Obama and Moby Dick
Relentlessly pursuing health care reform, the President is looking like a modern Ahab, wounded by but determined to nail the killer whale of the American economy at all costs.
Yet, as he keeps harpooning health insurers, even Obama admirers are warning that he risks capsizing the ship of state by, as Bob Herbert puts it, not concentrating on job creation that would ease “the frightening economic insecurity that has put a chokehold on millions of American families” rather than “an obsessive quest to pass a health care bill.”
Another New York Times liberal, Frank Rich, warns: “The rise in credit-card rates, as well as the drop in consumer confidence, home sales and bank lending, all foretell more suffering ahead for those who don’t work on Wall Street. But on these issues the president, too timid to confront the financial industry backers of his own campaign (or their tribunes in his own administration) and too fearful of sounding like a vulgar partisan populist, has taken to repeating his health care performance.”
The most unlikely political figure to emulate the wild-eyed captain of the Pequod, Obama is out on the hustings calling for “a final, up or down vote on health care,” while Congressional action on otherwise healing the economy is hopelessly stalled.
MORE.
9 Responses to “Obama and Moby Dick”
Hmm.
A President who is:
1. hell-bent on following though with his personal agenda despite withering negative polls
2. shows a willingness to deficit spend at historically unseen levels in support of that agenda despite dire predictions of the long-term consequences to the American economy
3. is receiving blind loyalty from the extreme portion of his party who push him to ignore any criticism
4. is following a scorched-earth policy against his detractors whether they are from his party or the opposition party
5. has a profane enforcer dedicated to quashing all potential defectors
6. displays an unwillingness to have open press conferences
7. has a press secretary that has become a joke
8. displays a fumbling and inarticulate speaking style when not on-script
9. and is perceived a being vain and self-centered
I just KNOW I have heard this narrative before, but I cannot put my finger on where exactly.
Obama's new found aggressive rhewtoric towards insurance companies, reminds me of another whale, Monstro of Pinnochio fame. Just as O exaggerates (ahem), so did P.
P.S. The whale in the P book was actually a dogfish, another example of mislabeling as are the whales (insurance companies) O is using a broad brush to skewer so blithely in his best campaign mode voice.
“I just KNOW I have heard this narrative before, but I cannot put my finger on where exactly.”
That is because you HAVE enountered this narrative before.
Here is what Obama and the Dems are trying to avoid in 2010, from their ambitious overreach in 2009:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2…
[CRACK! There she goes! It's orbital!]
Perhaps, things like this have something to do with the continual slide:
Go ahead and take a look at the names of some of those lobbying firms and who else they are retained by (http://www.opensecrets.org); its enough to make anyone wonder just who those in Washington (on both sides) really care about.
Oddly, yet another GOP corporate shill of the plethora out on the web from another site provided this link to triumphantly declare the GOP is doing well standing its ground on issues of morality surrounding the abortion language.
http://rawstory.com/2009/2009/11/gop-health-ins…
Here's an excerpt:
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'Chagrined' GOP chair ends abortion insurance for employees
Even though his own views towards abortion have moderated over the years, RNC chair Michael Steele didn't waste any time taking care of the latest Republican albatross.
“A chagrined GOP Chairman Michael Steele has told Republican National Committee staff to immediately stop providing RNC employees with insurance for elective abortions — an option that Republicans strongly oppose as Democrats try to pass a health care overhaul bill,” the Associated Press reports.
“Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose,” Steele said in a statement released late Thursday. “I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled.”
Steele faced widespread criticism earlier this year after he called abortion an “individual choice.” He later “walked it back,” as Politico's Ben Smith noted, by claiming that “I am pro-life, always have been, always will be.”
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So the convenient-morality crowd lays bare the political nature of their “true convictions” that seem to shift like dandelion fluff according to whichever way the wind blow$….
So the convenient-morality crowd lays bare the political nature of their “true convictions” that seem to shift like dandelion fluff according to whichever way the wind blow$….”
Like that.
“General Motors, which went to Washington in late 2008 in need of emergency aid and then passed through bankruptcy in 2009, has hired three outside lobbying firms already in 2010…”
They can be expected to increase their K Street presence if the tax on banks gets levied, as sought.
You have to understand, the Democrats are desperate. (Libs and Dems on this site have contributed to their own similar “exhibit” in the past several days.)
Already we saw the insurers presented with Sibelius and Obama on TEEVEE, given treatment similar to the subjects of Stalinist show trials (the insurers are Beria) and Jews and other enemies of the state in Nazi Germany. This has been accompanied by more Obama traveling campaign circus appearances.
Federal intrusion into state regulation of health insurers subject to state regulation was almost foregone.
They're desperate.
Sibelius, who (despite a few play-pen liberals' swoonings) has been little more than a place-holder, is now descending to the occasion and getting uglier still with the insurers. (Doesn't matter if she pretties it up and smiles as she says it.)
“Sebelius was planning to say: 'You can choose to take the millions of dollars you have stored away for your next round of ads to kill meaningful reform, and use them to start giving Americans some relief from their skyrocketing premiums.'
Instead, Sebelius actually said: 'So there's another choice: I hope that you will take the assets that you have, the influence, the bully pulpit that you have and use it to start calling for comprehensive reform to pass. Start looking at giving Americans some relief with market strategies from those who are facing skyrocketing premiums.'”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/03…
They're desperate. What depths they will reach before resolution of this, who knows.
Resolution will actually amount to a relief from the worst of this.
He whose middle name may never be spoken except by raaaacists IS NOT a modern Arab!
You birthers drive me crazy!