12/22: Together At Last, Together Forever!

Liberal and conservative bloggers are unitied at last! Well, at least some liberal and conservative bloggers. They aren't happy with the health care bill (for different reasons, of course) and are calling for it to be killed (while acknowledging that isn't likely to happen at this point). Bloggers on the left and the right also agree that the individual mandate needs to be taken out, calling it "unconstitutional." Plus, both sides are fuming over Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-NE) kickback. Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Gee. I guess President Obama really is unifying the country. Against him."

What else is going on in the blogosphere?

• Some bloggers (Singiser, Bink) aren't surprised that ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani is bowing out of the NY SEN race, other bloggers (Singer) are "shocked" and still others (Attaturk) are sure he'll be back. And conservative bloggers (Wolf,Allahpundit) are devastated over the loss. Daily Kos' Steve Singiser: "This is an enormous blow to the New York Republican Party, which now has to recruit a remotely viable candidate for the Senate despite a weak bench."
• Liberal bloggers (Singer) say GOP "efforts to drum up a wave" of Dem retirements haven't succeeded and have actually backfired by forcing incumbents to affirm they're running for reelection.
• Conservative bloggers (Richardson, Malkin) are fuming about the Obama admin. "quietly" sending 12 Gitmo detainees back to their home countries.

HEALTH CARE: No Woman, No Cry

A lot of complaints about the health care bill:

• TPM's John Marshall :"From a political and policy perspective, this is actually the thing that worries me most -- the fact that a lot of the reforms won't go into effect for five years. A lot of it, it turns out, isn't just because big reforms take a long time to enact but largely because the delay is helping keep the cost down within the president's promise of a deficit neutral bill. That strikes me as a potentially disastrous tradeoff since that will leave Dems running in 2010 and 2012 on reform legislation that hardly anyone's got any benefit from."
• Firedoglake's Jon Walker: "This Senate bill is bad and there are many ways to improve it. Right now, it is not real reform–it is only a corporate giveaway that might trickle down to help a few Americans."
• MyDD's Scarecrow: "To every Democrat who created and now defends this monster of a bill, 'you are an idiot.' You blew the best chance we’ve had in decades, you protected the abusive industries instead of their victims, and by enriching the corrupters, you’ve made it harder to fix this mess in the future. You betrayed those who put you in office. If you don’t fix this, we will watch/help you lose next November and again in 2012. Trust us."
• Firedoglake's sharkfu: "I oppose the Senate health care reform bill because,at the very least, it should not leave women worse off that we were before reform began. ...I am disgusted...disappointed...not surprised but not defeated either."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers:"We may never have found 51 votes for reconciliation, and there may have been the same, long, slow fold on Medicare expansion as there was on the public option. Still, as we look to the future, I hope any path progressives follow on health care focuses on reconciliation and expanding existing public options, rather than creating new ones."
• The Corner's Veronique de Rugy, on the cost of health care reform: "I have to say, this whole mess makes me incredibly sad. Especially considering that it's not as if the billions of dollars that we and the future generations will have to pay for this reform will fix the problems the current health-care system does have."

The bill does get some love from a couple liberal bloggers:

• MyDD's Jonathan Singer:"This isn't a perfect bill. But it's also not a bad bill, either. And the American public, particularly Democrats, appear to be warming to the proposal. ...as the public sees that the legislation nearly through the Senate expands healthcare coverage for 31 million Americans while greatly reducing the deficit, it's understandable that more would come around to supporting the bill."
• Ezra Klein, on the partisanship of the health care vote: "Tonight's vote was a moment of enormous progress for social justice, but evidence of enormous regression in our political system."
• Open Left's Mike Lux: "The divide between progressives on whether to support the health care bill is one of the most striking things I have seen in all my years in politics. ...Beyond the well and passionately argued opinions on both sides, though, there are two facts which are undeniable: for better or worse, this bill passing the Senate keeps the process moving forward; and, for better or worse, the Senate bill is simply unpassable in the House."

HEALTH CARE II: You Can't Tell Me What To Do

Conservatives never wanted the individual mandate in health care legislation, and now that the public option and/or Medicare buy-in aren't in there, liberals have also turned against the mandate:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "It's painfully obvious that there are no talking points available to Democrats to attempting to defend the mandate. Its maddening to attempt to figure out why Democrats are intent on imposing a mandate now, enforceable by IRS penalties, that doesn't go into effect for 5 years, only to get clubbed with it for the next three cycles."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan, arguing against the individual mandate: "Holding some of the cards in this against the insurance companies wouldn't be bad politics, either. Make them demonstrate in the next four years that they will comply with reform, that they will make an effort to hold down costs to consumers, and then give them their mandate. It'd be a lot more popular than forcing people to buy junk insurance and telling them that you're 'providing' it."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, on the employer and individual mandates: "The mandates will both increase the participation in the pool of higher-risk patients and increase demand for services from providers. That will have the same effect nationally as we have seen in Massachusetts and Maine, which is to make insurance premiums much more costly, wait times for services lengthen, and eventually put providers and insurers out of business if they can’t raise prices to meet those conditions."
• American Spectator's Quin Hillyer, on the individual mandate: "It is unconstitutional. And it is the ground on which our senators should have been fighting all along, because it is incredibly unpopular as well."
• Klein: "There is, of course, a big difference between forcing people to purchase a private product and forcing people to purchase a public product. But not, I think, as big a difference as some have implied."

HEALTH CARE III: Not Winning A Popularity Contest This Decade

Liberals and conservatives are disgusted with Nelson for demanding earmarks for NE in exchange for his vote and with the Dem leadership for giving in to his demands:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "Whoo-doggie, that's an interesting contrast to his 'I just can't support his budget-busting bill' prior to getting his $100 million for the state. I guess that's the going price for principle these days. But he could teach progressives a thing or two about how to negotiate. Hold your breath long enough and they give you everything you want."
• MyDD's Scarecrow: "The tribute Senator Nelson received for his vote is particularly noteworthy for its level of cynicism and corruption, even if you ignore his assault of women’s rights."
• Matthew Yglesias: "I think this reminds us that Nelson’s concession is totally politically unsustainable. ...The only real question becomes whether we’ll 'level down' by having Nebraska treated the same way other states are treated by the bill, or whether we’ll 'level up' by having the federal government pick up a larger share of the tab for the other 49 states."
• Michelle Malkin: "The backlash against Nelson’s sellout is building. And more Nebraskans are calling the Cornhuckster out."
• Townhall's Liebau: "Really, did the Democrats just pay off almost every member of their caucus to support this awful thing?"
• Klein: "For all the flak Ben Nelson gets, the process of pulling him onto the bill was a lot more straightforward than what Joe Lieberman required. Nelson, for better or worse, compromised. ...The compromises weren't all pretty, but they were all compromises, both for the Democrats and for Nelson. And all of the compromises made sense given where Nelson is coming from, and who he represents."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Great Expectations

Yglesias, on health care reform according to candidate Obama vs. Pres. Obama:

"I think that most people vastly overrate the President’s ability to influence this kind of thing. But one reason that people overrate it is that presidential candidates encourage unrealistic expectations. Obama didn’t canvass the country saying 'I will use my agenda-setting powers to encourage congress to take up comprehensive health reform and then meekly accept whatever the 60th-most-liberal senator is willing to agree to.' Primary candidates competed with one another to offer the most aggressively sound climate change plans instead of acknowledge that this was all wishful thinking and congress would constrain the limits of the possible. Obama in particular encouraged the idea that he could and would deploy his undeniable skills at set-piece speech delivery to cause legislative action. I don’t think we should reject a good bill in order to get revenge on a candidate for raising false expectations or breaking promises, but I think it’s easy to see why people are upset with Obama."

LEST WE FORGET: To Sum It Up

Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"Between now and New Year's, gas-bags of every stripe will be offering their bloated reviews of the decade about to end. Since I believe that all human thought can be compressed into 140 characters or less, I offer instead this tweet:

The decade began with Bush fucking the voters and ended with Tiger fucking everyone else."