this meeting on what to do. This comes as the leaked Pentagon "now is not the time" memo came to light.
There are two major points John makes, which is (a) there is no plan (b) it is stunning that people at this meeting could not decide whether to come out full-on with pressure for a repeal or wait to see what the Administration does first.
I agree with both of these, and want to add (c), which is, where is the pushback? First the Administration asks for a study. Then Obama's National Security Adviser says Obama won't lift the ban until Iraq and Afghanistan are done. Then Harry Reid actually has to ask the Administration, in a letter, for its views. Then the Pentagon leaks a memo on Wednesday outlining that it will advise the President that "now is not the time". Then the New York Times reports yesterday that the military is actually considering whether it would be necessary to separate shower facilities or ban public displays of affection. Today, Kerry Eleveld asks Robert Gibbs today whether the Administration will push for repeal in 2010, and Gibbs demurs.
And in response to all this, LGBT donors and organizational leaders get together and- wait for it- wring their hands over whether to push the Administration or not. I have no doubt that there are people in the White House reading Kerry's piece and laughing at us right now.
Here's John:
Both the meeting and the Times article confirm that the White House has not even decided if it will push for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, let alone what exactly it will push for for, if anything (as noted in the Times article, the Pentagon is even considering whether a "separate but equal" policy should be adopted). The hope is that the White House will come to a decision and announce what, if anything, it is going to do about moving forward on the repeal of DADT sometime in the next month or two. But the groups have no idea what the White House is going to decide, or when it will decide, and therefore cannot and will not endorse an all-out campaign to support the repeal of DADT until the White House makes up its mind.
WTF? When the White House makes up its mind?! You push before, not after the White House makes up its mind! Where is the pressure? Where is the pushback? I talked about this on Monday- Where are the op-eds, the interviews, the threats, the members of Congress threatening to not accept anything less than full repeal, the public demands for a meeting with the President, the flooding of the White House with calls from angry gays?
Congressional Progressive Caucus gets this. When the Secretary of HHS talked last year about a public option not being critical, they immediately pushed back, along with allies in the netroots, and forced her to walk the statement back. Labor unions get this. They met with the President this week over the excise tax. Members of Congress are threatening to vote against the bill unless the tax is changed. I was even e-mailed an ask to join a phonebank on the issue. On our side, SLDN is the only one doing this. This "wait and see what the President does" argument is insane. You pressure people before, not after, the fact.
Q: On Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the administration has suggested there will be movement, but possibly less than a full repeal. Is NGLTF willing to support segregation of troops, or a pilot program?
Rea: Absolutely not. We need a full repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Period.
Simple, direct, to the point. Every single LGBT donor, prominent advocate, organizational leader should be doing this, right now, in every single outlet they can find. Also, why does there have to be "consensus" on this? Why aren't more groups individually doing what SLDN is doing and putting calls through to the White House switchboard? I have not heard or read a single word in response to the Pentagon memo, NYTimes story, or the Gibbs statement. Why that is is beyond me. Instead, what I see is people afraid of the White House.
Slowly but surely, signs of pushback from progressive leaders and activists are starting to bubble up. Nancy Pelosi and House progressives are refusing to fold in negotiations with the Senate. Between the Pecora Commission hearings starting this week and the new Move Your Money campaign targeting the big banks, efforts to take on Wall Street continue to build. Discussions about reforming the Senate rules are gaining momentum. In the first three days of this week alone, I am aware of four different planning meetings between cross-sections of progressive leaders about where our movement goes from here.
Progressive action so far during the Obama era appears to be going in stages. Stage one was exhilaration and hope. Stage two was surprise and disappointment that change was so difficult, and that Obama didn't seem to be fighting very hard for it. Stage three is where we are today: people getting over their disappointments and digging in for the long haul. Stage three is a good place for progressives to be.
I think most of us have been in way too many conversations over the last year about whether Obama is a good guy or not. Some are arguing that he's doing all he can to push a progressive agenda but is being slowed down by the Senate, or the lobbyists, or whoever. These optimists talk about all the good things he has done and all the positive policies he has proposed. The other side describes him as a complete disappointment, a sellout. These folks focus on all the disappointments in his policy, and all the times he has compromised away things that matter to progressives. I have even seen it argued that he is barely better than Bush.
Depending on the issue, context, and timing of given arguments, I have weighed in on both sides of some of these debates, criticizing Obama a fair amount while defending him against some of the attacks. But ultimately, I don't really care very much about whether Obama is a good guy or not, whether deep down he has a progressive heart. What I care about is what he does, and whether progressives inside and outside of Congress can push him and Congress to do better things. Being awash in either happy talk optimism or bitter pessimism about Obama does us no good. Organizing, innovating, communicating in strategic ways about getting progressive policies done is what matters, and I think that is the stage we are moving toward now.
In the weeks and months ahead, I expect we will be seeing some good things brewing: innovative new organizing strategies based on taking social networking to the next level; increasing political pushback against the big banks; multi-level discussions about reforming the Senate rules; progressives having the backs of the immigration reform movement as it gets race-baited by Beck/Limbaugh Republicans. We will see progressives digging in for the long hard slog- just the way they should be.
One of the great things about going home (Nebraska and northwest Missouri) for the Christmas vacation, especially in a year like this, is that you get to brag to everyone when you get back about the weather. Freezing rain the day we flew in, 15 inches of snow on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day (and we still did the full family Christmas dinner at my mom's), 40 mile an hour winds, minus 5 degrees Celsius one night. I feel so hearty and toughened up. My only regret is that it was 2 degrees when we left, but got down to minus 14 degrees yesterday, so now I'm feeling like I missed out on some even better weather to brag about.
Having survived all that, I am now back in DC eager to see the health care reform fight finally finished, and have the political focus move on to all those other easy issues: financial reform, jobs legislation, the energy bill, immigration reform. It should all be a walk in the park. Or maybe not.
President Obama has done plenty of things to infuriate me, but you have to give him credit: he has been willing to take on the biggest, most intractable, most complicated and messy issues around. I wish his proposals had gone further; I wish he hadn't made some of the compromises and tactical decisions he had; I wish he had fought harder and communicated better on important policy choices. But he deserves a lot of credit for taking on these huge issues and trying to get them done- it shows a courage few politicians have.
The truly mystifying thing is how he has handled the politics of it. As I wrote in my last post of 2009, it takes special talent to take on all these big issues that progressives have been dreaming of working on for decades and yet have your activist base this disillusioned. So what is going on?
An Adam Bink Golden Oldie
From Tue Oct 06, 2009. Original HERE.
Andrew Sullivan wrote a fairly scathing piece last night mocking Obama's upcoming speech this weekend to the Human Rights Campaign Dinner, echoing the same tired criticism that HRC has failed to accomplish anything. Usually, the criticism refers to the federal level. In his case, it's "in the twenty years I've been observing them", but I've heard "since they were founded in 1980". Putting aside that HRC has dumped lots of resources into successful state campaigns and helped elect pro-LGBT candidates up and down the ballot, let's take a closer look at this.
When elections happen that change control of the White House or Congress, advocates always say things like "the Supreme Court is at stake!" or "the future of our environment hinges on it!" Then, when a major electoral victory occurs, like George W. Bush winning the White House, advocates sorrowfully say things like "well, health care reform is off the table for the next four years". And generally, they're right.
HRC is seemingly the only group excluded from this. Back in 2000, I heard "well, we're definitely going nowhere on LGBT rights under Bush" and then, eight years later, "HRC has accomplished nothing!!" from the exact same people. It doesn't add up.
I have my own share of problems with HRC, and I think they've made mistakes in the past, but I don't get why some of my friends in the LGBT rights movement think it's okay to give a free pass to environmental/pro-choice/health care advocates/others when Republicans are in charge... yet repeat the line that HRC has failed to accomplish anything over the same time period.
The divide between progressives on whether to support the health care bill is one of the most striking things I have seen in all my years in politics. The fact that so many good people are on different sides of whether this compromise should be accepted is the true sign of how complicated both the politics and policy is on this issue.
Beyond the well and passionately argued opinions on both sides, though, there are two facts which are undeniable: for better or worse, this bill passing the Senate keeps the process moving forward; and, for better or worse, the Senate bill is simply unpassable in the House.
Sen. Conrad and all the pundits can deliver all the pronouncements they want about how the House will just have to live with what the Senate did, but between the lack of a public option, the bad abortion language, the tax on health benefits, and other concessions to insurers, this bill cannot get 218 votes in the House. Nancy Pelosi is the best Speaker, and best Democratic House leader, since Tip O'Neill, but not even she cannot corral 218 votes for the Senate bill. Yes, it is true that she could pick up some Blue Dogs who like this far more conservative bill better, but remember that a lot of them are from fairly conservative districts, and for all the stuff progressives don't like in the Senate bill, it is still being attacked viciously by Republicans and the conservative attack machine. Between their political squeamishness, their lack of party loyalty, and the fact that they already voted no once, it will be tough to pick up a lot more of those votes.
The House bill had a two vote margin last time. Say you can pick up 10 moderate Dems who voted no last time. How many votes will be lost on the choice language? How many on the benefits tax? How many on the lack of a public option? How many on the combination of all of the above?
The Senate, and their allies in the White House, may not want to negotiate, but they are going to have to if they want a bill. The abortion language is a mess, and has to get better. Giving one break after another to the insurance industry after stripping the public option language is adding insult to injury. Taxing decent but hardly extravagant health plans is not acceptable. And this bill can't get 218 votes without making some changes in these items at a minimum.
As I have written before, no step in the process of passing a health care bill was ever destined to be easy. The Senate has no margin for error, and so progressives will have to accept some big disappointments, but the margin for error in the House is pretty damn small, too. Everyone needs to be serious about negotiation here, or this thing will not get done.
from Speaker Nancy Pelosi
reply-to [email protected] to Adam Bink
date Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 1:39 PM
subject Send your Holiday Wishes to President Obama
Adam --
As we celebrate the holiday season, I wanted to say thank you for making 2009 a year for the history books when it comes to America's progress.
This holiday season, let's show President Obama that we support him just as strongly as we did on Inauguration Day.
Please sign our Holiday Card to President Obama and the First Family and forward it to five of your friends. You can also include a personal message and upload a photograph of your own family.
Send a card to the President!
Our extraordinary progress this year would not be possible without dedicated grassroots Democrats like you. You worked every day to put Main Street first, to create millions of clean energy jobs, and to make health care affordable for the middle class.
Unfortunately, your efforts have incited the anger of our Republican opponents who prefer to return to the failed policies of the last eight years. This year, we have seen one vicious and false attack after another, calling our agenda everything from "government rationing of health care" to even hanging effigies of our Democratic Members of Congress.
Yet each day you prove that no attack by Republicans and their special interest allies can stop the change we are delivering for America's middle class families and the hope we are bringing for brighter future for our country.
Please sign our Holiday Card to President Obama and the First Family and forward it to five of your friends. You can also include a personal message and upload a photograph of your own family.
Have a happy and healthy holiday season with your families and thank you again for making 2009 a year of historic progress for our nation and the world.
Best regards,
Nancy
Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
P.S. Please sign our Holiday Card to President Obama and forward it to five of your friends. You can also upload a photograph for the President to see.
Just to take advantage of this important opportunity, I did indeed click through to sign a Holiday Card to President Obama and his family. Here is what I wrote:
Dear President Obama,
Thanks for no help in Maine, no real support for the public option, hiring folks like Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina to push Congressional leaders to cave to Joe Lieberman and Blue Dogs, and caving on core Democratic initiatives of late, such as re-importation of cheaper prescription drugs. I am appreciative of the smaller initiatives you have undertaken, but in 2010, please stop throwing progressive allies under the bus and screwing up major progressive initiatives.
As a holiday gift, I am enclosing a gift certificate to a semester-long class on Negotiation 101. I hope you put it to good use.
Here's Newsweek's #9 prediction on its list of political predictions for 2010:
Patience became the 2009 mantra of the gay rights movement, which generally supports Democrats. Many activists believe that in his heart Obama supports their flagship issues: the ability to serve openly in the armed forces, to be protected from employment in the workplace, and the right to marry (even though he's on record as favoring civil unions over marriage). But they've received almost nothing for their troubles. What the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community has learned this year is that the president is ultimately a pragmatist. Although his very presence in the White House is the stuff of culture wars, Obama himself is reluctant to wade into one. Moreover, if socially divisive policies have the potential to compromise his legislative agenda, Obama has proven that he simply won't pursue them. Expect this tension to become more acute as the 2010 elections loom-and for gay rights to be shunted aside again. The last thing this pragmatist president will do is hand election-year ammunition to an already energized conservative base that's venomously opposed to gay marriage.
Aside from not being surprised if they're right, and hoping they're wrong, the last sentence is problematic. For the political set at the White House and inside-the-Beltway who are no doubt reading Newsweek, it feeds into their conventional wisdom mentality that they will get eaten them alive if they, oh no, take action like protecting LGBT individuals from workplace discrimination.
What this misses is the following:
(a) Obama's approval rating among Republicans in general has averaged between 10% and 20% over the last several months, and even hit single digits. So I have no doubt it's even worse among the conservative base, teabaggers, etc.
Okay. What do they feel that way? Because of the deficit, stimulus, LGBT progress, climate change, health care, the fact that he's African-American, a belief that he wasn't born here, and on and on. In short, conservatives hate Obama because he is acting (somewhat) like a Democrat, and they always will, just as House Republicans will always give zero votes to his more progressive initiatives. And Newsweek thinks that Obama taking action on LGBT is going to awaken some kind of sleeping giant? If that's true, I hope Obama remembers to just play Solitaire for the entirety of 2010 and doesn't, you know, sign a health care bill or anything, since that will really piss the conservatives off. This is like the argument that Democrats have to go on FOX News to "have a conversation" with a demographic that voted 88% for Bush in 2004, because if they don't, FOX News viewers will really dislike them. Hogwash.
Moving on progressive issues, aka keeping your promises, will always piss off conservatives, and that is part of the ballgame. Inaction on progressive issues isn't going to suddenly make conservatives happier. And if you're worried about making them mad, LGBT issues are no worse than any of his other major initiatives, like health care.
(b) If Newsweek is thinking about about energized voters, did they happen to notice an already energized LGBT movement that is pissed as hell at inaction and repeated slights by this Administration? As Mike Lux pointed out, 1994 was lost in major part because the base stays home. If Obama and Democrats in Congress really want to know what, to quote George W. Bush, a "thumpin'" feels like, they should take no action on LGBT issues and watch scores of LGBT people stay home.
In the midst of the gutting of the core provisions of the health care bill is some unnoticed Senate floor action. I am just amazed at the news out of the Senate last night:
In a victory for President Obama and his allies in the pharmaceutical industry...
Let me stop there and say that line alone is unsurprising, but enough to make you vomit-
...the Senate today turned aside a bid by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to make it easier to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and Western Europe -- a proposal that threatened to derail the Democrats' landmark healthcare bill.
The vote on the amendment -- cosponsored by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- was 51-48, nine short of the 60 needed to pass.
The politically charged amendment held up the Senate for a week as drug companies, the White House and lawmakers from states that are home to drug makers fought to derail the proposal. Critics, including the Food and Drug Administration, said it would be difficult to implement and hard to guarantee that imported drugs would be safe.
Aside from, as Howie Klein notes, the weird partisan divides over this, what is absolutely amazing to me is how the sanctity of the deal that the White House cut with the pharmaceutical industry trumped an issue with which Democrats have beat Republicans over the head since 2003, when I remember the Medicare prescription drug bill did not include such a provision and Democrats were howling about it at the time.
The drug amendment had in the past enjoyed broad support from Democrats -- including Obama -- but the White House and Senate leaders bowed to the pharmaceutical industry and joined their effort to derail it. The administration feared that if the amendment had passed, pharmaceutical companies, which earlier this year struck a deal with the White House to limit the economic impact of a healthcare overhaul on their industry, would turn against the broader health legislation.
You could say the same goes for how the White House has treated insurance companies- after the deal they cut with them, there was nary a peep from the White House until October over an industry Pete Stark said said would be "easy to roll" because no one likes them. Again, years of trashing insurance companies from most of the Party, but a reversal from the Administration because of the deal. I wouldn't care as much if I didn't think that move may actually have been detrimental to the entire fight. Health insurance companies worked to gut the bill anyway.
The list of core progressive principles and initiatives that have been sacrificed on the altar of "some bill, any bill" lengthens.
I am a team player. I believe in compromise and negotiation, and have always been okay with taking half a loaf or even a quarter at times. I have never believed in making the perfect the enemy of the good. And as an aging diabetic, a small businessman with skyrocketing health care costs, and a veteran of the Clinton health care war room and 30 years of other health care fights, I have wanted a health care reform bill badly, worse than I have ever wanted any piece of legislation in my life.
But there does sometimes come a bridge too far.
When Joe Lieberman turned his back on a compromise that he has been strongly and publicly supporting for at least 9 years, and one that he signed off on in private last week, and added that he would not negotiate on anything, period, this Senate health care bill got too heavy to carry. When the entire progressive core of Senators folded up like a cheap suit in response, insult was piled on to injury.
I understand all the reasons the White House and Harry Reid don't want to go to reconciliation at this late date, and have been inclined to support them on that up until now. But at this point I think House progressives simply need to say hell no to this deal.If Lieberman was willing to negotiate at all, I would be inclined to try to negotiate in good faith, but with him saying taking it or leave it, I say progressives should leave it.
You know, Olympia Snowe has been saying we should just wait for another month or two, give ourselves all a little time to keep thinking and talking about this bill. It is an absurd position, since she has been thinking and talking about this bill for a year now. But I'm starting to agree with her. Maybe we need to take some extra time, slow the process down until the White House and the Senate are willing to take progressives' points of view into consideration. Along with getting rolled on the public option, this Senate bill is worse than the House bill on the Medicaid numbers, affordability, the anti-trust exemption for insurers, the financing (taxing middle class health care benefits rather than the wealthy), and the structure and rate of eligibility expansion for the exchanges. Perhaps if all or most of that were fixed, maybe then this bill would be more acceptable. But as it is, it is a very heavy load for progressives to stomach.
Look, as disappointing as this, there is still quite of good in the bill, too. It expands Medicaid coverage for people above the poverty line, expands S-CHIP coverage dramatically, still has some good tough insurance regulation and investments in other important health related programs. But progressives need to push back right now, and demand something better. There are two Houses of Congress and the House needs to assert itself right now. And I certainly hope that when all this gets done, Lieberman gets stripped of his committee assignments, and a hold is placed on every single thing he wants for the rest of his tenure in the Senate.
The new Senate deal over the public option has its good points and bad points, which I wrote about on Wednesday, and which everyone right now is analyzing and debating. A lot of how people feel about it, though certainly not all, is a classic glass half full vs half empty argument: it all depends on whether you tend to see things in a positive or negative light, and whether you are optimistic that progressives can build on what's good about this in the future, or whether you think that's false optimism given the power of the insurance industry. Given my generally more upbeat nature, I am starting to feel more positive about this deal in terms of what can be built on in the future, even though I remain generally growly about the compromises we have had to make.
Discussing the upside and downside of the deal announced Tuesday night is not the purpose of this post, however, since that has already been done by me and hundreds of other people. I will no doubt come back to the nature of the bill as details emerge, but today's topic is about focusing on working on making the bill better, and working to keep it from getting worse. One of the problems in the fast moving and intense phase we are in right now is that if we spend too much time debating or bitching about the merits of a particular compromise, the compromise might get worse before the ink is dry, or we might lose the chance to make it better.
As I wrote a few days back, there is no such thing as a done deal on a policy issue as big as health care until the President actually signs the bill. All the good things announced in Tuesday night's compromise are under vicious assault by the big health industry lobbies, and the bad things still might get negotiated for the better in the conference committee or even in the manager's amendment in the Senate. The hospitals, American Medical Association, and insurers are bitterly attacking the Medicare buy-in; the insurers hate the 90% provision (that at least 90% of their revenue has to go into paying out benefits), and don't like being forced to compete the way they are in the federal government health plan; even the trigger, as weak as it is, is under assault. Basically, everything that progressives might like in this compromise is under fierce assault by the big health care special interests.
At the same time, there is an opportunity, mostly in conference committee, to improve the details of this package in some significant ways. The numbers and language around Medicaid could be negotiated upward. The cost formula for people getting in on the Medicare buy-in can be negotiated for the better. S-CHIP provisions could be strengthened and more children and youth could be covered as a result. A whole range of issues around the public option related package could potentially be improved if House progressives bargain aggressively and smartly. And there are still so many issues beyond the public option that need to be bargained over in conference committee (I have written about all these issues here, and Chris Bowers had a good summary here) that are incredibly important- the issues around both the financing package and the subsidies for poor and middle income people alone are of truly profound economic and political importance. And we have to continue to battle conservative threats to screw both women on abortion coverage, and immigrants on everything.
At the end of the day, as unfortunate as the overall public option defeat is, if we can get Medicare buy-in for 55-64 year olds, expansions in coverage for children and youth through S-CHIP, major expansions in Medicaid coverage, decent subsidies for the uninsured to buy coverage in a more competitive marketplace, and strong new insurance regulations, that would be a pretty remarkable accomplishment. But none of this is done, and this bill can get either a little better or a lot worse. We need to focus right now on pushing to improve the bill wherever we can, rather than getting caught up too much in debates over just how good this still theoretical, still undefined "deal" actually is. Whatever the outlines of this deal currently are, the best parts will go away fast if progressives don't keep pounding away on getting the best possible deal.
Coming off the disturbing news on Afghanistan, the relationship between the President and his progressive base is in a very tenuous place. Not to be overly dramatic, but I think we're at a crucial moment. The deal on health care is about to get done: will progressives come out of it feeling like we got the first major progressive policy since the 1960s passed, or feeling like they got sold down the river? Congress is beginning to move on a jobs package, but the White House is giving signals to put on the breaks: will legislation go through that does something real about more jobs, or will the Congressional Black, Hispanic, and Progressive Caucuses come away feel ignored again? Banking reform is starting to move, with a classic mix of good and disappointing policies as part of the package: will the progressive ideas like the Fed accountability, language to make it easier to break up the big banks, and Elizabeth Warren's Financial Products Safety Commission be so traded away and watered down in the final legislation to leave a terrible taste in progressives' mouths? Obama has promised to move early next year on immigration reform: will he lead with a clarion call around the importance of getting it done, or will the legislation be delayed again and again until time runs out? Obama has promised to do what needs to be done on dealing with the urgent problem of climate change: will progressives come out of the battle excited that we have finally moved forward, or in despair that nothing got done?
How these issues play out will go a long way toward determining whether base voter turnout in 2010 and 2012 is as low as it was in 1994, how good the volunteer field operations that powered so much of the Obama campaign's success last year are in 2010/2012, how much online fundraising success the Democratic party has, and even whether there will be a serious primary challenge to Obama that emerges in 2011. This is not the first time I have written this, nor will it probably be the last, but I hope both the White House and the progressive movement understand the dangers here. As someone who has at times been quite critical of this administration's stands on banking, jobs, and Afghanistan policy, of some of their tactics/compromises on health care, and of their general positioning toward and treatment of the progressive community, I say again: open civil war between progressives and Obama is a disaster for both sides. It will mean nothing good gets done policywise in the next 3 years, and it means dangerously extreme Republicans will gain power in Congress in 2010 and be running the country after the 2012 elections. Progressives who believe that we can separate ourselves from Obama, give the country a true alternative vision showing Americans what real progressivism is, and have sweeping success sometime in the future as a result are fooling themselves: I have lived through that theory in the Jimmy Carter years (civil war between the left and Carter, a primary challenge, followed by 12 years of conservative Republican presidents running against that liberal Carter), and it didn't work out so well. At the same time, the Democratic strategists in the White House who think its all gravy to "stand up to the left" because it makes Obama look moderate are living in a destructive fantasyland, too- the last 4 presidents who didn't have a good relationship with their base were George HW Bush, Jimmy Carter, Jerry Ford, and LBJ. What those four very different presidents had in common was that they didn't get re-elected. And good luck passing legislation if the Progressive Caucus, Black Caucus, and Hispanic Caucus are all in a constant state of anger, or if the blogs and other progressive forces are whipping the members from liberal districts against the president's policies.
What is needed from the White House right now is constructive engagement, serious dialogue with progressive leaders on both the substance of important issues and the political strategy around getting things done. It is on them to reach out in a real and consistent way, to work with us in finding policy solutions that we can live with; and it is on us progressives to engage constructively back, to recognize the complicated politics of getting progressive things done in this Congress and to help them figure out the strategy for getting good policy.
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