As our fine LO editor nothstine aptly noted this morning, there's some national blogger blowback hitting Senator Ron Wyden in the face today: Atrios has named him the Wanker of the Day, and Digby goes into somewhat more detail that concludes the same thing--the continued obsession of Wyden for bipartisan results on health care reform is bizarre, pointless, and decidedly NOT conducive to getting effective reform passed.
The original source of their ire is a piece published last night by Huffington Post's Sam Stein, showing that indeed, Wyden continues to operate under the assumption that inter-party comity is the prime directive. That may have been relatively stomach-able when it was Gordon Smith and Mt. Hood Wilderness, but it's just damned foolish on health care.{analysis, below!}
In an interview this week with the Huffington Post, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) maintained that there was still "great interest in the Finance Committee for a bipartisan bill on both sides of the aisle" and he urged lawmakers to continue to pursue a collaborative path. He would not comment directly on news that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had urged the Committee's Chairman, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop efforts to attract Republican support. But he also didn't hide his own preferences.
"I'm committed to the priority that the president laid out," said Wyden. "I think the president got it right. He said 'I want to get it done this year' and he also indicated that his first choice is to have a bipartisan bill because he recognizes that a bipartisan bill allows the country to come together."
Asked whether he would support cloture on health care legislation that he would ultimately oppose -- so as to preempt a Republican filibuster -- Wyden was noncommittal.
Funny thing, how the President's directive on bipartisanship is to be heeded no matter what--but his directive on including a public option to be ignored, much like his opinion that Wyden's bill is 'too radical' to be considered among reform options. Does anyone else find it extremely weird for an otherwise intelligent Senator to brush off contending with serious policy choices, but is ready to go to the mattresses over process--and a fully meaningless process at that?
What really chaps me, however, is the last line of that excerpt: asked whether he would support cloture, Wyden could not commit. Every Democrat in Congress, House or Senate, from ultralib Keith Ellison to newjack freak Arlen Specter, should be compelled to have a kneejerk answer ready every time this question comes up: Of COURSE I'll support cloture, even if I might vote against the bill. Failure on this point is to allow that maybe the absurd manipulations of a rump regional party have some merit, and should possibly be supported.
I have to say, while I've showed repeated and strong disappointment with Senator Wyden on this issue, I've defended his integrity and committment to doing his job in the best way he knows. As much as I think he's dead wrong and showing a seriously poor grasp of what Democrats were elected to do the last two cycles, if he thinks Broderism reigns supreme all I can do is bitch. But there is no logical justifiation--NONE--for hemming and hawing over whether you'd vote for cloture so that the concept of majority rule can actually start getting applied like it used to be. Under what circumstances could he possibly see voting to prolong debate on a Democratic health care bill?
Wyden goes on to suggest that supporting a public option on principle is akin to saying you support a specific bill that has it:
On a public plan for insurance coverage, for instance, Wyden maintained that while he supports the concept, he could not commit to backing a bill because of one singular component.
"You just can't give a simple yes or no answer to that, because real health reform is so much bigger than its individual parts," he said. "And the reason I say that is that real reform means containing costs. Now the reason I'm open to a public option is that a public option is one way that could contain costs. But throughout my comments about health reform, I've never said I'm going to vote for health reform because of one component."
I'm sorry, I have to again call horseshit on him here. No one is asking you, "Do you support the HELP committee's bill?" What they are asking is, no matter whose bill it shows up in, do you support a full and robust public option? Yes, reform is bigger than its individual parts--but the parts determine what kind of reform it will be, and you are quite fairly expected to be forthright about what parts you favor or don't. Being "open" to one is a needless passivity that looks a lot more like fence-riding in context, given that the plan you've said has "the right approach"--your own--doesn't actually include the establishment of any such options.
Wyden goes on to venerate cost control as the grail of reform, and suggests that voters share his primary interest. I don't recall seeing much about controlling the cost for the GOVERNMENT to provide health care...but a whole lot about what it costs PEOPLE to have health care, and what it costs to lose it or not be able to afford it in the first place. And if he's so concerned about what's on the minds of voters, what is causing his blind spot on the overwhelming interest in a public option, and overwhelming disinterest in taxing benefits, which Wyden's plan uses as funding?
Finally, you start to wonder: after the President knocked his plan, and Harry Reid said his funding mechanism could cost 10-15 Democratic votes (admittedly validating Wyden's call for bipartisanship the following day), what will it take for Wyden to stand down on his own plan? How about anonymous "strategist" sources?
The bill, which would effectively do away with the employer-based system and replace it with state-run pools of different health care coverage, has supporters on the Hill and (at least privately) in the White House. It achieves 100 percent coverage without a massive government expansion.
But strategists intimately involved in the reform battle say there is no chance that Wyden's proposal will make its way to the president's desk. "Absolutely no chance whatsoever," said one Democratic strategist. "None. Zip."
That, however, hasn't diminished Wyden's efforts to move the debate in his direction. He noted with pride that over the course of 18 months, he and Peter Orszag -- then the head of the Congressional Budget Office and now the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget -- have tried out "various iterations" of new legislation that would be both efficient and effective. Recently, he added, another senator had come on board as a cosponsor -- Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) -- which brings the number of lawmakers to14. Wyden even hints that his legislation has the president's support, too -- at least philosophically.
I don't know what to call this, other than completely delusional. He thinks POTUS supports him philosophically, when it was specifically his bill's philosophy--shifting insurance from employer-provision to individual-purchase--that the President rejected? Is he walking the halls with his fingers in his ears every time someone points out privately what they're saying anonymously--that his bill is DOA?
This is truly frustrating behavior from Senator Wyden. One can only hope that by continuing to shine a spotlight on his "unique" perspectives, he will join the ranks of other Senators who had to be shamed and browbeaten into doing their fucking jobs for us, like we elected them to. I did not vote for you to make Chuck Grassley happy, Ron. Like 3/4 of the country, I truly don't give a shit what Grassley thinks...why do you?