this writer supported a public option health care plan until seeing its latest incarnation, where it criminalizes American taxpayers who cannot afford to buy health insurance, or can't afford to pay an increased government tax if they can't afford insurance. It appears it will criminalize working class Americans. They let the Wall Street fraudsters walk and further target the self-employed or small American businessman, this is outrageous. Especially since foreign nationals in our country illegally are not criminalized, and the foreigners still stand to benefit from American taxpayer funded medical treatment in hospital emergency rooms and free or low cost community clinics. This is fair? Criminalize American taxpayers but give foreign nationals a pass? The Democrats have to do better than this if they want the support of moderate independent voters.

Bad for Obama's health: Listening to this kind of crap! What do you want him to do, lose 2010 in a landslide???!!! Can't you see what's going on? 2009 election blew Obama and Dems out of the water. They will lose more if he actually passes this crap that is this health care plan.

I swear your heads are rammed so far up your asses you can't think!

Annie is still hangin' with Joan and the bitches (canine!), flippin' 'bama the bird by bird. Politely, 'course.

What the hell. Buy you a beer, Sweetie? Er, or whatever you want. Kambucha maybe?

Y' know, ya can't stick your pen in the same internet river twice. Just ask Keillor de Sade.

We're all so unCIVIL now!

have moral courage, the character to be great? I fear not. After all, his health care plan was much less than Hillary's and John Edwards'. He and she promised to vote against telecom immunity. She did. He didn't. Mostly he wanted to be president. He put on his best clothes and his best manners and wooed an American electorate which wanted to fall in love. But after he won fair lady, after the wedding, he stopped shaving and showering and started hanging around in his underwear.

Annie, you know exactly how to tell it like it is. That's why you are such a good writer, and undoubtedly a good person too. I just can't understand why Obama is not living up to his promise. He could be magnificent with hardly any effort, but he just won't do it.

I wasn't implying it's all Obama's fault. But he IS leading with the premise that we have to get GOP votes, rather than telling reid to move ahead without the republicans. And he is spending time on the road trying to convince US that health care reform is a good thing - he should be working on the conservadems instead of the folks at town halls.

How congress works depends on leadership. WHY did the republicans vote in lockstep? Is it that they all believed uniformly? Surely there was pressure at the top, or from somewhere, that got them to vote in lockstep.

Meanwhile, you have Landrieu spouting off nonsense, demonstrating a total lack of understanding of the bill - why isn't someone, Obama, Biden, other dems, Freaking Reid!!, talking to her, explaining to her that she has her head up her ass about this whole thing? How does the democratic leadership allow democrats to remain completely, embarrassingly oblivious about such an important bill?

It's not Obama's fault per se, but the WH can be doing more to get the dems informed, answer their questions, quell their fears, and kick their asses if necessary, than they are doing.

remember when everyone at salon hated lamott for being a hippy christian who routinely wrote about (read: exploited) her poor schmuck of a kid? now all of a sudden she's FUCKIN RAD because she wrote a strongly-worded letter to the prez? yawn. but hey, maybe she and SuperLiberal Glennwald can combine forces and take out obama w/ the power of their Righteous Liberalness.

"Obama realizes that he has to get any bill THROUGH CONGRESS. This means, in the Senate, with 40 Republicans, plus Lieberman, Lincoln, and Nelson, the Progressives in Congress MUST compromise to get anything at all accomplished. It's hard for me to believe that progressives are STILL so childish, after nearly three decades in the political wilderness, as to not understand this. The only way we'll get ANYTHING is to play ball with people who we may not see eye-to-eye with (but who are at least better than the knuckledragging right wing of the GOP)."

dude. just. don't. don't bother. there's no point in bringing up the complicated nature, not only of congress, but of politics in general--that just gets in the way of blaming. i learned this a few years ago when it began to get on my nerves how much people blamed bush for everything. i mean, EVERYTHING. now, i totally think bush is a douche and would never in a million years vote for him, but to say that everything was his fault is just pathetic. right. as if democrats didn't totally support the war when it suited them. (oh, wait. didn't SHEIK obama speak out against it? hmm, must've forgotten about that.) as if democrats aren't a pathetic assortment of fumbling pansies who never fail to fail at just about everything. but let's just blame bush, shall we? and since we can't do that anymore, let's blame obama. everything is obama's fault; in fact, he's even WORSE than bush because he FOOLED US ALL into thinking he was "the smartest guy on the planet." um, no. he may have fooled jerseygirl7 into thinking that, but anyone w/ a modicum of critical thinking resources could see, even from the beginning, that obama was the best of bunch, but would most likely not live up to his promises. why? because it's impossible to do so. why? because of the complexity of the socio-political machine we live in. a president cannot waltz into office and do whatever the fuck he wants, not unless he has a party of Yes Men (republicans) and an opposing party of failbots, aka, the democrats. *everything* obama does will be met w/ vitriolic resistance from the right; again, when bush declared a bullshit war on a sovereign country, who rolled over and spread their asscheeks? the democrats. so, please Glennwaldians, spare me.

also:

"Wrong. Maybe half, at most in my opinion, voted for him to do that. The others were just on a fad kick, like buying a Cabbage Patch doll for their kids; jumping on a bandwagon having no idea where it was headed; thinking they'd feel good about themselves voting for a (half) Black man regardless they couldn't even name his running mate . . . "

why is it that when rush limbaugh says crap like this, it's OMGRACIST, but when salonista onthebeat says it, no one calls him out on it?

my biggest problem w/ obama is that he IS trying to be different and get everyone to work together. doesn't he see it's a fool's game? you're never going to unite people. deep down, people are tribal animals who prefer be suspicious and paranoid about The Other, whatever Other that is (racial, ideological, religious, etc). bitter liberals keep chastising themselves for being "naive" about obama, and they most certainly were, but obama was naive to think that he could reach across the aisle and extend his hand without being bitten. and it isn't just the right who hates him for it, the left hates him for it, too. people only come together when it's about mutually assured destruction.