So, why can't Obama…

…bring this game to the debates?

"When I hear her say it was a lonely fight, I have to disagree. Eighty percent of the American people wanted universal health care at that time. It wasn't that lonely," Obama said, greeted with applause from over 700 attendees at the Cedar Rapids community college where he spoke. "The reason that it became lonely was that she made a decision to close the door and to work just with her people."

That's a powerful point, one that Hillary should have to respond to face to face. One of the Clinton legacies is the dismantling of the Single Payer Action Networks and other grass roots universal health care infrastructure that had grown up in advance of the Clinton presidency. Hillary rejected their advice, but there was a concerted effort to enlist their assistance by setting aside their goals in favor of the Health Security Plan, which was designed with the private insurance industry in mind, but couldn't keep them on the farm. In the end we were left with no plan at all and a movement diminished nearly beyond recognition.

Brings to mind another item that's been rolling around the 'to be blogged' buffer for awhile. John Deeth, reporting in the Iowa Independent…

Signs and logos all say "Hillary" (no Clinton and certainly no Rodham), yet any speech references to health care invariably include the phrase "I've got the scars to show" for her 1993-1994 role in health care reform.

No, Senator. I've got the scars to show for your failure to enact health care, a failure so catastrophic that it set the cause of universal care back at least twenty years. Really. Scars. From cuts self treated with band-aids when what was needed were a couple unaffordable stitches. So please, Senator, spare me your tale of woe. I can't feel your pain.