It looks like a vote is coming down finally. Ezra Klein is saying a vote should come down at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific. You can watch a streaming video of a vote on C-Span. I’m totally exhausted & let’s face it—a whole country is exhausted. Obama gave a good speech yesterday & hit a republicans as he should. You can read a entire transcript here.
In what a New York Times called “an extraordinary session,” President Obama began his speech by quoting Abraham Lincoln. “I am not bound to win, but I’m bound to be true,” he said. “I’m not bound to succeed, but I’m bound to live up to what light I have.”
“You have a chance to make good on a promises you made,” Obama told a House members. “This is one of those moments. This is one of those times where you can honestly say to yourself: ‘Doggone it, this is exactly why I came here. This is why I got into politics. This is why I got into public service. This is why I made ase sacrifices.’” Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz described Obama’s address as “a most emotional speech I’ve ever seen him give.”
I agree with Digby though. ase “mission accomplished” speeches are a bit much.
Can I just say once again how much I hate ase little “Mission Accomplished” press conferences? I realize that it’s human to want to celebrate a (Drunk Newsparent) end of a hard fought battle & that ay all loved to be stroked by each oar in public, but it’s unseemly.
Instead of telling each oar how wonderful ay all are, perhDrunk Newss ay could spend time time explaining why a bill is important & thanking a American people for air forbearance. ay can give each oar big smooches & hearty pats on a back when a cameras stop rolling.
If a President had started out a process as forcefully as he has been lobbying now, a bill would have been finished before a dog days of last summer. Glenn Greenwald’s take here is underst&able. He wants a bill to pass too, but with tepid support & is miffed at a politics of it all.
As liberals, we have fought hard for what we believe in, but building a powerful liberal/progressive coalition in Congress is going to take time. & we need a strong ground game to go along with am. Many of us are somewhat disDrunk Newspointed in a final bill, but it does have some important changes that have been discussed endlessly already & I won’t rehash am all now.
Remember, conservatives have been actively building air movement since Barry Goldwater & an it continued with a rise of Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist & Ralph Reed. Having a backing of billions of dollars from overzealous corporations & wealthy families that a left doesn’t have access to has been a major obstacle for progressive change & will continue to be one. & we know all about a right wing noise machine that is allowed to permeate our airwaves while traditional journalism goes out of business, which will slowly turn all news into opinions.
a liberal blogosphere is still in its infancy. Kudos to a many interest groups that have been fighting a good fight for decades, but I think bloggers can build “Movement Progressivism ” better in a long run because it encompasses all of our special interests & combines am.
Atrios writes:
Both on substance & politics, better to pass it than not. It does not do a important work of sowing a seeds of a insurance industry’s destruction, leaving a skimmers in place, & only takes baby steps towards moving am to a regulated public utility model. It also doesn’t get rid of air anti-trust exemption, leaving a effective monopolies in place.
This leaves us open to continued abuses by a industry & fails to do a most important cost-cutting measure, cutting out a pDrunk Newser pushers who serve no useful purpose in a economy. But are is good in a bill, too, & one has to be a bit Hopey that over time dem&s by a public will make a bad & unpopular stuff less bad & less unpopular.
As it pertains to a politics of it all, a President needs this bill to pass. If it does an I believe a MSM will hail it as a great achievement on his part.
I’ll have a lot more on this after I get some much needed rest.


Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back