Desperate Insurance Industry Now Running Ads Against Reform

(This post is part of my role as a blogger fellow with Brave New Films' Sick For Profit campaign)

Their strategy to blow up health care reform now blowing up in their face, the insurance industry kicked it up a notch today, by purchasing a million-dollar ad buy designed to scare seniors:

In a late-effort push to alter or torpedo health care reform, the major lobby for private insurers has made a multi-state, million-dollar ad purchase claiming that seniors will see their care cut under Democrat-crafted legislation.

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which released a highly critical (and widely criticized) report slamming the Senate Finance Committee's reform proposal, has quietly put out a new spot claiming that millions of seniors will see their Medicare slashed by Congress.

"Is it right to ask 10 million seniors on Medicare advantage for more than their fair share?" the ad asks. "Congress is proposing over 100 billion in cuts to Medicare advantage. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says many seniors will see cuts in benefits."

You can see the ad here. It's airing in swing states with Democratic Senators: Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, Louisiana and Nevada.

One of two things is going on. The industry may truly be worried about the shape of reform and whether or not it will preserve its profits. Or they are giving space to the Baucus bill, the only one without a public option and the friendliest to their interests, so that liberals can be motivated to pass it or something like it. Savannah Guthrie just said this on MSNBC:

I think there will be courtship of those moderate Senators, but look, one thing I heard this morning here at the White House was that the insurance company report, the Price Waterhouse Cooper report, has actually been helpful to some extent (now granted this may be spin but let me just tell you what their argument is) is helpful because some of the liberal Senators who are concerned that the Baucus bill was just way too easy on the insurance companies, now have some cover. If the insurance companies think it's so objectionable that they're getting off the train and writing this report and signalling they're no longer at the bargaining table on health reform, it must be something that really hurts them.

Reform advocates are having NONE of that. MoveOn has slammed the Baucus bill, which just passed the Senate Finance Committee, in a video featuring health care hero and former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter.

"Take it from me, the Senate Finance bill is a dream come true of the health insurance industry. If there is not public option insurance companies aren't going to change. The choice of a public health insurance option is the only way to keep insurance companies honest."

This is only the beginning of the health care fight, not the end. But the insurance industry has laid their cards on the table. They are against reforming the system in any way that cuts into their profits. And they should not be appeased with a forced market and a monopoly on insurance.

Sometimes We Win One

In a post at Brave New Films' blog about closing in on the insurance industry, I mentioned the case of Dawn Smith, a MoveOn member and CIGNA who suffers from a treatable brain tumor. She spent two years being denied treatment for her tumor, and has seen her premium costs rise consistently since being diagnosed, and then, CIGNA raised her medication a whopping 10,000%. Dawn wrote a letter to CIGNA's Chief Medical Officer asking how they could do this:

Dr. Kang:

As you probably know, your company has denied me needed care for two years while I suffer from a debilitating but treatable brain tumor. I pay my $753.47 premiums. I follow the proper procedures. But CIGNA refuses to give me the care I need.

Instead, you keep increasing my prices. First my premiums rose by hundreds of dollars, and now my prescription costs are going up by more than 10,000%.

What makes you think you can treat sick people this way? When will you stop doing this to me and the thousands of people like me who are suffering? And if you solve this latest problem, how do I know you won't do this to me again next week--that you're actually changing your ways and not just trying to make your PR problem disappear?

Please answer these questions. I need to know, for the sake of my health and my life. Many others have signed this letter too, to support me and make sure I get answers.

Respectfully,
Dawn Smith

MoveOn asked people to join Dawn in signing the letter, and over 100,000 did.

In the comments to the post asking people to co-sign Dawn Smith's letter, a representative from CIGNA responded in the comments:

CIGNA has spoken with Ms. Smith and successfully resolved the issue pertaining to this matter. We originally filled the prescription as prescribed by Ms. Smith’s doctor.

CIGNA learned through a third party political organization that Ms. Smith’s prescription mistakenly did not specify “brand name needed”. We have been in contact with both Ms. Smith and her physician and have corrected the inaccuracy. Customer service and satisfaction is important to us, we remain committed to working with our customers and physicians to ensure they receive the highest level of service.

Without that third party political organization - MoveOn - raising the profile of Dawn's case, there is probably no chance CIGNA would have responded so swiftly. But there's more to do. CIGNA may have agreed to lower the drug costs, and allowed various tests to go forward, but she is not giving up the fight. She wants answers about why she was denied treatment for two years, and why she and so many others have to suffer because CIGNA wants to maximize their profits. Dawn talked about her story in this video, and how it's not unique, but sadly the norm for a rapacious insurance industry that happily takes premium cash but resists giving it out in health care costs.



You can help Dawn by adding your name to a statement of support for her that will be delivered to CIGNA CEO Edward Hanway.

Fighting the insurance industry is a game of inches, but a collection of voices can make a difference. With some help from Congress, we can move toward a system of health care that doesn't involve ganging up on the insurance industry to force them to do the right thing.

Closing In On The Insurance Industry

Lots of groups are taking action against the insurance industry and their attempts to get a forced market for themselves and increase their profits at the expense of their customers.

Health Care For America Now has a new ad spotlighting Stephen Helmsley, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, and his $57,000-an-hour lifestyle, contrasted against the thousands of families who have experienced a medical bankruptcy:



In connection with that, SEIU is encouraging supporters to take out Craigslist ads seeking to rent a room in an insurance company CEO mansion. They have the Craigslist sites for Philadelphia (CIGNA's Edward Hamway), Minneapolis (UnitedHealth's Stephen Helmsley) and Indianapolis (WellPoint's Angela Braly), and sample "room for rent" ads to work from. A sample:

Bankrupt Mother of Two, Seeking Room @ Insurance CEO Mansion

I'’m seeking a room to rent in Cigna CEO Ed Hanway’s $13.6 million dollar mansion. (We'’ll take a room in one of his three beach homes, too.) My family would be very quiet and courteous housemates, and given the size of Ed's mansion, he won't even hear us! I'll be bringing along my two twin girls, both of whom were diagnosed with cancer at the age of four. CIGNA is refusing to pay for the human growth hormone they need to grow properly - and the out-of-pocket expenses for this treatment are…

This is the Craigslist ad of Stacie Ritter of Philadelphia, who is literally holding a protest outside Ed Hamway's home as we speak, standing outside until she gets the care she needs from CIGNA.

MoveOn member Dawn Smith is faced with a similar struggle from CIGNA. They raised her prescription drug costs for her treatable brain tumor by 10,000%. She is writing to CIGNA to seek answers, and you can sign her letter.

What makes you think you can treat sick people this way? When will you stop doing this to me and the thousands of people like me who are suffering? And if you solve this latest problem, how do I know you won't do this to me again next week--that you're actually changing your ways and not just trying to make your PR problem disappear?

Please answer these questions. I need to know, for the sake of my health and my life. Many others have signed this letter too, to support me and make sure I get answers.

The truth is starting to leak out. Even the traditional media is covering stories about insurers denying coverage by calling a broken wrist a pre-existing condition. This is an industry that is doing whatever it can to maximize their profits, even though they know a public option wouldn't bankrupt them. The more people understand how the industry works, the easier it will be to get a health bill that works for all of us.

MoveOn Joins The Fray

The big progressive groups hadn't yet spoken on the question of escalation in Afghanistan - their silence was pronounced. MoveOn finally broke that silence today, appealing to the President to commit to a clear exit strategy. It's a pretty big step.

U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment. President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about the Afghanistan war in the next few weeks. And there’s a big debate happening right now about what to do.

Pro-war advocates both inside and outside the administration—including John McCain and Joe Lieberman—are calling for a big escalation. The general in charge of Afghanistan is expected to request tens of thousands more troops, and that may just be the beginning. They’re cranking up the pressure for an immediate surge.

But other powerful voices are urging caution: Vice President Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have raised real concerns about the idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan without a clear strategy, as have Democrats in Congress. And a majority of Americans oppose increasing troop levels.

Can you write to the White House and tell them we need a clear exit strategy—not tens of thousands more US troops stuck in a quagmire? You can send the President a message by clicking below:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51843&id=&t=1

Some administration officials are arguing for a smaller, nimbler approach with a narrow focus on the threat from al-Qaeda. But cheerleaders for the war refuse to acknowledge that there could be any viable strategy other than more and more troops. So they’re trotting out the same tired old lines and questioning the motives of those who disagree with them.

They figure they can cut off any debate about our ultimate goals in Afghanistan and the region. But President Obama has consistently shown a willingness to stand up for his more thoughtful approach to foreign policy, and that’s what he needs to do here, too.

The hawks are making their position heard. Now, the majority of Americans—those of us who are for as quick and as responsible an end to the war as possible—need to make our voices heard, too.

With Democrats opposing escalation by more than two to one, MoveOn is just reflecting the opinions of their membership. They're a bit late to the debate, but better than ducking it entirely.

"If you spell something wrong, do you really deserve surgery?"

MoveOn enlists liberal Hollyweird for a good cause for once - defending insurance company CEOs from mean talk and angry comments.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Somewhat paradoxically, MoveOn is holding Sick of Big Insurance rallies in front of multiple insurance company HQs today. Maybe they want to show some solidarity with these poor, henpecked CEOs whose only sin is making a profit off of personal misery. Is that so wrong?

Time To Get In The Streets

MoveOn and several other groups are pushing a September 22 day of action - that's tomorrow - for a series of "Big Insurance: Sick of It" rallies across the country.

Insurance companies make hundreds of billions of dollars every year from denying coverage and denying care, no matter how many people suffer as a result. We'll hear stories of people who have suffered from our broken health insurance system, and we'll demand that the companies stop trying to kill the public health insurance option.

Host your own 'Big Insurance: Sick of It' Rally or sign up for an event near you.

Major rallies are expected in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles in front of insurance company HQs, as well as 102 total events across the nation. It's crucial to attend if you can and get the attention focused on the neglected part of the health care debate - that insurance companies have profited for years off denying care, and that the road to meaningful health care reform leads right through them and ending their monopoly on your health.

Rebel Outsider

There's now a slightly lower percentage than the six lobbyists per lawmaker working on health care reform, as Dick Armey has to take his ball and go home. This is an epic whine:

Dick Armey, the former House Majority Leader, is leaving his job with top Washington lobbying firm DLA Piper, citing negative attention that the firm is receiving thanks to the role of Armey's corporate-backed outfit, FreedomWorks, in turning out protesters to shut down town hall meetings on health care.

It is painful and frustrating to see a good, decent, able and effective partnership of honorable men and women and their clients attacked for things in which they are not involved simply because of their association with me. One would expect a higher degree of competence and professionalism from members of the media than spurious attacks on innocent bystanders.

Let me be perfectly clear about DLA Piper. It is a fine firm with good, competent people. It has been my privilege to be associated with them, and I will miss them. I am leaving the firm with regret but also with anticipation of being more fully engaged in the nation's struggle and without having attacks on me being directed at others.

It is imperative for me, within the context of my life's work in the defense of personal liberty against the encroachments of big government, to give my undivided attention to the work we do at FreedomWorks. In short, the threat to personal liberty in America is so serious and imminent at this time that it requires the full commitment of my efforts. While I consider it a personal sacrifice to leave DLA Piper, it is a sacrifice I must make in light of the important work I am committed to at FreedomWorks.

Poor, poor Dick Armey. His job as a corporate lobbyist was getting all mixed up with his work to turn people against health care reform and toward a position backed by corporate interests! I can't see how anyone would possibly make the connection.

Now that the former House majority leader and lobbyist has resigned, I'm sure people will see FreedomWorks for what it is - a noble, completely organic upspring coming from the depths of the grassroots to impact the corridors of power at the highest levels. Given that Armey is now such an outsider, it's amazing he was even invited on Meet The Press to lie about Moveon.org and his role in the extremism of town hall meetings. Must be all that amazing grassroots organizing.

And finally, now that it's obvious that Armey said things he knows are untrue on national television, any chance he'll be barred from returning? Will bookers conclude that Armey shouldn't be invited onto television news programs, since he's obviously willing to lie to the public? No, that's not how the game is played, which is why hacks like Armey feel comfortable lying in the first place -- there are no consequences.

Why does Steve Benen hate ordinary Americans like Dick Armey having a voice in the public debate? I mean, they have no other resources.

Learning To Count

This has been a consequential day in the health care debate, and it all started when Rahm Emanuel opened his trap and tried to turn the public option trigger into the compromise, rather than the public option being the compromise between nothing and single payer. First the White House tried to staunch the bleeding, with the President shifting the emphasis (but not really deviating from what Rahm said all that much). The advocacy groups pounced at the mention of the trigger. Sam Smith reported that Rahm has been looking to cave on this point for months:

It was, White House aides insist, far from a commitment to a trigger option. But a source close to the administration, who has been in contact with the White House on health care matters, said that Emanuel has been "floating" the trigger compromise since January.

"Rahm's problem with this is he is on the more conservative end of the Democratic Party and he is a very political guy," the source added. "He is working for a way out without a bloody fight. The problem is he doesn't mind taking that fight to the left. And what I worry could happen is the left will just quit."

Bernie Sanders confronted Emanuel directly, vowing that he had plenty of votes to scuttle any bill that didn't include a public option, and in fact taking aim at the bill being pushed through the Senate Finance Committee, which doesn't even have so much as a trigger:

"I think that it is fair to say that there are a number of us who would not be voting for anything resembling a Baucus-type plan as we understand it right now," the senator told the Huffington Post, referring to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus' effort at constructing a reform bill [...]

"Emanuel is dead wrong," Sanders said. "The triggers are meaningless. The American people have shown in poll after poll their contempt for private health insurance companies. They don't trust them and for good reason.

"Now, where we are right now politically is the HELP Committee, of which I'm a member, is going to bring forth a public plan," Sanders added. "The House of Representatives is supporting a public plan. And President Obama ran for office talking about a strong public plan. Why, with that political reality of the American people wanting it, the House going forward, the Senate HELP Committee going forward, would Rahm Emanuel suggest that we would compromise on this issue?"

More significantly, Harry Reid basically told Baucus that his watering-down efforts will only end in failure, and he will lose too many Democratic votes in the exchange.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday ordered Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill.

Reid, whose leadership is considered crucial if President Barack Obama is to deliver on his promise of enacting health care reform this year, offered the directive to Baucus through an intermediary after consulting with Senate Democratic leaders during Tuesday morning’s regularly scheduled leadership meeting. Baucus was meeting with Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Tuesday afternoon to relay the information.

According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.

I don't think capping the employer deduction (which is not really taxing health-care benefits) is so horrible, but it's clearly a non-starter, to the extent that the House prefers a surtax on the wealthy to get the proper funding. And what's not said here is that all the other sops to the right that Baucus has smashed into his bill don't sit well with Democrats either and would not pass the Senate, including the removal of a public option.

Even more interesting than all that is Raul Grijalva's letter to the White House today on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, saying flat-out that the caucus will not support any health care reform bill without a "robust public option plan, akin to Medicare." And there's this extremely interesting line:

Public opinion polls show that 76% of Americans want a robust public plan option and I will stand in solidarity with them. Moreover, I consider it unacceptable for any of the cost savings that you are negotiating with hospitals and other sectors of the health care industry to be made contingent upon a robust public plan option not being included in the final legislation.

This is what I was getting at earlier today, that these deals with stakeholders are coming with some strings. Grijalva comes out and says it.

There's a lot of good news here, though of course this isn't over. The White House has learned that they absolutely don't have the votes for a plan without the public option, and hopefully this will carry over to other elements of the debate. I can envision a world with a public option but not enough subsidies, no changes to Medicaid and a health insurance exchange that isn't strong enough to force competition. And there will be other pitfalls: this notion of denying legal abortion funding inside the health insurance exchanges is horrific, for example. And there's the matter of cost, which Republicans are playing up by touting yet another inaccurate CBO score today. But what we see today is the liberals in Congress and the progressive movement standing up to announce that they will not be rolled. Not this time. The centrists threatening the Obama agenda will have to pay a price.

We're a long way from home, with lots of lobbying, both corporate and grassroots (go Mainers!), to follow. But the left is standing up, for now. Let's help them.

Change Happens From The Bottom Up

Ceci Connolly overheard the President telling Senate leaders that he would prefer the progressive hits on Democratic members of Congress to stop.

President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation.

In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to "true" health-care reform.

"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."

Specifically, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations that worked on his behalf in the presidential campaign will now rally support for "advancing legislation" that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system.

I'm wondering how Connolly knows this much about what appears to be a closed strategy call. My assumption is she knows what the White House wants her to know. So going on the assumption that it's true, I'll say this:

Of course this is what Obama would tell Democratic leaders in the Senate about attacks on Democrats in the Senate. He doesn't want those attacks to have his direct sanction, these are lawmakers he has to work with now and in the future, and so it makes perfect sense for him to play good cop. He can take the pose of just wishing these attacks would stop, without intervening directly in the activities of outside organizations (which would be illegal, I believe). It's a classic Obama middle path.

At the same time, this is also nothing new. He essentially drained progressive groups of funding during the 2008 campaign. So that past set of actions is part of this statement, too. It's one thing to make the idle "I wish they'd jump in with the home team for the big victory" comment, it's another to make it secure in the knowledge that he could move it from "I wish" to "do this or some of your biggest fundraisers might get a phone call."

Obama wants to control message and have all these outside groups pushing alongside him for "reform." But his vision of that reform includes a broad set of principles and a glaring lack of specifics. The Presidential candidate who said "change begins from the bottom up" should be the last one as President to expect his supporters to follow him blindly.

What's more, progressive pressure has worked.

But there is no question that these hard-hitting campaigns representing breast cancer survivors and others have been successful, and they have been instrumental in backing Ben Nelson and Kay Hagan off their opposition to a public plan. The memberships of these organizations are in clear support of their efforts, and with 76% of the country in support of a public plan, the President seems to be one of the unhappy few who oppose their tactics.

I could probably find about 1,000 quotes from candidate Obama about how it's time for Americans to once again participate in their government, and how we are the change we've been waiting for, etc. You cannot empower people for months and months to take action and then try to stage-manage that action. Activism doesn't have an on/off switch.

I was actually at this event where Maxine Waters expressed admiration for the DFA ad against Mary Landrieu ("I'm going to be in New Orleans this weekend, telling everyone about it") and said, "Let me just say to all of our friends out there, that a sustained effort, directed at public officials, demanding no less than a public option, can be very successful. So go to work." I believe this work will continue, even if it makes the President uncomfortable. He didn't create this monster, but he certainly drafted off it during 2008. People want to be actively engaged in politics again. It's a shame for anyone to try and cut them out.

...as expected, progressive groups won't be stopping their ad buys anytime soon. Via email, DFA's Charles Chamberlain said that his group hasn't received any calls from the White House to pull back, nor will they be doing so, and he thinks that "this article is a very good sign that what we are doing is working. If Senators and Reps weren't afraid of us, they wouldn't be asking for us to stop."

We Need A Right-Wing Version Of...

I guess it's a true sign of the times. I remember countless conversations about how the left needs their version of talk radio, think tanks, Drudge, a message machine, etc. Now that the right is out of power, they are clamoring for their version of the Huffington Post, their version of MoveOn.org, their version of a Center For American Progress, etc. It's a real reversal.

Two problems with this. One is that the successful versions of grassroots organizations like MoveOn are organic. You cannot say "I'm building a right-wing MoveOn" and then expect everyone to join.

The second is that THE RIGHT ALREADY HAS THESE STRUCTURES. Most of them were built in response to existing structures on the right, and very intentionally so. Wanting to build new ones is nice and all, but rather besides the point. Conservatives have the Heritage Foundation. The American Enterprise Institute. Drudge. Talk radio. About 1,000 judicial organizations. CPAC. And on and on. Their problem is with IDEAS. Well over a majority of the public doesn't like them. And I've seen no indication that any of these new groups would alter any of those unpopular ideas. They still use tax cuts as a solution for everything, and any problem that cannot be solved by tax cuts doesn't exist. Having the 947th organization to promote that discredited idea won't exactly help.

Now, sometimes dressing up bad facts in a new suit can work, and maybe that's all that's going on here. The idea is that the new groups would remove the taint of the Republican Party's troubles. Maybe. But that R next to the name remains a pretty powerful reminder, at least for the next few years. I don't see this paying off in the near term.

MoveOn: Impeach Jay Bybee

Jay Bybee's attempt to exonerate himself for his crimes only succeeded in inspiring more activism around his impeachment.

Jay Bybee signed off on notorious Bush-era torture memos. And now? He's serving as a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, thanks to George Bush.

Jay Bybee showed no respect for our laws and isn't fit to be a federal judge. Can you sign this petition urging Congress to impeach Jay Bybee?

The President put it very plainly last night, perhaps more plainly than he'd admit.

"President Obama said, 'They used torture, I believe waterboarding is torture,'" Nadler said, speaking of Obama’s comments about his predecessors. “Once you concede that torture was committed, the law requires that there be an investigation, and if warranted, a prosecution.”

Those who would condone war crimes at this point look increasingly foolish. We are a nation of laws, and if you don't want a law prosecuted, you repeal it, but you cannot ignore it. I would refer these apologists to Sen. Robert Byrd, who knows a thing or two about the Constitution:

The recently leaked report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as the four released memorandums from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), confirm our worst fears. These documents point to brutal, inhumane acts which were repeatedly carried out by U.S. military personnel, and which were authorized and condoned at the highest levels of the Bush Administration. These acts appear to directly violate both the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. Spain and the United Kingdom have already initiated investigations of Bush Administration officials who approved these acts. The United States needs to investigate as well. To continue to ignore the mounting evidence of clear wrongdoing is a national humiliation [...]

The rule of law is not just a lofty concept to which we should aspire only when convenient. It is a fundamental principal upon which our Republic was founded, and it is the foundation of our free society. I understand the desire to look forward and to forge a new path on high ground instead of on the low road of the past eight years. But to use the need to move on as a reason not to investigate basic human rights violations is unacceptable. Excusing individuals at the highest levels of government from adhering to the rule of law, whether in wartime or not, is a dangerous precedent, for it undercuts the principle of accountability which permeates representative democracy.

We can start by ensuring that a violator of international laws and a moral reprobate is removed from the federal bench. Call and email Congress, particularly the members of the House Judiciary Committee, and ask them to open hearings.

House Judiciary Committee
John Conyers, Michigan	Howard Berman, California
Rick Boucher, Virginia	Jerrold Nadler, New York
Robert C. Scott, Virginia	Mel Watt, North Carolina
Zoe Lofgren, California	Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Maxine Waters, California	Bill Delahunt, Massachusetts
Robert Wexler, Florida	Steve Cohen, Tennessee
Hank Johnson, Georgia	Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
Luis Gutierrez, Illinois	Brad Sherman, California
Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin	Charles Gonzalez, Texas
Anthony Weiner, New York	Adam Schiff, California
Linda Sánchez, California	Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Fl
Dan Maffei, New York	Lamar S. Smith, Texas
Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin	Howard Coble, North Carolina
Elton Gallegly, California	Bob Goodlatte, Virginia
Dan Lungren, California	Darrell Issa, California
Randy Forbes, Virginia	Steve King, Iowa
Trent Franks, Arizona	Louie Gohmert, Texas<
Jim Jordan, Ohio	Ted Poe, Texas
Jason Chaffetz, Utah	Tom Rooney, Florida
Gregg Harper, Mississippi

P.S. Patrick Leahy would like Judge Bybee to stop by the Senate for a little chat.

Bobbing And Weaving

The White House has given so many conflicting statements on prosecutions for those who directed and authorized torture that it's clear they just don't want to be responsible for it. Between the past 48 hours, when Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs parroted the "looking forward, not backward" viewpoint, and today, something has changed. While Obama went to Langley and defended the release of the torture memos, at the same time his senior aides were telling the New York Times that legal sanctions may go forward, due to mounting public pressure both inside and outside the Beltway.

And while Mr. Obama vowed not to prosecute C.I.A. officers for acting on legal advice, on Monday aides did not rule out legal sanctions for the Bush lawyers who developed the legal basis for the use of the techniques.

...human rights activists, Congressional Democrats and international officials pressed for a fuller accounting of what happened. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, wrote Mr. Obama asking him not to rule out prosecutions until her panel completed an investigation over the next six to eight months.

Three Bush administration lawyers who signed memos, John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury, are the subjects of a coming report by the Justice Department’s ethics office that officials say is sharply critical of their work. The ethics office has the power to recommend disbarment or other professional penalties or, less likely, to refer cases for criminal prosecution.

The administration has also not ruled out prosecuting anyone who exceeded the legal guidelines, and officials have discussed appointing a special prosecutor. One option might be giving the job to John H. Durham, a federal prosecutor who has spent 15 months investigating the C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes of harsh interrogations.

You have Dianne Feinstein calling for leaving prosecutions open. There are both the DoJ Inspector General's report and a fuller report from the Senate Armed Services Committee set for release, to say nothing of additional secret torture memos that may come out at some point. You have MoveOn calling for investigations by a special prosecutor. All this pressure has forced the Administration into a corner. And this morning, you have Obama made a more definitive statement.

President Barack Obama is leaving the door to open to possible prosecution of Bush administration officials who devised harsh terrorism-era interrogation tactics.

He also said Tuesday that he worries about the impact of high-intensity hearings on how detainees were treated under former President George W. Bush. But Obama did say, nevertheless, he could support a Hill investigation if it were conducted in a bipartisan way.

Obama has said he doesn't support charging CIA agents and interrogators who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, acting on advice from superiors that such practices were legal. But he also said that it is up to the attorney general whether to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who wrote the memos approving these tactics.

Read closely here. Obama said he could support an investigation emanating from Congress, and that the decision for prosecution is up to the Attorney General. In other words, shorter Obama: "Leave me out of this." Nobody need rely on his support.

And the President is correct. He doesn't get to decide who is and is not prosecuted in America. That's the responsibility of the Attorney General. And if he wants to take it out of politics, the Attorney General ought to appoint a special prosecutor, as MoveOn and others have called for.

As for the impeachment of Jay Bybee, I have noticed that not only Democratic stalwarts like Sheldon Whitehouse, but even those Villagers disinclined to prosecute, like Joke Line, are comfortable with supporting this measure. This could be the entryway into getting a taste of accountability in Washington. My petition to get the California Democratic Party to support a resolution of impeachment now has 3,903 signatures. Sign it if you can, and let's move forward on this front, getting the largest state Democratic Party in the country on the record to remove the torture judge from the federal bench.

UPDATE: Patrick Leahy:

"The fact is, the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee did not tell the truth. If the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee had told the truth, he never would have been confirmed," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The decent and honorable thing for him to do would be to resign. And if he is a decent and honorable person, he will resign," he said deliberately.

Simple answers to simple statements: he's not decent and honorable.

Proudly Presenting Yourself As A Tool - Not Quite The Way To Win

In the past week, several progressive advocacy groups have come out against Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen for Secretary of Health and Human Services, including MoveOn.org just today.

How can you tell who's a real health care champion? We need someone who's going to support visionary progressive health care reform; someone with a track record of standing up to the insurance and pharmaceutical giants at the heart of our health care crisis; someone who is 100 percent committed to giving every single American the choice of a public health insurance plan so we're not at the mercy of the private insurance companies (just as Obama promised).

Obama is reportedly considering several governors and a few senators. Many of these folks would be great, but at least one would be a bad choice for health care reform: Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen made his fortune acquiring and running HMOs. As governor, he gutted Tennessee's public health insurance program, causing more than 320,000 people to lose their health insurance. And Bredesen let the private insurance industry pay for his multi-million dollar redecoration of the governor's mansion.

You would think that, faced with this opposition, Bredesen would defend his record, show his independence from special interests and his commitment to reform. Even if it was only rhetorical, this would be the standard move. Yeah, you would think:

“Anybody who’s got some real scars and experience is going to have their detractors,” the governor said Monday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “People at the White House are smart enough to be able to assess that.” And he took a swipe at his opponents, saying that “advocacy groups don’t matter nearly as much as the pharmaceutical groups, the hospitals, the doctors’ groups. There’s a lot of very powerful interest groups that will play in this thing.”

The charitable reading of that is that Bredesen thinks the important groups to do combat with are those special interests, but that would be completely at odds with his history:

This quote by Bredesen — dismissing advocacy groups and embracing industry interests — is typical of his tenure in office. In 2005, Bredesen’s wife, Andrea Conte, embarked on a $9.4 million renovation of the governor’s mansion. The largest donor to the project? BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, which gave $150,000.

While in making cuts to TennCare, Bredesen largely “cast aside” the “cost saving ideas of advocates” that would have increase health care coverage while also addressing the state’s budget crisis. But as TNR’s Jonathan Cohn notes, advocates will be necessary in pushing health care reform through Congress; a lack of coordinated support amongst liberal allies was part of the reason that President Clinton’s health care plan failed to conservative attacks.

Ezra Klein thinks that the advocacy groups are working too hard opposing Bredesen when they could be coalescing around one of the other candidates. But recent history with the Obama Administration shows that advocacy groups have been much more successful helping to disqualify than to qualify - see John Brennan. What's more, most of the other names mentioned (Rosa DeLauro, Kathleen Sebelius, John Podesta) don't have much to distinguish them from one another. Howard Dean IS attracting grassroots support, and I personally would like to see Judy Feder of Georgetown University because I think she knows her shit more than anyone. But this is not a weakness of the advocacy groups, it's a strength. If they knock out Bredesen, they know HHS will be in relatively good hands.

Just Another Day On A Rig

My belief is that this McCain boomlet in the polls is largely due to his acting Presidency during the fighting in Georgia while Obama was on vacation. Perception is often reality, and when one guy looks the part and the other guy is chomping on Hawaiian cheeseburgers, there's an effect. Never mind that McCain completely overreacted and such hotheaded-ness is the last thing we need in a President.

But that's generally over now, and now McCain is back to the same old politics, yesterday jumping on an oil rig to make the point that... they can bear his weight? What?

Senator John McCain finally headed out to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday morning to sound his call for more offshore drilling, a refrain he has repeated almost daily in this summer of gas-pump sticker shock. Hurricane Dolly had forced Mr. McCain to cancel a trip to the rig planned in July.

“Americans across our country are hurting because of the cost of energy,” Mr. McCain planned to say on the rig,” after an hour and 15-minute helicopter flight from Kenner, La., a suburb of New Orleans. “Gas prices are through the roof. Energy costs have seeped into our grocery bills, making it more expensive to feed our families. And now, as people prepare for the winter, they are going to be hit with higher costs for home heating oil. It is time for America to get serious about energy independence, and that means we need to start drilling offshore at advanced oil rigs like this.”

It's weird that the 70-cent drop in oil prices due to falling demand hasn't been mentioned since conservatives started up the Mighty "drill now" Wurlitzer. The fact that there's a way to continue to reduce demand, lower emissions and cause less damage to the environment goes down the memory hole. Increased drilling adds to our dependence on oil, the opposite of what's needed.

This rig McCain was on, by the way, is partially owned by Exxon, but at this point, what isn't, right?

There's the long-version rebuttal, from the Obama campaign:

“For three decades, as our energy crisis grew, decision-making in Washington has been rigged against our national interests and the interests of American consumers. And for almost that long, Senator McCain has been part of the problem. For decades, he has stood with the big oil companies and voted against the development of the alternative energy we need. When a critical proposal came before the Senate late last year that would have provided tax incentives for the development of alternative energy by revoking $13 billion in giveaways to the oil companies, he was the only Senator who didn’t vote - and we came up one vote short. And now he’s standing with the oil companies in opposing a bipartisan compromise in Congress that would expand offshore drilling and, at the same time, make serious investments in alternative energy to break our dependence on foreign oil. When it comes to solving our energy problems, John McCain is just more of the same and America can’t afford it.”

And the short version, from surrogate Tom Vilsack:

"[McCain] continues to reject bipartisan compromise because it would roll back massive tax breaks for the oil companies," he said. "That is not putting the country first, it is putting the interest of oil companies first."

This feeds directly into the coming floor fight in Congress. Republicans simply won't repeal tax breaks for Big Oil, not even now, after years and years of record profits. They won't establish a renewable standard. Their "all of the above" plan just means open the coasts and send money to oil companies who won't drill but will put the leases into their reserves and raise their stock price. A smart campaign (I know, wishful thinking) will reveal that Republicans are in love with Big Oil and don't want to actually lower gas prices. MoveOn is already making this bet, spending half a million dollars to tie Elizabeth Dole and McCain to Big Oil in North Carolina.



Republicans are basically trying to hide on this issue by saying that the bill should move through the regular committee process. They don't want to make the hard vote against drilling that they would make if it includes repealing the tax breaks.

The problem, of course, is that if there's no deal by October 1, the coastal drilling ban, which needs annual approval by Congress, gets lifted. (Couldn't that make for some nifty ads by Democratic challengers, by the way, calling out longtime Reps. for voting to ban offshore drilling for 25 years?)

Demonizing Political Participation

Jesse Taylor at Pandagon had a remarkably insightful piece today about the wingnut carping over the Barack Obama speech in Berlin, the media reaction, and his popularity generally. I really think this is important to understand. The right has always held a goal of minimizing political participation; normally this is done through voter suppression, onerous voter ID or ballot access laws, and generally disenfranchising those for whom it is hardest to engage in the process. Now they've taken it a step further, basically planting the seed that ANY participation whatsoever, not just voting but showing up for a rally or working a phone bank or donating money, is toxic and inherently fascistic. Because their deficit in this election year is enthusiasm, they're trying to make such support and excitement untenable. Behold:

But what (author of Liberal Fascism Jonah) Goldberg has done is provide intellectual cover for a growing meme: Obama is the leader of a new fascist revolution. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s all got to do with the defining downward of fascism towards a gooey puddle that virtually anyone not a movement conservative can step in.

The Goldbergian view of fascism (and I’m sure he’ll deny it, which will then be followed by a criticism of my argument, which will in turn be fascist, which will in turn be the exact point he was trying make) is that the marriage of any measurable popularity whatsoever to any state action whatsoever outside the boundaries of Reaganite conservatism is de facto fascist. The point was never to explore fascism or provide an analysis of the phenomenon that cast new light on it - a feat of which Goldberg was summarily incapable - but instead to provide the exact utility we see on display now, and provide a way to brand any popular Democrat or liberal as the handmaiden of evil.

In a way, Goldberg lucked out (but he’s used to that) - Obama’s popularity and McCain’s plodding campaign provide the perfect stand-in for his argument. A Republican candidate with any stature, any devotion from the base, anyone who’s invested in seeing him elected for reasons that extend beyond his party affiliation, and it’s entirely ruined. A boring Republican running a bad campaign (Bob Dole, Gerald Ford) inevitably creates a fascist Democrat, not by anything they’ve said or done but by the simple act of showing up and not being a dumbass.

Yep. And because McCain is running such an awful campaign, conservatives must then rationalize that there's something deeply wrong with the popular and competent campaign that Barack Obama is running. And so he becomes a leader of a fascist movement. His creation of fliers for his Berlin event in the language of the country where he's appearing becomes proof. So does the location of the event in front of a Nazi monument. And his head is tilted in profile in the picture - just like Hitler! Because electoral history has shown that imitating Hitler is a surefire vote-getter. Those supporters are being lured by music and food they have to pay for into worshipping this false idol who will lead us down a path to destruction.

But that's all subtext, of course. The idea is to create the connection between large crowds and enthralled supporters in the 1930s and in the Obama campaign today. And that is meant to induce feelings of revulsion and shame, not just in those voters who are more passive and see these images on television, but among the very participants themselves. Going to an Obama rally? You're a mindless pawn. Send him money? You are funding a cult. Work on his behalf? You have drank the Kool-Aid and are pathologically creepy.

This pervades the media conception of the Obama candidacy, too. Never in my life have I seen such a concern troll statement like this from a political reporter.

Candy Crowley on CNN: Barack Obama was, indeed, awesome in his Berlin speech tonight, but watch out! Americans might decide he was a little too awesome.

Obama has to be "careful." He mustn't be too presumptuous. He has to scale back with the soaring rhetoric and the inspiration and the winning, you see. It's decidedly unfair of him to run a decent campaign and soak up all the media attention at the expense of the guy who shows up at the German sausage restaurant on the same day as the Berlin speech.

The biggest fear of the GOP is that the great silent majority, the people who don't get involved in politics and don't even vote, are spurred to consistent action. This manifests itself in the concern that they're losing the new media war, which they'll surely throw billions at in the next decade. But there's another element of this project: marginalization. Here's an example: yesterday Color of Change and MoveOn put together a great protest of Fox News' racist attacks on Obama, delivering hundreds of thousands of petitions and enlisting rapper Nas, who actually has a new track called "Sly Fox" about the channel, to be their spokesman. So Bill O'Reilly had to respond.

Fox officials are not only attacking Nas for selling his album (which already topped the charts), some are likening the anti-racism activists to the KKK. MTV reports that Bill O'Reilly also responded, deriding protesters such as MoveOn as "the new Klan" with "a radical left agenda." He continued:

"The latest smear from Move On is telling their Kool-Aid-drinking zombie followers that Fox News is smearing Barack Obama and is a racist concern. Of course, that's a lie. This broadcast and FNC in general have been exceedingly fair to Senator Obama. ... But in order to intimidate anyone from criticizing Obama in any way, Move On is playing the race card."

It's a fairly rare coalition that can include Nas AND the Klan, but that's the world according to BillO.

Being a member of MoveOn for almost its entire 10 years, it's pretty clear to me that they represent a kind of passive liberalism which engages people online who otherwise might not participate.

MoveOn's success (and, indeed, its limitations) is powered by its appeal to today's non-shouters. Though its politics are in many ways the opposite of the Nixon silent majority's, they share a disposition. They are people not inclined to protest but whose rising unease with the direction of the country has led to a new political consciousness. For citizens angered, upset and disappointed with their government but unsure how to channel those sentiments, MoveOn provides simple, discrete actions: sign this petition, donate money to run this ad, show up at this vigil. "Before I joined MoveOn," says staffer Anna Galland, "I was organizing in Rhode Island doing faith-based antiwar activism. In March 2003, MoveOn had put out an action alert for a vigil against the Iraq War. There were 500 people on the steps of the Capitol, and I remember thinking, 'I know all the activists in the state; where did all these people come from?' I think many people have a MoveOn moment where they look around and realize that this organization has managed to tap into a much broader range of people than they might have seen at past activist events."

MoveOn is essentially a conduit for ordinary Americans to collect their voices and mobilize political power. Color of Change is doing the same thing in the African-American community. They aren't the Klan - they're actually you, your friends and neighbors. They have fairly baseline liberal beliefs, nothing shocking. This kind of activism isn't going to change the world - it's a gateway into more civic engagement and participation - and when it's demonized as "the Klan" or some outpost on the radical left, the goal is made obvious - to strangle activism at the very outset. If MoveOn is smeared and made radical, there's not very much hope at REALLY engaging people (That's why it was so damn stupid for the Democratic Congress to condemn MoveOn for the "Betrayus" ad last year). And it's the same with the more intense activism of the Obama campaign.

We have to recognize this and understand it. There is a very concerted and completely ahistorical effort to make "fascism" synonymous with "popularity." As Jesse Taylor notes:

On the one hand, it’s an awful abuse of the concept of fascism, disrespecting the millions upon millions of people whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed because of the dream of nationalist identity and corporate power uber alles. On the other hand, it is remarkably entertaining to see them try to figure out how Barack Obama’s favorite ice cream flavor plays right into the hands of the fascist dream.

Entertaining, but also dangerous. They're taking a hip campaign and trying to make it radioactive. Those silent masses could easily be turned off by something they are browbeaten into considering the work of wild-eyed cultists. It's absurd, but it can be effective if we don't head it off. With growing numbers of the politically active and engaged, the Republican Party withers and dies. This is their latest suppression tactic.

I, Klan

So Color of Change and MoveOn put together a great protest of Fox News' racist attacks on Obama, delivering hundreds of thousands of petitions and enlisting rapper Nas, who actually has a new track called "Sly Fox" about the channel, to be their spokesman.



Since Fox News wouldn't accept the petitions, Stephen Colbert did and it turned out pretty funny.

So O'Reilly had to respond.

Fox officials are not only attacking Nas for selling his album (which already topped the charts), some are likening the anti-racism activists to the KKK. MTV reports that Bill O'Reilly also responded, deriding protesters such as MoveOn as "the new Klan" with "a radical left agenda." He continued:

"The latest smear from Move On is telling their Kool-Aid-drinking zombie followers that Fox News is smearing Barack Obama and is a racist concern. Of course, that's a lie. This broadcast and FNC in general have been exceedingly fair to Senator Obama. ... But in order to intimidate anyone from criticizing Obama in any way, Move On is playing the race card."

It's a fairly rare coalition that can include Nas AND the Klan, but that's the world according to BillO.

Being a member of MoveOn for almost its entire 10 years, it's pretty clear to me that they represent a kind of passive liberalism which engages people online who otherwise might not participate. In other words, they are the opposite of radicals, and while Fox News and other traditional media outlets want to marginalize them, they do so with exactly the wrong narrative.

But understanding MoveOn as the direct descendant of the '60s protesters gets the organization exactly wrong. MoveOn's success (and, indeed, its limitations) is powered by its appeal to today's non-shouters. Though its politics are in many ways the opposite of the Nixon silent majority's, they share a disposition. They are people not inclined to protest but whose rising unease with the direction of the country has led to a new political consciousness. For citizens angered, upset and disappointed with their government but unsure how to channel those sentiments, MoveOn provides simple, discrete actions: sign this petition, donate money to run this ad, show up at this vigil. "Before I joined MoveOn," says staffer Anna Galland, "I was organizing in Rhode Island doing faith-based antiwar activism. In March 2003, MoveOn had put out an action alert for a vigil against the Iraq War. There were 500 people on the steps of the Capitol, and I remember thinking, 'I know all the activists in the state; where did all these people come from?' I think many people have a MoveOn moment where they look around and realize that this organization has managed to tap into a much broader range of people than they might have seen at past activist events."

MoveOn is essentially a conduit for ordinary Americans to collect their voices and mobilize political power. Color of Change is doing the same thing in the African-American community. They aren't the Klan - they're actually you, your friends and neighbors. They have fairly baseline liberal beliefs, nothing shocking. This kind of activism isn't going to change the world - it's a gateway into more civic engagement and participation - and when it's demonized as "the Klan" or some outpost on the radical left the disconnect is remarkable. Of course, the goal of this marginalization is to strangle activism at the very outset - if MoveOn is smeared and made radical, there's not very much hope at REALLY engaging people. That's why it was so damn stupid for the Democratic Congress to condemn MoveOn for the "Betrayus" ad last year. MoveOn is effective not only in what it does, but by empowering citizens to do even more. And so it's a cornerstone in the movement to make the country more progressive. That's why O'Reilly can't stand it, that's why Democrats ought to be completely supportive of it, and that's why I'm a member. I don't always agree with them, I think they can always go further, but they are building organizers across the country and that's meaningful.

Off Limits

Digby is absolutely and completely right about the hissy fit that the Village is getting ready to throw over MoveOn's hard-hitting but completely fair and vital ad about John McCain wanting to consign our children to perpetual wars:

Geist: It might be fair, it might be effective, I just opposed dangling babies.

Todd: I think it was a borderline shameless ad, using a baby like that. It just seemed like a sledge hammer on the message…

What's shameless, actually, is using a baby as cannon fodder because his commander in chief doesn't want to admit a mistake. What's shameless is using a baby as infantry because you never met a problem that didn't have a military solution.

Chuck Todd is a squishy Village protégé who has nothing to add to the larger debate but numbers-crunching. He's sadly probably the best we'll get out of these clowns. The bloggers who hailed Todd in the past because he hewed to the numbers that promoted an Obama candidacy are seeing it from the other side now. It was totally obvious that they would try to set the boundaries of debate as they always have.

War costs lives. We don't want to talk about it because it makes us feel all icky, but those statistics that flash across the TV screens represent somebody's kid. It's immoral to discuss invasions and military actions WITHOUT thinking of those babies who will grow up and perhaps become another statistic in a catastrophic mistake. And if the kid is lucky enough to survive his tour of duty, he'll come back home and have suicide drugs tested on him.

We know that both the current President and his would-be Republican successor want to stay in Iraq for a long, long time. There are soldiers fighting there right now who were 12 or 13 when war was declared. Under the McCain-Bush plan babies will be fighting there, and to set that outside the lines of the political debate is unacceptable.

But it's very acceptable to the Village, who wants to wash the blood from this debacle off their hands and never let their beautiful minds wander to thinking about someone's son or daughter giving up his life for nothing. They're culpable and that's why they want this off limits.

The Value Of Outside Groups

This is a great ad by MoveOn.



You could actually fill about 5 more with all the slimy characters Black has associated with - including Blackwater, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, etc., etc., etc.

MoveOn is able to do this in a way that Barack Obama can't. They can be stronger and more hard-hitting than the guy running for President. It's an amplifier and a motivator. It puts major pressure on McCain.

And Obama can't really shut it down because MoveOn has figured out its own citizen-based funding model.

There should be no fear in this.

AdWatch

Good stuff from MoveOn. They've got an ad running in Iowa and New Mexico celebrating Mission Accomplished Day:



Expect the RNC freakout and fire up the wahhhhmbulance.

MoveOn has also reached the finals of their Obama in 30 Seconds contest, seeking user-created ads in support of the Illinois Senator. And I'm really impressed by the quality of the work. The one where they got everyone in Union Square park in Manhattan to arrange themselves to spell "Obama" is a particular favorite. Check it out for yourself.

You're Supposed To Wait Until After Securing The Nomination To Shit On The Base

Well, I got back from the protest, and it was really great, but then I check around the Internets and see this and it really bummed me out.

At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the "activist base" of the Democratic Party -- and MoveOn.org in particular -- for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had "flooded" state caucuses and "intimidated" her supporters, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Huffington Post.

"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

There's audio of the event at the link.

First of all, I don't ever want to hear the words of a high-level politician in a private fundraiser ever again. They shift their remarks in order to grab more money out of their audience, and they're off the record and unless and until every single one of them is made public the remarks ought to stay that way.

But to the content.

This is very disturbing. MoveOn is part of my political coming of age. They formed, by the way, to stop Hillary Clinton's husband from getting impeached. I've been a member for close to ten years, and without them I have to say we wouldn't have a progressive movement as strong as it is, and given their activism in 2006 we wouldn't have a Democratic Congress.

And note the disdain for the "activist base." That really tells you all you need to know about Hillary Clinton, and it's been pretty noticeable for quite a long time. She doesn't like bottom-up democracy. What did it for me was a debate when she said "America shouldn't have to work so hard to get a President who cares about them." In other words, shut up and watch American Gladiators because I've got it covered. The progressive movement activates and organizes and generally provides a counterweight to the deeply conservative media establishment and political establishment. It makes it easier for progressives and Democrats to do their job. Clinton KNOWS this. She helped fund the Center for American Progress and Media Matters. She's very keen on these organizations and the "activist base" when they are working in her favor. If not, she drops them like a stone, and then makes up lies about them besides. The intimidation thing is totally bogus; when Howard Here's Eli Pariser of MoveOn:

"Senator Clinton has her facts wrong again. MoveOn never opposed the war in Afghanistan, and we set the record straight years ago when Karl Rove made the same claim. Senator Clinton's attack on our members is divisive at a time when Democrats will soon need to unify to beat Senator McCain. MoveOn is 3.2 million reliable voters and volunteers who are an important part of any winning Democratic coalition in November. They deserve better than to be dismissed using Republican talking points."

It's a damn shame that in her zeal for victory, Hillary Clinton has trashed the very movement that would make it able for her to govern. I know I won't be able to bring myself to lift a finger for her ever again. In a one-on-one against McCain, sure, on economic grounds, but clearly Hillary is signaling that she truly believes in a hawkish, hegemonic foreign policy and will lie, cheat, steal and walk all over her allies to do it. What good would it be to get the nomination, the Presidency even, if there's nobody left to help you move policy?

MoveOn endorsed Sen. Obama and obviously that caused some hurt feelings. But let's not kid ourselves that this elitist (yes, elitist), establishment attitude wasn't well-entrenched before that endorsement. Hillary Clinton likes progressive groups and organizations when they work in service of Hillary Clinton. That's it.

Close to two years ago I was out in front of the same ABC-Disney building I went to today, protesting their screed of a TV movie "The Path to 9-11." Bill Clinton and his advisers were very grateful for those efforts. Today everybody protesting made it a point of saying that this was not about Obama OR Hillary; it was about a media who failed us, again, as they have for over a decade. The liberal blogosphere was practically birthed out of the need to call out the failed media and present an alternative voice. I've tried to do that consistently whenever a Democrat was unfairly attacked, INCLUDING Hillary Clinton, on several occasions (it infuriates me that dunderheads are screaming that the anger over the ABC debate is a partisan thing without bothering to use the Google and see that it isn't). She doesn't care unless you're defending her.

This is why the party structure crumbled in the 1990s. This is why we lost the House, Senate and a bunch of Governor's mansions despite having a booming economy. This is a pathetic statement, and the scorn for having to actually deign to compete for a nomination that ought to have been handed to her really shows through. I'm sorry but there's nothing to recommend in Hillary Clinton anymore.

UPDATE: Jane Hamsher:

I defended Hillary Clinton when she refused to bow to right wing pressure and condemn MoveOn over the "General Betrayus" ad (and was sad when she finally capitulated). MoveOn are valuable progressive partners who have been with us on Donna Edwards, net neutrality, trying to bring an end to the war, FISA, and other issues we've been fighting for.

They've accepted the challenge of organizing the left in the virtual arena and done an amazing job that the right struggles to replicate. They now have 3 million members, of which I'm one. And their skill at online organization and movement building has developed a model that both of the Democratic candidates have been able to copy and learn from, acting as a democratizing influence and making candidates more responsive to the public at large and less to high dollar donors.

MoveOn may not have opposed military action in Afghanistan (according to Eli Pariser in the Washington Post) but I did, because I was quite certain George Bush would bungle it and we'd just wind up spending billions on a bunch of junk that would make his buddies rich and a lot of poor people in the poorest country in the world would die senselessly. Sadly that turned out to be right, and disparaging anyone for challenging this country's unrelenting bellicosity during the Bush administration is wrong.

Does Hillary Clinton not want my vote either?

I should also note that Clinton defended that debate today because she did not perceive the attacks as coming at her. She said something like "his supporters are all mad because he got asked tough questions." Wrong. We're mad because he, and you, asked irrelevant questions that undermine the public's need for information to make informed choices. Her dedication to ignore that in favor of point-scoring is really depressing, and will surely rebound back on her, as it is now doing.