No there, there

One of my favorite bloggers, the brilliant and thorough journalist, "Digby," writing at "Hullabaloo," does a take on the "Third Way" group:

If there's one mealy mouthed "centrist" bucket of lukewarm spit operation in Washington that makes me crazy (and there are many to choose from) I would have to say that Third Way is the one. They fetishize bipartisanship, compromise and difference splitting to the point where there is no there there and the conservatives win simply because they have a pulse.

Yesterday McJoan at DKos published a Third Way memo which predictably comes out against the public plan option in health care reform ---which indicates to me that it is probably considered by most buckets of lukewarm spit to be the bargaining chip in the debate . (And what do you know? It turns out that Third Way's memo was written by health industry flacks.)

I keep reminding myself that, while I want the most progressive possible solution to my choice of issues, President Obama has to consider everything, to set priorities for fights he will engage, to balance the practical against the ideal, and to consider what is possible to get passed by Congress.

Still, I am dismayed that it's beginning to seem that true health care reform is doomed to the power of the insurance lobby and to those, like Third Way, who have decided that the public plan option is the bargaining chip to be given away in return for some minor reform measures.

True, Obama has been sitting back and letting Congress work out the details, and he has not himself yet given up on the public plan -- and he has signalled that he is now going to get more actively involved in the negotiations.

But -- allowing Bauchus to hold hearings without even putting "single payer" on the agenda for discussion, letting Blue Dog Dems backslide and the tide to turn against "public plan," I wonder if he has waited too late.

Or -- dare we even mention that his campaign received the largest contributions from the industry to any senator during 2008: $38 million from insurance companies, $1 million from health services, and $2 million from BigPharma. It's true, they were getting on board with the future president, and the next biggest contributions went to John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

I don't want to believe that Obama would let his health care reform plans be influenced by money. But I worry that we're going to wind up with one of those "compromises" that is inadequate to effect real change, but still costs a lot and doesn't work -- and it will set back the whole push for it by years.

Polls show that the public is not so averse to a single-payer plan as are politicians. Where are the courageous progressive senators that have the clout to push it through?

Ralph