« The Obama Health Care Speech: One Republican’s View
Newest Hero To Some: Rep. Joe Wilson Who Yelled “You Lie” At Obama »
Obama Throws Down the Gauntlet
If passion, eloquence and moral gravity were the main currency of American politics, Barack Obama would have changed the course of the health care debate tonight.
But with Washington as it is, the President could hope for no more than to restore some sanity by calling out the opposition for its “scare tactics,” indicting insurance companies for greed and evoking the “large-heartedness” of Ted Kennedy’s efforts for universal coverage as “not a Republican or a Democratic feeling” but “part of the American character.”
After a summer of public discontent and falling approval numbers, Obama abandoned his disastrous hands-off approach to the legislation by firmly outlining what he wants.
From here on, the White House will be calling the signals for Congressional Democrats and, in time-honored tradition, making party loyalty an issue in the effort to use its majority effectively.
The President declared that “the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care…
“I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now…
opinions powered by SendLove.to
12 Responses to “Obama Throws Down the Gauntlet”
The gauntlet doesn't look too threatening since he is wearing a gimp suit. He is opposed by 44 Blue Dogs, until he can break free of Pelosi and the liberal wing of his party enough to win their support, he can't be taken too seriously no matter how many dainty gloves he tosses.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is about three times the size of the Blue Dog wing and they have indicated no desire to moderate their stands to protect Blue Dog seats. It is the Blue Dogs who must face reality and work with the President and the rest of the party.
And when the progressives are a minority party again because they lost all the Blue Dog seats?
Ironically, I was just reading a brief history of the 1993 Clinton health care reform, and one picture given there (I cannot verify its accuracy) was that instead of all the Dems rallying behind Clinton's plan when it came under criticism, they all gave their own plans, such as universal coverage, and the who things was defeated. Hope that doesn't happen again this time.
The progressives have no one else to turn to since they sit at the far end of the political spectrum, the Blue Dogs do, and perhaps more importantly, their constituents do. If the Blue Dogs don't deliver to their voters what they want, they wont be in Congress after the next election. 44 blue dogs plus 178 democrats = a majority. Progressives plus nothing = a minority.
I listened to a long, tortured, highly partisan speech that sounded like a campaign speech and heard little that was new. The number of uninsured dropped dramatically — apparently a result of eliminating illegal aliens to make the bill appear more palatable. But this is also disingenuous. True, the bill says they are not to be covered but does nothing at all to achieve this end. The law also says they are not supposed to be here in the first place, yet here they are by the millions. Without a specific test of legal status before receiving benefits we can expect illegal aliens by the millions to receive coverage. So Obama was indeed lying about that element of the bill as he was perhaps too impolitely reminded. Still, what will that do to the projected numbers? Adding over ten million de facto to the coverage cannot be cheap. And what's to stop that from being a major magnet for more illegal immigration? If I had a family member with a chronic disease and I knew I could get them free care in America, why wouldn't I try to do that?
Obama lashed out at critics in the speech. That is no doubt easier than dealing with the criticism itself.
“passion, eloquence[,] and moral gravity”
[snicker]
Obama didn't even merit sixty on an honest, intelligent scale of 100 last night.
That he was more clear and direct than the Congressional Dems have been is the reality. No more.
Saying that employer provision of health benefits is a “responsibility” is disgusting collectivist garbage, as well as a hypocritical continuation, not ending, of the employer-based model that so many have said we need to end. (But that's beyond the capability of the groupies to understand.)
The silly, drippy emotionalism about Teddy Kennedy (I thought that someone should have started playing a viola — [snicker]) and gooey garbage about Washington Who Cares About You and Nurtures You was sickening and degrading. (As are those who concure, and worse, worship such nonsense.)
The main thing that intelligent adults understood from the speech was that he is fairly ordinary liberal Dem in what he wants, trying to twist the existing system while also having the feds take over the high-risk pool (conflicts with new regulations about pre-existing conditions and recission, but once again, never mind that the Herd can't grasp such conflicts) and still pressing for the universalist public option as rigged competition with the private providers. He wants employers and individuals to pay into a new system, as in Massachusetts. (This gets people accustomed to paying for government health care, just not as “taxes” nominally for direct government “single-payer” care yet, necessarily. Oops — another unnamed detail that the Herd can't grasp, either.) Obama also was annoying with the intelligence-insulting vague claims and omissions about the state of affairs at the moment rather than after the obvious consequences of what he and the Dems want to change with our health care system (immigrant benefits, abortion, keeping your doctor, all that transparent nonsense the Herd believes).
“Obama lashed out at critics in the speech. That is no doubt easier than dealing with the criticism itself.”
Consider the part of the audience that the rest of us already knew would accept everything without a thought.
“It was nice to see the GOP rebuttal was a good one for once.”
It will be slighted by the media, naturally (Obama was wonderful. We need unity and action, NOW!), and the GOP is simply not going to be respected. Better prospects for adult moderation of the wacky progressives come within the Dem party in the form of the Blue Dogs and others who already suspect their re-election prospects are in jeopardy given the rising mainstream concern about the lib Dems.
Funny hearing a comment like that from you as when the rhetoric gets stripped down in a debate here you have a habit of turning tail and running.
DaMav: It also merits mention that Obama has said that rushing through bad immigration reform (the truth, not his own words) is next. (While the Dems have been rushing stupidly on everything, too fast, too many things at once, this year, Obama's early hypocritical health care damage-control remark of note was that now, “we can't do everything all at once,” so immigration “reform” has to wait until after health care is achieved.)
Ummm… I don't think so. Can you show me where, perhaps an unanswered area exists that I didn't see or fell too far down the list, but to my knowledge I've responded to everything I've seen here directed at me. If you point me I'll be more than happy to respond to you.
[...] Obama Throws Down the Gauntlet [...]