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My full post out of the first day of the America's Future Now! conference in DC is below. But I wanted to highlight Howard Dean's strong push for a public option, which I wrapped into the story:

During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."

He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.

"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.

Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)

WASHINGTON -- They might have the WH and Congress, but progressives - gathered this week for a four-day conference billed as "America's Future Now!" - aren't universally pleased with the Obama administration.

As a coalition of liberal groups announced their union today behind an unprecedented $82M grassroots and advertising campaign to push for health care reform, some consternation remains in the Democratic base about if Pres. Obama is pursuing a sweeping enough package. Others expressed dismay with his decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

During the question and answer portion of a panel about "The progressive movement in the Age of Obama," held at the Omni Shoreham and featuring Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart and Change to Win chair Anna Burger, among others, Burger was interrupted by a female audience member who barked from the darkened ballroom: "Why not single-payer?"

"It would be great to have single-payer, but I don't think that's going to happen this year," she said, adding that whatever plan is ultimately adopted, Democrats seem to be moving toward a public option plan that allows people to opt out of the system, will make a difference in people's lives.

A few minutes later, Deepak Bhargava, with the Center for Community Change, interjected, "I think many of us think the single payer system would be the best system," he said, drawing enthusiastic applause from many activists in the room.

But then he pivoted. "It is a step on the path," he said.

A step isn't enough for everyone. After eight years of assailing Pres. Bush's leadership, progressives are regrouping in an effort to leverage their newfound fortune - a WH in Dem hands and a Senate just one-vote shy of a filibuster-proof majority. They even had to change the past name of the annual confab from "Take Back America."

Some today sounded a broad caution that progressives shouldn't quiet their call for change just because Obama is at the helm or Congress is dominated by members of the president's party.

The best gift the left can give Obama, said MoveOn.org's Ilyse Hogue, is a "vibrant, vocal progressive movement."

While Roger Hickey of Campaign for America's future suggested that an "inside and outside strategy" modeled on the civil rights era efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Pres. Johnson in the 60s, will help the Democrats shepherd their policy plans through Congress, Hogue suggested the entire movement shouldn't fall in line behind consensus proposals if they don't go far enough or Democrats just because they're Democrats. She named Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), in particular, as one whose stance on the Employee Free Choice Act remains in question.

"With all respect to Roger, I think our job is not to be inside or outside," she said. "It's to take the doors off the hinges and smash the walls down."

Progressives have reason so far to be pleased with Obama. From his public support for "card check," as EFCA is called, to his signature of a new equal pay law, he is making good on several campaign promises. But health care - and the shape of the plan he ultimately endorses - could create a fault line in the movement of people who worked so intensely to elect a one-term junior senator from IL.

Much of the focus of this week's conference seems to be creating unanimity behind shared goals - even if not all can be achieved. A video of Obama addressing the group in '06 and '07 was played for the crowd.

"It's going to be because of you that we take our country back," he said, at a past conference. The clip was set to upbeat music.

And several participants mentioned Obama's background as a community organizer. The message to attendees, of course, was that he knows what you do, he's done it himself, and he knows how critical it is to getting approval for his agenda.

But during that same question and answer session, a male audience member yelled, "Afghanistan!" apropos of nothing being discussed.

So for some on the left, the president isn't fulfilling all of his campaign promises and is starting to disappoint. Others suggest any divide is overstated. Hogue, for one, said that the media loves to fan the flames of "hot Dem on Dem action," as she called it.

"The famous firing squad in a circle, I don't think we're anywhere near that," said Helen Brunner, a DC resident attending the conference.

Change to Win's Burger put it differently. "Are there days when I wake up and think, could he have done more or could he be further out there? Absolutely." She said there will be more days like that, but noted still that Obama is a "transformational" president.

"We have to make him successful," she said. "We have to make him the best that he can be."

As for that massive push for health care reform, the groups supporting the effort include Health Care for America Now, the AFL-CIO and Change To Win, the Children's Defense Fund, MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, Rock the Vote, National Women's Law Center, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Democracy for America. The money will be used for grassroots organizing (troops are already on the ground in 46 states) and a sizeable advertising campaign.

During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."

He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.

"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.

Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)

As both Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch argued last week, commenting on this article in The Weekly Standard, we are seeing the "last gasp of a losing argument" from opponents of gay marriage. A few days later, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, who argued Bush v. Gore for the Bushies, joined forces with liberal lawyer (and former Gore council) David Boies and filed a legal challenge to California's Prop. 8. Now former Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at the National Press Club, affirmed his support for a federalist approach to same-sex marriage, telling assembled journalists that "people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish."

The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that.

Via RealClearPolitics, which also has the video.

John Nance, the former FAA administrator, and now an aviation consultant to ABC News, says that there's a 50-50 chance that the missing Air France jet went down in an explosion. The story was just on ABC. They tended to downplay Nance's comments, but I have to admit, i was wondering about the possibility of terrorism as well. Obviously, it's too soon - and it's suspicious that no terrorist group is claiming credit, since they're usually not very shy about such things.

Last night at about 8 p.m., the Associated Press’s Roxama Hegeman became an early purveyor of the myth that abortion clinic-related violence has been a frequent and consistent occurrence during the past two decades when she wrote the following about the murder of Kansas abortionist George Tiller (saved here at host for future reference; bold is mine):

There was no immediate word of the motive (of) Tiller’s assailant. But the doctor’s violent death was the latest in a string of shootings and bombings over two decades directed against abortion clinics, doctors and staff.

A look at the actual history of such violence accumulated by a pro-abortion group demonstrates that Tiller’s murder is correctly seen as a horrible, isolated incident following a long, sustained, and not-reversed period of decline.

Here is the “History of Violence” accumulated by the National Abortion Federation (NAF), broken down into five categories:

• Murder and shootings — There were none since 1998 until Tiller was murdered on Sunday. From 1993-1998, seven abortion doctors or abortion clinic employees were killed, and 12 others were injured, many very seriously. One cowardly killing after 11 murder-free and shooting-free years following a period of seven in six years does not signal a trend by any reasonable definition.


• Arsons and bombings — Starting in 1976, NAF lists 13 such crimes during the remainder of that decade, over 75 during the 1980s, over 100 during the 1990s, and 16 since the turn of the century. Only six arsons took place from 2004-2008. The last arson listed at NAF’s site occurred in December 2007. It should also be noted that arsons set by business owners in general to collect insurance money are not all that infrequent.


• Butyric acid attacks — Butyric acid is a clear, colorless liquid with an unpleasant, rancid, vomit-like odor. According to NAF, this clinic attack method was used “about 100″ times from 1991-1998, and has not been employed since.


• NAF lists over 650 antrax attacks and fake anthrax attacks from 1998-2002, and none since then. Over 550 of these occurred in 2001.

Overall, an “Extreme Violence” page at NAF listing activity from 1997-2007 lists the following number of incidents per year:

As you can see, Rebecca Hegeman’s “string” has been broken twice in the past three years.

Abortion clinic violence and violence against abortionists has generally been on such a steep decline during the past decade that MSNBC stopped updating a web page dedicated to the topic in the late 1990s.

Without recounting already-known details, the unique specifics of Tiller’s situation also supports the idea that his murder, which should of course be and I’m sure will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, will more than likely not be a part of a new “string” of similar ones throughout the country.

Not that the establishment media types like the AP’s Hegemen, the ever-opportunistic Obama administration, or far-left blogs will particularly care about these facts.

There’s one more thing Ms. Hegemen forgot to note: The pre-born babies that George Tiller murdered were not available for comment.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.