We've heard from a number of conservative Democratic Senators that a public option can't be included in a health care reform bill because the votes just wouldn't be there to pass it.  (All emphasis added by me.)

Joe Lieberman (I/Dem caucus-CT), 6/16/09:

probably the most important, the votes are not there for a public health plan, government run option and this can stand in the way of a historic achievement for President Obama

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), 6/21/09:

She told CNN's John King: "Well to be candid with you, I don't know that he has the votes right now. I think there's a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus."

Kent Conrad (D-ND), 8/16/09:

"The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option, there never have been, so to continue to chase that rabbit is just a wasted effort," Conrad said on Fox News Sunday.

Max Baucus (D-MT), 9/9/09:

He also said there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass the "public option," based on public and private conversations he's had with his colleagues.

Mark Pryor (D-AR), 9/10/09:

"My guess is that there are not votes to do it in the Senate, even a very modest public option like what he's talking about," Pryor said.

To Senators Lieberman, Feinstein, Conrad, Baucus, and Pryor, along with Senators Bayh, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson and Nelson: you ARE the votes!

Saying that you oppose a public option "because the votes aren't there" is a nonsensical excuse when the votes would be there if the people claiming that the votes aren't there voted for it!  You are the votes.  Quit copping out.

For daily news and analysis on the U.S. Senate races around the country, regularly read Senate Guru.

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Cheerleaders for Mr. Obama will protest, but let them. Its becoming clear that the ambitious candidate Mr. Obama appeared to many to be is turning into a timid President who is content to let conservative Senators like Max Baucus define his administration's positions on important issues like health care, overjoying corporate lobbyists who were fearful that a Democratic administration would represent actual change.

The media is starting to understand the situation, for example, the New York Times has a good article today on the unexpected positions Mr. Obama is taking: Despite Major Plans, Obama Taking Softer Stands

The controversies that he is avoiding are important ones and the positions he is taking are not the positions that Americans elected Mr. Obama to champion.

Online forums are where one would expect to see diverse views discussed, right? But instead, groups of inevitably Obama-supporting posters attempt to intimidate free discussions, as they did during the election. This behavior, reminiscent of recent AI research (using robotic influencers), influences the decisions of legitimate groups, causing them to seem to be making "decisions" that are "not always in their best interests". For example, on healthcare, (the costs of which may destroy the futures of an entire generation). 70% of us want it to be implemented. But "our" Mr. Obama in his Ivory tower House, tells us its "off the table".

The combination of Obama's bailouts and his cheerful embrace of the failed private healthcare insurance model for the forseeable future represents a huge income redistribution scheme from the taxpayers as a whole, to the already rich, many say, "The largest transfer of wealth in history". Ultimately, the result will be an ugly situation which most Americans will have to emigrate, stripped of their equity. Lacking the technical education they would need to work, they will be unemployed, with ubiquitous machines (also here) eventually doing almost all the scriptable jobs. (except where young, attractive humans are used for sentimental reasons, at increased cost, jobs such as waiters in expensive restaurants, customer facing jobs such as deceptionists, and prostitution.)

If America remains relatively safe, many citizens, perhaps most, may eventually no longer be able to afford to live here. Like the European indentured servants who involuntarily populated America, they will represent a unwelcome liability to their home country. (But there is no longer a frontier to send them to. If somehow, they manage to stay, their care may eventually be contracted out, "offshored".)

There's more...