Day of dismay

Today, I'm feeling dismay on several fronts.

1. Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei's Friday prayer sermon indicates that, at least temporarily, the hard liners still have control and intend to crack down on the protest movement. He declared the election an "absolute victory" for Ahmadinejad, has denied a permit for Saturday's rally, which will lead to a bloody confrontation with paramilitary forces. It could be a massacre.

It's a critical point, and it looks like the work of Rafsanjani behind the scenes was not successful. So it's either have the protest fizzle out or be squashed by a violent confrontation with government forces.

2. Obama's caution and waffling on gay rights issues is beyond what seems necessary to avoid having it be a distraction from his necessary other key issues of the economy and health care reform. His slight expansion of partner benefits for federal employees is just too little to make up for foot-dragging on DOMA and DODT, to say nothing of egregious defense of DOMA in a court case. My head tells me that he's being the practical politician; my heart feels like he has betrayed his promises to the gay community.

3. The battle for effective health care reform seems about to be lost. Tom Daschle and his pals at the Bipartisan Policy Center are advising Obama to drop the public option. And the Senate Finance Committee's proposal doesn't even mention public option. And this is in spite of 70% support from the American people for some form of public plan.

Without the public option plan, real change is not going to happen. It was predictable when single-payer wasn't even on the agenda; the strategy should have been demand single-payer and compromise for public option plan. Instead, there was half-hearted support for public option, which lost out in the compromise.

They're hiding behind the spectre of excessive cost. The Congressional Budget Office has given a price tag far higher than Obama had estimated. So now all those who've been collecting big bucks from the insurance companies are saying we can't afford it (big surprise).

Well, we could afford the Iraq war; we could afford to bail out the banks and the auto industry; we can afford all the new fighter planes congressmen want; we can build roads to nowhere in Alaska. But there's no money left for effective health care reform. So we'll get a watered-down version, which will give a few more people health insurance, but it won't save money, and will eventually be declared unworkable. "See," the Repubs say, "we told you so."

Bah, humbug.

Ralph