There is a lot of criticism of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on the left. He was too ready to compromise on comprehensive reform, sabotaged the public option, etc. I am too far from the process to offer any fine-tuned criticisms. But I am prepared to say that as former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee he was an architect of the Red to Blue strategy which brought us centrist, anti-abortion, blue dog Democrats.
One price of that is compromise that many of us would prefer to avoid. But Emanuel's strategy's success was confirmed today when Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) today signed on with health care reform, based on the Executive Order putting the Hyde Amendment permanently into law unless withdrawn by a President or overridden by legislation.
The gain is tremendous expansion of government responsibility for the cost of health care and the estimated 32 million increase in the number of people in America with health insurance. I would personally prefer a single payer or Canadian system, but to succeed in politics one needs to be able to count votes. Rahm Emanuel knows how to count votes.
No comments:
Post a Comment