Burlington Free Press

Sanders, an advocate for a more radical, single-payer solution to the nation’s health care problems, said he will offer an amendment calling for a single-payer system even though he knows it has no chance of passage. A single-payer system is one in which the government is the sole source of financing for health care services.

“It will lose,” he said in an interview. “What I am trying to do, and we have language in the bill to provide the option to states to go forward so they can consider a single-payer system. ... As long as you get the waivers that are necessary to go forward, that’s all I want.”

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I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
- Will Rogers

Frustration with Democratic leadership seemed to boil over in the last week or so. It began (as far as I can tell) with John Aravosis' withering criticism of the president over his speech last weekend at a Human Rights Campaign event. He wrote of "concerns about President Obama's inaction, and backtracking" on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy towards gays. The criticism led to backlash (here is a good example) and tensions have been high all around since. In a way Obama is not the right target, and some have acknowledged that even as they urge him to act. Vermont Law School Associate Professor of Law Jackie Gardina advocates his taking action on DADT, but acknowledges all he can change is the implementation. Overturning it can only be done by Congress. The same is true for DOMA. While it may be more appealing to focus all criticism on a single target, the fact is that these changes will only be durable when the legislature acts. The president is obviously not a passive figure in all this - he can urge Congress to act, give moral support to the effort through his rhetoric (something that has curiously been treated as largely irrelevant on this issue) and otherwise encourage action on these issues, but in the end the action is at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Reid comes out against Roberts:

Citing concerns that "his heart is not as big as his head," Minority Leader Harry Reid, the Senate's top Democrat, announced today that he would vote against John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush's choice to serve as the next chief justice of the United States.