We love you, Michael Moore! We especially love you because right after the Senate Finance Committee twice voted down the public option (government-run health plan) that is the lynchpin of Obamacare, you had this to say:
To the Democrats in Congress…find your spine. Read the polls. And see us coming.
Yes! Listen to the socialist film mogul! Ram through some socialized medicine, Dems!
As Hot Air’s Allahpundit writes:
Never mind the polls showing that the public’s already gagging on a watered-down bill; never mind the warnings from analysts across the spectrum that the GOP’s set for major gains in Congress next year thanks to the backlash over government expansion; never mind the fact that, against that backdrop, Blue Dogs aren’t about to fall on a grenade for Obama by agreeing to a public option, let alone single-payer, no matter how much of his own political capital the president might be willing to invest. In fact, at this point, it might be more than just the Blue Dogs who are ready to bail.
Needless to say, I encourage Obama to take his advice, thereby dooming the bill in Congress, confirming the worst fears of grassroots conservatives that the president’s a none-too-secret socialist, and making a Republican tidal wave next year pretty much a fait accompli….
Nonetheless, Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is still insisting that the public option can garner 51 votes on the Senate floor–even though centrist Democrats and all Republicans (except maybe Olympia Snowe) have said they won’t support a bill containing that provision. Harkin is also counting on the presumably filibuster-proof 60-Democrat Senate majority that would allow the public option to slip into the bill by amendment on the Senate floor.
I don’t think the Blue Dogs are dumb enough to fall for the Harkin strategy myself–because it’s always a good idea to take off in the opposite direction from anything pushed by Michael Moore.