Obama’s Website Quietly Drops Support of Public Option

by Warner Todd Huston | September 17, 2009 12:53 pm

It looks like President Obama’s campaign site cum community organizing website, Organizing for America (OFA), has quietly dropped its claim that the “public option” is a “must” in its healthcare policies open letter to Congress.

Originally the open letter told Congress that it “must” vote for the public option. The second bullet point in the OFA’s letter originally read as follows:

(A screen shot of the relevant section of the original is page below. While it lasts, here is the Google cached page[1].)

That was when Obama was raising money from his lefty followers. Now, however, it’s a different story.

Apparently that whole “must” urgency is no longer as important on Obama’s campaign website. Now the original, more insistent bullet points are gone and a generic message[2] only mentioning that the Obama plan has a public option in it now appears.

So, what gives? Has Team Obama decided to thumb its nose at its far left followers and shy from the so-called public option? Has the White House and the DNC realized that the public option is a loser and must be thrown under the bus? Is it just fatal realism hitting Team Obama between the eyes?

Well whatever is happening in the halls of power, it sure is vexing to Obama’s far left base. Several sites on the left are a tad annoyed… OK they are really peeved… about this turn of events that tends to run against their ideal healthcare proposal. Sites such as FireDogLake.com[3], TheNewArgument.com[4], and Florida Progressive Coalition Blog[5] have all had entries carping about the OFA flip flop.

Looks like Obamacare is not finding friends anywhere.

**UPDATE**

Rush Limbaugh mentioned this piece in his Thursday afternoon show.

Endnotes:
  1. Google cached page: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:xMHCVP6ew3wJ:healthcare.barackobama.com/+http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/health-care-action-center/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
  2. a generic message: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hcsignon?source=issuespage
  3. FireDogLake.com: http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/16/ofa-waves-bye-bye-to-public-plan/
  4. TheNewArgument.com: http://www.thenewargument.com/index.php/2009/09/breaking-ofa-dumps-demand-for-the-public-option/
  5. Florida Progressive Coalition Blog: http://quinnell.us/sspb/?p=6436

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/democrats/obama%e2%80%99s-website-quietly-drops-support-of-public-option/