It’s a sad day when an ex-President is a partisan not a patriot. Does he even know how much not having Medicare drug price negotiation costs taxpayers every year? Does he even know how much not having Single Payer costs us? That’s hundreds of billions of tax dollars every year that don’t make anyone healthier, that don’t help anyone except greedy corporations. What a loser!

I can’t believe he actually thinks that. Sounds like they’re all buttering Queen Olympia up and hoping to get a compromise.

I can’t believe he uses the Drug Bill trigger example, since it’s never been pulled. Is there a federal trigger that has ever been pulled? I don’t think so, Bill.

Triggers are simply a device to allow lawmakers to say they voted for something to one audience, while assuring another audience that the bill they voted for will prohibit that same thing from ever happening. It is the most dishonest form of lawmaking there is.

Well, one of the most dishonest. There are so many dishonest ways to make laws in America now!

Do we start to call for the replacement of Rahm Emanuel now or do we wait until after the health insurance bailout package passes?

That’s a joke, right?

When did Big Dog become a Blue Dog? Oh, wait…

Well, how else do you think he can afford his rock-n-roll lifestyle?

Mike Ross used to be Bill Clintons driver.

How are they getting Bill to say this shit? Wasn’t he pissed that his wife didn’t get the nomination? Have they promised her something? Like the presidency in 2012? Or what?

Oh, no – not the whole “let’s chase after a Republican vote we’ll never get” garbage again!

Nah, this is just Rahm calling in a favor from his former boss.

Hmmm … the same relationship as between Bernie Kerik and Rudy Giuliani.
And we know how that ended.

Such a pathetic clown. If it’s a pressing question of great political importance, you can always rely upon him to side with the corporations. If it’s a personal liberty issue like DOMA or DADT, you can be certain that he’ll express regret now that he couldn’t make the right decision back then when there were electoral costs attached to it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was actually a frustrated idealist.

Women have triggers?

Wait.

Who said that?

Bill Clinton’s biggest flaw is that he always thought as a politician: always trying to make nice with his enemies, always about building political capital and then not using it.

Snowe’s trigger would NOT be worthless. It would ensure the death of the public option all too well, exactly as she and others want.

My best (and most generous) guess as to why President Clinton is indicating any support for a trigger is that he’s still smarting from having tried to get real reform 15 years ago and ending up getting nothing at all.

I get that he doesn’t want to repeat what he thinks was a mistake, but this time is different and the compromises are too many and not as necessary as many of the Democrats think.

Democrats in Congress and in the administation have left us to call out the Blue Dog turncoats, but that’s what they should be doing and they should be fighting to get REAL reform.

last time it was monica, now its pharma and the health insurance industry.

Bill Clinton, triangulation. Remember? And I agree with Monty. Bill Clinton should be fulfilling the role of a statesman, but he can’t stop being a politician, even when the second diminishes the first.

Totally wicked albertchampion. LOL

LOL!! Hi Cassie!!

Smells like…. triangulation.

Who needs Olympia Snowe and her stupid trigger? Americans all over the country worked our butts off so you would have your fucking 60 votes, Senate Democrats. So use them to give us the universal health care we deserve!

Jeez, these buggers are so thick!

You would think that they would understand that eventually the people will become pissed. All of us. The right. The left. All of us. It is not that hard to give us just enough to keep us quiet. Why do they have to kill so many of us? Are they stupid or has the greed gone to their heads?

I think I just answered my questions.

You can convince yourself of all kinds of crazy things when money and power are involved. He may not be in politics any more, but he still shills for money for his global initiative and he can’t get money from a bunch of his favorites now that Hillary is Sec of State. Or maybe he wants Obama to fail so Hillary can primary him in 2012.

Been experiencing the health care system up close. Spent friday in the ER and saturday getting the two units of blood. Came home yesterday afternoon. btw this ER visit was 9 hours from in door and from radiology to my hospital bed. And that is at Mayo.

I did have excellent care and no one asked be about money & insurance. When you are registered at Mayo then all that stupid fun stops.

These people have no clue when it comes to what regular people experience.

President Obama has 60 votes for the public option in the Senate?

You better tell that to Baucus, Lincoln, Bayh, et al!

It’s really amazing to me how greedy they all are. Wall Street could have thrown out a few bones and the public would have gone back to being too lazy to care while they still made out like bandits. But they just can’t seem to help themselves from going for all the money. Wall Street is a gambling culture, and they really act just like ordinary gamblers at the craps table, all reason out the window because they’re gonna win it all on the next spin.

American politics reminds me of motherhood. When my kids were little, many was the night that I’d lay there in bed exhausted from a long day wishing they would just talk and giggle quietly enough that I could pretend I didn’t hear them so I wouldn’t have to drag my butt to their room to enforce my go to bed now orders or lose credibility. Wall Street isn’t as smart as my kids got to be. They need the “go to sleep now or I’ll rock you to sleep — with a big rock!” treatment my dad used to use. (For anyone who might misunderstand, he didn’t actually hit us with rocks, but we knew from the stomping footsteps and tone of his voice that we’d better shut up completely and immediately or we’d be sorry.)

((katymine))

wrong is wrong

You tell them that they all better vote for closure on your signature issue. If they don’t you cut them off completely. Every earmark, every state project, everything they want will be gone. You will find primary challenges where you can and push terrible state issue things right before their elections as a poison pill if need be. You promise them some thing to trade for. A bridge here. A new research lab for a state college there.

They can vote their own way on the bill they just can’t hold it up by supporting the filibuster.

It is called being a party leader.

The former president seems to think any bill even a sham bill would be good politically. Personally I think anything short of a strong public option is not true reform. The time that Obama said that a public option was not important reminded me of the time that Clinton said the time of big government was over. Tannenhouse says that Clinton was a Conservative.
He clearly was to the right of Nixon. Maher seems to think the same of Obama. If major effective reforms in both healthcare and financial regulation do not take place immediatly;I’ll have to agree with him.Another thing- How can unemployment be a lagging indicator when most of us are wage slaves ?

You better tell that to Baucus, Lincoln, Bayh, et al!

The Democrats have been using excuses about numbers for years. They couldn’t stop Bush because they were in the minority, ignoring the power of the filibuster and other delaying activities that the Republicans have had no hesitation in using. Then in 2006, they won the House and Senate on the promise to get out of Iraq, but they said again that Bush was still President and they didn’t have 60 votes in the Senate. Then in 2008 Obama won the Presidency and later in 2009 they achieved their 60 vote majority. But guess what, they still can’t do anything. How is it that a buffoon like Bush and a bunch of braindead Republicans could pass whatever they wanted for nearly 8 years without the advantages the Democrats have now? This is what Teddy’s comment is getting at.

My view is that Obama and the Democrats aren’t stymied. They are doing and have done exactly what they wanted to do both in the minority and the majority. They are neo-Republicans. It’s the Republican agenda, just not presented by the current Republican crazies.

Hey, don’t forget Clinton was the one who repealed Glass/Seagal…He also hired Alan “the thief” Greenspan…He also supported DADT…he also pushed through NAFTA! Ya get that, folks? Clinton was then and still is a f**king POS and always will be!

A new research lab for a state college there.

Holy shit that is rich……..the idiots wanted to kill the medical school that Gov Janet got in place and used as economic develop of the downtown area. Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the US…..no medical school.

This is the most education adverse state after Texas.

This sort of in your face, self serving shit would have been out right quick on their arse, were this Argentina or some other self respecting country. But, what’s new – empires were always lost by either the navel gazing, decadent, disbelieving losers, the blind-led-blind forging bravely over the cliff, or a combination of both, as is the case in the USA today.

I saw a documentary last night about political cartoonist, Paul Conrad, called, Drawing Fire, and I must say Conrad was bang on about Bill Clinton. He said the former president was more GOP than the GOP. He got that right.

Here’s the exact quote:

“Clinton was a disappointment,” said Paul Conrad. “I mean, he became more of a Republican than most Republicans. He sold out the Democratic party, as far as I can tell.” In this cartoon, Clinton kow-tows to the Republican agenda by playing a saxophone attached to the iconic elephant.

Los Angeles Times (1994)
Courtesy of Tribune Media Services

Clinton can BS all he wants. It’s up to us to let our Reps, Senators and the WH know that a trigger is failure and it will loose our support in 2010 and beyond. We have had being played. Real reform with a real public option or they’re all history.

Call me a cynic, but I believe Clinton’s praises are just part of the critical push from the WH to promote the trigger.( they’re using a former president to talk about something so specific and polarizing to progressives)

My guess is we’ll get a flood of media coverage soon praising the virtues of the trigger as the right thing to do, followed by the happy news that the trigger is in and Snowe and maybe another republican will vote for the bill. I’m even thinking that the votes on the public option amendments in the senate were conveniently delayed to allow Clinton to get in the media.

Right. Old Bill just doesn’t want to admit that his mistake was that he didn’t try for Medicare for All. That would have succeeded.

He’s made 100 million dollars since he left the Presidency. Of course, he’s entirely corrupted by the big companies by now.

BIG reason 60 votes means nothing in the Senate. Rahm and Bill going all over the country selecting republicans who call themselves democrats to support and fund in congressional races.

Here in Maine , in ‘04 , we had a great but broke candidate running against Olympia Snowe for Senate. You would thing at least some great debates .

Bill Clinton comes to Maine to raise money ..not for our broke Dem candidate…but for gov baldaci. Who wasn’t in any trouble for reelection. He is dem but has been in The Family …..just like Hillary.Although dem. gov baldaci could not have been a worse gov even if he went by the republican party brand.

Get rid of rahm and both clintons. I want my party back.

The man who brought us NAFTA screws over working people again. Clinton just cannot wait to sell out to corporations on this. Pathetic.

Well personally I think the triggers are a fine idea. As for Bill Clinton, he’s one of my favorite presidents.
If he could run again I’d vote for him in a minute. In fact I’d let ACORN register me to vote. That way I could vote for him a hundred times.

Why doesn’t Clinton become a real businessman and pay taxes rather than hide under the guise of non profits? Is it so he can avoid the American way of living by paying taxes? One huge reason why USA is bankrupt is because so many wealthy and or politicians have non profits which is another way of avoiding taxes. And it is partly why our deficit is so huge.

Now you know why the Clintons were never successful. They triangulate themselves with money and power until they strangulate themselves. Then have sex with employees in the white house and lie to congress about it. Then call it a “right wing conspiracy”, which they still believe.

The Clintons are almost singlehandedly responsible for the dire situation Americans are in today. The loss of jobs is due to Nafta, and the thievery of the financial community perpetrated on the American people was enabled because of him. Oh, and he also totally ruined the music industry and enable the media to consolidate to the point that we now have NO news. No one has done more harm. THEY are the right-wing conspiracy.

What a great example. A fine couple.

Mercy! You people don’t seem to like the Clintons do you?
But listen up…you hate them because you do not understand what’s going on and what went on when Bill was the prez. Those were great times.
Clinton actually made a valiant attempt to reduce the welfare state but it grows back up like a weed.

Thanks mstar for posting almost exactly what I was going to say. Even down to the POS part! Yeah, he was a center-right turd then and he’s the same turd now. What a Corporate Stooge.

Right On TropicGirl and it looks like he hasn’t changed a bit.

I’m not calling you a cynic. I’m calling you politically astute. Criminy EVERYTHING is staged anymore.