Tweet of the day - Chuck Grassley

(The quotes below are copied and pasted from the source, unfortunately. Being an Iowan proud of our educational system I'd prefer not to have our elected officials write "skedul" and "delivr")

Our state's senior senator is not happy with the president. Today he sent these two tweets:

"Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

and

"Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

That's senatorial speak for, "I'm pissed." On this one I think it is probably justified. The White House announcing that the president has to sweep in to save the health care debate while he's on a date night with Michelle in Paris was pretty stupid. This White House doesn't commit many errors but this was one.

To the bigger point: Grassley is the ranking Republican on the Finance committee. One of his closest friends is the Democratic Chair of the committee, Max Baucus. They honestly do want to work together to create a health care bill. On this one I give Grassley very high marks. He's not like the other Republicans who say they want to work together but in the end only want to scuttle any deal. (Remember, Grassley stood very lonely among Republicans supporting health care for children.)

The bill to come out of the Finance committee is not one my side will like. It probably will have no option for you to buy a plan from the government (like Medicare). The Health committee with Kennedy and Dodd will likely be the plan my side will like... but... Obama has made it clear that he absolutely must have bipartisan support for the healthcare bill. The Kennedy bill won't get it. A Baucus-Grassley bill would.

Paraphrasing the president here: There is no need for the perfect to get in the way of the good. I hope we have the opportunity to buy from the government. I know my parents' medicare beat the hell out of Medical Savings Accounts I had with Kaplan. But even if we don't get a public option this is one bill that has to move forward. The nation can't get out of the Great Recession without it. Also, my party can't go into 2010 without delivering on this issue. In 1993-1994 the Democrats created a circular firing squad on the issue of health care. The result? The Republicans took congress. That absolutely cannot happen again.