Dennis The Menace

Dennis Kucinich may be the guy that drives the knife in on health care reform because it's not progressive enough.  TPM's Brian Beutler:

But one of the House's leading progressives says he's unlikely to be swayed. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) voted against the House health care bill. And his office confirmed to me today that he remains opposed to the Senate bill.

Last week, there were some signs that Kucinich might be persuadable. At a White House meeting Thursday, President Obama apprised Kucinich of a measure in the Senate health care bill--authored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)--that allow individual states to create single payer systems several years down the line. Kucinich was said to be interested in the provision.

Apparently not interested enough.

A couple important caveats: 1). There hasn't been a whip count yet, so members might still be jockeying for leverage, and leadership hasn't had to draw out their big guns yet. 2). In a vote this close, and this important, everything will likely be fluid until the last moment.

But there is some chance, however small, that Kucinich will cast the deciding vote. And for the time being, he's saying he'd rather be the Ralph Nader of reform, instead of its kingmaker. 

Indeed, Kucinich went on Countdown last night with guest host Lawrence O'Donnell and made it painfully clear there was no way in hell he was voting for the measure.



I can respect Kucinich's stand.  But it's this or nothing.  At some point you have to ask yourself if doing absolutely nothing, the status quo that the Republicans will be glad to see continue, is better than this bill.  If Kucinich really thinks the answer is yes, then he's not being true to his principles at all.  Jon Chait:

Without a doubt, Obama’s proposals would leave the health care system far short of what most progressives, myself included, would design in the absence of political constraints. But also without a doubt, it would lift the system far above the status quo that is the only near-term alternative. Here it is, the most dramatic improvement in social justice in at least four decades fighting for its life in the home stretch, and the left can barely be roused to fight for it. The somnolence is far from universal, but on the left there is at least as much passion against health care reform as for it. One of many considerations the vulnerable Democratic moderates who hold reform’s fate in their hands must balance is, in return for the limitless rage of the right, will they get any credit from the left for backing this reform?

Just remember that when the Wingers try to make a hero out of Dennis here.  They hate him and always will...but he's a Useful Idiot to them.