While President Obama insists he wants to move forward with health care reform, comments by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in the New York Times about pushing it back makes some liberals think he's willing to let it die.
Jonathan Cohn: "Was this a trial balloon? It's impossible to know. Emanuel's qualms
about strategic over-reach on health care are among Washington's worst
kept secrets. It's always possible he was freelancing. But it's hard to
imagine that, in a sit-down interview like this, Emanuel would toss out
an idea like this without at least implicit approval from above."
Kevin Drum: "Given the normal pace of congressional action -- including the usual Republican obstruction -- this would mean no action on healthcare for at least a month or two. Maybe more like three or four. Or maybe never. New pronouncements seem to come almost hourly on this stuff, so I'll wait for a few other folks to chime in before coming to any conclusions. But if healthcare is now domestic priority #4, it might as well be domestic priority #100. It might not quite be dead, but no matter what Obama said in his State of the Union address, the grim reaper is starting to hover uncomfortably close by."
Ezra Klein: "The timetable Emanuel is laying out makes little sense. The jobs bill will take some time. Financial regulation will take much longer. Let's be conservative and give all this four months. Is Emanuel really suggesting that he expects Congress to return to health-care reform in the summer before the election? Forgetting whether there's political will at that point, there's no personnel: Everyone is home campaigning."
Jonathan Chait: "Either Obama doesn't know what he wants to do, and his deputies are spreading conflicting stories in order to see what takes, in which case he needs to make up his mind pronto. Or else he wants to do what he says he wants to do, but his chief of staff is out there subverting his agenda and making Congress doubt his seriousness, in which case Obama needs to shut up Emanuel or fire him."
