Obama echoes Webb

Obama just pretty much echoed Webb:

"Here's one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated," Obama said. "People in Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process."

And nothing about the House passing the Senate bill. It's probably too late now, but the silence from the President was long. Instead, this salvage operation:

 "I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment ... Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill," Obama said.

 This had to have been gamed out before the election yesterday. I must confess I am dumbfounded.

My personal fantasy is that in his strangely long talks with Olympia Snowe, Obama roughed out a Plan B with her should the Democrats' bills run aground. She gets some pound of flesh; the Democrats get a bill he can live with. But it's just that, a fantasy. Perhaps in November, the deal could have included a party switch for Snowe. But now? 

Webb drops a bomb on his putative party

What kind of unspeakable crap is this from Jim Webb just minutes after Brown's victory was called?

"In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."

What kind of game is Webb playing?  The HCR bill-creation process has been open ad nauseaum. Anyone interested has been able to follow every permutation of negotiation on every key permutation through a host of news sources. The whole of both Senate and House bills have been sitting on the web for weeks and months. The Senate has passed its bill, and the House is perfectly within its rights to pass it.

 Ezra Klein, Jonathan Cohn, Jonathan Chait, Josh Marshall have said it all. What is the point of taking office as a Democrat if you will not pass one of these both-more-than-credible health care reform bills  -- and put insurance in reach of tens of millions who currently can't get it while making a host of concerted, serious efforts to get costs under control? Who would not rather have a hand in passing it as a one-term representative or senator than rusticate for decades in either chamber after letting it die?

To state the obvious: Webb has no actual say on what the House votes on.  But it would seem that he's lending cover to those in the House who want to pause, and curl up, and die. Why is he undercutting the White House like this? What's the calculation? Motive?

We have one party that has not got the brains to govern. Will we now learn for certain that we have another party that hasn't got the guts?

Next post: Frank-ly disgusting

Contrary Fact of the Day

Today's Wall Street Journal's story about how lobbyists smoothed the way for sovereign wealth funds' massive investments in bulge bracket investment banks has all the earmarks of a classic WSJ expose: front page billing, a load of detail about how the process works and who the players are, lots of case study detail. Instead of uncovering a scandal, though, the story opens the window to a heretical thought: occasionally at least, lobbyists win one on the merits. Consider, for example, this exchange between an Ogilvy lobbyist and James Webb:

Blackstone executives briefed several dozen lawmakers, with the firm's chief executive, Stephen Schwarzman, sitting in on some sessions. Stiff opposition came from Sen. James Webb, a first-term Virginia Democrat. Sen. Webb wrote a novel published in 1991, "Something to Die For," in which Japan uses its financial muscle to gain influence in Washington. The senator worries Beijing could do the same.

Mr. Webb wanted the China investment deal delayed so regulators could examine whether Blackstone's stake in a semiconductor company posed national-security problems. One of Mr. Berman's partners pointed out that the firm produced off-the-shelf chips. Sen. Webb withdrew his objections to the deal, though he remains skeptical of sovereign investors.

Exhibit B: Dubai Aerospace tries transparency as a lobbying strategy:

Wall Street and the U.A.E. thought they had turned the corner by spring 2007 when another Dubai-owned company, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Ltd., bought two firms that owned small U.S. airports and maintenance facilities that serviced some navy transport-plane engines. The Dubai firm pledged to submit to government security reviews and submit its employees for security screening. It also thoroughly briefed lawmakers on the deal. It ran into no obstacles on Capital Hill.

"I call the strategy, 'wearing your underwear on the outside,'" says one of Dubai Aerospace's Washington lobbyists, Joel Johnson, a former Clinton White House communications adviser. "We have to show everybody everything -- no secrets, no surprises."

Of course, elected officials have to be very careful not to appear to compromise security, so it's likely that lobbying on this front won't succeed unless the logic at least seems bullet-proof enough to protect the responding politician. Still, it's worth keeping in mind that lobbyists can have reason on their side and sometimes even deploy it as an effective lobbying tool.