Am I Hallucinating?

by digby

Jonathan Alter went on MSNBC and spoke village heresy today. It started off with a typical snotty observation from one of the interchangeable hostesses:

Snotty Hostess: The first question I have is, is this the worst thing that could happen to Obama politically? To have folks on the left grousing that he’s not liberal enough? I mean isn’t that kind of his dream come true in terms of the general election?

Alter: Well, It always helps to be positioned in the center when you’re in politics. But he doesn’t have an election coming up right now. I think it’s very helpful for him to be pushed a little bit from the left so that he doesn’t cave too quickly in the hurly burly of making a deal on health care. The big issue for the left is the so-called public option. Will he fulfill his campaign promise and allow Americans to buy into a government health care program similar to medicare, the kind of thing that congressmen are able to get? Should all all Americans be entitled to buy into that?

That’s a big liberal priority and it’s very, very important, not just for getting a good bill Savannah, but for cutting costs in the long run because only with some competition will the insurance companies restrict costs. So that’s a point that the president has been making in the last few days, but it’s important for liberals to hold his feet to the fire with it.

transcript by me — d