Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) in Huffington Post:
"I'm getting tired of saving Obama's can in the White House," said Conyers. "I mean, he only won by five votes in the House, and this bill wasn't anything to write home about. The public option is only available, which is the only way you manage cost and get some competition to 1,300 other health insurance companies, the only way he could have got that through is that progressives held their nose and voted for it anyway."Amen.
Asked if the president had shown enough leadership in the health care debate, Conyers facetiously wondered why Press would ask the question.
"Of course not, of course not," he said. "You know, holding hands out and beer on Friday nights in the White House and bowing down to every nutty right-wing proposal about health care, and saying on occasion that public options aren't all that important is doing a disservice to the Barack Obama that I first met who was an ardent single-payer enthusiast himself."
...."That is essentially what Rahm Emanuel has said: Just give us anything and we will declare victory," said Conyers.
