Many progressive friends have been critical of President Obama and Congress' goals towards health care reform since the debate began in earnest back in late spring. They were angry that a single payer form of government supported health care had been taken off the table.
But many of those liberals held their noses as at least they could contend with a "robust" public option. Now that too, appears to be off the table, at least in the Senate version.
That anger has been unleashed after Howard Dean gave them a permission slip to do so after he came out foursquare against the Senate bill earlier this week. Progressive bloggers and talk shows hosts like MSNBC's Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann are following suit.
The White House is obviously concerned; Politico reports this morning that that David Axelrod and Nancy DeParle from the White House conducted a conference call last night with a host of bloggers from sites like Daily Kos, Open Left, Crooks and Liars, the Huffington Post, and The Nation.
Politico reports that:
In response to one blogger who chided the White House for failing to fight for the public option while taking "potshots" at the liberal activists, DeParle said: "The president is fighting for this. … You have no idea how many hours, how many hundreds of hours he has spent, how many phone calls he has made, how many meetings he has had. … We need your help and we don't mean to be chiding you. But please appreciate how hard this is."
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2009.