Kuttner seems to be ignoring that Obama said "Everything is on the table" and Obama's surrogates were burning up the phone lines to the Washington press corps both before and after the speech saying that included Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
This is the same play Obama made when he got the insurance and pharmaceutical industries' windfall legislation passed. Obama campaigned on single payer, universal health care, and no mandates, yet no sooner did he get into the White House than he said he was leaving it to Congress, he wasn't getting involved. He and Max Bauus had proponents of single payer excluded from the Senate Finance comittee's panels and arrested. Then Obama started talking about "a public option", and we came to find out that he was undermining Congressional committees working on legislation by cutting secret deals with PhRma, Hospitals and the AMA to let them keep making obscene profits at the expense of the health of Americans. Then he L!ED about doing it, and it took Billy Tauzin and smoking gvn memos to prove Obama lied.
And how can anybody forget (as Kuttner conveniently does) about Obama's promise to end Bush's tax cuts? Not only does Obama extend them for the middle class, but for the rich, too. Again, in a secret deal, allegedly unbeknownst to Democrats in Congress.
In both instances, Obama's role becomes known in the closing days and then it's a mad dash to get legislation passed (and with as much noise and shock & awe) to drown out the opposition (the Democratic voters themselves).
Obama's MO is notorious now, but Kuttner turns a blind eye.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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