Remember how the vocal elements among the left-wing media were all too eager to exploit disagreements between prominent conservatives?
There were comments Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele made about Rush Limbaugh earlier this year and the back-and-forth between former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former GOP vice-presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. These and other overblown instances were offered as anecdotal evidence there was a divide in the Republican Party and/or conservative movement by MSNBC personalities and sometimes by even more mainstream media types like George Stephanopoulos.
However, when the divide is on the other side, especially with the rift developing between gung-ho public option proponents like Howard Dean and the health care compromisers in Congress and in the Obama administration, it's treated differently. On MSNBC's Dec. 21 "Countdown," Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher of the liberal blog, the Daily Kos, admitted a split among the progressive movement as far as the blogosphere, which has driven the news cycle, on this issue (emphasis added).
"I think it means improve, improve the bill," Moulitsas said. "We're not done fighting. I have to say there is a fairly big split in the progressive online community between those who just want to take a deal, anything, and move on to the next big issue and those of us who haven't quit fighting. I have to say the reason that Obama is now talking about drug re-importation, cheaper drugs from overseas, is because we are continuing to fight."
Moulitsas laid out his reasoning and explained there's still ball to be played to get a bill that makes the fringe elements of the so-called progressive movement satisfied and said the left would continue to keep pushing.
"If you laid down arms, you know what - the Ben Nelsons and Joe Liebermans - they keep extracting concessions," Moulitsas continued. "We cannot at any point lay down our guns and stop fighting. Once we have a final bill, and things are set in stone, then we can re-examine that bill. But right now things can still change and to stop fighting for that change is really patently ridiculous. Any positive change from here on out is going to be because we keep pushing from the left not because we say, ‘Good enough, let's pass it.'"
The Senate version of health care reform made it through one of the biggest hurdles late on a Sunday night and is expected to go down to the wire with a final passage vote expected on Christmas Eve in the Senate. If that version of the bill is passed, as is expected, it will still have to be synchronized with House version of health care reform passed in November in conference before a final version is sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
"If you laid down arms, you
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 09:51 ET by motherbelt"If you laid down arms, you know what - the Ben Nelsons and Joe Liebermans - they keep extracting concessions,"
I don't know what "concession" Joe Lieberman extracted, but Ben Nelson got no concessions in the bill. He voted for something that contains abortion language he opposed, didn't he? Maybe for a "pledge" to fix it during reconciliation? And he did it for money. A lot of shekels for his home state.
how many times do he talk about guns and fighting
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 10:29 ET by Stuart Jamesand yet we're the ones who are in "right-wing militia's" and are taking this country to the brink of civil war.
A QUESTION...
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 10:31 ET by danybhoyI have a feeling that BathTubBoy brings on the likes of Kos & Micheal Musto, the village idiot from the Village Voice, to make himself look more manly. Is it just me?
"...How blind can you be, don't you see...
...that the gambler lost all he does not have..."
Nightwish
Nah danybhoy
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 12:21 ET by SharonMcPthat's why Rachel Madcow has Kos & Micheal Musto on her show.
Olbermann has Old MacDonald. That way he can hope he looks more manly than a children's nursery rhyme character, and brag about his degree from Cornell's College of Agriculture.
=======================================================
On those days I feel like giving up and waving a white flag, I look at the picture of my 10 yr. old grandson in a Young Marines Color Guard, and I remember what's worth fighting for.
Hey you nitwits
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 10:34 ET by general companyWhy dont you ask those morons why they have voted to exempt themselves and their families? Until you do, go get fisting instructions from the sorry shcool czar.
My Gov. thinks I am dangerous, so be careful
"Television is a freak show" Bernie Goldberg
It's a strawman argument
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 10:52 ET by c5thenTalking about a "double standard" falsely assumes that MSNBC actually has any standards at all.
They just say what the White House tells them to...and it's fairly obvious by now what kind of standards the White House has.
Throw 'da bums out!!!
Before it's too late.
I'm so sick of these
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 10:59 ET by mattmI'm so sick of these spoiled little children. The country is falling apart and they're arguing over piddly little details which will only speed up the destruction.
I can see them sitting in a pile of ashes and debris that was once America and arguing over whether we should raise taxes another 2 or 3%. What a flock of dimwits.
mattm wins the thread.
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 11:56 ET by R D HelmI can see them sitting in a pile of ashes and debris that was once
America and arguing over whether we should raise taxes another 2 or 3%.
I have envisioned the same thing myself.
It's kind of like the crew of the Titanic arguing over the size of the iceberg after the bow of the ship has already slipped beneath the waves.
-Dave
Why does the left have it's thong in a knot over CommieCair?
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 11:20 ET by R D HelmThey are now but one Senate vote away from pulling off a government takeover of 1/6 (heck, it might even be closer to 1/5 now) of our shrinking economy, and thus essentially completing Obama's communist coup, as the EPA has already ensured that Crap & Tax is a done deal, and thus needs no further congressional approval.
Just what, exactly, are they crying about?
Is it perhaps that they are too stoopid to even realize they have won?
-Dave
They wont be satistfied
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 11:21 ET by general companyUntil we are like the old USSR, you know, that great success
My Gov. thinks I am dangerous, so be careful
"Television is a freak show" Bernie Goldberg
Means nothing I know but...
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 11:34 ET by okiehawk44I can't help it. When I see Moulitsas (with his military service in Germany) I just think about "Don't ask don't tell."
I know George Soros bankrolled him and Soros got his real start in becoming a leftist puppet master during the Clinton years but did Moulitsas know Billy Jeff through Soros back then?
As obama and the
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 11:36 ET by MidAmericaAs obama and the congressional democrats sink in the polls there will be increasing infighting among the democrats as each faction wants to lay the blame for failure at the feet of someone else.
Obama is now in George Bush poll territory even though he still has the support of the media. George Bush had no such help.
Just wait until obama's taxes start. His approval numbers will be in the teens. Quite an accomplishment for one year. And as for the media who continues to sing his praises? They will anger the viewers who have had enough of this president and many more will switch to FOX News so they can find out what is actually going on.
Rock the Vote Asks Supporters to Withhold Sex...
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 11:40 ET by stage9to Pass Health Care Reform...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/21/rock-vote-asks-supporters-wit...
See, liberals will ALWAYS revert back to their base instincts to win at all cost.
"If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner." — Malcolm Muggeridge
Been away a few days
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 12:01 ET by general companyEh
My Gov. thinks I am dangerous, so be careful
"Television is a freak show" Bernie Goldberg
aw cmon, Markos
Tue, 12/22/2009 - 12:29 ET by Candance Moore"If you laid down arms, you know what - the Ben Nelsons and Joe Liebermans - they keep extracting concessions,"
Let's play a little game: remove Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, and replace them with Hamas and the Russians, and now you understand foreign policy.