I've known Emanuel Cleaver III since he was a Kansas City council member, and then mayor.  He was an early supporter (if not a waffler a couple of times) of the effort to pass a gay rights ordinance here.

It's good to see now as a U.S. Representative from Missouri speaking out about scrapping the current so-called "health care" bill after seeing it get so watered down as to be nearly useless.  And that's before we realize all the loopholes built in by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, who actually wrote the damned thing.

I'm actually a recovering... although my current recovery is not complete... single payer member, so I've already compromised by moving to the public option...  I do think [the health care bill] is in trouble.  -- Emanuel Cleaver