Child Nutrition Reauthorization: The Perfect and the Good

This morning I re-read the last chapter of Jonathan Alter’s book The Promise, about Obama’s first year in office. It is the story of how health care finally passed, and the struggle the White House had with the deeply disappointed liberal wing of the Democratic Party which wanted to include provisions like the public option and other measures which the White House philosophically supported but believed would have made the bill impossible to pass.

Though the health care battle was bigger in scope in every way, Alter’s account of the negotiations between the various advocacy groups and the White House and Congress reads exactly like what we’ve seen with the Child Nutrition Reauthorization (reflected in today’s New York Times story @http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/24food.html?_r=1&ref=us.)

The title of Alter’s chapter is The Perfect and The Good.