Politico reports that liberals are in "full revolt" against White House signals that the so-called "public option" is negotiable. Bob Herbert - yes, Bob Herbert - has an angry column in today's Times in which he writes that the White House has been "rolled" and that the emerging Obama health reform leaves the "public interest ... behind." In the Post, Eugene Robinson - yes, Eugene Robinson - writes that "we didn't elect Obama to be an expedient president. We elected him to be a great one." (Speak for yourself, Gene.) Unbelievably, Jon Stewart is also mad at the president.
The public option controversy exposes a flaw in the liberal agenda. Liberals viewed the 2008 election as an affirmation of their program rather than a repudiation of Bush's (and by extension McCain's). In order for liberals to implement their program, however, they require the support of people who do not attend Netroots Nation or read The Nation. But most Americans, as today's Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poll reveals, are satisfied with the health care they receive from America's hybrid public-private system, and do not support a major government overhaul of such. Indeed, as Arthur Brooks argues in today's Journal, "There is no evidence that more than a minority of Americans accept the idea that a $17 trillion national debt, greater reliance on government for jobs and health, and hyper-progressive taxation offer the hope they deserve for themselves and their children."
The flaw is that, as some liberal policy leaders -- i.e., the Democrats who represent more than gerry-mandered Congressional Districts or one-party Democratic states such as New York -- bend to satisfy what Brooks calls the "independent, optimistic" culture of "most Americans," most liberal opinion leaders become increasingly dissatisfied and subject to revolt. For the very reason that they mistakenly believe that on November 4, 2008, the public embraced the "progressive agenda" hammered out every year at the Take Back America conference, those thought leaders have an outsized confidence about the strength of their position. An excessive pride. The type of thing, in other words, that goeth before the fall.