"Book: Rahm "begged" Obama for days not to pursue ambitious health reform."

[Clio the Leo]

I'm in the minority that I LIKE Rahm ... but there's no question who's running the show.

Book: Rahm "begged" Obama for days not to pursue ambitious health reform

Rahm Emanuel spent nearly a week in the summer of 2009 aggressively trying to talk Obama out of moving foward with an ambitious version of health care reform, and by his own admission "begged" him not to do it, a book out next week reports.

The book, Jonathan Alter's The Promise, goes much further than previous accounts in documenting just how opposed Rahm was to proceeding with ambitious reform -- something that was widely suspected at the time but never proven in detail. Excerpts of the book were made available in advance of its release next Tuesday.

"I begged him not to do this," Rahm admits to Alter. But according to the book, Obama overrode Rahm's advice, privately taking a bit of shot at Clinton by telling advisers that he hadn't been sent to the White House to do "school uniforms."

OUCH!

But the book paints Obama as resolute about moving forward, contradicting impressions at the time that Obama hadn't exercised enough leadership on the issue. "I feel lucky," he told advisers at the time, according to the book. "I think we can get it done."

At a subsequent meeting in the Oval Office on September 1st, the book reports, Robert Gibbs cracked a joke about bad poll numbers on health care.

"This is about whether we're going to get big things done," Obama said. "I wasn't sent here to do school uniforms."

Rahm then asked Obama if he still felt lucky
.
"My name is Barack Hussein Obama and I'm sitting here," Obama answered. "So yeah, I'm feeling pretty lucky."<[br />
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/book_rahm_spent_week_aggressiv.html/div]

[still_one]

1. Why anyone would not believe that Obama makes the final decision is beyond me /nt

[Enrique]

2. see the OP

Rahm begged Obama not to pursue ambitious reform, and look what happened.

[still_one]

4. Obama still made the decision /nt

[Cha]

18. It's still ambitious whether you acknowledge it or not.

[impik]

19. Heee. Hilarious spin. If you think that reform is not

ambitious, then you're more delusional than i thought.

[Clio the Leo]

5. You know one thing I'm constantly amazed by...

... is there is a pretty consistent theme (except here anyway lol) that if something goes wrong, it's someone else's fault but his. Like he's some helpless invalid. I dont know what I was watching recently but the person was not happy with the admin was handling something and he said, "I fear the President may be misinformed."

Well, this is Barack Obama we're talking about, not George Bush ... he has advisers, but the man does not live in his own protective thought bubble. I'd venture to say he's one of the better informed Presidents we've had in the modern era.

I may disagree with people as to whether the President acted incorrectly on any given issue, but when he DOES screw up (cough ... COAKLEY .... cough) ... the buck stops with him.

[still_one]

7. I agree, and that line of though is degrading and an insult to President Obama's intelligence /nt

[Clio the Leo]

10. It's actually kind of a twisted compliment....

... if people dont like the way the President is doing something, they want to blame someone else because they LIKE him. Think about it ... Bush probably had more people to blame for his decisions but who got slammed? He did.

But it's also a sign that people will be quick to forgive ... more apt to run back "home" when the Presidential election season rolls around.

All that they perceive the President did wrong will be Geithner/Summers/Gates/McChrystal/Rahm's fault.

[Jennicut]

13. Is this similar Ronnie Reagan?

He was made of teflon, or so people say. I was just a kid back then in the 80's.

I think Obama has an incredibly likable personality so that when people disagree with him on something they WANT to blame it on someone else and people seem to do subconsciously.

[Clio the Leo]

21. That's it exactly. NT

[babylonsister]

12. Yes, that tired meme that rahm is running the show can be put to rest. nt

[cornermouse]

3. Looks like Rahm got his way.

Obama didn't pursue ambitious health reform. He took single payer before the table was moved into the room. He took public option off the table before the chairs were moved into place around the table. An awful lot of people got stuck with insurance payments without access to healthcare. The democratic party is going tot take it on the chin.

[still_one]

6. Obama made the decision. Implying that he is rahm's puppet is not correct. Obama

choose Rahm, and many of the advisors from the Clinton administration.

Why do people continue to believe that most of the actions Obama has done that are controversial are not his fault?

I am not arguing the merits or demerits of the healthcare plan, but Obama knows what he is doing

[dionysus]

9. what amazes me is the total denial of of the fact single payer had about 4 votes in the senate, yet

people act as if there were 60 senators who were all rearing to vote for it until the mean ol obama stopped them. total and utter denial of reality.

i suppose you'd rather have had it die in committee and end up with nothing.

[eridani]

11. But not even a public option that 82% of the public wanted?

If Obama had demanded single payer, we might have wound up with a robust public option.

[dionysus]

14. he should have pushed hard for that, but again, you can't discount

the fact we would have needed all 6 blue dogs + leiberdouche to vote for that as well.

it's dissappointing, even in the house where we had a huge majority, the PO got watered down.

[Teaser]

16. "i suppose you'd rather have had it die in committee and end up with nothing."

Yes, cause that's the kind of thing that makes them hot and horny. Failure. They love it.

[dionysus]

22. i refer to it as fail porn.

[Teaser]

23. "sad clown failure porn"

is my own similar term for it.

[Teaser]

15. Two things 1) Fail. 2) Stop lying.

You know that Rahm didn't want any reform legislation passed at all. You know that Rahm wanted something that just tinkered with insurance regulation. We got a lot more than that. There's a reason we got no Republican votes, in the end, for HRC. Because the reform, imperfect such as it was, represented a game changer.

You know all this, and yet you wrote your post anyway. Because getting in a dishonest dig at Obama is just your way of jerking off.

[Radical Activist]

27. lol

nice finishing sentence.

[impik]

20. You're clueless. This is one of the three most ambitious social laws

ever. Your hate kills you.

[ShortnFiery]

24. +1. eom

[Radical Activist]

26. Please try living in the real world. Obama proposed ambitious reforms that passed the House.

All this "Obama took shit off the table" bullshit is nice because it's pure conjecture that can't be proven or disproven. Obama's bill passed the House and he spent months campaigning for it in public and in private. The Senate wasn't going to let a better bill pass. Take a government 101 course and get a fucking clue already.

[Captain Hilts]

8. The president met him halfway on that issue. nt

[Change Happens]

17. I love you Mr. President!!! Keep it up........PLEASE

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[marlakay]

28. Rahm is also the one who said to let medicare buy in go

unchallenged. Everyone wanted to go ahead when Liberman did his whiney thing against it and force him to change his mind but Rahm is the one who pushed to weaken the bill so we could have 60 votes...

no wonder we have had no balls with people like Rahm in position of power.