Lawrence Lessig via Huff Post:
Obama's victory was achieved because his team played the old game brilliantly. Staffed with the very best from the league of conventional politics, his team bought off PhRMA (with the promise not to use market forces to force market prices for prescription drugs), and the insurance industry (with the promise ... that they would face no new competition from a public option), so that by the end, as [Glenn] Greenwald puts it, the administration succeeded in "bribing and accommodating them to such an extreme degree that they ended up affirmatively supporting a bill that lavishes them with massive benefits." Obama didn't "push[] back on the undue influence of special interests," as he said today. He bought them off. And the price he paid should make us all wonder: how much reform can this administration -- and this Nation -- afford? [...]
The lesson of the health care struggle is not that Republicans are evil. The lesson is the one candidate Obama taught us again and again. That "unless we're willing to challenge the broken system in Washington, and stop letting lobbyists use their clout to get their way, nothing else is going to change." Republicans were just the sock-puppets for that clout this time around, aided by key swing Democrats. And a campaign waged against these sock-puppets will be a useless campaign waged against ½ of America.
Rather than waging that partisan fight, this is the moment to challenge that "broken system." Americans are disgusted by the story of this reform, however much they will come to love the health care it produced. They don't need to be convinced that the "clout" in DC over this past year came not from votes in an election, but from dollars these lobbyists will deliver to a Congress still addicted to campaign cash.
Remind us again, Mr. President, about that "clout." Focus us again on the "fight" that we must "take up." And then take up that fight. That was "the reason," you told us, that you were "running for President [ -- ] to challenge that system." So challenge it now. And give us all the reason to fight to make sure you have 7 more years to deliver on the promises that you made.
