She said, He said, Whom to believe?

Economist and Journalist Robert Kuttner responded with the correct pronoun case to a "He said, she said" question concerning Senators Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama and their respective stances on mandated health insurance coverage. Incidentally, Kuttner probably also gave the right answer to journalist Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! See below, in blue, Mr. Kuttner's proper usage.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask you, in terms of the mandates issue, because obviously both(Paul) Krugman, in his various articles, and Clinton have claimed, on the one hand, that Obama does have mandates—he has mandates for coverage of all children—so that the mandates issue is not a principled issue, it’s a tactical issue as to what you think could be approved. Your sense of that?

ROBERT KUTTNER: My point is that a mandate, in a situation where the whole system is sick, makes that sickness the problem of the individual. Instead of putting a gun to people’s heads, typically people who can’t afford good quality insurance, and saying to them, “You must, under penalty of law, or pay a tax or pay a fine, go out and find decent insurance,” it’s so much better policy to just have insurance for everybody. Then there’s no question of a mandate.

I think it’s a very bad position for progressives to back into, because it signals that government is being coercive, rather than government being helpful. Now, we can split hairs and argue whether Obama is being principled or tactical, but I think his discomfort with the idea of a mandate is something that I applaud. I wish that both he and Clinton had gone all the way and said, let’s just to do this right and have national health insurance. I think they could have used this as a teachable moment. They could have bought public opinion around. Medicare is phenomenally popular. Medicare is national health insurance for seniors. Let’s have national health insurance for everybody. Some might have been tempted to say: "...both him and Clinton."

"Both" may be either a pronoun, adjective, or conjunction depending upon its syntactical position in the sentence, how it is used.

A closer look at the sentence but by no means thorough:

I pronoun subject wish verb (transitive) that (1) conjunction both adjective he (2) pronoun subject and coordinating conjunction

Clinton (2) noun subject had gone 1st verb in compound verb (3) all the way (adverb phrase, modifies "gone") and said 2nd verb in compound verb (3)

[ let's just do this right and have national health insurance.] (complete direct object of the verbs "had gone" and "said")

note (1): "that" is a conjunction (“complentizer”complementing & connecting what is wished for)
note (2): “he” and “Clinton” act as subjects in the subordinate clause in which they operate
note (3): The compound verbs “had gone” and “said” stem from the compound subject "he" and "Clinton"

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