What President Obama should do

I don't support any variant of Obamacare that I've heard about (a number of different proposals are apparently floating in and out of different congressional committees). I don't support any "reform" that includes more, rather than less, government involvement in health care. And in point of fact, in broad outline, I just don't support the Obama administration's agenda, period. 90% of it is just plain bad, and the other, decent 10% (closing Gitmo, ending torture and unlawful detention, etc.) went by the wayside in record time once his hand came off the Bible he was sworn in with.

So when I offer him advice on how to either get Obamacare passed in the form he wants, or at least position himself as the underdog on the side of the people and all that, he might want to take it with a grain of salt. But, for whatever it's worth, here's what I'd do if I was President Barack Obama and I wanted the "public option," etc. in the upcoming health "reform" bill:

I'd give my speech tomorrow and make it a barn-burner -- a confrontational demand for the "public option" wrapped in the American flag, wafted to DC on the winds of the highest aspirations of the American people, and so on and so forth.

Immediately after the speech, I'd take Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi into a back room, hand them a draft of the legislation I want passed, and tell them the following:

"You're going to take this legislation back into your offices tomorrow morning -- no, make that tonight -- and you're going to go to work. You're going to call in each and every Democratic Representative and Senator and demand their vote for it, on pain of being stripped of their committee positions and expelled from their house's Democratic caucus should they withhold that vote. No negotiations, no concessions -- this is the legislation, take it or leave it and if they leave it they're done -- not a single Democratic dollar for their re-election campaigns.

"You're going to get those people in line, you're going to bring this puppy to the floor of each house in the next ten days instead of shuffling it off to committees, and you're going to get an up or down vote on it without any amendments, without any conferences to rectify differences between the House and Senate versions -- because there won't be any such differences.

"It will pass or it won't pass. If it passes, I'll sign it into law and we'll move forward to the rest of our party's agenda with the wind of victory at our backs. If it doesn't pass, we'll be back in the minority in Congress, but at least we'll be a minority that knows what the hell it stands for. I'd rather fight the good fight against our opponents and lose honestly than spend the next four years wrestling in a kiddie pool full of tapioca pudding with a bunch of chiselers who claim to be with us but who are only on our side when it's easy and when their friends on K Street sign off on it."

That's what I'd do. But that's just me.