Thursday, August 20, 2009

The People Health Care Reform Would Help...

... have no idea as to what they are protesting against.

Here is a two minute interview with a middle aged woman, the same woman who screamed "Heil Hitler!" at an Israeli man while he was extolling the virtues of Israel's national health care system. Irony of ironies, she's wearing an "Israel Defense League" t-shirt and yelled "Heil Hitler" at an Israeli Jew.

In two minutes she personified what is wrong with these town hall windbags that haven't a clue why they're against health care reform.



1 - She doesn't want to identify herself with any group except to say that she's a lifelong Republican conservative who "believes in Biblical vows." Good job not trying to box yourself in, lady.

2 - She knows reform is needed because of escalating costs but doesn't want a government take over, as if that were the case. Will she refuse Medicare when she or her husband reaches that age?

3 - She thinks reform will "support illegal aliens." It does not.

4 - Her husband works "two and a half" jobs and HAS NO INSURANCE.

5 - She hopes Obama is voted out of office because he has the audacity to try and provide health care for Americans who can't afford it.

Barney Frank is right. There is no reasoning with these people.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Obama Kung-Fu Panda™

posted by Broadway Carl

There was a lot of talk this weekend about the perceived White House softening on the public option due to a comment made by President Obama during a town hall meeting in Colorado (which I think wasn't a softening at all if you listen to what he was trying to say in the overall context) and an interview by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in which she stated that the public option is "not the essential element" in health care reform. I was still hesitant to think that all the "president is backing off the public option" ballyhoo was actually the case considering that Congress is not in session and the MSM was hungry for something to fill their time other than Michael Jackson's brain.

In any case, the possibility that this could happen was a breaking point for the left who have started to mobilize. Whether progressives and liberals were coming off the Obama honeymoon or whether they realized that they had to be as vocal as the misinformed, gun-toting nutballs at the town hall meetings, the pushback has finally started.

My theory: I think the Sebelius statement was a trial balloon. If the statement was used to gauge a perceived softening on the public option or an actual one is up for debate. The end result is the liberal and progressive base got tired of laying back and are now on the offensive to the benefit of the Obama administration, even though their outrage is directed at the ever-tiring Democratic capitulation.

But some are now writing that this may have been part of the plan all along; some more Obama Kung-Fu. And if you think about it, you can whip up your base into a frenzy by looking like you are softening to the GOP and losing your spine, because in the end you really aren't going to lose your liberal base. What liberal or progressive in their right mind would vote for ANY Republican?

Now, President Obama has always said that change has to start with us. On that I agree. But the way this has been unfolding, I'm finding it a little hard to believe that it's all part of a grand plan, that this administration although very savvy, is always ten steps ahead of absolutely everyone else. (If they are, then we are in for an awesome eight years.)

Ultimately, I don't think that the White House will accept a final bill without a public option, but if there had been no outrage from the left, if we had become defeatist and complacent (and I think some of us were headed that way) then who knows how horrible a compromised bill could become? Luckily, progressives and liberals, sixty and counting in the House, are galvanizing and threatening to vote against any bill that doesn't contain a public option.

So in my opinion, I don't think this was an example of Obama Kung-Fu; it was more the situation turning to fortuitously help the White House. Maybe call it Obama Kung-Fu Panda™.