Just a few days before that I had been broadcasting from Kansas City at a free health clinic, seeing something I never thought I would see in America—thousands of good people, most of them the working poor, some of them the struggling middle class, all lined up for health care they could not otherwise afford. The clinics were Keith Olbermann’s idea, and donations from some twenty-five thousand MSNBC viewers made them possible. I spent two days broadcasting from Kansas City. It was emotionally wrenching. Strung out from traveling, tired, battling one helluva cold, and just plain heartbroken about what I had seen, I told Joe Scarborough’s viewers that morning what I thought about the compromised health care bill on the table that day. Although it improved many things, it contained no public option and, as I saw it, provided no real competition for the insurance companies. “The president never drew a line in the sand…he hasn’t been tough,” I said. “Barack Obama is not listening to his base.”
