Brown told Barbara Walters “you have to have a sense of humor about yourself,” and links the centerfold to many of his successes that came later in life. “If I hadn’t done that… I never would have been sitting here with you. It’s all connected,” Brown told Walters.
It’s a reminder of political symbolism that now exists, where resume and policy are puny substitutes for the “it” factor, especially when it meets the perfect moment in time.
And, of course, Scott Brown’s come-from-behind blowout in Massachusetts occurred in no small part because of money and volunteers from the Tea Party movement around the nation.
But are Tea Partiers going to ignore that Scott Brown is pro women’s civil rights, believing in a woman’s right to privacy?
Sarah Palin another example of political star quality, though on ideology she represents the polar opposite of Brown, being a die hard culture warrior, leading the charge against women’s privacy issues. Both issues that helped her bringing in $1.4 million in the last six months, according to Chris Cillizza, with Politico’s Andy Barr having her at $2.1 million for 2009. Pawlenty raising $1.3 million in the same time.
There’s only one thing the Republicans have in common, if they stick to their party’s latest 2010 script. The target is Barack Obama, with Democratic candidates in 2010 all being tied to the President and his administration.
GOP strategists gathered here for the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting believe that now that he’s fallen below 50 percent in the venerable Gallup poll, Obama will be an asset to GOP candidates, particularly in conservative or swing states.
The challenge will be to link Democrats with the administration on such issues as spending, bailouts, healthcare and cap-and-trade while not personally attacking Obama, who remains personally well-liked even as his standing erodes. So, at least in purple states or districts, don’t expect to see an ad where the faces of Democratic candidates are morphed into that of the president—a time-honored approach from past campaigns.
William F. Buckley once said, in an interview with Charlie Rose, that conservatism finds it’s power through what it’s against. Actually, I’d say that’s the whole purpose of conservatives and their movement. On that foundation the Republicans, but also their Tea Party cousins, feel they’ve found a plan. Betting that Obama’s likability won’t carry over to Democrats in 2010, because it’s about his policies, stupid.
“Secretary Hillary Clinton wasn’t at the State of the Union because she was in London. Which was a relief to the White House — they were afraid she might have been in Iowa.” – Sen. Kit Bond
I met Mr. Bond decades ago when we shared a float in a state parade (he hit on me), back when I was Miss Mo, which is the best segue around to congratulate Miss Virginia, the Beltway state I call home now, for winning the Miss America contest. It reminds me of a kerfuffle I had with a NOW representative, who picketed the pageant the year I was in it and it was a very grand affair; back when it was still held in New Jersey, along the famous boardwalk. I came out of my hotel one morning, press mobbing me (yes, that was really the scene back then), when this gal came up to me and said: How can you demean yourself like this? In front of a throng of reporters, I simply looked at her and said, “Do you want to pay for my college tuition?” Long before the pageant allowed two-piece swimsuits, girls like me competed for the cash. I couldn’t have gone to college without it.
In another looks competition, the on-air media world, I’ve been noticing for months the gradual weight loss of Candy Crowley, the veteran marathon ever-on-the-road journalist. Well, via Michael Calderon, it turns out she’s getting a Sunday show nod. No doubt there is always inspiration to lose weight, but getting a good TV gig is certainly one of them. Congratulations to Candy.
On Thursday, I heard Eugene Robinson on “Hardball” talk about something he’d heard about DADT from a little rat in the White House. It was clear he was very uncomfortable about reporting it.
“What I heard this morning from somebody at the White House was probably not this year. But, maybe we would be hearing from military brass at some point.”
The Defense Department starts the clock next week on what is expected to be a several-year process in lifting its ban on gays from serving openly in the military.
Starts the clock… tick-tock-tick-tock.
This is what I mean, folks. Let’s call it the audacity of word fogs. Just last week during the SOTU, with great fanfare, Mr. Obama reiterated his promise on ending DADT. He had to repeat it because he’d promised to do something last year, but didn’t.
We’ve gone from “it’s the right thing to do” to when we get around to it.
secularhumanizinevoluter says (30 January 2010 at 7:27 am): I must be crazy(OK, everybody stop yelling NO DUH!) but all I heard was “you guys have to stop acting so crazy so I can do MORE NEGOTIATING WITH YOU?! AM I crazy or was THAT the jist of what he was saying to them?
Ramsgate says (30 January 2010 at 9:27 am): You got it. “What more do I have to do to make you love me?” (from another comment) I genuinely doubt anything will change.
Ga6thDem says (30 January 2010 at 9:54 am): is it a game changer? Maybe. Obama once in a blue moon comes off like this and then retreats. We shall see.
texan4hillary says (30 January 2010 at 10:27 am): i loved the part where obama finally gave that marsha blackburn of tn a lesson. god that woman annoys me to no end.
Pres. Obama’s real challenge is that without ideology to guide him, his cajoling of Republicans is his only option. He’s not going to lead on policy, because his basic belief is to bring people together, then craft a compromise between what the two sides want.
So, after Obama finishes the Q&A, which was a much better tact than giving another speech, if the Republicans don’t respond, which I don’t think they will because there is nothing in it for them, what is left for Mr. Obama?
Republicans know by now Mr. Obama’s not going to push people around to get some agenda through, because it’s not his style. The only way this works for him is if the people back him over Republicans and Congress, which is a good White House bet, but that doesn’t mean it will do anything for Democrats.
That’s the problem with Pres. Obama. Through showing his willingness to engage, but also his ability to spar with Republicans, he’s resetting things for himself, but because of his policy nonchalance, all of this does very little for anyone else. Unless Republicans decide to jump in and help Democrats, which is about as likely as Pres. Obama re-invigorating his campaign rhetoric on the public option.
“… Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or f—ing beatings. The world ends when you’re dead, until then you’ve got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man. And give some back.” – Al Swearengen, “Deadwood”
Every single person who has refused to give Pres. Obama a pass on his lack of leadership, inability to get beyond platitudes and speeches, as well as pushing him to engage in a transparent way beyond slogans, was finally served substance today, with Obama actually delivering it. Pres. Obama’s engagement with Republicans was an unprecedented performance. It also has the potential to be a game changer –update–(for him, that is, because his speeches have lost their luster, and since he isn’t leading on policy terms, another way to get at Republicans and the electorate needs to be found. If this works, it *could* make the difference. But I’m not saying that Republicans will change, because there is no mileage in it for them.)–/update.
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that it took a f$$@&$* year for Obama to step into the ring and start throwing some verbal blows… I’m definitely praying at mass on Sunday morning that this Obama doesn’t take another 12 month vacation.”
The Republicans did their best, but their talking points were predicated on lack of transparency, and missing honesty and facts. It’s a terrible use of a remarkable opportunity for politicians not to rise to the occasion given. Though they get huge credit for opening this up to C-SPAN, which has the entire Q&A session.
For instance, to hear Mike Pence, who came off ungracious and sour, even when shaking Pres. Obama’s hand at the end, talking about “boutique tax cuts” is one of the most ignorant things a Republican has said recently and that’s going some. Now, if he’d said the stimulus wasn’t big enough… But of course, Pence couldn’t go there, though he did leave himself open to Obama’s “ribbon cutting” line about Republicans being more than willing to show up at home where the stimulus helped. “Across the board tax cuts” was met with “I want to take a look at your math,” when Obama brought up the deficit in conjunction with cuts.
At 10:20 on the C-SPAN video is when Pres. Obama revealed himself fully, telling Republicans something they’re just too partisan to understand or accept: “I am not an ideologue.”HuffPo has the transcript. The fantasy that Obama is an ideologue is the image the right, especially Rush who says he’s an ideologue ad nauseam, but also right-wing radio who drills into people across this country over an over again. It’s a myth that has stuck, however absurd.
“Nobody has been a bigger proponent of clean coal technology than I have,” Obama stated when answering a question about West Virginia. “Clean coal” is an oxymoron, so it’s always disappointing to hear anyone pushing it. Carbon capture and sequestration is worth studying, but it’s a long way off, especially with the costs of new plants, which cannot be retrofitted, but must be truly rebuilt.
One major problem is that no one has actually tried to bury CO2 in huge quantities, or as industry folks would say, at scale. Without real-world testing, it’s hard to know whether it will be possible to scrub the CO2 from our coal plants at a reasonable cost. – Wired Science
As for nuclear, just read about Obama before he was president, which I wrote about when it came to light. There is also still not a safe way to dispose of the waste. I know, I know, details.
All policy is (absolutely) in the details.
These are issues that remain unresolved by Pres. Obama, but aren’t the only disagreements. They are still challenges for us all.
In a response to Rep. Marsha Blackman on health care, Obama drove right into it the crazy:
… Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and, certainly you don’t agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that’s not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that’s how you guys — (applause) — that’s how you guys presented it.
And so I’m thinking to myself, well, how is it that a plan that is pretty centrist — no, look, I mean, I’m just saying, I know you guys disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans — is similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care.
So all I’m saying is, we’ve got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I’m not suggesting that we’re going to agree on everything, whether it’s on health care or energy or what have you, but if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don’t have a lot of room to negotiate with me.
I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.
And I would just say that we have to think about tone. It’s not just on your side, by the way — it’s on our side, as well. This is part of what’s happened in our politics, where we demonize the other side so much that when it comes to actually getting things done, it becomes tough to do.
On the “summary of GOP reform bill,” Obama said “specifically it’s got to work,” reminding the Republicans that policy air balls must go beyond a “boiler plate.” He then turned towards tort reform, citing experts and CEO’s, saying it would reduce costs by “a couple of percentage points.” The myth of tort reform making the difference is the right’s big cause célèbre, which Obama took down by stating bluntly that it will not bend the cost curve over time, which is the bottom line on the health care issue.
No one ever doubted Obama has game, it’s just he thinks it’s through long and winding word fogs, when real game from a leader comes from standing up, taking incoming, but then giving some back.
The last few minutes is the bottom line, with Obama nailing the talking points that Republicans use, none of which have any relationship to reality.
Jeb, with all due respect, I’ve just got to take this last question as an example of how it’s very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we’re going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign. … Paul, I don’t think you disagree with that, that there is a political vulnerability to doing anything that tinkers with Medicare. And that’s probably the biggest savings that are obtained through Paul’s plan. And I raise that not because we shouldn’t have a series discussion about it. I raise that because we’re not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterized, whatever proposals are put out there, as, well, you know, that’s — the other party is being irresponsible; the other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens; that the other party is doing X, Y, Z. That’s why I say if we’re going to frame these debates in ways that allow us to solve them, then we can’t start off by figuring out, A, who’s to blame; B, how can we make the American people afraid of the other side. And unfortunately, that’s how our politics works right now.
…and he even called out Frank Luntz: “I see Frank Luntz up here sitting in the front. He’s already polled it…”
Forget the speeches. Everyone is sick of them. Besides, Obama just can’t get down to clarity in them, with the lofty rhetoric lost on people who are drowning, at a time when our country is in serious trouble.
It was the most remarkable day of Obama’s presidency to date.
And some Republican is going to pay for it, because they can’t afford to let Obama do this again.
TM NOTE: As a side note (and as a reminder), I was working all day on the project I’m neck deep in while Obama’s meeting with the Republicans happened. This project is the number one priority for me right now, which I said it would be come the first of the year. (When I can get it off the ground I’ll tell you all about it.) When I did my homework to catch up on all the days events, watching Obama in action was the greatest pleasure I’ve had since seeing him at the 2008 Democratic convention. It’s about damn time.
“My message to these groups who are inexplicably offended by a pro-woman, pro-child, pro-life message airing during the Super Bowl: please concentrate on empowering women, help with efforts to prevent unexpected pregnancies, stay consistent with your message that for too long women have been made to feel like sex objects in our ‘modern’ culture and that we can expect better in 2010.” – Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin corners NOW in the statement she made above. Stay consistent with your message Sarah preens.
NOW’s president responds:
“The goal of the Focus on the Family ad is not to empower women. It’s to create a climate in which Roe v. Wade can be overturned,” O’Neill said. “There are always going to be women who need abortions. In this country, one in three women will have an abortion. Focus on the Family has cynically set it up so they can say anyone who disagrees with airing this ad is disrespecting one woman and her choice. NOW respects every woman’s right to plan her own family and insists our laws do the same,” said O’Neill. – Politico
Dear NOW, run your own damn ad.
Is that so hard? Or can’t NOW raise the cash to put their own ad on the air? I think this question should be answered, because if not, it reveals what’s shifted in our culture recently that allowed Stupak to happen in the first place. The majority of women feel no threat that Roe will be overturned.
The vast majority of young women completely disinterested in the reproductive fight. When you look at the scientific advances on birth control, including the Morning After pill, women with means have what they need at their fingertips to take care of themselves.
The part of Sarah Palin’s message, however, that is ridiculous is that women can easily manifest having kids and a career without paying a price. Sarah has a lot of help, which isn’t the norm. On her Facebook page(also see Noogan’s diary “In the New”) she goes into great detail about it, joining the Mika Brzezinski in the You Can Have It All crowd that is not realistic at all. Life is about choices, with women paying when they choose “all of the above,” especially when it’s all at once (unless you happen to have Mika’s money).
As for the Super Bowl, any sports fan who thinks advocacy ads should be banned from the biggest day in football certainly have a gripe, though it’s hardly going to be the ruination of sports fun as we know it. Is this country so insane that people can’t ignore commercials anymore?
ManCrunch is trying to get into the action, though CBS hasn’t decided if gay guys making out in football jerseys is something that meets their standards, regardless of the big buck price tag it takes to be seen during the Super Bowl. (–update– CBS has rejected the ad.)
“It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that’s too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood,” Bloomberg told reporters. “There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City.” – White House asks Justice Department to look for other places to hold 9/11 terror trial
Liz Cheney’s group channels Scott Brown.
Presidential imperative 101: Don’t make pronouncements, promises or policy prescriptions you cannot keep or uphold. The presidency, especially one taking incoming after a bad first year, doesn’t have the power to stand on previously solid ground when a restless populace doesn’t approve of your decisions. The likability factor doesn’t offer enough cover. At this point, people want to see Obama delivering what they want, which is the test he’ll have to face in the next years. Proving that his presidential prowess has taken a hit. Likability not automatically meaning credibility or competency, which are clearly in question and on the line.
Remember, politics is ruled by emotions, and the person or party who captures the emotions of the people at a particular moment wins the day.
Maybe that’s why Liz Cheney’s “security” group put together the video seen above using newly elected Sen. Scott Brown’s terrorism quote, which has become the Republican mantra on national security.
There is nothing more emotional for New York City residents, which Major Bloomberg represents, than remembering 9/11, but particularly its aftermath; what businesses and residents went through, which included months and months of waiting for the deadly dust to clear.
Even though I fully understand Jonathan Turley’s arguments, emotions are driving the political on this one, which is quite different from the sober, objective legal one, things that don’t have a chance.
This was easily foreseen.
Where was the White House political team on this one? It’s a gut thing. Get out of your heads, people.
In fact, the decision to have KSM’s trial in lower Manhattan reveals more deficits on the empathy quotient from Pres. Obama and his administration. The reaction from residents of New York City and their political representatives a natural one, predictable even.
Who couldn’t have seen this coming? Evidently, the White House, which means they are as out of touch as Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia voters think.
Tit for tat, presidential style or actually not so presidential, though Obama is only a politician, so notwithstanding his “change the tone in Washington” lectures, he’s as guilty as the next when it suits him. However, when you have a Supreme Court Justice impersonating a right-winger like Joe “you lie” Wilson, the whole event turns into a revelatory moment about the current cliff on which our democratic Republic is poised.
“Not true,” Justice Alito mouthed when Pres. Obama called out the Supreme Court over their Citizens United v FEC ruling. The rebuke an unabashed partisan broadside.
“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.” – Pres. Obama
This childishness gives me an opportunity to revisit an emotional issue that’s pitted usual allies against one another.
One thing first, NRO has got it wrong. From several lawyers, including via emails, the issue is not foreign corporations at all, as NRO’s Bradley A. Smith contends. It’s about domestic entities tied to foreign corporations that are based inside the U.S. Understanding that I am not a lawyer and don’t play one when analyzing, but know plenty of them.
Now I want to revisit Citizens United v. FEC since the dust has cleared. They were very smart to use Hillary Clinton as a target, because they picked an emotional issue on several fronts that managed to cloud everything involved. Dusting off that initial fog, and after reading a lot of articles and posts on the matter, I’ve reaffirmed my analysis going back years, which is that money is speech. I know that’s very unpopular with the left, but I’m used to playing the contrarian. Protecting everyone is the goal of the First Amendment, with people behind corporations just like they are behind the ACLU, to give one example, though that’s not to say that corporations are people, too.
More specifically, it’s often the case that banning certain kinds of speech would produce good outcomes, and conversely, allowing certain kinds of speech produces bad outcomes (that’s true for, say, White Supremacist or neo-Nazi speech, or speech advocating violence against civilians). The First Amendment is not and never has been outcome-dependent; the Government is barred from restricting speech — especially political speech — no matter the good results that would result from the restrictions. That’s the price we pay for having the liberty of free speech. And even on a utilitarian level, the long-term dangers of allowing the Government to restrict political speech invariably outweigh whatever benefits accrue from such restrictions.
The ruling went down the ideological line with Justice Anthony Kennedy giving the majority the fifth vote and then writing the opinion. He stressed that “[o]ur nation’s speech dynamic is changing, and informative voices should not have to circumvent onerous restrictions to exercise their First Amendment rights.” That is the sentiment that motivated another of civil libertarians and free amendment advocates to support the conservative litigants. This is a case that split the free speech community with the ACLU and free speech advocates like Floyd Abrams supporting the conservative filmmakers in this case.
[...] … [...] I was sympathetic with Citizens United and the free speech groups. In the end, I have to favor more speech than less in such conflicts. While I would have written a concurrence and have difficulty with aspects of the majority opinion, I probably would have voted to support the majority in the result in this case. However, I do consider this to be one of the most difficult free speech cases to hit the court in decades. Many of my friends are on the other side and I understand that this is quite a blow. People of good faith can disagree on such issues. It really broke along a fine line. It depends on whether your gravitational point tended to fall along the free speech line or the good government line. It is a rare case where those lines ran perpendicular rather than parallel with each other.
It’s a highly charged issue obviously, as Barack Obama rarely weighs into anything publicly in such a manner. Veteran Supreme Court watcher Linda Greenhouse also weighs in. And although I find myself on the other side of the argument than many of my colleagues, I also appreciate the Supreme dissenters on the Citizens United ruling who are making importantly cogent points. Still, I remain unpersuaded. The First Amendment simply doesn’t guarantee an outcome, simply the freedom for speech to flow. (Falsely shouting “fire” is not a rebuttal point, nor is anything else unless obvious provable calamity would ensue.)
We have a political failure in our system that is sucking the life out of the Republic. The monopoly of the two parties on power produces endless loops of corruption and conflict. The problem in my view is structural not financial. We need to break the domination of incumbents and the two parties. This can be done with fundamental changes in our primary system, eliminating the electoral college, creating new opportunities for third parties, and other reforms.
No one has yet to do anything about it.
The first thing that’s needed is for independents to find a worthy standard bearer so their political positioning means more than just seesawing between the only available and often less palatable (to them at least) options, basically reducing the building majority of voters to nothing less than the pretty virgin being fought over at the dance.
But nuclear energy? Yep. Clean coal? An oxymoron if ever there was one, but Pres. Obama talked about it, delivering a conservative speech for a Democrat. It’s a wonder Gov. Bob McDonnell, who offered the Republican rebuttal, had anything left to say. Obama talking about tax cuts… tax cuts… tax cuts…
Obama was optimistic, while conceding mistakes and tough times. It seemed that everyone in the Chamber understood the gravity of the challenges we face, so that by the end of Obama’s speech there was a clear sense that getting to work couldn’t wait. The question is whether Democrats and Republicans are going to their separate corners or if they’re ready to get serious about getting something done.
A speech cannot make it so.
Pres. Obama finished, determined, adding a nod to Ted Kennedy, “We don’t quit. I don’t quit. Let’s seize this moment – to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.”
Reset. Take a breath. Let’s start again. We all want things to be better. We can do it together. Don’t get cynical. Keep working. Our administration has had some political setbacks this year, and some of them were deserved, Obama conceded at the end of his speech.
To the camera he said, “The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you, its people.”
Pres. Obama ended on national security (see video above), including another pledge to reverse DADT.
Even as we prosecute two wars, we are also confronting perhaps the greatest danger to the American people – the threat of nuclear weapons. I have embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan through a strategy that reverses the spread of these weapons, and seeks a world without them. To reduce our stockpiles and launchers, while ensuring our deterrent, the United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades. And at April’s Nuclear Security Summit, we will bring forty-four nations together behind a clear goal: securing all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years, so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists. …
Obama sold the stimulus like his presidency depended on it. But it was on taxes that the Chamber’s roof just about blew off. Capital gains cuts for small business. Innovation was included too (finally).
You see, Washington has been telling us to wait for decades, even as the problems have grown worse. Meanwhile, China’s not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany’s not waiting. India’s not waiting. These nations aren’t standing still. These nations aren’t playing for second place. They’re putting more emphasis on math and science. They’re rebuilding their infrastructure. They are making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs. Well I do not accept second-place for the United States of America. … – Pres. Obama
He even hit George W. Bush on the “lost decade,” the housing bubble and financial speculation, one only wondering what might have been if Obama had started reminding people last year, so that at this point he wouldn’t have to anymore.
…and then there was health care… and of course, a lot on jobs.
As for Gov. Bob McDonnell’s response to Obama’s SOTU, he was no Bobby Jindal. Talking about his boys who said he had 10 minutes before they went to watch Sports Center, their dad didn’t quite make it. McDonnell also quoted Jefferson, after all he is a Virginian. “We want results not rhetoric,” said McDonnell, taking the heading I’d already crafted. “Reform” being a word he used often, including on health care, which he wasn’t afraid to talk about. He used Scott Brown’s words on terrorism: “As Senator-elect Scott Brown says, we should be spending taxpayer dollars to defeat terrorists, not to protect them.” Bet that we’ll hear it again. The Republican establishment actually offered an alternative tonight that won’t scare independents to death, a man who is a serious contender. That is if the Tea Partiers don’t lock them out.
Enough. After an an abysmal first year for Obama, it’s time for results.
President Obama will address his Republican opponents directly in his State of the Union address Wednesday night, a senior administration official said, as he seeks to generate new momentum and rebuild his credibility as a leader able to change the way Washington works. – Washington Post
I say it’s “bipartisanship” or anything having to do with getting along, working together, including “changing the way Washington works.” By the teasers, we should be schnockered early.
As for those of you who don’t drink, there’s always overloading on junk food or chocolate.
Consider this a State of the Union… It’s time for another big speech… free for all.
With no clear path forward on major health care legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top domestic priority on Tuesday, saying that they no longer felt pressure to move quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing them. – Democrats Slam Brakes on Health Care Overhaul
The headline has now been changed to Democrats Put Lower Priority on Health Bill. “Slam breaks,” lower priority, it all amounts to a retreat.
Can you just read the refrain from the right on this one. Democrats send up white flag on health care. … Democrats surrender.
House progressives organizing to rescue health care reform are pressuring their Senate counterparts to go back to the provision that has most energized the party and a majority of Americans throughout the debate: The public option. …
This is as close as you can get to political malpractice. I’m all for pushing health care, but some in the House seem to want to play the fly to the Senate’s screen door, trying to find another way through a point that is blocked by millions of voters, because Democrats blew the message. Besides, the goal should be for Dems to move on from health care, while finding a way to salvage some portion of progress, i.e. offering a package of goodies for people that is easily explainable, which will put pressure on Senate members if they don’t pass them; things like portability, pre-existing exemptions, etc., things we’ve talking about before. But using precious time on the public option? It’s just nuts. (–/update–)
As this drama keeps spinning, already well out of progressive control, Steny Hoyer offers his two cents on what won’t be in Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight.
“I would be surprised if he says specifically exactly how he hopes to get health care done”…
Pres. Obama hasn’t a clue what to do on health care and never has, which is just one reason why we are where we are today, though the entire Democratic majority shares the blame. No one could have imagined they’d be in the fall back position one year into Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Meanwhile, Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Bayh have said they won’t buy reconciliation. Diane Feinstein say it’s a “time out” for everyone.
So, the political party in charge of everything, which people worked so hard to make happen, are having a time out on health care. The single most draining issue on the economic futures of corporations, small business, job creation, but also the American family’s health. A time out, like children get when they’ve acted up. It’s all just too precious.
This is the setting on the day of Pres. Obama’s first State of the Union speech. A year after coming into office health care is in limbo, with Americans mad, but not at Pres. Obama, with Afghanistan raging, Baghdad exploding, and Netanyahu feeling cozy again.
Only 27 percent say they blame him for not being able to find solutions to the country’s problems. By contrast, 48 percent blame Republicans in Congress and 41 percent blame congressional Democrats.
As for the report about Senate Democrats slamming the breaks on health care, I guess Trumka got his answer. Via Sam Stein:
“I don’t think there are the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill,” Trumka said. “I don’t think they exist. I think the ball is in the Senate’s court. The Senate has to come up with 51 votes for a bill that the American public can accept and that the House can get the votes to pass. So I think it is up to the Senate right now.”
In Republican speak, if the Democrats don’t get health care done or put it on the back burner, however you want to frame it, it’s what they will call a win.
The title to this post has been changed; updates added where marked.
Now, a couple of years ago I met Dina Titus and her suave husband. I can just imagine her standing up and in her southern drawl letting fly on Sen. Harry Reid. Titus takes what Rep. Capuano said in Massachusetts (“we’re screwed”) and ups the ante. From Politico:
In a display of contempt unfathomable in the feel-good days after Obama’s Inauguration, freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) stood up at a meeting with Pelosi last week to declare: “Reid is done; he’s going to lose” in November, according to three people who were in the room.
Titus denied Tuesday evening that she had singled out Reid, but she acknowledged that she said Democrats would be “f—-ed” if they failed to heed the lessons of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat last week.
As far as Nevada is concerned, the Republicans are in a fight, with Reid still having a wide network and lots of cash. Titus may be right, and I’m in D.C. so I’d bet on her before me on this one, but I still think it’s possible that Republicans could eventually implode in a circular shoot out.
Oh, and Fox News is “most trusted.” Well, there you have it. And it’s not from Rasmussen. Via Public Policy Polling:
Americans do not trust the major tv news operations in the country- except for Fox News.
Our newest survey looking at perceptions of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News finds Fox as the only one that more people say they trust than distrust. 49% say they trust it to 37% who do not.
CNN does next best at a 39/41 spread, followed by NBC at 35/44, CBS at 32/46, and ABC at 31/46.
Make your own deductions as to why. But at least you know why I’ve said Democrats should definitely appear on Fox. Expect a lot of Blue Dog bookings to come.
I’ve got one question: Whose idea was it for James O’Keefe to go down and possibly target Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who is up for re-election? Hmmmm?
Flash back to Republicans trumpeting the reporting of O’Keefe in House Res. 809, whose title read: “Whereas Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe III are owed a debt of gratitude by the people of the United States.” It was introduced in October 2009 and had 31 co-sponsors.
The video above seems like an apt response to it all.
Mr. Obama may be personally very appealing, but he has positioned himself all over the political map: the anti-Iraq war candidate who escalated the war in Afghanistan; the opponent of health insurance mandates who made a mandate to buy insurance the centerpiece of his plan; the president who stocked his administration with Wall Street insiders and went to the mat for the banks and big corporations, but also who is now trying to present himself as a born-again populist.
Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be trusted. He is creating a credibility gap for himself, and if it widens much more he won’t be able to close it.
There is no doubt that the American fiscal house is in disarray. But considering Pres. Obama helped make it worse, I find his cynical fiscal “freeze” campaign not only laughable, however politically opportune, making all the usual suspects cluck in delight, but revealing, because it doesn’t address Obama’s real problem.
Obama is behind Bernanke, Summers and Geithner, continuing to back people who are responsible for the latest fiscal mess. Obama also championed the bailouts and got cozy with Wall Street. These are facts that everyone knows.
Obama had a full year to make a decision about health care, interrupting the interminable debate, guiding the Democratic Party towards a smaller bill, but instead he did nothing.
Obama missed the signs of Virginia and New Jersey, and many other political warnings, losing Massachusetts, and now has decided to respond with a fiscal “freeze” that is a political move, but in the long term won’t fix the economy. He’s hoping people prefer cosmetics, and Blue Dog Democrats and many others hope he’s right.
Independents and others, like myself, as one of the millions of suburban women Obama is losing, none of us like his cozying up to big banks, Wall Street and the corporate class, choosing them over the middle class, including unions. We’d all welcome a real economic policy that wasn’t politically motivated and purely cosmetic for the moment. Many of us voted for Bill Clinton in the 1990s, so we get how this works. The difference being that Bill Clinton knew how to create jobs, empathize with the middle class, and talk to grade school kids without a teleprompter.
Last year it was well known that jobs were being drained from the American landscape.
What did Pres. Obama do?
Nothing.
Now we hear all about Obama moving to the “center,” with the talking heads babbling on about the notion of a “center-right” country, without realizing that voters don’t care from right or left when it all comes down to it. Voters care about their own lives. Whoever makes it better for them, finds solutions to their problems, or looks like they can, gets the nod.
If Obama had actually led on health care, getting a decent bill by the first declared “deadline” last August, “death panels” would never have arisen as a talking point.
If Obama had come into office with his eyes open, instead of focusing on his own presidential persona, he would have seen that jobs was issue one. That an energy JFK type “Go to the Moon” project was required, as was a substantial infrastructure spending to create jobs.
Voters want solutions and we don’t care where it comes from as long as it works. When it doesn’t, we want the bums in power to be thrown out.
Perhaps Obama’s lip service to economic fiscal discipline on the “freeze” will offer political manna. Democrats need it and I hope they get it, because the Republican alternative is frightening. On the other hand, at least Republicans pick a target, announce it and usually hit it, even if the target’s the wrong one. The Democratic Party under Barack Obama can’t even make a decision, and when they do it’s a Republican one that still doesn’t address the issue.
It’s why so many people are independents. There is no difference in the parties; people just picking the persona at the top who talks the best to lead us, hoping it won’t be a disaster. The current “freeze” an effort to reach out to the unaffiliated middle and bring them back into the Obama fold.
Now because of all of his gyrating political inconsistencies, Bob Herbert thinks Obama is “creating a credibility gap for himself.”
That’s bad enough, however, the problem is worse. It’s incompetence. Because there is enough evidence now to prove Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing.
WASHINGTON — President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday. [...] But it would exempt security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The payoff in budget savings would be small relative to the deficit: The estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time. – The New York Times
Obama and his team have out dicked Dick Morris.
So, it seems the moment of David Plouffe’s arrival produced a reaction concoction something akin to what can only be called neo-Hooverism. After New Jersey and Virginia, but especially Massachusetts, Mr. Obama and his merry band of political hacks came up with a solution that will do nothing good for the economy in the long-run, evidently not having the attention span for that, while giving Blue Dog Democrats a big wet one, which will leave the American people with an incurable migraine. A spending freeze for three years on non-discretionary items, minus all things national security. Because once the people get that Obama has tackled the deficit, they’ll reward him in 2012, even if we lose the House and the Senate in 2010. Though just maybe the people will see how bipartisan Obama is, how serious Obama is, because he will buck his own, which is a major point of this whole exercise, so the voters will automatically reward him by not throwing out all those conservative Democrats he’s trying to protect at all cost.
But if you want to know what reaction Obama wanted most, read Marc Ambinder, who at least gives several interpretations, saving himself from embarrassment for including this one:
The big if — IF the president really fights for this…fights against his own party, and does so with conviction — if Democrats decide to embrace this (which is doubtful), then it could help both his party and himself.
That’s the the storyline the Obama White House wants yelled across the land. It’s the height of political cynicism, but there will always be people who fall for it, which is Obama’s bet.
So, we can all put to rest any sincerity the nonsense Mr. Obama said to Diane Sawyer about being only a one-term president, which was simply the wind up for the State of the Union pitch on Wednesday. Obama playing the role of principled politician who is willing to serve up himself for the greater good.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Pres. Obama goes beyond not being able to lead to prove he’s perfectly happy caving to craven polling to solve a situation he caused himself, gaming that the reaction will be that he’s so impressed the people that they’ll say, “See, look, he hears us, he really hears us.”
Meanwhile, the Republicans will be tied in knots trying to attack this one, saying he’s built up such a huge budget that it’s all smoke and mirrors. The Daily Call’s review exactly what the White House wanted: The news also signals the president may be moving towards the center on issues such as climate change and health care… Others on the right are raving about Obama’s deficit, obviously not sure how to tackle the spending freeze.
Brad Delong cries “Dingbat Kabuki.” But there’s a lot at stake well beyond Barack Obama’s incompetency, though Mr. Obama can’t see beyond his own reflection.
As another deficit-hawk points out, it is hard to imagine a less competent legislative operation: it would be one thing to offer a short-term discretionary spending freeze (or long-run entitlement caps) in return for fifteen Republican senators signing on to revenue enhancement triggers. It’s quite another to negotiate against yourself by attacking employment in the short term. The fact that the unemployment rate is projected to remain stable over the next year means that there is a 30% chance it will go down, a 40% chance it will stay about the same, and a 30% chance that it will go up–and whatever it turns out to do, the administration’s budget has just given it an extra 0.5% bump upwards. – Brad Delong
And people doubted when Obama invoked Ronald Reagan that he meant it. I’d say I told you so yet again, but it’s getting redundant at this point. It’s now a given.
Obama is obviously working on not only leaving the next president, but everyone else, a worse inheritance than he was handed. Mission accomplished.
“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” – Pres. Barack Obama
This is truly a revealing moment.
If a person is a “really good” president, isn’t there a better than decent chance he (or she, some day) will have a second term?
After the first term screw ups on messaging across the board from the Obama White House, talking about tackling tough issues, including health care, doing what he thinks is right, Pres. Obama is saying plainly that voters may not approve, but he chooses to go in the direction he wants and if they disagree and vote him out so be it. While perhaps also hinting that history may judge it differently, even if in the short-term he doesn’t get a second term.
But wait.
What if the Senate bill can be fixed through reconciliation, with the Democrats finally strapping on some courage, out of necessity, to change the current legislation which is simply awful?
Dem leaders on both sides are feverishly exploring a range of options, one of which includes drawing up a series of fixes to the Senate bill that would be passed through the Senate via reconciliation along with the Senate bill passing the House — the reconciliation “sidecar,” as it has been called.
Again, the Senate bill won’t cut it, not the least of which is because it’s already gotten a thumbs down from the American people. But after spending a full year on health care the Democrats have to be able to point to some type of legislation to show for it. Coming up empty is the worst option of all after all this fumbling has cost.
What will the bill look like in the end, if the Democrats can get it changed through a reconciliation “side car”? That’s what everyone is working on and House members want to know before they sign on.
What Democrats will need next is a clear message on whatever the final bill looks like, which will have to include specifics on what makes it different from what voters have already rejected.
The White House, with Plouffe leading, will have to get the message right this time, which is likely why he was brought back on board in the first place. But the final bill will have to be different from the original Senate bill or this will go from bad to worse very quickly.
Nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday morning also indicates that 63 percent of the public thinks that projects in the plan were included for purely political reasons and will have no economic benefit, with 36 percent saying those projects will benefit the economy. – CNN Poll: 3 of 4 Americans say much of stimulus money wasted
Someone tell Joe Klein, who blames the American “dodos” for not understanding that the stimulus is good for us all, that he’s a little late. Mencken warned politicians about the people a long time ago.
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
Besides, politics is perception and when you are struggling to pay the bills, or have lost your job, while the people in charge of the U.S. government are bailing out their friends and the fat cats who got us all into this mess, the first thing you do is turn on the people you are watching that gave you the shiv. See Massachusetts.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m sick of people telling me that the economic sky will fall if we don’t –fill in the blank here–.
These are the same people who scared the crap out of everyone over the stimulus (which was too small), the bailouts (just fail, already), and now, Bernanke’s confirmation (one of the guys who got us into this mess). Ben Smith posts statements from McCain and MoveOn.org, both against Bernanke.
This is a policy disagreement, folks, while the White House sends out their people, including Tim Geithner, to CYA via fearmongering.
Whether it’s Plouffe or Geithner (or Gibbs taking on Ed Schultz), the White House seems to be in bunker mentality, which will get them exactly nowhere.
Mike ALLEN: And how worried are you about how the markets are going to react to this uncertainty about it–so many Democrats either coming against or not taking a stand?
Tim GEITHNER: Well, I think you’re absolutely right. I think the markets would view this as a very troubling thing for the economy as a whole, but, as I said, I don’t think there is a–I don’t think they should be uncertain. I think they can be confident, because we’re very confident he’ll be confirmed.
The voters in the last months have illustrated that they’re not enamored with the stimulus, the bailouts, the too big to fail cozying up to Wall Street policies of the White House. So, what does Bernanke represent? The policies over which the voters collectively gagged in Massachusetts.
To top it all comes news that Democrats believe they may actually be able to coerce the House into signing on to the Senate bill, you know, because it can all be fixed later.
Nothing surprises me anymore, because this is the same Democratic elite who actually believed a good strategy for 2010 was doubling down on blaming Bush, which I warned the moment it was floated was dumb. Politico writes about this today. James Carville makes the argument that blaming Bush would work, but…
Part of the problem is that Mr Obama was refreshingly naive in believing his own rhetoric.
Yeah, and he’s got a White House full of people who still do, too.
So, while blaming Bush was the perfect message last year, at the beginning, what Mr. Carville and others forget is that Barack Obama decided a long time ago that ideology would not be his guide, so making targets out of ideological adversaries was never in the cards, even George W. Bush.
Now it’s too late to blame Bush, because the voters have turned their ire on Obama. There’s no going back, though since the White House is sticking with Bernanke it’s clear they’re determined to continue to earn it.
I’ve gotten a lot of emails since I sent out my newsletter last week. The more ridiculous included this one from “G.Rhodes” who said I was “still a traitor to Hillary.” Another in the same vein was from Angela B.: “When do we get your Mea Culpa for your role in s—-ing on Hillary Clinton.” Both of these emails proving some people are just too childish and emotional to be taken seriously. But most of the emails taught me something, so I thank everyone who replied.
I am a registered Independent. I voted for Barack Obama. And for that, I am sorry.
[....] Before John McCain unwittingly picked a tabloid-magazine cover girl for his running mate, I was leaning toward going Republican this time around. I did the second time Bush was on the ballot and I very nearly did the first time, too. But as soon as Palin climbed out of her igloo and onto the national scene, well, there was no turning back for me.
You see, I felt my choice was to risk McCain dropping dead and letting the world’s most well-known hockey mom run this country, or to believe that Obama would surround himself with educated people and that he was smart enough to take their advice.
I was right. He is smart enough to seek counsel. I’m just outraged at the counsel he’s seeking these days. Key financial leaders who are tax cheats come immediately to mind, but as the recent terror attack made clear to me, the idea that a president of the most powerful nation in the world could think it was OK to have a Homeland Security chief with such a loose grasp of what terrorism is and how it works is troubling.
SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him. … And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”
So, Schultz tells Gibbs that Obama is “losing” the base, and instead of listening and realizing that Ed Schultz might have something to teach the White House, Robert Gibbs tells him to go “f” himself. Classy. Stupid. Typical arrogance.
I’d go farther than Schultz. Obama has lost more than the base, which will likely come back because they aren’t going to vote Republican. Unless people stand up to Democratic policy negligence and simply strike 2010. But the reality is Obama’s lost the majority of independents, which is far more dangerous for Obama, because in 2010 and beyond it’s very likely that political parties will not hold sway. Call it the rise of the independent voter to political dominance, because that’s where we’re headed.
The other obvious tell that the White House doesn’t get it is bringing in David Plouffe. The problem with Obama isn’t optics, speeches and politics, it’s policy oriented. It’s the inability of Obama to TAKE ACTION on anything. Plouffe is good at the fanfare aspect, and as Gibbs illustrates they don’t want to hear about the base letting go of Obama right now because he hasn’t delivered on putting Democratic policy prescriptions in the lead. Plouffe is going to put together a political campaign pushing Obama’s successes at a time when people’s lives have crumbled, but also in an atmosphere where Obama’s first year has turned people sour against his failures.
There is also not one voter out there who doesn’t remember how Barack Obama came into office and the good will he enjoyed from all quarters. That’s been turned on its head.
As for independents, it’s going to take more than cheerleading politics to get them back, because fool me once shame on you… Obama’s worn out his trust and it’s going to take more than speeches and promises to get it back.
People were once willing to believe and join in a leap of faith. This isn’t 2008 anymore.
It’s not Obama’s fault, not a referendum on him, it was simply an omen. Because if people like the president but don’t like his agenda, with the country’s wrong track numbers off the charts, it’s no problem. Analysis like this belongs with the comics.
David Plouffe, Obama’s “Audacity to Win” engineer, even writes an op-ed and the last piece of advice goes like this:
– No bed-wetting. This will be a tough election for our party and for many Republican incumbents as well. Instead of fearing what may happen, let’s prove that we have more than just the brains to govern — that we have the guts to govern. Let’s fight like hell, not because we want to preserve our status, but because we sincerely believe too many everyday Americans will continue to lose if Republicans and special interests win.
Swell. Just swell.
Of course, he has other points of wisdom to impart as well, so never fear. It’s not like he wants to put us all in the way back machine and inject everyone with another dose of hope and change serum. Whew, I was getting worried.
Pass a meaningful health insurance reform package without delay
We need to show that we not just are focused on jobs but also create them.
Make sure voters understand what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act did for the economy.
Don’t accept any lectures on spending.
“Change” is not just about policies.
Run great campaigns.
And the kicker, no bed-wetting.
This is not about what ails us, and we don’t need no stinkin’ pep talk.
David Plouffe needs to wake up and turn his message on Pres. Obama. It doesn’t matter what we do at this point, because the one thing Barack Obama has forgotten to do is lead. Let me know when Plouffe sends a message to the person who helped get us into this mess. We did our part over a year ago by turning the White House over to him, with a Democratic majority.
We’re also not the ones hinting that the only people to be covered on pre-existing illnesses could end up being children. See John Aravosis.
Since that time not only has Obama, who is the Democratic Party leader, and the Democrats lost Virginia, which he won but won’t again, but also New Jersey, which is a blue state, but Barack Obama didn’t even know the importance of handing over Massachusetts to Republicans and what it would mean symbolically to relinquish Teddy’s seat after almost 50 years. His team actually said they’d have come in to help earlier if they’d been asked. Obama has given innumerable speeches, handed helped to Wall Street and big banks, but just now figured out that people are pissed about it.
It’s also terribly ironic that the only political person David Plouffe mentions in his Washington Post pep talk is none other than Sarah Palin. Evidently at least Mr. Plouffe understands the damage Sarah Palin’s “death panels” squeal did to the health care debate, which I’ve been talking about since it happened, even as everyone else reacts like a bunch of children scoffing at the lessons of the last year.
We don’t need a pep talk, because we’ve been warning the Democratic majority and Pres. Obama what was coming for months.
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