This is more like the solution. The problem is that the conservative pundits are pissed off that he’s policies are, more or less, pretty conservative. Essentially, he’s strained Republicanism of all of its nonsense and boiled it down to a few good morsels. He’s shaping the Democrat party to be Republican v2.0: Fiscal Responsibility without the Cross. And he’s doing a pretty good job of it.
My point of disagreement is his strategy. He is far too accomodating, far too gracious, far too forgiving, and too willing to bring Republicans into the fold. He needs to take a lesson from Bush and only be bi-partisan when the Legislative Branch is no longer controlled by his party. So far he’s a pussy. Not the adult-kind, but the baby kind with immature ovaries and an underdeveloped uterus. He needs to buckle down, ignore the republicans, and start exerting the weight of the Office he represents. Bush knew how do this well, I’m not sure why Obama can’t/won’t/unwilling do it.
Are you telling me that if a Canadian wanted to pay for services from the PHI, s/he would be denied and forced to receive free medical care? If so, maybe you guys really are communists up there.
I think it’s an exaggeration to say that the right-wing crazies form some kind of shadow government. Obama has gotten a lot of stuff passed including a massive stimulus bill. He got Sottomayor confirmed, quite easily in the end. Chances are that he will get health care passed as well.
There is no question that Obama's polling numbers have dropped and the polling for health care isn't that great either. IMO the crazy accusations about death panels and the like have only a played a small role in this. There are many people who are genuinely worried about the economy and the long-term budget deficit and Obama has lost some of them. There is a general perception that he is moving too fast on too many issues. As the economy recovers, his numbers will rise again. And once a final health bill takes shape I think he will able to persuade some of the moderates he has lost that on balance his reforms are an improvement.
The administration did allow matters to drift and let the protesters define the issue for some time but they have gotten their act together in the last few weeks. In the long run I don't think the GOP is helping itself by embracing its most extreme wing. That may put Obama on the defensive for a few months but it doesn't make the GOP look like a serious governing party. I think it will definitely hurt them in 2012 and possibly in 2010 as well if the economy recovers fairly quickly.
And more images from the civil left: Bush death threat gallery. Let me know when you start seeing these kinds of death threats and fantasies over killing Obama.
Even John Kerry got into the act. From Real Time with Bill Maher, Oct 2006:
Maher : You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone.
Kerry : Or, I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone .
Yeah, the left’s problem is that its discourse has just been too civil. Keep telling yourselves that.
And more images from the civil left: Bush death threat gallery. Let me know when you start seeing these kinds of death threats and fantasies over killing Obama.
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Well, yeah. But in fairness, Bush had just launched an immoral and needless war responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. What’s Obama done that compares with that?
What would be obvious to the real Sam Stone is that Kerry is talking about winning the election and replacing hm. The real Sam Stone is smart enough to know that, and has too much dignity to pretend otherwise for a cheap shot.
I don’t know who this guy is, but I want my Sam Stone back.
I think it’s important not to get too insane about what the Limbaughs and the Becks are shouting.
We had a presidential election. The Limbaughs and the Becks shouted their little hearts out, but a Democrat, a BLACK Democrat, was elected anyway? What’s that mean? It seems to mean that their power is limited to times when they can hit a nerve.
The most brilliant marketers in the world can’t sell a product where there’s no interest. Instead of worrying about what the Becks and Limbaughs say, we need to think about why they are finding traction.
Some of the why is easy. Some people are really really stupid or ignorant. At the depths, those two things conflate into one. Stupid or ignorant people are vulnerable.
Some people are racist or xenophobic. There isn’t anything to do about that except wait.
Some people are desperate. They’ve lost their jobs or their homes or their loved ones. This is the one where what we do as a society makes the most difference. People who feel they have options and safety are less likely to be raving nutbar loons.
And these last people do have things to be angry about. In my opinion, they often blame the wrong things, but their anger is valid.
I think some of the incoherent rage is already waning. It’s hard to sustain that level of vitriol before people get tired of being poked and riled up. The fatigue sets in and the calm voices are more powerful for all of that.
If I lie to win my point, I lessen my point. I could, like one of the precious links put up on this board, claim to be Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006, and otherwise attempt to distort reality. But it’s hard to channel lies and whackjobbery for the sake of helping people. I harm people when I lie to them. I can’t do it and claim it’s for their own good.
And note that some of these images go right back to the early days of the Bush presidency. In fact, they start before that. In 2000, Craig Kilborn overlaid an image of Bush with the caption “Snipers Wanted”.
And let’s not forget that there were actual attempts on Bush’s life. Some lunatic fired shots at the White House three weeks after Bush was inaugurated. A live hand grenade was thrown at Bush in Tbilisi, but didn’t go off because a scarf that had been wrapped around the handle to act as a delay didn’t come loose.
The discussion was about the election, but it seems to me that Kerry injected a little joke about only needing one stone to kill the bird if he were in the White House. How else do you interpret his response?
And then you go completely off the rails. Can you not possibly conceive of reasons to oppose government health care that aren’t rooted in racism, stupidity, or fear? If you can’t, then the problem is with you, and not with the opponents. Because there are lots of very valid reasons. Among them:
it will cost far too much, at a time when the government is up to its eyeballs in debt. The CBO says it will cost a trillion dollars over ten years. And previous government estimates of health care costs have been way off, and always on the low side.
it will be horribly mismanaged and wind up doing damage to a system that is on balance very good but which has flaws. The cure may be worse than the disease.
it will result in the government controlling your life to an unacceptable degree.
it takes away autonomy from individuals and states.
it will be used as yet another way to redistribute wealth, as the beneficiaries will primarily be the ‘working poor’ and the people who pay for it will be primarily the rich. That may be fine with you, but there are many people who have philosophical problems with this, or have practical objections to pushing ever-more responsibility for financing everyone’s needs onto the ‘rich’.
it will simply trade rationing through financial means for rationing by political dictate, which will cause a further polarization and coarsening debate as people have to inject political squabbles into more and more of their lives.
it will kill innovation and reduce investment in health care through private research.
it will be yet one more thing that takes responsibility away from individuals and turns it into a ‘right’, which has the effect of infantilizing the population and divorcing adults from the consequences of their actions.
it creates a moral hazard in that people may not care for themselves as well if they are divorced from the cost of poor decisions.
I could go on. There are reasonable debates to be had over all of these issues. They are all worthy of at least a discussion. But that won’t happen if you insist on characterizing your opponents as racist dumb hillbillies who are afraid of progress.
No, seriously. What was Kerry trying to say there? I’m giving him credit by saying it was just a poor joke. But what is your ‘sane’ interpretation of his comment?
Which, if you’ll note, was not a movie fantasizing about killing Bush, but rather a movie about what the consequences would be if Bush were assassinated. The movie’s conclusion: the world would have gotten even worse. Some screaming lefty death fantasy that is.
Kerry: Or, I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania (i.e. Won the 2004 election - Ed.) and killed the real bird with one stone (i.e. Solved the real problem - Bush - by ousting him - Ed.)
Interpretation 2:
Kerry: Or, I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania (armed? - Ed.) and killed the real bird with one stone (i.e. murdered the President, in cold blood, right there in the oval office - Ed.)
Of the two interpretations, which do you think Kerry, a career politician, would most likely have made?
This really isn’t all that complicated. At this point, it’s really incumbent on you to explain why the malign interpretation is the more reasonable.
Do you really think he, a sitting US Senator, was joking about storming the White House and killing the President? Have you lost the ability to perceive metaphorical speech?
Why then does it take a place in a breathless, outraged litany of awful, awful things the lefties do and say? And tell us exactly what American lefty you hold responsible for throwing a hand grenade in Tblisi?
