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(h/t Heather)

I can see that Ben Nelson and the Conservadems/Baucus Dogs have a plan. They bitch and moan about the effect a public option would have on the poor, poor health-insurance industry, so if they do have to vote for a public option in the Senate that clearly benefits Americans and not his favorite donors, they will only do it under the provision that the states "opt in" rather than "opt out."

His hair has been saying this for a while now.

Nelson's hair doesn't explain why he favors the "opt in" version and Harwood doesn't bother to ask. And he can count on the media to not inform America what the differences are in an opt in or an opt out version of the PO so when we complain about it the Villagers will attack us. He was interviewed by John Hardwood, a Villager of the highest order on MSNBC.

Here's what Ben Nelson's hair said:

Harwood: You'd agree that unless a comprehensive health care bill would pass that it would cripple his presidency.

Nelson's hair: Well, I don't know that we should conclude that some form of health care reform won't pass. I believe that some form of health care will pass.

Harwood: What in your mind are stoppers, things that, knowing this place, things that either because you oppose them or other senators oppose them, simply can 't be in the final product to have it pass?

Nelson's hair: Well, it's very difficult to see how that CLASS Act that was in the HELP committe bill would make it [that's long term care provisions] I think also any kind of public option that would undermine or destabilize the private insurance that 200 million Americans have, I don't see that that would make it. But some version such as an opt-in, for the states with a state option, that could very well be in.

Digby alerted me to this clip and she astutely writes:

But I am still suspicious that there might be a play to make opt-in the reasonable alternative to opt-out. It just keeps cropping up in all kinds of places, often from White House reporters. It's worth keeping an eye on anyway.

Harwood thinks that Nelson will stick with them on cloture and I haven't heard otherwise. (and if Harwood asked him he didn't say, the putz.) But he certainly keeps dangling himself out there as a vote for opt-in, so if this thing really comes down to the wire I could see it happening. Again, I don't think the village media have clue about just how different the two things are. It's just bumper sticker slogans to them.

The Hill reports that Sheldon Whitehouse also trumpeted the same thing.

The Senate health bill is drifting toward ending up with an "opt-in" provision versus an "opt-out," one Democratic senator said Friday.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) predicted that healthcare reform in the upper chamber would shift from its current construction, which allows states to opt out of a public option, to a version that forces states to opt into such a plan.

"I think it's falling into an opt-in, versus opt-out," Whitehouse said during an appearance on MSNBC. "You have a public option, but it's up to a state to take an affirmative act to take advantage of it."
Whitehouse suggested the opt-in as a potential compromise on the public option to win enough Democratic votes in the Senate, where Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has said he will vote against a bill containing a public option, and several other centrist Democrats have been reluctant to support the current proposal.

I'm doing some digging around to see what's really happening and I'll have news soon. Reid is already having the "opt out" scored by the CBO, but my sources indicated that the Senate has not sent out the "opt in" to be scored. From what I'm hearing. The "opt in" would not pass the House conference.

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Rep. Anthony Weiner did his usual stellar job being the progressive voice on health care yesterday on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews. In typical Villager fashion, Matthews want to paint the public option as the "ultra liberal" position on health care, and Weiner helped set him straight:

MATTHEWS: OK, let me ask you this. What percentage, do you think, of Democrats in this country are liberals and what percent are moderates?

WEINER: I have no idea. I think...

MATTHEWS: Do you think most are liberals.

WEINER: I have to say...

MATTHEWS: Do you think most are liberals?

WEINER: No, here's what I think. I think when it comes to health care, the moderate position is choice and competition. I don't believe the public option is the liberal position. The liberal position is what I have, single payer for all Americans. This is the compromise position.

Of course, the whole point of painting the public option as the "far left" position is that, in Villagespeak, the liberal position is always doomed to being compromised by "centrist" Democrats. Which was the upshot of Matthews' interview -- namely, that liberals should be prepared to give up the public option to appease "centrists" in their own party.

Weiner had the perfect answer to that tripe:

WEINER: I think that we need to make the argument to my Democratic friends that this is an all-or-nothing strategy for us as Democrats. We run the country right now...

MATTHEWS: OK...

WEINER: ... House, Senate and the presidency.

MATTHEWS: OK...

WEINER: And if we can't do this (INAUDIBLE)

MATTHEWS: I've been talking around the Hill, talking to staffers and some members, and I've gotten to the point of disbelief. A lot of people like you believe that in the end, no good Democrat from wherever they are in the country is willing to be the man or woman who brings down the president's number one political ambition for this year, health care. And in the end, you folks believe that there'll be such tremendous pressure on all the Democrats, Nebraska, North Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, they'll still have to vote with the party. Do you believe that?

WEINER: Well, let me...

MATTHEWS: Do you believe that?

WEINER: Let me say yes but phrase it a different way. There's a divide here. Some people think a watered-down health care plan could be a success for us. Some, like myself, believe if we don't get this right...

MATTHEWS: OK...

WEINER: ... we're not going to get another chance for 20 years.

MATTHEWS: You're a good spokesman. Thank you, sir.

Blanche Lincoln, we hope you're listening.

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DAVID GREGORY: Like the public option. You effectively said to the left, "It's not gonna happen."

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well what I — no, no, that's not true. What I — what I've said is the public option, I think, should be a part of this but we shouldn't think that, somehow, that's the silver bullet that solves health care. What I've said, for example, on — what's called an individual mandate. During the campaign I said, "Look, if — health care is affordable, then I think people will buy it." So we don't have to say to — to folks, "You know what? You have to buy health care."

And — what — when I talked to health care experts on both the left and the right what they tell me is that, even after you make health care affordable, there's still gonna be some folks out there who — whether out of inertia, or they just don't want to but — spend the money — would rather take their chances.

Unfortunately, what that means, is then you and I and every American out there who has health insurance, and are paying their premiums responsibly every month, they've gotta pick up the cost for— emergency room care when one of those people gets sick. So what we've said as long as we're making this genuinely affordable to families then you've got an obligation to get health care just like you have an obligation to get auto insurance in every state.

The media shifted their narrative last week as I heard Villager after Villager say the public option was dead. We've been fighting for the public option tooth and nail in the blogosphere and also by strong progressive members of Congress.

Obama indicated in a Roll Call article today that it's not dead.

Obama maintained that while the centerpiece of his healthcare reform effort, a public (or "government-run") option, is absolutely not dead, it also is not the "silver bullet" that would instantaneously repair the nation's healthcare system.

"I absolutely do not believe that it's dead," Obama told Univision's "Al Punto" of the public option's fate. "I think that it's something that we can still include as part of a comprehensive reform effort."

But the president still signaled that the public option, a key reform for which he has pushed for months, would not serve as a panacea for healthcare problems.

"What I've said is the public option, I think, should be a part of this but we shouldn't think that, somehow, that's the silver bullet that solves healthcare," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press" with David Gregory, rejecting the idea that he'd effectively told liberals that the public option will not be included in reform.

You can look at his statement about it not being the holy grail of health reform as either a way to not back the American people's support for the public option or a way to keep it alive and then have it come in after the House and Senate join their bills.
He could also be telling the naysayers that since it's a small part of the plan---stop fighting it and get on board. We're still speculating and reading the tea leaves at this point until we do have a real bill to analyze, but I think we know that he's going to try and get a bill passed at all costs. The fact that he's still backing the public option is good news at this point.
ON CNN's State of the Union, a quick search reveals that John King didn't even ask the president about the public option which shows the state of the media. Why was the public option barely mentioned today? Has the media spoken?

Here's Ed Henry's speculation.

HENRY: But here’s what’s also going to worry the unions, is, if you read between the lines, when you ask, would you sign the Baucus bill if it came to your desk, he said it’s too hypothetical.

But then he walked through -- there were some of the things he likes about the Baucus bill. But I never heard -- if you read between the lines -- “I’m really upset that there’s no public option in the Baucus bill.”

He didn’t really get into that. He’s not fired up about that. And so, when you read the tea leaves, again, he’s not adamant about what the unions want, which is that public option.

KING: He did say in some other interviews that he hopes it’s there in the end and he believes it’s possible to still get it in the end. But he’s not -- you’re certainly right. He’s not saying it has to be there in the end...

HENRY: Right.

KING: ... which is what the unions are saying.

ABC's George Stephanapoulos didn't ask about the public option either.
Here's the only mention I found for it on ABC's THIS WEEK:

BRAZILE: But -- but let me just say this. Bipartisanship was always the goal. When you accept Republican amendments in the House and the Senate and try to bring Republicans aboard, as Chairman Baucus has tried to do, look, he took out the public option to gain Republican support. He -- he gave them interstate marketability.

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This is a typical Villager panel discussion that makes me want to throw something through the TV set. Extoll the virtues of bipartisanship for its own sake, everything is win or lose and about politics, like it's some game, and never take any responsibility for your own network not making sure the voters are more informed.

Apparently Bob Cesca felt the same way after watching a some of yesterday's media coverage of these poll numbers. They're Hurting America:

The disconnect, as John Cole points out, is the corporate media. They've been predictably covering the politics-as-sports debate, but not the intracacies of the policy, which they ought to be doing. So it's not surprising that cable news is leading the charge in suggesting that it's the president who hasn't been forthright enough. Let it be said that the media never misses an opportunity to make excuses for its massive breaches of integrity.

But let's say for a moment that the president explained reform and the public option perfectly. Exactly like the press is prescribing. Even then, they'd very likely 1) find another anti-reform meme to inject into their "smackdowns" and half-time shows, and 2) they'd still be inviting serial liars like Mike Pence, unabashed morons like Maria Bartiromo, and centrist capitulators like Harold Ford onto their air to spread misinformation about reform and further confuse viewers.

The one thing I agree with the CNN panel on though is that the President has not done a good enough job of laying out some details of what he wants to see in this legislation, and it's helped them muddy the waters. Bob's right though. It would probably make little difference with what the media coverage looked like.

MALVEAUX: Also joining me is CNN Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger.

What does it mean, Gloria, for the president to be losing out on these Independents?

BORGER: I think it's a real possible for him. Remember that President Obama won the election with 52 percent of Independent voters. That number is down considerably to 43 percent, and Independents are the margin of difference here for him.

Now, the key to keeping those people is, right now, they are worried about the deficit. They see the president as a big spender. They see him aligned with so-called liberal leaders in the Democratic Congress. So, what he's got to do when -- after Labor Day is kind of show them that he is the kind of so-called post-partisan president that many of them thought they were electing.

The good news for President Obama in this is that they are not realigning themselves with the Republicans yet, because the Republican Party still has very high disapproval ratings.

Now, Jessica, you've been watching something as well, which it looks like to be a generational gap in these numbers.

YELLIN: Absolutely. Well, we know the president did exceptionally well with the young during the election, and that has held strong. Sixty-five percent of the young still approve of the job the president is doing, but it's seniors that we keep talking about, especially in light of health care reform.

He has only a 42 percent approval with seniors. That's very low, and that's right now. So, our numbers don't necessarily tease out that it's because of health care reform, but it's likely that this is a direct effect of the current debate. And if the president is able to get some sort of health care bill through, if he's strong on seniors, protecting them, protecting their Medicare, we could see that number rebound.

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Rudy needs a little more work on his be afraid, be very afraid shtick when it comes to health care reform. He obviously hasn't had quite enough time to recite Frank Luntz's talking points memo since he stumbled and stuttered through the interview. Blitzer actually tries calling him out for some of the talking points, but of course like a good little Villager, relents in the end and doesn't really challenge him.

BLITZER: Let's talk about health care reform, a critical issue right now for the country.

Republican Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina, he made news this week when he said this: "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

He's not backing away from that either.

Do you agree with Senator DeMint?

GIULIANI: Well, I think it's a critical measure for a different reason. I don't see the politics of it as much as I do a tremendous impact that I think could have a destructive impact on the American system as we know it. I doubt that...

BLITZER: Because right now, 40 million or 45 million Americans don't have any health insurance.

GIULIANI: They don't, but about half of them could afford it if it was just more affordable. And what you don't want to do is ruin the system for the whatever million, 90 million, 100 million, 118 million.

BLITZER: Because President Obama keeps saying if you like what you have with the private insurance, if you like your doctor, you can keep exactly that. Nothing is going to change.

GIULIANI: Well, then what are all these commissioners that he's appointing that are going to determine health care outcomes? And the fact that you add 30 million, 40 million people to a government program that's already very large means the government will be the major player in health care. It already is pretty close...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: He says that he wants one government option to compete with the private insurance companies.

GIULIANI: But that government option will be so big, it will just overwhelm all private insurance companies. If it's 40 million people, that conceivably could be part of it.

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This absolutely must be heard to be believed. Chuck Todd is more than mere Villager in this interview with the, ahem, Constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald, he is defender of the Bush Administration, and any administration's ability to make up their own rules. In Todd's Politics Uber Alles worldview, losing an election is the best/worst punishment for any Presidential wrong-doing. This is the line Cheney has used, as well: that because Bush "won" two elections, their power was absolute and inviolable for at least the term of office, and now it appears, beyond.

Audio from Salon Radio, where the full transcript is also available.

Glenn Greenwald: So what do you think happens - I think what has destroyed our reputation is announcing to the world that we tolerate torture, and telling the world we don't --

Chuck Todd: We have elections, we also had an election where this was an issue. A new president, who came in there, and has said, we're not going to torture, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this--

GG: What do you think should happen when presidents--

CT: Is that not enough? Isn't that enough?

GG: When, generally, if I go out and rob a bank tomorrow, what happens to me is not that I lose an election. What happens is to me is that I go to prison. So, what do you think should happen when presidents get caught committing crimes in office? What do you think ought to happen?

CT: You see, this is where, this is not - you cannot sit here and say this is as legally black and white as a bank robbery because this was an ideological, legal --

GG: A hundred people died in detention. A hundred people. The United States Government admits that there are homicides that took place during interrogations. Waterboarding and these other techniques are things that the United States has always prosecuted as torture.

Until John Yoo wrote that memo, where was the lack of clarity about whether or not these things were illegal? Where did that lack of clarity or debate exist? They found some right-wing ideologues in the Justice Department to say that this was okay, that's what you're endorsing. As long the president can do that, he's above the law. And I don't see how you can say that you're doing anything other than endorsing a system of lawlessness where the president is free to break the law?

CT: Well, look, I don't believe I'm endorsing a system of lawlessness; I'm trying to put in the reality that as much that there is a legal black and white here, there is a political reality that clouds this, and you know it does too.

Glenn Greenwald is too much of a class act to point out that the "political reality" Todd is defending is about a group of Washington insiders who KNOW that they attended cocktail parties with those who knew about and permitted torture and murder of prisoners of war under the aegis of the United States Government. That unpleasant political reality is something the Georgetown Power Set, a group for whom Todd curries favor, does not want to acknowledge for fear it will sour their bipartisan seven-layer dip.

Memo to Chuck: Glenn soured the dip and drank your milkshake. Go find that copy of the Constitution you didn't read before you dropped out of college. Really.

Digby:

If the conventional wisdom were to shift on torture, say if a different administration and their allies in the village decided that it was important for America's image that these investigations take place, Todd would be right on board with it. (This was, in fact, why I thought the Obama administration would legitimately want to pursue these investigations and Todd's bizarre repetition of the talking point that torture investigations will harm America's image abroad is quite telling. You can be sure he didn't come up with that all by himself.) He has no independent judgment and zero insight into his role in the political process.

I would just write him off as another fluffy spokesmodel except he's got a real job as political director at NBC news. As shocking as it seems, he's really quite powerful. His shallow understanding of the issues at stake --- the reduction of absolutely everything, (even torture and murder) to the insider political parlor game are the most important requirement for advancement in the beltway press and he has that function totally mastered.

Heather: Below is Chuck Todd's appearance on Morning Joe, where he decries torture investigations as political "catnip". This appearance precipitated the interview above.

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David Gregory sure learned his Villager lessons well. Want a big Scoop? Just sell out the integrity of your platform (In this case Meet the Press) that the American people depend on for access.

BarbinMD at KOS explains:

When the stories about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's love of hiking and the ensuing revelations about line crossing and soul mates were first revealed, I think it's safe to say that most people never saw it coming. But what hasn't been a surprise is the resulting confirmation of how many in the media are willing to sell their journalistic souls for political access.

And leading that list has to be David Gregory, who went out of his way to continue the proud tradition of Meet the Press kissing the ass of shamed elected officials.

From his emails to Sanford's office, where he begs for an interview:

Left you a message. Wanted you to hear directly from me that I want to have the Gov on Sunday on Meet The Press. I think it's exactly the right forum to answer the questions about his trip as well as giving him a platform to discuss the economy/stimulus and the future of the party. You know he will get a fair shake from me and coming on MTP puts all of this to rest.

... So coming on Meet The Press allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to...and then move on. You can see (sic) you have done your interview and then move on. Consider it.

In the middle of the breaking scandal, Gregory not only offered to let Sanford guide the story, he was willing to give him a platform to change the subject. And then Gregory would "move on."

Move along now little doggie. No story here, that's it..just a couple of kids in love...run along. Nothing here to see. I can only echo what Vernie Gay said about the new Meet The Press:

But he also seems more intent on covering the waterfront than digging for news, or in pushing the talking heads off their talking points. Recent interviews with Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) felt like a waterfront that went on for miles - an endless vista of chatter and spin.

BOTTOM LINE "Meet the Press" is now the de facto safe show on Sunday morning - "safe," that is, for those being interviewed.

Gregory has been handed perhaps the most important program in television journalism. It's time to start acting like the king who rules wisely yet ruthlessly. Otherwise, his legacy will match that of Garrick Utley or Bill Monroe - moderators who were highly respected but not highly feared. In this job, it's vital to be both.

These Mark Sanford emails proves Vernie's point perfectly.

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Fox News is airing a new commercial on their station that frankly had me almost throwing up in my mouth a little when I saw it. Fox has decided to roll out their full list of regular pundits to espouse the network's journalistic integrity and "core principles". No...I'm not joking.

Here are some of the "principles" they claim Fox News promotes: civility, mutual respect, strengthening our diverse society by striving for unity, tolerance, open debate and civil discourse.

Yeah, that's exactly what I think of when I see the likes of Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly screaming over one of their guests. Or Glenn Beck riding that crazy train off into the horizon. Or Laura Ingraham on one of her hate filled screeds that's akin to listening to finger nails on a chalk board.

And for a real hoot, check out the ticker that's running below the ad. Breaking News!!... Fox News realizes that Helen Thomas exists and actually cares about what she has to say now that it's criticism of the Obama administration.

I love Helen to death, but her whining about Nico Pitney getting a question from the White House sounds like sour grapes to me from a typical Villager. There's plenty to complain about besides a blogger getting to ask one lousy question that's wrong with that White House press corps if she wants to go on a rant about what's wrong with our media.

I think this Fox Nation ad could use a better description than the one I came up with for the video and the post. I'd love to hear suggestions from the readers here who by and large are always more creative than I am when it comes to these things. We've done some "write your own caption posts". I'll gladly have this be a "write your own video description" instead. Submissions welcomed if you'd care to give all of us a laugh.

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Dana Milbank wasn't the only Beltway Villager all wanked out about President Obama prearranging a question with HuffPo's Nico Pitney yesterday. On Meet the Press, David Gregory pressed David Axelrod about it, suggesting that somehow this sort of thing is anti-democratic:

MR. GREGORY: I just want to be clear. Did the White House coordinate with a reporter about a question to be asked at a press conference?

MR. AXELROD: The White House didn't coordinate with the reporter about a question, we were looking for a way to get questions from within Iran. We could--we did not have access to Iranian journalists.

MR. GREGORY: So you talked to a reporter beforehand and said, "Could you ask a question about--from--directly from Iran at a press conference?"

MR. AXELROD: We said if you--we, we, we, we, we knew that he had been and he was very publicly involved in getting--in trafficking and communications in and out of Iran, and we felt it was important...

MR. GREGORY: Well, why is it appropriate to coordinate with a reporter about what's asked at a time when we're championing democracy around the world?

MR. AXELROD: No, no, David, you miss...

MR. GREGORY: Is that, is that what you should do at a press conference?

MR. AXELROD: You're not, you're not listening to what I said. We didn't coordinate with, with him about what was asked.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. AXELROD: In fact, he asked probably one of the most--the toughest and most probing questions at that press conference. We had no idea what he was going to ask.

MR. GREGORY: But you coordinated with him about, about that subject of a question beforehand.

MR. AXELROD: He was a, he was a, he was a, he was a vehicle to get questions from Iran asked at this press conference, and that we thought was not only appropriate but, but necessary.

MR. GREGORY: If President Bush had done that, don't you think Democrats would have said that's outrageous?

Gregory is a Beltway Villager, and like all such folk, he wants to cling to the well-honed myths that preserve their favorite fictions about themselves. One of these is that White House press conferences are actually exercises in democratic, even egalitarian questioning of government officials by the people's representatives in the press corps.

So they are loathe to admit a simple reality: White House press conferences are in cold reality carefully stage-managed affairs, and the main beneficiaries of this arrangement have been the handful of "elite" reporters from big-name media outlets who traditionally have dominated them.

We're perfectly aware that presidents have for some long time gone into these conferences with a prearranged list of reporters upon whom they are going to call. The result has been an immense trivialization of press conferences, because those "elite" reporters have demonstrated over the years their eagerness to indulge trivial, celebrity-media-driven questions at the expense of serious policy matters. In the process, they've become increasingly manipulable.

This trend reached its apotheosis back when Jeff Gannon was lobbing softball questions to President Bush and White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Not only was Gannon a phony journalist, he was being regularly selected to be among the main questioners at the daily briefings.

Considering that this same White House never came clean on exactly why it issued credentials to this fraud -- and especially considering that David Gregory never once objected to it -- his outrage over the Obama White House's calling on Pitney for the toughest question any reporter at that conference asked seems strangely misplaced.

On the other hand, considering that this White House's admission of people like Pitney into the circle of people who get to ask questions at these conferences represents a direct erosion of the "elite" status of people like David Gregory -- and in fact an opening of these questions to many more "representatives of the people" -- it's really not too surprising.