...The election over, the warming glow of those armies of supporters gone, his capacity to tolerate criticism and dissent from his policies grows thinner apace. His lectures, explaining his health-care proposals, and why theyll be good for everybody, are clearly not going down well with his national audience.
This would have to do with the fact that the real Barack Obamaproduct of the academic left, social reformer with a program, is now before that audience, and what they hear in this lecture about one of the central concerns in their liveshis message freighted with generalitiesthey are not prepared to buy. They are not prepared to believe that our first most important concern now is health-care reform or all will go under.
The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowdshe is at home with those. He is a stranger to the countrys heart and character.
He seems unable to grasp what runs counter to its nature. That Americans dont take well, for instance, to bullying, especially of the moralizing kind, implicit in those speeches on health care for everybody. Neither do they wish to be taken where they dont know they want to go and being told its good for them.
Who would have believed that this politician celebrated, above all, for his eloquence and capacity to connect with voters would end up as president proving so profoundly tone deaf? A great many people is the answerthe same who listened to those speeches of his during the campaign, searching for their meaning.
It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose, but that was coming. It began with the spectacle of the president, impelled to go abroad to apologize for his nationrepeatedly. It is not, in the end, the demonstrators in those town-hall meetings or the agitations of his political enemies that Mr. Obama should fear. It is the judgment of those Americans who have been sitting quietly in their homes, listening to him.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/11/2009 06:45 ||
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It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose
It boils down to the bottom line it always does. How are we gonna pay for this thing? The CBO has already determined that current legislation drives up cost and will increase the deficit. The CBO has also said the savings pitch is impossible to score. In other words, its not real money and therefore subject to typical DC accounting gimmicks. Even the novice salesman understands that broke aint an objection to be overcome its an obstacle. Apparently this concept isnt taught to Ivy League flim-flam artists.
Americans have been waiting for nearly a century for quality, affordable health care.
Health coverage for all was on the national agenda as early as 1912, thanks to Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose presidential run. Months after World War II came to an end in 1945, President Harry Truman called on Congress to guarantee all Americans the "right to adequate medical care and protection from the economic fears of sickness." From President Lyndon Johnson to President Bill Clinton, to President Obama's winning campaign on the promise of reform, there hasn't been a more debated domestic issue than the promise of affordable health care for all.
We believe it is healthy for such a historic effort to be subject to so much scrutiny and debate. The failure of past attempts is a reminder that health insurance reform is a defining moment in our nation's history -- it is well worth the time it takes to get it right. We are confident that we will get this right.
Already, three House committees have passed this critical legislation and over August, the two of us will work closely with those three committees to produce one strong piece of legislation that the House will approve in September.
In the meantime, as members of Congress spend time at home during August, they are talking with their constituents about reform. The dialogue between elected representatives and constituents is at the heart of our democracy and plays an integral role in assuring that the legislation we write reflects the genuine needs and concerns of the people we represent.
However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted "Just say no!" drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.
Let the facts be heard
These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views -- but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.
Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.
The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies.
Reform will mean stability and peace of mind for the middle class. Never again will medical bills drive Americans into bankruptcy; never again will Americans be in danger of losing coverage if they lose their jobs or if they become sick; never again will insurance companies be allowed to deny patients coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
Lower costs, better care
Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans. Our plan's cost-lowering measures include a public health insurance option to bring competitive pressure to bear on rapidly consolidating private insurers, research on health outcomes to better inform the decisions of patients and doctors, and electronic medical records to help doctors save money by working together. For seniors, the plan closes the notorious Medicare Part D "doughnut hole" that denies drug coverage to those with between $2,700 and $6,100 per year in prescriptions.
Reform will also mean higher-quality care by promoting preventive care so health problems can be addressed before they become crises. This, too, will save money. We'll be a much healthier country if all patients can receive regular checkups and tests, such as mammograms and diabetes exams, without paying a dime out-of-pocket.
This month, despite the disruptions, members of Congress will listen to their constituents back home and explain reform legislation. We are confident that our principles of affordable, quality health care will stand up to any and all critics.
Now -- with Americans strongly supporting health insurance reform, with Congress reaching consensus on a plan, and with a president who ran and won on this specific promise of change -- America is closer than ever to this century-deferred goal.
This fall, at long last, we must reach it.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2009 00:00 ||
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We would all like wetter water. And I want a pony.
OK...so this Friday I've helped to organize a cotigent from Northy Bay CA to attend the upcoming and large rally at Justin Herman Plaza in SF. WE WILL KICK ASS. Originally we were supposed to be outside Herr Pelosi's office but the whole thang has gotten too big. AWESOME.
The next day, my ex is helping to cater a gala affair for Queen Stretch Face...in Marin I believe. Gag. I'm hoping that the Raw Pork Swirl Sorbet is tops on the list. It would be if I were Chef.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/11/2009 3:06 Comments ||
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Remands me of old Bolsheviks promoting Stalin's collectivization.
#5
"Bull Moose" plan not exactly what they're saying it was.
Theodore Roosevelt believed that "a country could be strong only if its people were healthy." No real disagreement there.
Progressive Party 1912 platform was The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use. The proposed health service was to be local, not centralized, with employers contributing one third of the cost and workers contributing two-thirds. It would be mandatory, but controlled by the market, not a bureaucracy.
FYI - The the typical employee plan now is 80/20 with the employer paying the larger share.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/11/2009 8:41 Comments ||
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The dems used to cheer as some moron wouls try to shout down Pres Bush or and Repub, not they are living through their own tactic. Serves her right.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/11/2009 10:48 Comments ||
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#7
"The proles are revolting!"
"You can say that again!"
Despite been tagged by the Musharraf regime as the mastermind of Benazir Bhutto's December 2007 gruesome assassination, the involvement of Baitullah Mehsud in the murder of the former premier remains dubious keeping in view the TTP chief's own denials as well as Benazir's declaration shortly before her death that people like Baitullah were mere pawns and what worried her was the threat from within the Musharraf regime.
While Benazir had named in her posthumous book Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) chief Qari Saifullah Akhtar as a key suspect in the Oct 18, 2007 bid to kill her in Karachi, and she had desired in her Oct 20, 2007 email to Wolf Blitzer of the CNN that President Gen Pervez Musharraf should be named as her assassin in the event of her murder. Instead, the Musharraf regime was quick to name Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as the mastermind of the Dec 27, 2007 suicide attack in Rawalpindi that killed Ms Bhutto.
Addressing his first press conference after Benazir's murder, Asif Zardari had made public her email to Wolf Blitzer which mentioned the name of her would-be assassin. "The said email should be treated as Bhutto's dying declaration. She talks about her murderers from her grave and it is up to the world to listen to the echoes," Zardari had stated. Benazir Bhutto wrote to Wolf Blitzer in her email: "If it is God's will, nothing will happen to me. But if anything happened to me, I would hold Gen Pervez Musharraf responsible." Blitzer received the email on Oct 26, 2007 from Mark Siegel, a friend of Benazir. That was eight days after she had narrowly escaped a twin suicide attempt on her life in Karachi. Benazir wrote to Wolf: "I have been made to feel insecure by Musharrafís minions."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2009 00:00 ||
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It was a rogue roof-hatch handle. Everyone knows that
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2009 19:06 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Anti-Americanism and anti-Israel activism win Obamas approbation
