It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

At various points in the past month and a half, I was sure that the public option was dead, or alive,  depending on which message the White House was putting out at the time.  With all of the trial balloons and the clarifications issued the next day, it was a real roller-coaster.   The day of Obama's speech, I read a dozen different stories about what the president was going to say about the public option that night.  Each with a source, each claiming to know, each with a different prognostication.  After President Obama's speech on Wednesday night, I felt renewed hope.  Even though the President gave himself wiggle room, I believed that unless the Republicans could come up with a constructive and workable method of accomplishing the goals set forth that night, the public option was in.  And, given the fact that the Republicans had no intention of coming up with such a solution, we would have an effective  public option.  

Then, it started.  First, David Axelrod told Rachel Maddow in an interview immediately after the speech that he thought there would be some sort of public option in the bill, but he did not know whether there would be a trigger mechanism.  Then, on Friday, I read reports that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were "softening" on requiring a public option in the President's new health plan. Only four days after the President's speech, a New York Times analysis suggested, that the idea of a public option "appears to be dying, a victim of an ineffectual White House strategy, the president’s failure to argue passionately for the 'public option' and all-out opposition by the insurance industry and much of the health care industry."  Over the weekend, I have read or heard several accounts of the White House, the Congressional leadership or the Democrats "caving" on the public option.  Some indicated that this meant no public option. Some indicated that there was a new receptiveness to a trigger mechanism.  An Associated Press report by Charles Babington, acknowledged the hurdles that the public option faces, but did not say or imply that anyone was caving or that a trigger-less public option is dead.  This article, as do many, speaks of the President's appearance this evening on 60 Minutes and the cross country trips that the President is making to press his case.

So who do we believe?  Should we believe any press accounts?  Or, is this all just case of speculation written to sound authoritative?  I don't know.  Perhaps that is because the battle has not yet ended.