Obama: I'd like the Republicans to do a little soul-searching...

Now THAT'S funny. Both figuratively and literally. Republicans as a homogeneous group have no interest in working with the president on anything. At all. They also have no souls into which they could look. They do not legislate for the benefit of other people. Only for their own interests and those of the corporations that pay them.

There will be no change in the Republican stance on HCR. That's what this whole show was about. Now, pass the freaking bill.

Dems need to memorize this line: "Elections have consequences".

This is make or break it time for the Conservadems. I don't care how many morons they have as constituents. If they can't get behind this issue, they should leave the party.

Few people like this bill because it contains so many compromises. But it is a starting point.

However, with Harry Reid in control of the Senate, defeat is always a possibility. Can anyone explain to me his rationale for disclaiming reconciliation? What a fucking weenie.

Republicans don't care if people die.

They don't care if people go bankrupt.

They don't care about anyone other than themselves. We need to get our voters to be more community minded. 95% of voters for the GOP are voting against their own best interest. We need more informed voters and the GOP will not do anything to encourage better knowledge.

In a higher-minded media environment, the summit would fuel a public discussion of the actual issues, proposals, and consequences. Such a discussion would destroy the Republicans' arguments. And it ain't happening.

So the Republicans hope to kill health care reform by the filibuster. Now might be a good time for Democrats and anybody else who is interested in having a government that works to point out the following:

The minority of Republicans in the Senate represent just 37% of the US population.

Dems should (but probably won't ) keep this undeniable fact in mind and perhaps written on their mirrors in any of their rooms that houses one:

If the shoe were on the other foot, the GOP would use the shapest razor in the drawer to slit their throats, and smile over their limp bodies as they blead-out. Just before losing consciousness and drifting off to death the Dems would hear the GOP calling them "ass holes'' and then feel a kick to their groin. Yep. Without a doubt.

So. Pass. The. Friggin.Bill.

In a world of principled, patriotic, constituent serving Democrats, the bill would be passed, the public would then have six months to study it, and they, in turn, would vote on the merits, or lack thereof.

i ain't holdin' my breath.

WHY DOES NOT THIS ALLOW YOU TO PASTE COMMENTS?

FIFTY VOTES. The Dems need 50 votes, not 51. Bush passed his tax cuts with reconciliation, a 50-50 vote and the VP. It's right there in the constitution. FIFTY votes.

What I really wonder is why Obama and the Dem leadership refuse to use the carrot AND the stick to wrangle Republican votes.

What if they had come in to this thing with two proposals. One being exactly what they had, plus maybe tort reform. The other being Medicare for all. With the Democrats repeatedly saying "tell us what we can add or take away to get you to vote for plan 1, or was pass plan 2 via majority vote, since we are a democracy where the majority rules."

Instead they had nothing to threaten the Republicans with, and so ultimately it came down to saying "please search your souls and act against your political interests for the public good."

Again, the public option should be posed as an antidote to being forced to buy from private companies. IOW, as a populist crossover measure that prevents the result from being abhorrent to both true progressives (who don't like the private purchase forcing, as they have told us and I sympathize) and to conservatives, who don't like such mandates for some valid reasons.

...the party's leaders see no reason to make Republican satisfaction a prerequisite for success.

If they'd had that mentality at the start, we'd probably be debating the second stimulus by now, if not having already moved on to banking reform.

Benen (from "An Illustrative Success"): "... Democrats and Republicans have wildly different visions on every possible aspect of the debate."

And from above: "Obama's question for Republicans was, "We're offering a bipartisan, comprehensive package built around principles you claim to support. "

Only in Washington could both these arguments be made with a straight face.

Is it 218 votes in the House or 217? Murtha's death and Wexler's resignation drops the total voting membership to 433, so 217 is a majority. (And do we need a majority of votes cast, or a majority of the chamber? Maybe the Blue Dogs could just abstain.)

Kucinich and Massa voted against the original bill, presumably because it didn't go far enough. They will almost certainly vote in favor this time. Cao was the only Republican to vote for it, and it looks like that won't happen again. Stupak claims that 10-15 anti-choice Democrats will vote no because of disagreements over abortion language. Who else is in play? 39 Democrats voted against the first time around, and most of them are Blue Dogs.

Only in Washington could both these arguments be made with a straight face. -m

Not true unless one is unwilling to admit there is a difference between a parties position in the debate and what was presented in the plan, which is an honest attempt at compromising those two divergent positions.

The minority of Republicans in the Senate represent just 37% of the US population.

I did my own tally a little while back and came up with something like 33.9%. Of course that was before the Scott Brown fiasco.

The difference is, Democrats are the governing majority, and the party's leaders see no reason to make Republican satisfaction a prerequisite for success

Really? Have we been watching the same healtcare 'debate'? As you have been repeatedly saying for the last few weeks the current plan is basically a center-right plan, virtually identical to the Republican option to Clintoncare in 1993.

If Democrats truly wanted to ignore Republicans they'd work to pass a Democratic plan. Medicare for all.

Obama: "So the question that I'm going to ask myself and I ask of all of you is, is there enough serious effort that in a month's time or a few weeks' time or six weeks' time we could actually resolve something?"

Hopefully Obama is saying that he will measure the "serious effort" before the 6 weeks come up. Of course there will not be any movement, so he can say he won't wait any more.

Hopefully.

Ditto what Stevio said at 9:05.