Hillary? Pfft! She wouldn't dare challenge the Dear Leader.

There are several million reasons (read; dollars) why Shrillary won't run against Dear Leader. His campaign and the DNC have reluctantly helped her pay off the many millions of debt from her '08 run and she'd have to have testicles the size of Texas to turn around and try it again. She's also painted herself into a very narrow corner by serving as Secretary of State. She'd have to resign that post if she had ANY designs on another WH run. BO has her right where he wants her; "out there, somewhere", not making political waves.

she'd have to have testicles the size of Texas to turn around and try it again.
Ummm, it's Hillary. She's refined "chutzpa" to an art form.
Wait until she runs and says it's for the good of the party and the nation.

I've been thinking this too.
She could win too.
First, she won't be blindsided by the Chicago Machine and Minitru.
Second, Obama is pissing off many reliable Dem constituencies. What happens when Dem Jews, Gays and anti-war types have a viable, non-GOP candidate?
And when the campaign starts and he starts viciously attacking her in the name of "Unity"? That'll drive a bunch of women to her camp. He doesn't take dissent well and, as we astro-turf teabaggers know, he and his tame "journalists" attack viciously when he's challenged.

So Obama and his sycophants can scream "racism" at every criticism, Hillary and her tame "journalists" will start screaming "sexism".

All the people who've been saying, "That's not the Obama I voted for" would be happy to have a non-GOP candidate to vote for.
Here comes Hillary to the rescue.

It'll be as funny as the last election. And how funny would it be if he didn't get the nomination?
The first time a sitting president didn't get the nomination he was running for?
That'll be funny.

Indeed, the Public Option will be a very difficult "sell". My friends, moderate liberals and moderate conservatives, and I have been discussing this at length. Our consensus, for whatever it's worth (probably not much!), is that the single most strategic error in this "battle" was calling it "health care reform" from the beginning. The Democrats would have done better to label this "health insurance reform".

We learn from our mistakes, hopefully. I feel that some version of proposed legislation will be passed. I don't think that the Public Option will be included this time around. However, I do think that we'll eventually get there.

Incremental steps. I have a DREAM!!

Is that because you think that the government will be a better insurer than a private company will? Why?

If you have seen the video of Hillary in Africa, you would know that she is past her time. All any opponent would have to do would be to replay that segment and she is dead in the election. Plus she is so fat now that she could not appear on TV.

ArmedGeek: Actually, you're quite right. "The Steaming Pile of S---" reform would be an even more accurate description of health insurance reform. Though you have succinctly nailed the nomenclature of what it is that we wish to reform, unfortunately, I can foresee potential problems getting that terminology past the "prime time censors" when advertising, reporting and discussing the pros and cons of reform on national public airwaves.

Pablo: Yes, I think that the government could be a better insurer than a private company. Why? Because the government wouldn't have to return a profit to share holders nor would they have to spend billions of dollars in combined executive compensation packages.

As for Hillary and another presidential run, sheer fantasy. The next woman to keep an eye on for a viable presidential run is Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Pablo: Yes, I think that the government could be a better insurer than a private company. Why? Because the government wouldn't have to return a profit to share holders nor would they have to spend billions of dollars in combined executive compensation packages.

That looks great on paper, but the government can't even run a program to kill a couple hundred thousands of cars. When you don't have a profit motive you don't have a loss prevention motive either, because it's not your money. Private insurers are solvent and meeting their obligations. Medicare and Medicaid are heading over a cliff. The VA is a disgrace, and just today I'm seeing them ordered to hire private consultants to ensure patient care levels. So, the reality of government delivered health care doesn't meet the HOPE of your theory. And your answer is to kill the one solvent, functioning system and fold its remains in to the ones that are failing on their own. Sorry, you can keep the CHANGE.

My question is, have you told your President this? Because he doesn't think the public option will have an unfair advantage over private insurers. Either that, or he's lying about it constantly. What do you suppose the deal is with that?

"nor would they have to spend billions of dollars in combined executive compensation packages"

Right, the bureacracy created through a public option will spend even greater billions on the salaries of brain dead civil servants they won't be able to fire to improve productivity. Great tradeoff sport.

If he backs down on the health care legislation, yeah he'll be toast sooner than he planned.

Now the President is back-tracking and saying the public option is on the table. Probably after over 100 democrats said without a public option, they won't vote for it.

Being a self proclaimed and proud liberal moonbat (whatever the hell a moonbat is), I have to say the White House has done a horrible job with this legislation. They never made it clear what it entails. Never provided a reliable source for people to get answers to their questions and relying on town halls was a complete waste of time. They were way behind the eight ball when it came to disinformation (death panels, etc). Now they are more on the defensive than on the offensive and with a filibuster proof majority, there really is no excuse for that. My God, they have screwed the pooch on this.

Poor Affirmative Action figurehead, without a clue of what's going on. I mean, does the admin's left hand know what its right hand is doing here? Does O! even know his own position? Perhaps it's to be expected. If you "outsource" managing the Law Review at Harvard and "delegate" political maneuvering as a junior senator, it's not like you'll suddenly demonstrate leadership/competence when faced with the toughest job in the world.

And Pablo, quit being so heartless. Everyone knows the "poor" in this country deserve $1000's of dollars in free ambulance rides, etc, with us picking up the tab. Where's your "compassion"?

Lipiwitz, My sentiments exactly. In fact, I wrote to my Democrat Congressman last week telling him exactly what you've posted above.

If we lose this battle we'll have only our own Democrat leadership to blame for gross incompetence in developing strategy beforehand to deal with what should have been expected from the opposition. Sad to say but that's the truth of the matter.

I still have hope for health insurance reform. The current Democrat leadership should follow the example of FDR. They need to be constantly on the offensive.

If we lose this battle we'll have only our own Democrat leadership to blame for gross incompetence in developing strategy beforehand to deal with what should have been expected from the opposition.

If only the Democrats had consulted with Lipiwitz and me early on to help them develop a sales strategy, we'd have people flocking to line up for the proposed "Public Option".

Unfortunately, they didn't do that. I'm still willing to help! How about you, Lipiwitz? We could be Co-Czars!

It's not a "public option", it's a government option. Stop, right now, using the term "public option". It's a propaganda term focus-group tested by the obama administration and their press agency, otherwise known as the mainstream media.

Public schools are government schools. Publicly funded health care is government controlled health care.

Don't allow the statists to further co-opt the English language.

Jimbo: You can call it what you wish and I'll do the same. I like the term Public Option. As a matter of fact, I'm also partial to the term Public Schools. Most people understand that term to mean public(tax payer)funded school systems.

Now you've got me wondering. Obviously, you're the authoritarian personality type, giving orders to people that you don't know and over whom you have no control, on an internet forum. Are you also one of those few folks who advocate abolishing all public schools? I've encountered a few of those people. Interesting, to say the least.

One more thing: in case you haven't noticed, languages evolve.

If only the Democrats had consulted with Lipiwitz and me early on to help them develop a sales strategy, we'd have people flocking to line up for the proposed "Public Option".

Unfortunately, they didn't do that. I'm still willing to help! How about you, Lipiwitz? We could be Co-Czars!

Shorter Dude: "I can polish this turd! No, really. I can totally sell this!"

Someone like Russ Feingold could try to run to the left of Obama in '12. He toyed with running in '08, and he could run a Kucinich-type campaign w/o the unintended laughs.