Posted by
Bill Crawford on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 10:25:41 PM
The President has a speech agenda next week. He will address all our schoolchildren Tuesday 9/8, at Noon. He will talk about succeeding in education. There will be an attached agenda for any teachers that want to attach discussion time.
Railing on him passing some sort of partisan agenda is really a waste of time. The joke is, if Bush had tried this, the squealing about taking precious instruction time away from the NCLB testing would be going on for weeks. My advice to parents is to let it ride- he is just trying to paste his face on to another generation. And if you are upset that the school isn't allowing you to opt your kids out (and you an bet that New York and California wouldn't think of it), hit 'em where it hurts: keep your kid home for the day, and let them lose the aid money.
The following night, Wednesday 9/9, he is going to do a State of the Union thing in front of a joint session of Congress. Now that said Congress has pretty much announced to the world that health care reform is effectively dead, they are looking to the White House for a new direction.
This administration will be sucking on Red Bulls this weekend to fill that one in. It is almost a given that the "public option" thing will be given last rites, but nobody in the White House seems like they are over that one.
Why would I say that? Because all it's cheerleaders, from Dave Axelrod on down, are actually stepping up the rhetoric publicly. There is no talk of pragmatic reconciliation. So look for some sort of brand new concept to fill the hole. "Co-ops" was last weekend's trial balloon.
I don't know if he thinks his snake oil salesman act will carry this one, but I do know he and his people still want the path to universal payer to be set this year, no matter how it is done.
So whatever he comes up with, a new round of people will run it through the microscope, and new objections will arise.
That's what it comes down to. He isn't about to change the parameters. He isn't about to start negotiating with Republicans. And he doesn't have the votes in his own party. You do the math.