Great news for "the left" -- Politics Daily's Jill Lawrence wrote us a memo!
Who is Jill Lawrence, you may ask. She is the prognosticator who declared three months ago, "It may be too soon to write a requiem for the public option, but I'm going to do it anyway..."
Surprise, surprise, she now writes, "Memo to the Left: The Public Health Insurance Option Is Dead, Get Over It."
I actually don't care that someone would question whether the public option is dead. Ezra Klein -- a smart guy -- wrote just last Friday, "The public option: Very alive or totally dead?" (He also wrote, "the story of the public option's resurgence has been a mixture of smart organizing and Senate cowardice," much appreciated by the thousands of folks who have been organizing on this issue.)
What I resent about Jill Lawrence's "memo" is that she engages in journalism without facts. Check out her main three arguments against progressives:
First, a public option could complicate passage in the House. Pelosi is trying to balance potential loss of support from anti-abortion Democrats against gains that may come from moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats who prefer the Senate bill. They like it in part because it has no public option.
I spoke with Jill Lawrence and she said this on the phone. I asked her point blank, "What yes votes turn to no votes because of the public option?" Her answer, "Well, I don't know the names."
I suggested she find them. Evidently, she couldn't. But she threw this unsupported argument out there anyway.
One could just as easily say some members of the House are more likely to vote for the bill if it has a public option. Unlike Jill Lawrence, I can name names. The Atlantic's Chris Good wrote about Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) -- a former "no" vote -- in his piece, "A Moderate Dem For The Public Option." When signing our House public option letter, Murphy said:
"Our nation's health care system is broken. To have real reform we need to ensure three things; accessibility, accountability, and affordability. I support this letter because the public option would help achieve all three of these goals and help to keep costs down by giving the American public a competitive option to private insurers."
Jill Lawrence's first point goes down in flames. But, she took two more stabs at it. Here's the next one:
The Chamber took to their blog and ambiguously wrote, "No. No we are not."
It's well documented by Sam Stein at The Huffington Post that bailout recipients have been asked to funnel money to groups that are running anti-worker ads like the ones announced yesterday by the Chamber.
So I wrote, "Let me pose a more specific question: Is the Chamber actively rejecting money from bailout recipients?"
Another one quickly answered, the U.S. Chamber continues to accept as members companies which receive both public and private funds. In addition we do not believe that the receipt of taxpayer money abrogates an individual or groups’ rights under the First Amendment.
My original answer to the original question still stands, beyond question.
Actually, it's not beyond question -- and Jonathan Martin at Politico agrees:
Adam Green over at OpenLeft pushes the Chamber of Commerce to say that they're still accepting dues from bailed-out companies.
The goal is to make the case that the Chamber is using taxpayer dollars to help fund their anti-EFCA campaign (of which they have launched new ads targeting moderate Democratic senators).
The Chamber's Brad Peck says they're not using bail-out money for the campaign.
I've asked how exactly they know that to be the case.
A bunch of folks have joined the Facebook group asking the same question, and have used the contact info posted in that group to email Chamber execs directly.
The Chamber of Commerce’s solution for fixing our economic crisis is to use funds from taxpayer bailed-out companies to fight smart economic policies that will restore balance to our economy and help rebuild the American Middle Class.
...American taxpayers have had enough. The Chamber of Commerce must stop accepting taxpayer funds to lobby against taxpayer interests.
It's a pretty cut-and-dry case.
Taxpayer money went to companies so they could rebuild their fundamentals. By the Chamber's now-admission, bailout recipients are giving some of that money to the Chamber (aka, not using it to rebuild their fundamentals). Then, the Chamber uses that taxpayer money to fund ads against workers in political swing states.
We'll now see if the Chamber is as oblivious to the PR disaster that is about to hit them as the Wall Street execs who used bailout money to redecorate their offices and pay bonuses were.
Maybe smarter heads at the Chamber will prevail, and they'll take this issue off the table by publicly rejecting money from bailout recipients. We'll see...
This question was based on the fact that the Chamber just announced $1 million in new ads against the Employee Free Choice Act -- while bailout recipients like AIG and Bank of America are apparently being asked to funnel money to groups doing precisely this type of ad.
Is the Chamber of Commerce using bailout money to attack workers?
No. No we are not.
Let me pose a more specific question: Is the Chamber actively rejecting money from bailout recipients?
If yes, than Mr. Peck's answer holds true. If no, than Mr. Peck's answer seems quite questionable.
Oddly, the very month that Bank of America was asking Congress for a bailout, the Chamber of Congress put out this press release:
U.S. Chamber Announces 2008 Corporate Citizenship Awards Finalists...
Corporate Stewardship, Large Business Award, honoring overall values, strategies, and practices in companies with annual revenue greater than $5 billion—Bank of America, KPMG LLP, Pilot Travel Centers LLC, Siemens USA, and Verizon Communications
Really? Bank of America is the Chamber's model of corporate stewardship?
This puts the burden of proof squarely on the Chamber. Taxpayers deserve to know: As the Chamber runs millions in ads, it is activley rejecting money from bailout recipients?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching a $1 million television advertising campaign that takes a new line of attack against the Employee Free Choice Act...The new Chamber ads will hit the airwaves in Nebraska, Virginia, Louisiana, North Dakota and Colorado -- states whose senators could be swing votes on the issue.
In January, The Huffington Post's Sam Stein broke this news:
Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.
Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.
There's a natural question for taxpayers to ask: Is the Chamber of Commerce using bailout money to attack workers?
There are two things you can do right now to take action:
The clouds didn't open. A choir didn't start singing. A ray of sunlight didn't come shining down.
But I'm pretty sure I said, "HALLELUJAH!" when Barack Obama uttered those four divine words tonight, "Sam Stein. Huffington Post."
David Sirota aptly called this a movement moment. It was also, to be clear, a historic moment--and a legitimizing moment--for an online progressive community that's been years in the making and tonight had its first chance to ask a President of the United States a question at a news conference.
Sam's question was co-equal in status to the traditional talking heads. But unlike so many other questions, his question represented a concern on the minds of millions of Americans that the DC chattering class largely resists talking about: Should Bush Administration officials be held accountable for violating the American rule of law? Sam--a consistently great reporter and an avid biker--asked his question with composure and professionalism:
