[LINK] "If only the Tsar knew!"

[rfmcdonald]

Johnny Pez writes about the speculation that Obama might be purposely weakening the health care bill before Congressional discussion for the sake of his party's finances.

In this version of events, Joe Lieberman is not acting on his own to make the bill as unpleasant to liberals as possible. Instead, Lieberman is simply doing what Obama wants him to do: stripping out the parts of the bill that the health-care industry doesn't like, while keeping in the parts that the industry does like. Greenwald notes that Lieberman has received no criticism from the White House for doing this. Rather, the White House has reserved its criticism for Howard Dean, who has pointed out just how corporate-friendly the bill has become and who has publicly called for the defeat of the bill.

This is politics the DLC way: a big wet sloppy kiss for corporate interests and a flip of the bird to the party's liberal base. These are the principles that Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has espoused throughout his political career, and presumably that's why Obama made him Chief of Staff in the first place.

If this is what's really going on, then Obama is a DLC Democrat, and always has been. Those who defend Obama, saying that he was helpless to influence events, and that it was all Rahm's fault, or all Joe's fault, are in denial. It's no use crying, "If only the Tsar knew!" because, as always, the Tsar has known, and approved, all along.

Disappointing, sure, socialized health care would be good for the United States, but I've no idea why people expected that President Obama wouldn't act as a politician careful to ensure his continued viability as a leader after he was elected. Expecting him to be a messiah of some sort was ridiculous. The insanely lofty rhetoric used to describe a perfectly good and idealistic man is the sort of thing that got him a Nobel Peace Prize. Just because he's not George Bush doesn't mean that he's an angel.