And It Keeps Getting Better

The leading replacement for Daschle for HHS secretary? As Digby points out, it's our old friend Blue Dog Jim Cooper.

I wrote the other night about that Blue Dog ass Jim Cooper and how he stuck the shiv into Obama and the stimulus. And I noted this important piece by Mike Lux about Cooper's important role in the tanking of the Clinton health care plan in 1994.

Well, guess what? He's being discussed as the replacement for Daschle at HHS, which is only slightly less ludicrous than the silly idea of Newt Gingrich in the job.

Jim Cooper is an enemy of universal health care. He will, howver, work to ensure that the insurance industry and the Big Pharma gets more of your tax dollars.

Hell, why not. We're going down in flames anyway. Cooper is the quintessential Blue Dog jagoff, having personally led the effort to screw over progressives since the Clinton era. Digby continues:

Read on. And keep in mind that this person simply does not believe in universal health care and he is perfectly comfortable undermining his own president without a second thought. He's already done it to Obama on the stimulus and he will do it again with his very, very clever GOP-style ability to manipulate the press. They need to keep him away from health care.

The country cannot afford another giveaway to Big Insurance and Pharma and desperately needs a complete overhaul of the system in order to get costs into line and get people covered. This recession is going to end up making more than 50 million people without health insurance, very possibly more than that. Many more are terribly underinsured. Obama cannot put some slimy Blue Dog opportunist in charge of it.

The only comfort is the economy is going to tank so badly that Cooper won't be able to get any money to do any damage.