I dunno. Obama, as predicted by practically everyone, even me, delivered what appears to have been a real barn-burning populist firebreather, lambasting the Pubs for the 60-vote thing and calling them the Party of No and all that. Pretty much a preview of the way the ConservaDem party thinks it's going to run on that will let them hang onto the Congress in the off-year and the presidency in '12.
Mr. Obama appealed for an end to the “tired old battles” that have divided the country and stalled his efforts on Capitol Hill. He promised to focus intently on the issue of most immediate concern to the nation, jobs. And with his top priority, a health care overhaul, delayed in the wake of the recent Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts, he offered a pointed message to both parties.
“To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills,” Mr. Obama said in his nationally televised speech. “And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town — a supermajority — then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.”
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. underscored that criticism, and the emotion behind it, on Thursday. He said that both he and the president were frustrated by "the obstructionist ways of the United States Senate on the part of the Republicans requiring 60 votes, a supermajority, for virtually every single solitary initiative we've had."
I dunno. This might have been helpful 9 months ago, or even 6, but it's coming too late to mean much. Obama has already made it as clear as newly cleaned glass that Wall Street is alright by him and nothing he has said or will say now and forevermore is going to change the fact that he'll do whatver they tell him to do, Praise the Corporate Campaign Contributors. So they've let the Congress bog down so they can run against Do-Nothing Pubs? Like that was actually necessary in the first place? We got that, Barry. That's why we elected you instead of Do-Nothing John McC.
The fact that Obama mentioned pre-existing conditions is an indication that he may still push for a comprehensive bill, and has not already decided to go for something much more scaled down.
Jon. Jon, Jon. And if you clap very loud, Tinkerbell will get all better and not die. Youn were one of the kids who clapped, weren't you?
Words? Nah. Do something - anything - about corraling corporate fraud, highway robbery, and/or predatory behavior and then we have a basis for cautious belief or at least the beginnings of it. But words alone? Gimme a break. Been there, done that, watched him sell my t-shirt to Wall Street. Cause while he's doing his fire-eating and sword-swallowing act, he's also threatening any bill that goes beyond the limits of the freeze the Senate rejected.
A 56-strong majority of senators supported the plan but it failed because 60 votes were required. The vote came the morning after Obama threatened to veto spending bills that would exceed a domestic spending freeze.
And he's decided that the bipartisan commission on the deficit, a neat way to get Medicare and Social Security cuts (that's all a "bipartisan commission" would be allowed to think about cutting; war funds would be "off the table"), is a good idea and he's going to do it anyway, as a "presidential" commission.
Not exactly, you know, ordinary-folk-friendly.
I dunno. I think my new Obama motto has to be "I'll Believe It When I See It".
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