the consistent effort by conservative, corporate dems to try and tarnish progressive

[Armstead]

67. If one senator has the power to overcome the will of the Prez and majority of Denms in Congress..

then the President and Democratic leadership is not doing their jobs.

You are missing -- or avoiding -- my point.

This fatalistic notion that we had to totally undercut real healthcare reform just to placate one recalcitrance Senator -- who is no longer there -- is a demonstration of the larger problem with Democrats. And its why the GOP almost always gets their way.

There are always going to be opponents to a policy, both among the opposing party and within ones own party.

Smart political leadership works to get enough people on the same page to pass what they want, or a reasonable compromise.

Perhaps, Joe would have defeated a different proposal like the one I mentioned. But at least the Democrats could have put it on the table and and set the table for doing it again. And capitalizing on it politically, by showing the GOP for what they are.

Instead we got this messy muddle of mixed messages and contradictory proposals, which ultimately undermined the very concept of real health reform and alienated the public....Just to placate corporate assholes and GOP CONNEDservatives, who would never support any kind of reform in the first place.