An Admission

This blog is not entirely, 100% anti-Larry Summers.

As we've said before, we can see a constructive role for him, actually. And now is the time -- we want to see Larry hit all of the Sunday talk shows this weekend, we want him on Fox News, we want him on Scarborough Country dominating Joe with his alpha-male style, we want him on CNN, all singing the praises of Universal Health Care.

When he's behind his desk at the White House, he does the president no good. We need his rich, conservative, white, male face on TV steam-rolling talking heads and shoving health care for the masses down their throats paid for on the backs of millionaires...

The Huffpo talks about some summers comments he made at a speech at the Peterson Institute from last week... But we need Summers on CNN and the networks, not C-Span. Nobody watches that but nerds, and nerds are already on board.

A second point: where is Bill Clinton? If I'd had been Obama, I'd have put the Big Dog in charge of health care reform, and of putting the Blue Dogs on leashes (or have them kennel-up)... Seriously, he should have tapped Clinton back in January to lead an exploratory panel on health care reform. In a tough fight like this, we need all the star power we can get. That means having the likes of Bill Clinton and Larry Summers pushing the case on TV, where battles like this are won or lost.

Another point -- I've thought for awhile that the President and Michelle should have used their star power right after the election to raise a shit-load of money for the health care fight down the road... Michelle alone could have bagged $1million/dinner plus, I suspect, right after the election. They could have amassed a war chest to fight the drug companies and health insurers, who are made out of money, rather than carrying out the fight as penniless as the uninsured they are fighting for.