President Nancy Pelosi

According to the New York Times and Politico, Barack Obama was not the one who circled the Democratic wagons and revived health insurance reform to the point that today's vote could happen.

It was Nancy Pelosi, the stories claim, who stood up to both Barack Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who wanted to settle for minor changes to health care after the election of Republican Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat.

During a mid-February conference call with top House Democrats, Pelosi made it clear she would accept nothing short of a big-bang health care push – dismissing the White House chief of staff as an “incrementalist.”

. . .

The groundwork for Sunday’s vote was laid out during a three-day marathon White House negotiating session, which took place in the week before the Massachusetts special election Jan. 19. ... there was a stark reminder during those three days of the differing styles of the House and the Senate, and how that divide would define the next two months.

On the second day, Obama asked the House and Senate leaders to return after dinner with $70 billion in suggested cuts from the bill. The senators hunkered down in Sen. Max Baucus’s office, ordered pizzas and drew up a list of trims. Each senator gave up something, aides said.

Later that night, back at the White House, the House presented its approach: They would cut nothing. Obama, not persuaded, sent them to different rooms, and told them to keep working at it.

Eventually, they whittled the gap down to $20 billion, and Obama made his own suggestions.

Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, seemed pleased. “I don’t speak for the House, but you have put forward a serious set of numbers,” he said to Obama, according to a person present.

Pelosi was not so impressed. “Mr. President, I agree with Henry on two points,” she said before turning to Waxman. “The president put out a set of numbers, and you don’t speak for the House of Representatives.”

Obama was done. He left the room in frustration, telling his aides to deal with it.

. . .

Around the time of Brown’s victory, Pelosi and her staff became alarmed by reports, in the New York Times and elsewhere, that consensus was growing for the House passing the Senate bill as-is – with no reconciliation.

Pelosi, according to several associates, went through the roof, telling Obama and Emanuel that there was no chance her members would pass the Senate bill with its excise tax and sweetheart deals.

It was Nancy Pelosi, not Barack Obama, who provided the leadership required to get the Democrats back on track for their major legislative agenda item of the Congressional term. Obama, rather than leading, followed her lead- almost completely unable to get her to bend or even give on anything.

This story reinforces what has become more and more apparent as time goes on: Barack Obama is a legislator, not a leader. He can campaign well and give good speeches at rallies, but aside from this he has shown absolutely no leadership qualities at all. The closest he has come to doing so is through his continued efforts to ensure that the crimes of the Bush Administration go forever unanswered for...

... which, considering Nancy Pelosi's past history on the subject, might also be a case of Pelosi's leadership rather than Obama's own.

And, to be honest, Nancy Pelosi is not a President I would ever, ever have voted for. In addition to being completely opposed to holding war criminals accountable (possibly because she herself is complicit in at least some of those crimes), she has a record of putting her own and her party's electoral prospects ahead of the good of the country- and even ahead of the things her party supposedly stands for, as I believe the current health insurance reform bill is a prime example.

But we've seen it since the stimulus package debate last year, when Nancy Pelosi took Obama's proposals and basically said, "Who runs Bartertown?" You can't even really say that Barack Obama has ever backed down from Nancy Pelosi... because, for the most part, he's never STOOD UP to Nancy Pelosi.

Or, for that matter, to pretty much anyone.

Well, the odds are very good that next year Pelosi will merely be Minority Leader- if that- and Obama will face instead Speaker John Boehner and a Republican majority. Maybe then we'll see some leadership out of him- although I severely doubt it.

In the meantime, Nancy Pelosi is effectively President, at least on all domestic affairs... and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is just a house.

The Unwanted Return of Cull Day

Too many bookmarks and open browser windows, and I have to shut down the machine come morning to go work at a convention (because that's what I do).

So, I declare today a Cull Day- when I take all the bookmarked stories and stuff I won't be able to make a full-length post on anytime soon, and hand them to you, my handful of readers, with a few personal notes.

Beginning with Rep. Bart Stupak (D in name only-M). One day he claims to anticipate a compromise on his holding out for an amendment to the Senate health care bill to essentially ban all insurance coverage for abortions (so that federal subsidies and tax breaks can't be used to pay for abortions). Today he says there's no compromise in sight, and that he and eleven other Democrats will still vote no on health care over the abortion issue. Well, thank goodness he's getting a serious primary contender... maybe I should send off a campaign donation.

Texas judge rescinds anti-death penalty ruling - See, this is why judges should NOT be elected. At most a recall or retention election might be a good idea... but subjecting the justice system to political pressure, and allowing scum like Goodhair Perry to appeal to the ignorance of the people to threaten the tenure of a sitting judge, is a HORRIBLE way to ensure that justice is done.

Alan Grayson introduces Public Option Act - Why can't I have THIS guy for my representative? Well, besides the fact that he's from Florida. Anyway, it's not even the classic public option- it's literally Medicare For All, except that those under 65 would have to pay premiums if they want in, so that the expansion is revenue-neutral.

Fired Up - Andrew Sullivan is glad to see Obama finally taking his fight for health care reform to the people. I'm not so enthusiastic- mainly because Obama has fought to kill any publicly-funded competition to insurance corporations while doing absolutely nothing to prevent healthcare providers from jacking up their charges once this passes- you know, like they did in Massachusetts, when pretty much an identical health insurance reform was enacted, and health care costs promptly jumped 60% in three years. But more to the point: why, exactly, has Obama remained silent until his cornerstone program was in imminent threat of total collapse?

Creeping Clintonism; Or How Rahm Is A Scaredy-Cat - This time I agree with Sullivan so completely that I have absolutely nothing to add.

The Pro-Israel Lobby And The New Israel - Another Sullivan post- I'll quote my favorite bit here:

Nothing illustrates better the total bizarreness of the US-Israel relationship. No one in Washington - apart from a few Likudniks and Palinite end-timers - actually supports more settlements or any settlements i the West Bank. At the same time, Washington exercizes a UN veto to protect Israel from international law, funnels a vast amount of foreign and military aid to the country, helped finance the pulverization of Gaza last year, provides absurd international cover for Israel's 150 nukes, has worked tirelessly to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capacity, and on and on.

In return? Fuck you, Obama. To which the overwhelming response in Washington is: Obama screwed up.

Cornyn Pledges GOP Will Run On Repealing Health Care Reform - And this, folks, is why health care reform SHOULD take place IMMEDIATELY... and not be postponed until (under the most current version) 2018, after Obama is long gone. It's almost certain to be repealed by a Republican Congress and a Republican President before then- and there WILL be such a combination, because the health care reform package is going to remain deeply unpopular unless it contains a public option or unless the individual mandate is repealed. Only when (and if- I have the liveliest doubts) the reforms prove their worth in making health care affordable for everyone will they become too popular to repeal... and that won't happen, by DESIGN, for ten years.

GOP Lawyer's Latest Gambit: State Bill That Could Tie Up Health-Care Reform - Nullification lives, despite being quite obviously and blatantly unconstitutional... and can secession be far behind?

Waterboarding for dummies - Yes, despite what we were told, the American version of waterboarding turns out to actually have been MORE cruel than methods used by the Spanish Inquisition, the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II, and the Khmer Rouge. But not to worry, torture advocates- your poster boy's former boss is still on the Supreme Court, still ruling that torture is perfectly legal.

On a similar note, you simply must read this essay by Andrew Sullivan about what torture is doing to our nation. Especially since, despite the uncontested evidence, every door that might lead to justice keeps being slammed shut.

Virginia AG To State Colleges: Scrap Protections For Gay Workers - To explain, a quote:

In a letter to the state's institutions of higher learning, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli argues that the schools lack the legal authority to ban anti-gay discrimination, because only the state legislature can do so, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. That's a step that the GOP-controlled legislature recently declined to take.

Now, in my book this isn't just an order to all the colleges in Virginia to take away protections against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. This is, in effect, a direct order to begin/resume discriminating against gays. Cuccinelli is saying that colleges do not have the authority to NOT discriminate. And this is after the newly elected governor of the same state repealed all anti-discrimination protections for homosexuals. Republicans prove themselves once again opponents of freedom and advocates of fear, hatred and evil.

That's all for now- see you all next week.

Torture: Is it Emanuel, Not Obama?

This New Yorker article about Eric Holder's attempts to get a trial for Khalid Sheik Mohamed in civilian courts is fascinating reading, and I strongly recommend it.

But I want to focus on one little piece:

Emanuel viewed many of the legal problems that Craig and Holder were immersed in as distractions. “When Guantánamo walked in the door, Rahm walked out,” the informed source said. . . . But Emanuel adamantly opposed a number of Holder’s decisions, including one that widened the scope of a special counsel who had begun investigating the C.I.A.’s interrogation program. Bush had appointed the special counsel, John Durham, to assess whether the C.I.A. had obstructed justice when it destroyed videotapes documenting waterboarding sessions. Holder authorized Durham to determine whether the agency’s abuse of detainees had itself violated laws. Emanuel worried that such investigations would alienate the intelligence community. But Holder, who had studied law at Columbia with Telford Taylor, the chief American prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials, was profoundly upset after seeing classified documents explicitly describing C.I.A. prisoner abuse. The United Nations Convention Against Torture requires the U.S. to investigate credible torture allegations. Holder felt that, as the top law-enforcement officer in the U.S., he had to do something.

Emanuel couldn’t complain directly to Holder without violating strictures against political interference in prosecutorial decisions. But he conveyed his unhappiness to Holder indirectly, two sources said. Emanuel demanded, “Didn’t he get the memo that we’re not re-litigating the past?”

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/15/100215fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all#ixzz0f5gj78gX

So, the question is: is it Rahm Emanuel who has Obama's ear regarding torture issues? Is it Emanuel, and not Obama, who strongly believes that accountability is less important than getting along with the Republicans?

Both Rahm and Obama have records of bipartisan collegiality- Obama in the Illinois legislature, Rahm in the US House. Both probably share the same belief in the importance of good relationships with the opposition. (The problem, of course, is that the opposition put no importance in that at all- Republicans want all their opponents destroyed, and have never been shy about saying so since Nixon.) Given their mutual desire to "play nice" with the enemy, combined with Emanuel's reported hard-ass tactics against his allies, the fact that either, or both, would seek to protect their "friends" across the aisle from the consequences of their own actions makes sense.

If Obama is allowing Emanuel to be his Cheney- the power behind the throne- then the ultimate responsibility is still the President's. Still, it would be interesting to know if Emanuel's influence is the dominant factor in Obama's decision to block all investigation of or prosecution for war crimes, particularly torture.

Because Emanuel, at least, can be fired without an election.