Ok we can understand his problems and love him for his stands on other issues but should we push him on this an R 2 district is a scary place any polls on how his voters feel about healthcare?
How do you want to play this? What ever the play if it turns out bad we can always change our minds and tactics unlike the GOP who never admits mistakes.
Maybe a plan of waiting for now? An if we are betrayed we think of something appropriate later?

Grayson’s speech was nothing like a shiny object. Last week’s shiny object was Letterman. Grayson’s posterboard speech and subsequent “apology” set an example for other, safer Democrats on how to push back hard against the GOP/Media Complex. His CNN Situation Room appearance should be required viewing for all Democratic Congresscritters.

But on health care, particularly a NO vote on a non-Public Option bill, Grayson may very well be representing his district. And in this case, we may have truth-telling, especially since it’s R+2.

Let’s continue the pressure on the safe Democrats; they can provide the cover on the Pledge for Democrats like Grayson who are more at risk. It’s a good strategy, notwithstanding Grayson’s excellent public profile.

Fork it! I liked it. Only saw a quick-take while being force-fed cnn and all I could say was RRRRAAAAWWWW!!!!!111

I’m with Teddy

but I would love to look at age demographics for FL-08, I fuzzily recall they were changing from the 04 cycle and Grayson got over because of all the racist crap Keller and his Party were spewing – just wondering how he plans to explain his PHRma deal to seniors in the district, are they not that significant a bloc ?

Thanks, Jane. It’s refreshing to see nuance again in political discourse. I can appreciate how much time it takes compared to black ‘n white portraits or he said, she said “reporting”.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hamsher and the firepup Freedom Fighters:

I have been a bit cautious about the good Rep. Grayson since I found out his pedigree goin’ back to Bork and Scalia. In fact, the brand of fascism of Bork and Scalia goes right back to the nativist, libertarian, America First, anti-federal reserve ideology of the 1930’s and since some of you movers and shakers in the progressive blogosphere have been playin footsie with Ron Paul who is the epitome of this solid brand of American fascism, this gives me pause.

I agree that we must not pressure folks who are in solid red districts, but Grayson’s district has been trendin’ blue for awhile and is only 2% on the red side…Grayson and the intelligent fascists know that they must keep their libertarian Southern base by playin’ to the individualist anti-corporate strain of the racists in their constituency…I ain’t convinced that Rep. Gayson ain’t a 21st century Huey Long.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION TO YOUR SIDE NOT THEIRS!!

Grayson is a REAL Democrat. I am also. He has prosecuted War Profiteers, such as Halliburton. But is he secretly a Beatnik?

http://www.graysonforcongress&…..p?PageId=2

“Mr. Grayson has filed dozens of lawsuits against Iraq contractors on behalf of corporate whistle-blowers. He won a huge victory last month [March 2006] when a federal jury in Virginia ordered a security firm called Custer Battles LLC to return $10 million in ill-gotten funds to the government. The ruling marked the first time an American firm was held responsible for financial improprieties in Iraq.” – The Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2006

Nice try but, he still showed courage and that’s more than we can say for many of the established clowns in the party. He does serve a purpose and like Jane I recognized that.

grayson also hasn’t signed on in support of hr 676 (how hard is that?). unless he supports some other bill that provides universal healthcare, some of his criticisms of the republicans are also true of his own position.

still, i cheered when i heard grayson’s “apology” live (cspan) on the house floor. that statement was a work of art.

Ever since I read a blog post on Grayson by Matt Taibbi, I’ve tended to look askance at him. Go here:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibb…..ck-market/

Sorry about the big link, but I don’t know how to do the clever embedding thing.

Citizen Frank:

The fact that Grayson, like Ron Paul, opposes the insane corporate wars and knows that his opposition to war profiteering is a winner doesn’t make him a “real Democrat”…it just makes ‘im a smart politician who knows how to keep his audience focused. The fascist base in this country as in Germany in the 1930’s is racist and anti-corporatist…in Germany these were the sans-culotte who had nuthin to lose since they hadn’t had employment or enough to feed their families for a decade and didn’t like the rich any more’n they did Jews or people of color.

I think Grayson may very well be a smarter version of John Edwards.

Thanks for pointing this out, Jane!

Might be a good thing for folks to tell him: “I’ll donate to you — IF you take The Pledge.”

Grayson sues Big Pharma, Big Insurance, the MIC and wins. Clerkships for federal judges, regardless of ideology, are plum jobs for young lawyers. I like the guy. I’m not willing to throw him under the bus unless and/ or until his actions warrant it. The MSM hates him already so that instantly gives him the benefit of the doubt with me.

At this point does he need money? Seems like he got a ton of it lately.

Citizen ShotoJamf:

Great catch, Citizen! ACTION ALERT: all folks here must read this link to Taibbi’s post. And let’s hope that those folks who are dancin’ around with Ron Paul and some a these other “libertarian” folks, will keep their pants on and their money belts zipped.

Norske, there is no way that I am going to argue with you. Especially since you make quite valid points. But I get good vibes from Grayson.

Citizen Frank33:

I wasn’t attackin’ you and I certainly don’t want you to argue with me…I just want you to be careful with your loyalties and remember that Grayson and those like him work for you and you need to keep their feet to the fire with the attitude: “That was good Rep. Grayson, now what the fuck have you done for me lately?”

I don’t agree with Ron Paul but I do think that there should be someone looking over the FEDs shoulder and if they are abetting short selling etc. this needs to be stopped. Additionally, it is my opinion that the FED has had a great deal of responsibility for the transfer of wealth to the ubber rich.

Citizen foothillsmike:

Of course there should be oversight and restructuring of the Fed…AND investigations of the Fed’s activities in support of the corporate thieves who stole the public treasury last Fall and Winter. But don’t go after coalitions with these people, let THEM come to YOU…progressives represent the mass of people in this country and these crypto-Nazis don’t so don’t let ‘em ride free on your issues…don’t give ‘em ANY legitimacy!

Never expect too much from Democrats, and cooties in general attach to the deed, not the person.

Ron Paul has some wacko opinions, but on a handful of very important issues, he’s with us. I’ve learned doing local politics the value of working across the “aisle,” as it were, because this is a one-party Democrat town with two general factions, “moderate” and “progressive.”

Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom is playing the GOP relentless opposition line, no new taxes, attacking labor and refusing to work with the supervisors.

At some level, politics reduces to a game of keep away.

every country needs an impartial regulator of monetary policy – a Central Bank. What happened during shrubco was total all-agency systemic failure, including the Fed. The system failed. Such failure does not lend any support for the trademark Ron Paul-Burn America-on-a-Cross-of-Gold bizarro-world populist let-get-rid-of-the-Fed Knownothingism. We need a Central Bank and it needs to be a true neutral broker, acting behind the scenes to prevent economic shocks to the system. If the Fed had done its job, we wouldn’t have needed those massive fiscal bailouts/corporate welfare politics that so harmed this country. We need to make sure that it does its job next time, not to get rid of it. Getting rid of the Fed is a rethug wet dream – it means that companies would be free to bribe members of Congress for more trillion dollar hand-outs with impunity with no ability to offset the ill effects of such stupidity. There is a difference between monetary and fiscal policy. For the last few months of shrub’s reign, we forgot about that.

Norske,

I love reading your take on things. I find it particularly interesting to see your take on neo-fascism today – it seems like a new line of thinking. Is it inspired by some new bit of information or has it been there all along and somehow I just missed it?

p.s. I also would like to know what Grayson’s relationship is to Rahm and the American wing of the Likud Party…he apologized to the anti-defamation league for usin’ the very appropriate word “holocost” and he is Jewish and had every right to use the word…in fact I believe more left wing Jews should expand the use of this word to keep it viable. His stance on the war in Iraq is based on his opposition to corporate war profiteering NOT opposition to American occupation of Arab land…and we don’t know his stand on Afghanistan.

I think this is the salient question: What is the polling in his district for the PO? More districts are coming around as “the stubborn facts” are more widely known. Still, I don’t get that totally owned, or dumb ass vibe from him. Has anybody just tried to call him? He may be a step or two ahead of all of us.

Seeing as it’s in the headline and all, the word is “Whither.” Unless you mean Grayson is shriveling like a raisin on health care, which you might. Except ‘wither’ is not a transitive verb.

Yup, that is well said. But anyone could attack me with impunity today. It has been an interesting 24 hours, and with 3 hours sleep I am only using one of the dual cores of my CPU processor.

I will speculate that Grayson is going to have serious political challenges. I expect there will be some major neo-con money for a Republican-Asshole challenger in his Congress District.

What has happened with the FEDs “control” over the economy over the last several decades is everytime the economy starts to expand the price hikes go to the wealthy. As soon as people start to get raises the FED determines that it could lead to inflation and shuts it down. There has been a racheting up and the middle and lower class have not benefited.

Grayson sent around the video of his grilling Alvarez to FDL or Blue America contributors as a fundraiser. The one that Taibbi writes about. I thought there was something off about Grayson, but, unlike Taibbi, I was not articulate enough to pin it down. (Of course, Grayson’s never threatened me on the phone, so Taibbi’s experience set had some important additional information.)

I like Grayson, and I particularly like that he has a spine. But often my idols turn out to have feet of clay, so I’m keeping my mind open about Grayson.

Citizen Sufilizard:

“Is it inspired by some new bit of information or has it been there all along and somehow I just missed it?”

IT (fascism) has been here since slavery and the ratification of the original Constitution. Maybe you aren’t old enough to remember the 1930’s but I grew up in a union family that had immigrant roots. The experience of the Depression and American politics was a part of our socialization in my family and I read everything there was to read on the real radicals of our country’s founding and that started with the anti-slavery folks who were opposing the original fascism that was institutionalized in the Constitution. So if you really want to understand what fascism means, it’s all there in our history, ain’t nuthin new about it.

only if you define the “benefit” as the ability to borrow more money cheaply… The Fed (back when it was doing its job) has no problems with real wages going up. That’s a good thing. It’s when those increases aren’t real – when they conceal inflation – that the Fed gets concerned. That is its job. In theory, we have only the fiscal policy guys (i.e., the politically-influenced Treasury Dept and Congress) to blame for this – if they design a system that relies on ever-increasing amounts of consumer debt without corresponding increase in real wages, then the Fed really doesn’t have a whole lot of choice about what they do about it. It’s responses (in respect of monetary policy) are the symptoms not the cause of the underlying problem. They just try to fix other people’s problems.

Citizen Frank33:

Maybe there will be a serious right-wing challenge to Grayson but I think he has inoculated himself against it…and I ain’t sure that the fascist brain trust would want to oppose ‘im…he’s a shrewd pol who knows where the money is and where the bodies are buried.

“Whither”

Just read Taibbi’s article and watched the video. Well, lawyers don’t get to be rich and prominent by being pussycats. Also, I work in the medical field and know that some of the finest surgeons are fully capable of going psycho on you. As I said before, I don’t care if he is a goose-stepping Nazi if he is useful in this pivotal health care battle. He may be a werewolf, but he’s OUR werewolf.

Right. Anyone remember 3/5 of a person?

Citizen GDC707:

“He may be a werewolf but he’s OUR werewolf.”

Yeah and the powerful families in Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s thought that “Hitler might be a lunatic but he’s OUR lunatic”…they actually thought they could control ‘im after he had captured the hearts and minds of vulnerable Germans…the rest as they say is history.

Actually that is 3/5 more of a person than Republican Assholes now consider African Americans.

Can we please consider rethugs the other 2/5th of their 3/5th of a person?

I think the R’s consider hippies to be .001 of a person.

Too true.

Hitler’s main issue was NOT trying to get healthcare to all the people. If Grayson starts talking about gassing Jews and invading countries for “living space” I’m sure we’ll start chewing ‘im up. Besides, at the rate we’re going National Socialism (Nazism) is not the main threat. It’s good old fashioned feudal serfdom.

Whither, I think, not Wither.

Jane,

My first response is “NO! NO! NO!”.

You’re looking at Grayson through Healthcare-colored glasses and I propose to you that Grayson’s contribution to the Democratic Party is much more subsantle than any single issue.

In your article it appears that you’re comparing Grayson to some model of the perfect Democrat and you’re pointing out his flaws in order “warn” the progressives to not get too excited by Grayson because he doesn’t fit that model.

In my short time posting on FDL aside from my attempts at witty humor I’ve been trying to push a singular idea that Democrats NEED to appeal to the center because the center which comprises swing voter is what decides which party is in power. Unfortunately, Republicans have this down to a science and Democrats are left scratching their heads at why no one will listen their reason.

Grayson is an exemplar of the paradigm shift that needs to happen on the left in order to start appealing to the center. People in the center want to, even NEED to be entertained. Look at all the buffoonery that goes on in the Right– buffoonery that gets attention. Now, you may say, as many in progressive media have said “that’s over the top” or “we don’t need to stoop that low” etc. But in this post I explain why it SO important to capture the Center’s attention and why and how the Entertainment Factor works. The Entertainment Factor is the key to winning back the center.

For those who want to minimize or dismiss Grayson’s performance or want to warn us that Grayson is not the perfect Democrat– I suggest that you are missing the forest for the trees. You may see Grayson as a fringe Democrat who is not solid on healthcare but I suggest to you his passion and veracity is the new model that the Democrats need to regain the battle for media coverage and in turn regain the attention of the center and in turn a SOLID majority that can AND WILL forward the progressive agenda.

Whence comest thou? Thence.
Where art thou? There.
Whither goest thou? Thither.

I like it when Alan Grayson, Barney Frank, Bernie Sanders, et al raise some cane.
I’m tried of all the smooth-talking-spin, tell-them-what-they-want-to hear,
political-correctness-speak.
”I as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore”
Maybe the lobbyists always win, but we should give them a good fight anyway.

“secretly a beatnik” Thanks

bingo. no perfect Dem and he is rallying in the troops. My 81 year old mother and 82 year old father and WWII friends at the nursing home love him and what he is saying

The Nebraska Democratic Party passed a resolution Saturday supporting a “robust public option.” Whither Ben Nelson?

Jane, possible typo:

letter asking Henry Waxan

Should be “Waxman,” non?

and “whither” not “wither”, I assume.

~~~ModNote: My fault, and repaired. Thank you.~~~

I have to agree, even if his stance on health care isn’t Progressive-Orthodox. There are a few congresspeople who are good enough on the whole to be worth supporting. Grayson is certainly one of them.

Like the drill sergeant said in the movie Full Metal Jacket: “He’s got guts and guts is enough!”

Anthony Weiner certainly showed equal courage, earlier, and seems to have a better grasp of policy. One can only speculate why “progressives” didn’t go crazy for him like they did with Grayson. Perhaps he wasn’t wearing the right tribal tatoos?

Talk is cheap. Frank’s work on financial reform has been less than stellar, all the way from TARP to gutting the Consumer Finance Protection Agency. That’s why policy detail is important, because you can hold them accountable for it — unlike [a|the] [strong|robust]? public [option|plan], which to this day is not defined — although if you want to declare victory because legislation includes the words public option, that may be a feature, and not a bug.

I’m not certain that acting on “good vibes” about a politician has a great track record. Just saying.

While I agree that Grayson has real talent, and is (imo) an important part of the progressive movement present and future, Jane and others are right that he has been hanging back on health care. I don’t know why.

Grayson has 50+ videos up on youtube. I watched just about all of them last night. I then did a bit of background reading on him. Highly impressive. There is likely to be some backlash to his recent actions from both GOP and DEM. a)because he’s tweaked the GOP tail and b)because he’s a freshman member who speaks before being spoken to. All I can say now is that the man is highly valuable to the progressive movement and needs whatever support we can muster for him.

Laura Flanders has this film clip up that Brave New World did about Grayson and Health care

Rep Grayson Rookie of the Year
http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/

He sure does not look like he is “hanging back” any longer

Being my congressperson, I asked Grayson in his first summer townhall about his take on the public option (in particular, I was frankly not clear on how it was even theoretically supposed to reduce costs in the way that a singl payer model more clearly would).

He was straight with us. Said he’d vote for the reform legislation with or without the Pub Op, though he supported/supports the public option. He said essentially the expansion of coverage, the abolition of ‘pre-existing conditions’ recissions, and portability improvements were, push to shove, adequate for his vote.

Do I think it sort of stinks? Yeah, especially when this hwakeyed slayer of military contractors on contract fraud violations–obviously nobody’s fool–tried to spin the admin’s handshake agreement w/ Big Pharma as the adequate ‘cost cutting’ element of the plan.

But do I want to return to the sort of unbelievable asswipe of a Bush rubber stamper (Ric Keller) who represented the district pre-Grayson? A thousand times no.

That kind of corporate shilling weasel remains the norm in Orlando politics, from the mayor, to the statehouse to the county commission. If he pulls a fast one on the health care thing I’ll be pissed, and I’ll feel like I’ve learned something useful and unflattering about the guy…but he will–barring further betrayal–retain my support.

Just saying.

going for the incremental strategy. too many slap downs in the past…