Stockholm Syndrome

by digby

Matt Yglesias observes that we liberal purists are getting a lot of advice that we need to be pragmatic and agree to drop the public option. He cites this nauseating piece by the industry bootlicking Al From as an example. It truly is beyond insulting to be lectured to about pragmatism from millionaire whores, but I guess that’s just the way politics are practiced these days. Everybody’s got to make a living.

But Yglesias asks the question that always goes unasked when these little advisories are passed around:

But what these exhortations to practicality always miss is that this is a two-way street. If you think the public option isn’t that big a deal and it’s not worth spiking health reform over it, then you ought to think that it’s not worth spiking health reform in order to kill it either. So far there’s been basically no pressure in the media on members who take this position to justify their extreme level of opposition. I get, for example, that Kent Conrad supports the Finance Committee version of health care and opposes adding a public option to it. But suppose a public option does get added. Does that suddenly take a vast package of reforms that he played a key role in crafting and turn it into a terrible bill? Why would that be? Surely Conrad is as aware as anyone else in congress that in order to pass a large, complicated health reform bill many senators are going to have to vote “yes” on a bill that contains some provisions they oppose. After all, the health reform bill contains hundreds of provisions! Are moderate members really so fanatically devoted to the interests of private health insurance companies that they would take a package they otherwise support and kill it purely in order to do the industry’s bidding on one point?

Everyone says that Obama has to pass health care reform or the agenda is sunk. But why should they assume that the liberals are the ones who will have to do a gut check and decide if they can actually kill the bill? Does everyone just naturally believe that these jackass centrists will deliver their president a death blow in his first term but the liberals won’t? It certainly seems that way.

Of course, they are likely making the assumption that the president agrees with the centrists, which may very well be true. But that doesn’t change the political dynamic. Somebody’s going to have to eat shit and there’s no real reason why it should be the majority of the Democratic caucus. After all, the Republicans are off the field.

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