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WASHINGTON -- They might have the WH and Congress, but progressives - gathered this week for a four-day conference billed as "America's Future Now!" - aren't universally pleased with the Obama administration.

As a coalition of liberal groups announced their union today behind an unprecedented $82M grassroots and advertising campaign to push for health care reform, some consternation remains in the Democratic base about if Pres. Obama is pursuing a sweeping enough package. Others expressed dismay with his decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

During the question and answer portion of a panel about "The progressive movement in the Age of Obama," held at the Omni Shoreham and featuring Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart and Change to Win chair Anna Burger, among others, Burger was interrupted by a female audience member who barked from the darkened ballroom: "Why not single-payer?"

"It would be great to have single-payer, but I don't think that's going to happen this year," she said, adding that whatever plan is ultimately adopted, Democrats seem to be moving toward a public option plan that allows people to opt out of the system, will make a difference in people's lives.

A few minutes later, Deepak Bhargava, with the Center for Community Change, interjected, "I think many of us think the single payer system would be the best system," he said, drawing enthusiastic applause from many activists in the room.

But then he pivoted. "It is a step on the path," he said.

A step isn't enough for everyone. After eight years of assailing Pres. Bush's leadership, progressives are regrouping in an effort to leverage their newfound fortune - a WH in Dem hands and a Senate just one-vote shy of a filibuster-proof majority. They even had to change the past name of the annual confab from "Take Back America."

Some today sounded a broad caution that progressives shouldn't quiet their call for change just because Obama is at the helm or Congress is dominated by members of the president's party.

The best gift the left can give Obama, said MoveOn.org's Ilyse Hogue, is a "vibrant, vocal progressive movement."

While Roger Hickey of Campaign for America's future suggested that an "inside and outside strategy" modeled on the civil rights era efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Pres. Johnson in the 60s, will help the Democrats shepherd their policy plans through Congress, Hogue suggested the entire movement shouldn't fall in line behind consensus proposals if they don't go far enough or Democrats just because they're Democrats. She named Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), in particular, as one whose stance on the Employee Free Choice Act remains in question.

"With all respect to Roger, I think our job is not to be inside or outside," she said. "It's to take the doors off the hinges and smash the walls down."

Progressives have reason so far to be pleased with Obama. From his public support for "card check," as EFCA is called, to his signature of a new equal pay law, he is making good on several campaign promises. But health care - and the shape of the plan he ultimately endorses - could create a fault line in the movement of people who worked so intensely to elect a one-term junior senator from IL.

Much of the focus of this week's conference seems to be creating unanimity behind shared goals - even if not all can be achieved. A video of Obama addressing the group in '06 and '07 was played for the crowd.

"It's going to be because of you that we take our country back," he said, at a past conference. The clip was set to upbeat music.

And several participants mentioned Obama's background as a community organizer. The message to attendees, of course, was that he knows what you do, he's done it himself, and he knows how critical it is to getting approval for his agenda.

But during that same question and answer session, a male audience member yelled, "Afghanistan!" apropos of nothing being discussed.

So for some on the left, the president isn't fulfilling all of his campaign promises and is starting to disappoint. Others suggest any divide is overstated. Hogue, for one, said that the media loves to fan the flames of "hot Dem on Dem action," as she called it.

"The famous firing squad in a circle, I don't think we're anywhere near that," said Helen Brunner, a DC resident attending the conference.

Change to Win's Burger put it differently. "Are there days when I wake up and think, could he have done more or could he be further out there? Absolutely." She said there will be more days like that, but noted still that Obama is a "transformational" president.

"We have to make him successful," she said. "We have to make him the best that he can be."

As for that massive push for health care reform, the groups supporting the effort include Health Care for America Now, the AFL-CIO and Change To Win, the Children's Defense Fund, MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, Rock the Vote, National Women's Law Center, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Democracy for America. The money will be used for grassroots organizing (troops are already on the ground in 46 states) and a sizeable advertising campaign.

During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."

He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.

"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.

Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)

by Pam Spaulding

Jesus H. Christ, I think I’m going to be sick. Look at what Randall Terry said at today’s press conference. (Right Wing Watch):

 



Terry: The point that must be emphasized over, and over, and over again: pro-life leaders and the pro-life movement are not responsible for George Tiller’s death. George Tiller was a mass-murder and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.

Q: So who is responsible ...

Terry: The man who shot him is responsible ...

Q:  ... because that makes it sound like you were saying that he [Tiller] is responsible.

Terry:  The man who shot him is responsible.

Q: What did you mean by “he reaped what he sowed”?

Terry: He was a mass-murder.  He sowed death. And then he reaped death in a horrifying way.

And Kyle at RWW said the presser ended with this outlandish statement:

The event came to an utterly bizarre ending when Terry said that Tiller’s murder “can be a teaching moment for what child-killing is really all about” ... and then seemed to ask those in attendance if they’d be willing to buy him lunch - he likes Guinness and chicken wings.

People, this is frightening. The eliminationists and womb-controlling domestic terrorism advocates believe a doctor who ran a medical practice performing legal services got what he deserved.  This is sick - between this guy and O’Reilly, the Tiller family is suffering all over again. This won’t be the end of this kind of violence, I’m afraid. This man is fanning the flames of the crazies—we have to fear domestic terrorism more than anything coming from abroad.

How Canadian can you get?

The Finance Minister understates the deficit by $16 billion. Do we get mad?

Nah. The guy's doing his best. Let's give him another chance.

Canadian Press:

OTTAWA - Canadians appear to be willing to cut Finance Minister Jim Flaherty a little slack over his deficit shocker.

A Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll shows few Canadians think the
finance minister should resign just because he made a $16-billion
mistake on his deficit projection.

The survey of 1,000 people finds only 28 per cent who want Flaherty to
step down, while 59 per cent think he should stay on the job.

Even among Liberal supporters, 54 per cent don't think he should lose
his position because the budget deficit has ballooned to more than $50
billion - not the $34 billion predicted in the budget four months ago.

• GM files for bankruptcy. Washington will give the company an additional $30 billion to play with, and will take a 60 percent stake in return. The U.S. isn't the only government taking ownership: Another 12 percent goes to Canada.

• The Nevada legislature overrides a veto and legalizes domestic partnerships.

• Someone who hasn't parsed the phrase "pro-life" very carefully has killed an abortionist.

• The emergency powers behind the Fed's Wall Street bailouts.

• Irony alert: A report making the case for stronger intellectual property rights was partly plagiarized.

St. Paul's Webster Magnet Elementary School changed its name last month to the Barack and Michelle Obama Service Learning Elementary. What's wrong with that? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editor David Shribman makes an impassioned plea on behalf of the school's namesake:

Webster was the greatest orator in the age of great oratory; some of his words remain in the American memory, even in this ahistorical age. He was probably the most eminent Supreme Court lawyer in American history, having argued 249 cases before the court, including several of the landmark cases of the early 19th century that shaped constitutional law in the United States for generations. And he was one of the greatest secretaries of state ever (and the first to serve non-consecutive terms, one under William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, another under Millard Fillmore).

"He achieved great distinction," says Kenneth E. Shewmaker, editor of the "Diplomatic Papers of Daniel Webster." "Barack Obama may have greater distinction because he had the chance to be president. A senator doesn't have that kind of power, but if we understand his legacy, including his role in creating the sense of American nationalism, we wouldn't wipe Webster's name off our buildings."

After pleading Webster's case, Shribman makes the larger case for the preservation of historical memory:

Changing the name of a school from Webster to Obama is a symptom of a larger problem in American life.

"The kind of present-mindedness that wipes out historical knowledge is a cultural fault of American society," says Hyman Berman, an emeritus history professor at the University of Minnesota. Alan Berolzheimer, a Norwich, Vt., historian who as a young man worked on cataloging and publishing the "Webster Papers," adds: "You don't make light of a long-standing historical figure whom a community honored in the first place."

Americans like to name schools after political figures. In Minnesota, there is an elementary school in St. Paul and a high school in Minneapolis named for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash while running for re-election in 2002. The University of Minnesota has the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, named for the mayor, senator and vice president who is the state's greatest historical figure. And the University of Minnesota Law School is housed in Walter F. Mondale Hall, named for the former senator and vice president. Mondale is very much alive.

"There should be room for Daniel Webster on our schools," says Mondale, who is 81. "He would want it that way, and he deserves a place. And though I know names can go up and they can go down, let's leave Mondale Hall alone for a while."

In working on the column, Shribman found the powers-that-be at Webster Magnet School present a case study in historical amnesia:

There is no trace at all of Webster in the Obama Service Learning Elementary school today, not even a picture of Webster, who may have been the subject of more formal portraits of any man of his time, if not of all American history. Indeed, in the period leading up to the vote on the name change, the principal of the school, Lori Simon, actually had to figure out for whom the school was named originally.

If Webster had been remembered at the school, I am quite certain that what was "remembered" would have been wrong. Such is certainly the case with what high school students are taught, for example, about Lincoln, whose political hero was Webster, when they are taught anything at all.