That’s what he said in a short appearance this morning:

Well we have seen what that translates into throughout this whole debate so I’m not expecting much out of him.

"We are tired of watching as year after year candidates offer up detailed health care plans with great fanfare and promise only to see them crushed under the weight of Washington politics and drug and insurance lobbying once the campaign is over." Candidate Obama

Here is the video of candidate Obama saying this, with big thanks to Lee Stranahan for finding it

I may have voted for the man and even supported him during the campaign, but his actions throughout this health care debate have been inexcusable and I never pledged undying allegiance to the man. As matter of fact since I did support candidate Obama I have worked harder to hold him to a higher standard than someone people I never did support. To me that is what it means to be a Democrat, a liberal and an American. As I said the other day, some of the Obama supporters out there are starting to remind me of the right wingers who supported Bush at every twist and turn as he broke his campaign promises, only to turn around and blast him the day he left office.

You really think the “tech President” would know about things like the Google and the YouTube before making claims that he never campaigned on a public option:

(h/t Aravosis)

Here is the video of Wendell Potter I mentioned last night:

Anyone who seriously thinks that the insurance companies are going to play nice and buy the rules is seriously mistaken.

Once this bill gets out of Congress and President Obama signs it, then I really hope he is ready for a sell job for the rest of his time in office.
Let’s examine the facts. The current polling shows the public very turned off by this bill:

That alone gives the Republicans an excellent platform in 2010 and 2012. Given the fact that the good parts of the health care bill won’t really be felt for 5 years, that spells extremely bad news for Democrats and can turn into trouble at the polls.
What Obama needs to do is have a prime time press conference after signing this bill and lay out exactly what it will do for the people. No B.S. – explain the facts and explain them well. He also needs to direct his web gurus to launch a government site where people can punch in their info and get an idea of how it will affect them personally.
This is going to be the hardest sell job of his life – no questions asked.
The major problem we face is that the Republicans can easily regain control by the time this bill really takes affect and then they can start stripping out the things they don’t like. Given their track record that will mean things like the limited cost-control/new regulations put into place. They are the party of Reagan after all.
Sadly this is where the public option would have been perfect. A robust public option that started taking care of people before 2012 would have given the people something they like and something the Republicans dare not touch. Now they don’t have that, and in all honesty I don’t see Republicans getting rid of mandates.
So where does that leave us?
Well we are all screwed if Obama doesn’t sell the hell out of this bill. A Republican controlled government will see control shift back to the private sector and we will most likely still be required to purchase insurance by law, or even vouchers.
I know there is a lot of optimism on the left that “we can improve it later”, and I really hate to piss on everyone’s celebration but

Offered without comment:

I never really liked Dylan when he was a guest on Morning Joe and kind of turned my nose at the thought of him having his own show. Damn I was wrong. He now has the only cable news show I try and watch everyday (I don’t even do that for Olbermann or Maddow). One of the big reasons is what Taylor Marsh nails down:
Meet the new hero of economic rage, and the foreshadowing of things to come. Dylan Ratigan gets it. He absolutely feels my pain, but also my political rage.
How can any Democrat defend the practice of forcing the American people to buy a product from an industry that enjoys a monopoly, with individual choice obliterated by a political party who has always professed to have the people’s back?
As we’ve seen this week, they can’t. It’s been a Dexter size political bloodbath for anyone who has tried.

Here is Dylan this morning fed up with Democrats feeding us the same old BS. His victim today was Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

I’ll admit I always liked Debbie and even felt a tad-bit sorry for her today, but the fact is that people in the House and Senate are starting to look at the election next year and they figure their best salvation is to get something – anything—through Congress.

Chris Matthews just said people who don’t like this crap health care bill are not real Democrats – they are netroots. He then went on to accuse us of not voting our whole lives or doing anything for the party.
Fuck you, you fat pompous ass hole.
I have spent the last 22 years of my life involved in politics. I have always voted. I have gone and busted my ass for countless elections and held party positions. How dare you accuse me of not being a real Democrat.
Do you really think that it is easy for me to oppose this bill? Do you think I’m doing it for fucking money or something? This blog makes less than $100 a year.
You have no right to sit there and accuse me, or any other Democrat going through the pain of watching something we wanted all our lives go down the toilet of not being real Democrats.
And forget about me. What about Howard Dean? This guy was a governor, presidential candidate and chairman of the DNC. You’re saying he isn’t a real Democrat?
No apology will be accepted this time. You have gotten off with saying outrageous things like this too many times and then just going “oops” the next day. It’s past time for MSNBC to show you the same fate as the old horse that just got done running his last race.

Al Franken has shown the most balls we have seen from Democrats in a long time, and today was no exception. Here is Al shutting up Joe Lieberman, which then enraged McCain:

An awesome special comment tonight from Keith:

Of course his friends are Conservatives like American Future Fund, which is airing this new ad in Connecticut.

Can the Democrats stop pretending that Joe Lieberman is their friend now? Seriously?

I agree with Dean 100%

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a new 60-second ad targeting Rahm Emanuel:

Rahm is a good target, but I think we should also look at Obama, who is ultimately in charge. We didn’t blame a lot of the stuff that happened under Bush solely on Karl Rove, so we can’t do the same today.

Yesterday on Hardall, Alan Grayson had a strong message for the former vice-president – STFU!

About time the Democratic leader in the Senate showed some balls. Here he is today fired up over the news that Aetna is going to shit-can up to 650,000 clients just so they can get better profits:

Transcript via The Plum Line:
“You see, one of the largest private insurance companies in America made a lot of money last year -– more than a billion dollars, in fact. Its chairman and CEO took home at least $100 million of that money himself.
“This health care company is going to make a healthy profit again this year. But its executives decided the profit they’re making isn’t quite big enough. So this multibillion-dollar company found a clever way to make sure next year’s bottom line is even bigger: it’s raising its rates.
“As you might expect, those higher premiums are going to be too expensive for many. How many? It could be as many as 650,000 people.
“That’s more than the entire populations of North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. It’s more than the entire populations of Baltimore and Boston and Denver and Seattle. How many people is this one company willing to drop? You could count every man, woman and child in Las Vegas and still have almost 100,000 people left over.
“But here’s the worst part: That shocking estimate comes directly from the president of the company himself. The means the company devised this strategy, crunched the numbers and saw how many American families it was going to hurt. Then the bosses shrugged their shoulders and decided to go ahead with it anyway.”

Sounds like Judd Gregg is really pushing to expand the size of our federal government in this video clip:

Transcript via Think Progress:
DR. NANCY: So what do you say to the average American who has played by all the rules who can’t have the same health care you have, and you’re one of our elected officials?
GREGG: (laughs) Well, you know, if you work for the government, you’ll get the same health care I have. I mean, I have the same health care as a person who works for the Secret Service, who works for the FBI, or works down at the local federal building.

I just love how he laughs when asked about people who can’t get quality healthcare. I’m sure those people aren’t laughing one bit you inconsiderate prick.

It was 30 years ago today that eleven young people were trampled to death while trying to get in to see The Who in concert in Cincinnati. The main cause of the tragedy was “stadium seating”, where patrons got their seats on a first come first serve basis. It lead the way to Cincinnati imposing a 25 year ban on the practice, which sparked the same response from other cities around the country.
Here is news coverage of that cold December night in 1979:

To help remember this tragic event, one of the worst of its kind in our nation’s history, the Cincinnati Enquirer has opened up a special blog where readers can post the memories of that night. There is also a vigil being held in downtown Cincinnati tonight. Here’s hoping that tragedies like this never happen again.

I got a feeling tweety felt an awful lot of heat today.

Transcript via Think Progress:
MATTHEWS: Now I’ve heard too many politicians say things like, “oh that was taken out context” to explain something they wish they hadn’t said let me just say to the cadets, their parents, former cadets and everyone who cares about this country and those who defend it: I used the wrong words and worse than that I said something that is just not right and for that I deeply apologize.
As those who watch me regularly probably got right away, my point was that the military up at West Point was probably a skeptical audience for President Obama given his strong position against the war in Iraq and generally more dovish image. I was wrong to make that conclusion based on the lack of applause or apparent enthusiasm in the ranks of officers and cadets last night.

That’s what he said in a short appearance this morning:

Well we have seen what that translates into throughout this whole debate so I’m not expecting much out of him.

Last night Chris Matthews referred to the former veep as a “troll”. I will give tweety credit on this line, as it was funny, as compared to his comparison of West Point as the “enemy camp”

And so I present us with the official Dick Cheney troll doll: