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White House: What to Do Without Teddy?
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Jason Reed / Reuters
In a conversation with Richard Wolffe, author of Renegade: The Making of a President, a senior Obama aide busts the myth that Ted Kennedy's passing will help the cause of health-care reform. Plus, what Obama envied about Kennedy.
He called it the cause of his life, although he did not live to see it turn into reality. But has the passing of Ted Kennedy breathed new life into the cause of health care?
Inside the White House, Obama’s senior aides say it’s too early to tell. Such caution may be natural after a summer in which the so-called health-care debate has spun off in wildly unpredictable and unreasonable directions.
“One thing I can say for sure,” said a senior White House aide. “We’d much sooner have him leading the effort, than inspiring it through his memory.”
“One thing I can say for sure,” said one senior White House official of Kennedy’s impact on health care. “We’d much sooner have him leading the effort, than inspiring it through his memory.”
The White House has sorely missed Kennedy’s unique talents and status through the long hot summer of the health-care debate: both because of his expertise in policy and his personal abilities to find common ground with key Republicans.
Now what remains is the inspiration of Kennedy’s memory—an emotional legacy that speaks far more to Democrats than Republicans.
Kennedy was not just the liberal lion. He was the master negotiator, who could forge compromises with conservatives while never losing the trust of progressives. He handed George W. Bush one of his biggest domestic achievements in No Child Left Behind, yet he would later tear President Bush apart on the war in Iraq.
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The only figure to come close to Kennedy’s potential to carve out a health-care compromise is no longer serving in the Senate. Tom Daschle, the former Democratic leader, wrote a blueprint for health-care reform earlier this year, alongside Republicans Bob Dole and Howard Baker. Their work for the Bipartisan Policy Center appears to be the most promising ground for any cross-party talks in the fall.
In many ways, Kennedy represented the model of the kind of compromising yet progressive politics that Barack Obama has tried to make his own. The difference, at least in the Senate, was that Kennedy had the seniority and the skills to turn those compromises into legislation. In his brief time in the Senate, Obama looked up to Kennedy but suffered from an inflated sense of what he could achieve as the 99th senator of 100 in seniority.
He sought out Kennedy’s advice as to how to work in the Senate, just as he reached out to Hillary Clinton. But he had little notion in the early stages of his time in Washington about how his junior ranking would limit his influence. “I anticipated on the big-ticket items that I cared about, like universal health care, that I would be second chair, or third or fourth chair to people like Ted Kennedy, who’d been working on it for a very long time,” Obama told me in an interview last year for my book Renegade. “But I thought that I could contribute good ideas and help shape the agenda.”
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Richard Wolffe is Daily Beast columnist and an award-winning journalist. He covered the entire length of Barack Obama's presidential campaign for Newsweek magazine. His book, Renegade: The Making of a President, was published by Crown in June.
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Richard Wolffe is Daily Beast columnist and an award-winning journalist. He covered the entire length of Barack Obama's presidential campaign for Newsweek magazine. His book, Renegade: The Making of a President, was published by Crown in June.
TK798999
Health care is DOA and Obama is a one termer. He foolishly bet the White House on passing real health care reform. I guess he forgot his campaign promises (lies) to reign in the cost of prescription drugs while he made his secret White House backroom deal with big Pharma to negate any negotiation of lowering prescription drug prices. Are you planning to report on this Richard Wolffe? Oh, I forgot, you don't report you just shill for Obama or whomever will pay you. Ha.
It's the end of an era with the passing of Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy. May he eternally rest in peace.
Obama doesn't appear to be "mourning" the loss of his "friend" and major endorser. Weird. As reported on ABC Obama "continues his vacation today, going out for lunch and posing for photos". Huh?
Obama appeared cold and lacking in feeling as he spoke of his "friend" Sen. Ted Kennedy's passing today in comparison to Biden who seemed genuinely upset. Obama didn't appear to be "heartbroken". Strange and interesting.
Teddy made a huge mistake in betraying the brilliant Clintons for the unqualified Obama. Teddy's judgment was not always the best...
Thank you Teddy for a lifetime of public service. I was a Kennedy volunteer in the 1980 Kennedy Presidential campaing. It was audacious for Ted to try to take down a sitting President of his OWN party in 1980 and lead to Pres. Carter's eventual defeat to Reagan. Wow. Ted accomplished many good things but did many bad things as well. The same notorious womanizer and boozer Teddy helped bring us Title 9, ADA, and SCHIP and No Child Left Behind with Bush. He was a man of contradictions personally and professionally.
Teddy lived a life of privledge and tragedy on a scale most of us will never experience.
May God forgive him his sins and Bless Him for his good works. May God rest his soul.
Condolences to his family
and may their beautiful Catholic faith sustain them in this time of great sorrow. Peace, all
********************************************************************
melissamsouza
Obama will get health care reform done. He will be re-elected. If you respect
Ted Kennedy so much, then you should respect his choice, his discernment and his instincts about Obama. He would not have endorsed Obama if he weren't sure of Obama's worth.
JeffBarea
Unless he had a debilitating brain disease that in its later stages was affecting his judgment.
No, that can't be it. Didn't he pass away from pneumonia?
Dolmance
You're a propaganda drunk swine. And a bore too. Go away.
mcmchugh99
I think he will be reelected in 2012, because the reform wave will still be going at that time, and the Republicans simply have nothing to offer besides ideas that were already old-fashioned in the days of Calvin Coolidge.
If the depression keeps getting worse or Obama is bogged down in a quagmire in Afghanistan, then I think Obama could lose to a moderate-acting republican like Romney. Other than that, he's going to ride the reform wave to a seconds term, like FDR or LBJ.
To be sure, he has been a more cautious, timid and reluctant reformer than many of us expected from his campaign speeches, too deferential to Wall Street and too accommodating to the Republicans. Of course, many of us are disappointed by that, and think his administration is far more Clintonite and DLC that we would have imagined.
I do think he's going to get some type of health care reform and energy legislation passed, even though these may end up being half-assed reforms. Maybe that's all we can expect given the corruption by big money and big business interests in our political system. It was never more blatant than it is right now, although it was always there.
mystic
And what has Hopey and Chamgey done that Ted Kennedy would approve of? Escalate wars, torture and renditions perhaps? Ted fought for the disadvantaged, yet Hopey and Changey refuses to regulate Wall Street and the banks. Ted fought for single payer, while Hopey and Changey took it off the table immediately, just like he took Bush war crimes off the table so that we "can focus" to get big deals with Big Pharma.. What Hopey and Changey really wants is really to get political capital out of delivering a eulogy to some one he betrayed (how hypocritical, as if Brutus were delivering Cesar's eulogy). Your political capital has been spent seven months into your administration, Hopey. Let Caroline speak. At least she's genuine and not fraudulent.
AlanD2
TK798999: I hate to break it to you, but if you can't find somebody better than Sarah Palin, you haven't got a chance in 2012.
Incidentally, your hero Orly Taitz cannot run. Unlike Barak Obama, Orly Taitz is definitely not an American citizen.
jpelhamtn
With only a laptop and a Facebook account...Sarah Palin's unique standing with millions of Americans stopped this farce of health care reform in its tracks. President Obama and his media helpers have spent three weeks attacking her to no avail.
Her use of metaphor was brilliant because it identified what most Americans know well...that government over-reach and intrusion into day-to-day life was lurking in the House Bill. When the most powerful man in the world, our President, with all the media his words command...cannot best an innovative former Governor who has not held a press conference, issued a press release or purchased airtime...you bet he should be worried about 2012.
AlanD2
jpelhamtn: So what? Let's see you translate this into votes in 2012.
By the way, if you want to run Palin in 2012, I will be cheering you on. Go for it! I'd love to see her do a one-on-one debate with Obama on national TV. Hilarious!
By the way, if Palin bested anyone, it was the Democrats in Congress who were forced to remove the end-of-life counseling provision.
One of the big ironies in this mess is that Palin, while governor, promoted end-of-life counseling for Alaskans. As did Congressional Republicans during the Bush administration.
Conservatives: Changing positions at the drop of a hat!
yweston
jpelhamtn
Typical of most "Republicans" you are clueless. Once again we must bring you back to reality. Sarah Palin is st00pid!!
JeffBarea
Keep dreaming that there needs to be a leader.
Same BS Iran tried to pull. Same BS the Scientlogists tried to pull. How about we wreck your entire worldview by destroying everything you thought mattered.
How about you meet total unrestricted real life? Where you are just one of billions of people on the planet and your opinion level is reflective of that?
Oh, your pedigree means nothing to those of us around the planet who are unimpressed. Expect us.
mcmchugh99
I think that Obama is going to have a more difficult time passing many reforms in the Senate without Teddy Kennedy, not only health care. I'm not sure about Obama and the Dems, who seem to go all wobbly when the Republicans scream at them. Well, the Republicans have been screaming like at since the 1930s at least, every time anyone tries to change anything in this country. Nothing they're saying today is new. On the contrary, it's so old it's moldy, and nothing is to be gained by trying to appease them.
Kennedy was rock solid, and he could have taken the lead on many of these reforms in the Senate, since he knew this is the best chance for the Democrats to pass anything since teh 1960s.
I have great fear that the Democrats will screw this all up again, although they may get one more chance in 2013 if Obama is elected again. This is not the 1980s and 1990s, but a reform era that requires more than accommodation to worn out conservatism. We've already had 30 years of that.
ThinkAgain
Exactly what new ideas have you all come up with ? Whenever you get your majority you trot out the same old failed proposals and wonder why it still doesn't get passed. Instead of whining that that the stupid republicans keep blocking your brilliant ideas, maybe after 60 years you should consider that they just might not be all that brilliant and come up with a new approach.
Don't forget both Medicare and Social Security are UNSUSTAINABLE programs. That means they don't work as you said they would. That means they're going to break the country if you don't fix them.
Sure people become dependent on them and are afraid of losing the money they put into them. Do you really think getting people dependent on programs that can't be sustained is brilliance?!
Kennedy was there all these years and didn't do the job you're suggesting he could pull off now. That's a huge illogical assumption.
Dolmance
No Kennedy means the Reconciliation Process is inevitable.
The Republicans had their clock cleaned in the last election. Apparently they want another bite at the apple. That's not going to happen. Obama should go for it.
AlanD2
Reconciliation would almost certainly have been inevitable even if Kennedy had lived and was healthy. It is almost certain that no Republican Senator will vote for any Democratic bill.
JeffBarea
Ironically, they need reconciliation because many Democrats will not vote for it either.
AlanD2
JeffBarea: No kidding!
ThinkAgain
I almost hope you use reconcilliation just for the fun of watching you squirm when the republicans use it on you... opening that door is going to have real consequences. The best one is that it won't be as hard to get control of the senate back.
AlanD2
ThinkAgain: The Bush administration used reconciliation four times. Ritarita gave you the bills in an earlier thread. Payback is fun, isn't it?
JeffBarea
@AlanD2
You still won't get what you want. Getting stabbed in the back by your own people must be fun for you too! DOMA DADT. I can list much much more.
beafrank
Obama'Care' was DOA before TK was DOA. TK has been AWOL from the Senate for all of BO Administration. Even TK could not save BO from himself. TK was still the arrogant, narissstic SOB in death as he was in life. He was a bully who used his wealth and influence for the gain of his friends and himself. Finally, can we render the 'Camelot' myth dead and gone? If you libs still want to worship royalty, move to some banana-republic like Venezuela and leave the USA to remain as a freedom-based Constitutional republic.
spotted
Why don't you and your conservative supporters of Cheney and Bush leave? Find a deserted island and set up a dictatorship.
You're crowing about the Constitution but the rule of law does not seem to mean anything to you all. Freedom includes freedom from torture and the right to due process.
JeffBarea
"You're crowing about the Constitution but the rule of law does not seem to mean anything to you all. Freedom includes freedom from torture and the right to due process."
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Anything that passes in Congress and that is signed by any President that contradicts the Constitution is not the rule of law.
And, oops, the Constitution doesn't mention torture. Nor do any guiding laws passed by Congress. Some treaties dutifully established do, but they don't mention what is and what isn't torture.
So if you want the rule of law, you must codify what torture is and isn't.
So pesky to have to actually follow what you say, rather than just draw hipster suggestions that have little to do with the words you use, ain't it?
spotted
@JeffBarea
Are you going to argue next that the constitution never mentioned income tax?
How about electricity? Gravity? The internet?
Feel free to join beafrank.
JeffBarea
"spotted @JeffBarea Are you going to argue next that the constitution never mentioned income tax? "
No.
"How about electricity? Gravity? The internet?"
No. No. No.
Anymore questions? Or do you want to actually address what I wrote?
And before you ask about the Easter Bunny - No.
AlanD2
beafrank: Thanks to the Bush 43 administration, we ARE a banana-republic.
How can the USA remain as a freedom-based Constitutional republic when Republicans ignore the Constitution and the CIA tortures people and spies on all Americans? You are as deluded as you are conservative, which says a lot.
jpelhamtn
Of course Democrats in Congress FULLY went along with the Bush era war on terror. They were briefed in House & Senate Committee's and yet have criminally pretended they knew nothing about it.
Let me remind you that Jack and Robert Kennedy tore up the Constitution (as you see it) more than 40 years ago running an illegal 'assasination squad' out of the White house and Justice Department...or a 'murder incorporated' and Lyndon Johnson called it. They were also the guys (Robert Kennedy) who approved the wire taps on Dr. Martin Luther King and then would joke about what he had heard about one of King's gay associates exploits at Washington, D.C. parties.
So, let's not act so sanctimonious about the actions of Bush & Cheney. They did what they thought was right for the country just as John & Robert Kennedy did.
AlanD2
jpelhamtn: I suspect that Bush & Cheney were far more concerned about themselves and the Republican party than they were about America.
Not all Democrats went along with Bush's "war on terror". Many did, of course. But remember how you conservatives vilified anybody opposing you at the time? Calling them traitors and UnAmerican, or supporters of terrorists?
By the way, how do Democratic crimes justify Republican crimes? I thought you conservatives are the ones who want to lock every criminal in prison and throw away the key.
mcmchugh99
Glenn Beck does not have the correct analysis. Obama is no radical reformer like FDR and Lincoln. He is not yet even a Truman or LBJ. It's just that we've had a long conservative era for the last 30 years, and have forgotten the very words change and reform. If we do not change, we are going to continue to stagnate and decline--that may well happen anyway.
JeffBarea
I knowz right? I hated that arch-conservative Bill Clinton and his conservative nonsense. And that peanut farmer Jimmy Carter way back 30 years ago in 1979? He was the worst! I hate those two conservatives and their conservative Speaker Tip O'Neill.
yweston
Is that what Glenn Beck, Hannity or Limbaugh was selling you "pathetic" lemmings last night
GOPBossLimbaugh
Rest in Perfect Peace, Ted!
Dems should do what they have to do. Republicans don't want any reform. I'm afraid RethugliKKKans will only water down any bill and then vote against it as usual.
Health Care Reform now! Reconciliation now! Public Option now!
jpelhamtn
and Socialism Forever huh? No thank you. Get government out of health care and increase insurance competition in every state.
AlanD2
jpelhamtn: You love private insurance? Here's what you pay for when you have private insurance.
The former CEO of UnitedHealth Group, William McGuire, was fired after his company committed a number of frauds and had to pay $1.4 Billion in fines and legal fees. His "golden parachute" was $1.1 Billion - the largest in the history of corporate America.
Who says crime doesn't pay?
Aren't you proud you are supporting companies like these?
JeffBarea
@AlanD2.
I don't have private insurance. Don't really care about it one way or t'other.
Spent 20 years faking car insurance. Guess I'm just a bad boy.
1.4 TRILLION. TRIIIIILLLLIIIIOOOOONNNNNNNNN dollars just bailed out Soros and Buffett and the rest of those billionaires. By Obama. And Bush.
I bought a 1,000 van that I can use as my home. Don't try to lecture me on corruption. I don't care what party label they use. So don't lecture me on Republican donors or candidates.
Maybe we should make government smaller so there is less incentive to pass laws giving away TRIIIIILLLLIIIIOOOOONNNSSSS of dollars to those you think are corrupt.
Big difference in your example? I never voted to elect the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. How did they get all that money to pay for the fraud fine? A bunch of people gave their hard earned money in premiums.
They weren't taxed and the money wasn't forcibly ripped out of their bank account. See the difference?
Yeah, I feel bad for the idiots who send thousand of dollars to religious leaders/Nigerian lotto officials/fraudsters but they made that choice.
I want to be able to choose where my money goes. Is that so wrong?
jojo12
We've heard from the Right Wing media, commentators & their followers. We've heard from the do nothing good for the people of this country Repugnant Party Now it's time for all of the people in this country who want and/or need affordable health care to stand up & speak out. If need be, march on DC. The Repugs don't want bipartisanship, they want the plan killed. It's time to stick it to them by whatever means & jam the plan through the senate.
ThinkAgain
I'm not sure stickin it to the people is the way to go. Isn't Politics 101...
1) Don't think your voters are stupid
2) Don't treat your voters like they're stupid
3) Don't call your voters stupid
Even your dummy voters will think you're dummies if you're not smart enough to know that!
carbonman1950
re: TK79...
Most of what you said was lovely. Even handed and fair minded.
But you go on and speculate beyond the evidence, which is unfortunate because it poisons your entire statement and causes your kind wishes for Mr. Kennedy's family to ring hollow.
Speculation beyond (sometimes without) the evidence is something the authoritarian right does relentlessly. It is not an attractive flaw or a useful technique for solving problems.
You say - "I guess he forgot his campaign promises (lies) to reign [did you mean "rein"?] in the cost of prescription drugs...
Here you characterize O's campaign promises as "lies". This is speculation. You do not know they were lies. You only know that, at this moment, he does not appear to have fulfilled that promise. I must say that I agree that at present it APPEARS he has broken that promise, but we do not yet know the nature of the rumored "secret White House backroom deal with big Pharma." Unlikely as I admit it seems, it COULD be a great deal for all of us. Only time will tell if we are right to be concerned.
I too am disappointed in many things O has failed to do (yet, I hope), and this health care deal is not the greatest of MY disappointments, but I do not yet know, and no one but Obama knows whether or not that promise was in fact a "lie."
You do it again when you accuse Mr. Wolfe of failing to report because he is paid not to.
Lighten up. These are analysis pieces and as such opinion pieces. IF we can all (and I do mean all) stop ascribing malevolent motives to everyone who doesn't do exactly as we would like, the political system will move a lot more smoothly.
JeffBarea
"Lighten up. These are analysis pieces and as such opinion pieces. IF we can all (and I do mean all) stop ascribing malevolent motives to everyone who doesn't do exactly as we would like, the political system will move a lot more smoothly."
How about if they don't do what they promise to do if you vote for them?
You ready to stop blaming your own hopefulness rather than the person who over and over again promised what he didn't just not accomplish, but did the exact opposite - within days.
octavio
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------
Aug/27/2009
From:
octavio
To:
everybody
Dear fellow beasts:
It is hard to believe that republicans like:
tk98999,jeffbarea,jpelhamin and the other weak-brained
republicans think that because one democratic senator died
the Public Health Care Bill will not pass.This Public Health
Care Bill will pass.
Talking about government transparency;
How much money do you think that handling ( for one year )
or treating a brain tumor cost?.
How much did the medical doctors charged
for their services? How much did the hospitals get;How much
did the health insurance cost?How much did the drugs cost?
How much did the nurses charge? etc.
If a root canal cost $2,300 or a simple cavity
filling cost $ 340 or paying $ 2,600 for six stitches or paying
$ 18,000 for a simple tonsil extraction .Just think
how much it will cost to pay for a brain tumor treatment;
$1,000,000 or more? With a 1.1 billion bonus for the CEO
( chief executive officer ) of these team of crooks,etc,etc,
Thank you for reading!
chao,
octavio
END!
------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
JeffBarea
Check the voting records my dear man. I haven't voted republican since 1992. And before 1988 I always voted democrat.
Keep up those talking points regardless of what the facts and reality show.
BullMoose
With Kennedy gone, Robert Byrd and the Seanator from 1 of the Dakatos, Joe Lieberman, Nelson from Nebraska, one of the Blue Dogs.
Now the dems should do a re-check on their votes for cloture, as Obamacare will never pass,
The true record is he does have illegal aliens in his healthcare bill, and then it will be 1994 all over again. This socialist train is running out of track, and my walllet stays nice and full.
why can't the limousine liberals spend their OWN money on those they claim to bleed for so much. I worry about the illegals without car insurance, much less even a license or registration, as proved by an Arizona police report compiled from wrecks and traffic stops. Then the taxpayer and victim of their DUI's get the bill. What a country.
JeffBarea
Because caviar is very expensive. Just ask Biden.
Thank you.
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