Health-care summit held -- check.
Today's Lesson? Right-wingers invariably treat kindness as weakness, and willingness to talk things over as a billboard-sized "Roll Me" sticker on your suit lapel. God Almighty could step out of his magnificent chariot (the same one Christ uses in Paradise Lost to scatter the rebel angels down to bottomless perdition) and command the Republicans in Congress to do something fine, generous, and noble for the country, and they still wouldn't do it.
Seriously, though, enough soliciting opinions from people with the soul of a stone -- let's pass meaningful health-care reform promptly through reconciliation, and stop pretending that the cynical or deluded supporters of some mythical version of "the free market" in access to health care will ever be willing to stop complaining about "socialism" long enough to sign on to significant improvements on the status quo.
It is a farce. Trying to talk to Republicans is like reasoning with a 3-year-old in the midst of his temper tantrum.
ReplyDeleteNo! I don't like this bill! It's a trap! It's too long! It's too short! It's mean! You're mean! I hate you! Whaa... Whaa... I want my mommy! I want Ronny!!!
P.S. My apologies to all 3-year-olds unfairly smeared by this comparison.
BTW, Dino, your mention of God Almighty vs. Republicans reminds me of this cartoon.
ReplyDeleteThe real purpose of this summit it to bring the party of no out into the light of day. They can't say no to healthcare reform or keeping spewing their tired old lies and then crawl back under their rocks. Obama has put them front and center to answer why and why not.
ReplyDeleteAnd was heartened to see from the little I was able to watch that Obama and the other Dems are refusing to be sidetracked and dragged back into the smear fest used by the GOP during the campaign.
It is much harder to sustain all that froth and frenzy when faced with a calm, rational opponent.
And calm and rational he was.
ReplyDeleteEven if one of the Repubs (I think it was Pence, but not sure) labeled him "arrogant."
See, it's a gentlemanly way of saying he's "uppity" without saying he's "uppity."
As I said on another blog, in any given setting, he's usually the smartest guy in the room.
Ooooh. That must hurt.
But Rocky, they have tried -- oh, have they tried! -- to say no and derail it in any way possible, using various props, for example, stopwatches -- to measure time given to Dems and Repubs and scream injustice when not equal; a stethoscope -- to drive across the point that Obama should learn to listen (to them, of course); the stacks of papers -- to show how long the Dems' bill is (after complaining, on Monday, that Obama's 11-page proposal was too short).
ReplyDeleteThey are nothing but a crafty bunch, these Republicans. And so petulant it is really (almost) funny, I must say.
One example:
2:00 PM ET -- Obama calls the summit back into order. "All right everybody, let's get started," the president said.
But there appears to be impatience in the room. One lawmaker interjects, asking the president: "Mr. President, what time do you expect to end the meeting?"
"4:15," is Obama's reply.
Priceless.
The President got a taste of what it's like to be a preschool teacher. :)
Yep, they've tried all the usual obstructionist tricks - and have come off looking like petulant children while the grown ups in the room have been having an intelligent conversation.
ReplyDeleteOf course Obama is arrogant. He speaks clearly and calmly refutes the repeated nonsense thrown at him.
ReplyDeleteTalking patiently to people who want nothing more than rip you to shreds is the height of arrogance in the Republican (or any bully's) playbook. It shows that you are in control and not intimidated by hostile posturing. How dare you!
Now let's hope the adults can move beyond conversations and ditch the silly idea of bipartisanship (which is a Republican code word for "Obama's Waterloo").
HuffPo has an analysis of various aspects of the summit from assorted wonks. Long, but informative.
5:42 PM - The summit is over. What a glum bunch. Finally Obama said it: Either there is an agreement or the Dems go it alone (and the voters will deliver their verdict in November).
ReplyDeleteHow many months ... wasted!
Yeah, I watched the summit and my first reaction was, "Whew, thank GOD McCain didn't win the election..."
ReplyDeleteMy second reaction was, "...I don't ever remember ever seeing one of these sort of things before Obama came around..."
It was, for all practical purposes pretty sad...the Republicans had nothing to say and Obama gave them their two poionts (tort reform and competition across state lines) he also basically told the Democratic Congressional Leadership to go and "get'er done"
Have you ever seen so many dumb old guys in one room in your life?
All McCain could come up with is "you broke your campaign promise"
Jesus, as big of an issue as healthcare and that is all that guy could come up with...and he was the 'best' that republicans could come up in the last election...
I just put up the clip of the McCain/Obama exchange. MCCain is, as we all know, one stupid man. Aren't we glad he lost?
ReplyDeleteAnd as you also probably know, the videos are on the WH site for your viewing pleasure. They're broken up into segments so you can view what you want when you want - if you're so inclined.
If nothing else, this was a smart move on Obama's part.
But all the while Fox was raving away about how the reason private health insurance was increasing in cost so quickly was because O-BAHma will cut back on Medicare payments to doctors not because a 40% profit wasn't enough to satisfy their greed. Raving away that although we had a big jump in GDP, it didn't really mean a recovery was on the way and proved it with a blackboard full of scribbled numbers and a lot of double-talk and by the way Charlie Rangel is a crook and the only Congressman to ever get into ethical troubles and if we're recovering why are there still so many unemployed and that proves the stimulus was all hokum and why should we extend unemployment benefits when we could help real Americans by further reducing the top tax bracket?
ReplyDeleteYou can't cure this cancer by providing a menu for healthy living - it's too late. We need to have a government that call out the lies and names names and proves them to be cynical liars for profit and enemies of America.
Remember when Fox decided they had proof that "Liberals were being negative about the economy to drive the market down?" Remember when the coming recession was a "Liberal attack on America?"
I do, America doesn't but they need to be reminded and we need to stop relying on Jon Stewart alone to speak up about this vicious attack on everything we hold dear.
Immediately after the summit I turned on Fox News to see what their response would be...
ReplyDeleteWell, Glenn Beck wasn't prepared and its obvious his show is not live, but he had a couple of guests and they were replaying his speech at CPAC...
Of course Glenn didn't know where his words or emotion came from....and then one of the guests compared him to Abraham and Moses and something about God touching him so he could lead people...
WHEW....I turned the station REAL fast!
Capt. Fogg is correct.
ReplyDeleteOne way to drive those points home is to put them in large type on our blogs and to stick together--support each other's work on our blogs and keep the momentum on HCF going.
I'm visiting everywhere [blog] I can think of to keep the meme going that Obama was the smartest guy in the room yesterday.
I got a couple of comments at my blog this morning complaining that Mr. Obama was "arrogant" in his demeanor yesterday, which is, as I've said, a weasley way of saying "uppity."
I'm not going to let that sort of viciousness stand.
Obama was the smartest guy in the room, intellectually he towered above every single one of them. Those present were the senior representatives from both parties, what a motley bunch.
ReplyDeleteAnd for many that's proof he's a Communist - for many others it's still not enough to make them see through their bigoted image of him as an interloper dead set of giving away the treasury to welfare mothers.
ReplyDeleteFace it, God could arrive here in his new Corvette ZR-1 and they'd have him nailed up within the hour -- damned commie, fascist, Jew Liberal, tax and spend, weak on terrorism, anti-American freak that he is.
God could arrive here in his new Corvette ZR-1
ReplyDeleteIs that what He's driving these days?
Yes, of course - 638 horse power. Hard to be godlike with any less.
ReplyDeleteMaybe She rides a bike... ;)
ReplyDeleteFine comments from all. Yes, a few days on it seems like President Obama got the better of his adversaries -- they came off as so pre-fab, lame and in some cases obviously dishonest that it's hard even to credit such a performance. The right-siders simply have no ideas about health care or access thereto. They always trot out tort reform, of course, but they trot out tort reform as a response to everything. If a shark is attacking you and you're being struck by lightning at the same time, by gum, tort reform is the only thing for you!
ReplyDeleteWhat I liked most about the summit was the way Barack managed to look both bored and annoyed at the same time. And who wouldn't be both, surrounded by such fools?
He seemed like a weary elementary school teacher in a class full of wise ass, spitball flingers and nose pickers; so obviously the only grown-up in the class but one who has seen and dealt with adolescents for a long time. I thought it was masterful.
ReplyDeleteThen again we both know the many-headed beast will continue to see him as Che Guevara/PolPot/Stalin/Hitler/Mao/Buckwheat and Auntie freakin' Christ all rolled up in one huge Bolshevik burrito and the voices in their pin heads and the voices on the radio will never stop.
We don't need tort reform - we need twit reform
ReplyDeleteDo we have to reform them? Can't we just find a way to send them to another planet or another dimension and stop all the noise?
ReplyDeleteHi Assorted Kindly Creatures
ReplyDeleteI'm rushing through to let you know that I've moved Politics Plus to http://www.politicsplus.org/blog
You're in the new blogroll there. Would you please update me in yours?