I am referring to a government backed public option available to everyone. The evidence that it is a position backed by the public goes back years beyond this present debate:

"The public wants the government to play a leading role in providing health care for all. For example, in an October, 2003 Washington Post/ABC poll, by almost a two-to-one margin (62 percent to 33 percent), Americans said that they preferred a universal system that would provide coverage to everyone under a government program, as opposed to the current employer-based system. Similarly, in Kaiser polls from 1992 to 2000, a large majority of the public agreed that the federal government should guarantee medical care for people who don't have health insurance. In a slightly different question asked more recently by Kaiser in June 2003, more than seven in ten adults (72 percent) agreed that the government should guarantee health insurance for all citizens, even if it means repealing most of the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush, while less than one-quarter (24 percent) disagreed with this statement. Finally, the last time Gallup asked whether the federal government should make sure all Americans have health coverage, they agreed that was a federal government responsibility by 62-35 (November, 2002)."

"In that context, the public supports a wide variety of options for expanding health insurance to cover more Americans. In a June, 2005 Kaiser poll, the public said they favored tax deductions or credits for businesses (88 percent); expanding state government programs like Medicaid (80 percent); expanding Medicare to cover people ages 55-64 (74 percent); tax credits for uninsured individuals (73 percent); and requiring business to offer employees health insurance (70 percent). In a December, 2003 Harvard School of Public Health/Robert Wood Johnson/ICR poll, 80 percent supported expanding Medicaid/SCHIP; 76 percent supported employers being required to offer a health plan; and 71 percent supported a tax credit plan. Trailing these options, but still garnering majority support, were a universal Medicare plan (55 percent) and an individual coverage mandate plan (54 percent). Finally, the 2004 GQR/POS poll found 74 percent favoring guaranteed health care coverage for all American children under 18 and 62 percent favoring catastrophic health insurance coverage for all Americans. (Note: one of the only options that didn't garner majority support in these polls was a single or national health plan financed by tax payers that would provide insurance for all Americans (37-47 percent))."

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweb log.com/donkeyrising/archives/001291.php

Whenever I am in doubt about how the conversation today is constructed, I return to these earlier numbers.

The problem with your qualification is that I do not see you labeling the position of Blue Dogs on healthcare as extremist. By mentioning moderate, I left to assume you think they are moderates.

When you say, "All I said was that there are moderates and Blue Dogs in our party and that's okay. I did not define what the word "moderate" means, I just acknowledged its presence," you do not define the reality that you are discussing extremism in the context of what the American public wants.

Do you consider their position on healthcare moderate when compared to the wants of the American people, who have consistently said they wanted a robust public option?

I see this all the time. You are discussing what DC does or thinks without fully stating it is not what the American public wants. You may think it unnecessary, but I think labeling them what they are- extremists- is vital to any discussion of what's happening in the narrative.

They were not acting in a moderate fashion when they raised the cost of the healthcare bill by several billion dollars for the American people. They were not acting as moderates when they opposed the health care bill. They were not acting as moderates when they opposed the public option. This is not moderation if one defines it according to the dictates of the American people's needs and wants.

When defined against the American people rather than DC or political parties, what you are describing is extremism from the right. If you want to say you want a big tent, you need to define how big because right wing extremism apparently is now included as a part of the Democratic tent. This loose discussion of words allows those who are extremist under the tent. This is one of the reasons I look at people who applaud Republicans moving to the the Democratic Party in dismay.   Are these Republicans moving to the Democrats because they are believers  in the core goals of the Democratic Party or for political gain because the Democratic Party is gaining power? None of this is discussed. In fact, on many blogs, like this one, it seems glossed over.

The reason why all of this matters comes up clearly with the public option in which far right ideologues are being described as moderates when clearly against the opinion of the American public they are not.

I am not problem with real moderation. I have a problem with the extremism that passes for it in DC under the banner of centrism

It is why Lieberman annoys us so. We could do so much better.

Minnick is conservative but so is that district. It is surprising though to see a study showing him to be the most conservative Congressman from the Pacific North West.

The point of comparing Kucinich to the right wingers is to claim false equivalency. "See you are purists who would torpedo the bill too." Nevermind there was only one. Nevermind that actually the left of center repeatedly capitulates to the right wingers. They are the same. The framing is false, but people like make it for various reasons.

There is no need to appropriate "blame". Rather this is for our (netroots/liberals/progressives/sane people) own count. We have a couple of dozen Republicans in the party who by some strange quirk voted for Pelosi as Speaker. That's fine.

However our majority is not 258. It's around 225. So this is no time to be complacent with our gains. We must keep pushing for more and better dems in the House. Our 'majority' is razor thin and the GOP dosn't need a swing of 40 to retake control, they can get de-facto control with only a gain of 10 or so.

Here's a story from Politico saying some of the nay votes were let go as you say, but she really is steamed at some others:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrus h/1109/Welcome_to_the_health_care_doghou se.html?showall