Obama's folly?

Obama may turn out to have been wisest in the end. My respect for him leaves open that possibility. But right now, I'm feeling that his fetish with bipartisanship is folly -- in this climate of poisonous opposition from the other side. They wouldn't play nice, even if you gave them everything they said they wanted. They're intent on making Obama fail.

So, I was especially interested in Brian Beutler's article on TPM about how Harry Reid made the somewhat surprising choice to include a public option in the senate bill.

According to this: Obama and his reps, Reid, and Chuck Schumer were key players in negotiating. Pressure from progressives had Reid leaning toward it, but Obama's team apparently pushing for the very weak, trigger version. So Schumer and Reid finally prevailed and put in the better plan in spite of Obama's preference for the other.

Jon Stewart had it right, as usual, by lampooning them. He spoke of the ridiculousness of the Democrats negotiating with themselves; and he particularly heaped scorn on those who talked about the "liberal fringe" that was pushing for a public option. "Liberal fringe? That's 55% of the American people who favor it!!," he shouted.

Ralph