Watch

Over the last week a miniature civil war has broken out across the Democratic Party. Since Sen. Lieberman was able to successfully strip the health care reform bill of the public option, liberal opinion leaders (Howard Dean) have joined with the more liberal segments of the blogosphere (FireDogLake and Daily Kos) in a chorus that continues to shout “Kill The Bill.” On the other hand, bloggers like Jonathan Cohn, Ezra Klein, and Nate Silver has come to the bill and President’s defense.

This fight can actually be seen perfectly in this exchange between Nate Silver Vs FireDogLake & Kos:

1. Nate Silver wrote an excellent piece explaining why liberals ought to be happy with the bill.
2. Silver then responds to the growing “Kill The Bill” chorus by asking 20 questions meant to challenge their thinking.
3. Kos at Daily Kos responds with some liberal hell fire.
4. Jon Walker at FireDogLake also responds.
5. Silver does his thing by responding to both simultaneously, thus completing the hard to achieve Liberal Policy Mexican Standoff (2009).

First, this debate amongst the Democratic Party is healthy. It keeps the party true to its roots, while, hopefully, moving the process forward. This is a policy discussion that must be had to flush out the full intricacies of the bill, while maintaining forward progress towards better national health care policy.

What is not helpful is the dissent coming from the likes of Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean. This morning he took to the WaPo editorial page and MSNBC to essentially declared war on President Obama’s efforts thus far. On MSNBC he declared:

“I’m going to support President Obama when he runs for re-election,” Dean, a former presidential candidate himself, said. “Not vigorously. I’m going to vote for him.”

The Democratic Party will only become divided and impotent if we allow the pessimism that ruled during the early Bush years to reign supreme again. I shudder to think of the Nader/purist faction swelling again. Disagreement on policy grounds is constructive to the debate, but stating President Obama is a failure and not worth our vigorous support merely undermines the actual good that is coming from this process… and our party’s future endeavors.

Secondly, this bill is still fundamentally a good bill. What we have is the result of a difficult and painful legislative process. A process that continues well beyond “final” passage of one bill. Senator Klobuchar argued today that the “Kill The Bill” argument fails to comprehend the legislative process.

Klobuchar postulates that if the Civil Rights Act of 1960 was killed because it did not include the improvements made in ’64, ’68, and ’91 we would have never begun that process. The same could be said about Medicare and the cost containment provisions that have strengthened the program over the past 50 years. The legislative process is meant to be imperfect, but fluid and never ending.

The bill, as it stands, makes incredible reforms of the insurance market, which is, in itself, something significant. It interjects the government as an equalizer of of the health care system in a big way. The reforms and subsidies included in this bill will bring relief to millions of Americans. Framing it any other way is political suicide and, from a policy aspect, false.

One last word, President Clinton spoke out today on the necessity of passage, which I think sums of my argument in way I could never:

Our only responsible choice is the path of action. Does this bill read exactly how I would write it? No. Does it contain everything everyone wants? Of course not. But America can’t afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And this is a good bill: it increases the security of those who already have insurance and gives every American access to affordable coverage; and contains comprehensive efforts to control costs and improve quality, with more information on best practices, and comparative costs and results. The bill will shift the power away from the insurance companies and into the hands of consumers.

Take it from someone who knows: these chances don’t come around every day. Allowing this effort to fall short now would be a colossal blunder — both politically for our party and, far more important, for the physical, fiscal, and economic health of our country.”

Update:

A really good take down of the “Strip The Mandate” argument coming from the likes of Keith Olberman from Mike Madden at Salon.com