I watch Morning Joe on MSNBC every morning after my full dose of National Public Radio. I enjoy Joe and Mika and his entire rotating crew. They make sharp observations, provide reasonable balance of opinions and they are entertaining. While MSNBC lacks any real conservative voices (Joe Scarborough is a weak kneed Libertarian and Pat Buchanan is a radical isolationist), they still try to present all sides of most issues.
This morning the panel was lamenting the disastrous drop in the polling of both Congress (lowest approval ratings in the 50 years of polling) and President Obama (lowest approval rating of his short Presidency). They discussed that Republicans had solid leads in the races for the governorships of both New Jersey and VirginiaOne of the panel observed that Barack Obama WON THE ELECTION because he promised a new kind of Presidency. He promised he would embrace bipartisanship and end the gridlock.
The Morning Joe Crew all agreed. It was Obama's absolute FAILURE to even attempt bipartisanship along with Nancy Pelosi's refusal to work with Republicans that had so infuriated the American public.
I couldn't agree more. As I've written several times in this space, had President Obama merely picked up the telephone and TOLD NANCY PELOSI to sit down and genuinely listen to Republicans and to make an effort to forge a bipartisan bill, he could have already had a new Health Care Plan. He would have made his summer goal and basked in a major victory.
Instead he allow Pelosi and her team of reactionary progressives to build plans that were weird, complicated, convoluted and generally unworkable. A thousand pages of nonsense. I've read them.
Pelosi insured every single Republican amendment was handily defeated. She even went so far as to write into the bill provisions that directly contradicted promises the President was publicly making on funding of abortion, taxation, and deficit spending.
Barack Obama then had a chance to take a second bite at the apple and convene a bipartisan panel on health care during the summer recess. He failed to do that, instead going out and campaigning on a group of bills he hadn't even read.
Now for my prediction. President Obama has now given himself one more chance to embrace bipartisanship and build a great health care plan. All Republicans and all insurance companies are on board for universal health care. Victory is in his grasp. He can still emerge a winner! But he won't!
Instead Obama will engage in the absolute worst kind on partisanship. He will absolutely FAIL to acknowledge the concerns of the American Public. He WILL NOT call for bipartisan action. He WILL NOT convene a new panel to develop a real health care solution. He WILL absolutely enrage the American Public. He won't listen. He WILL lecture.
President Obama's speech to the Joint Session of Congress will go down as the death of his Presidency.
Let's all hope I'm wrong.
8 comments:
I hope you're right.
What a pile of CRAP !!!
Rob, you are absolutely right, this is pure bullshit! I admit it. This is what you get when you predict events, especially the actions of one man, a week in advance.
And, as I said, I hope I am wrong. I hope President Obama acknowledges the concerns of millions of Americans. I hope he says to Congress that we need to listen and then build a simple and effective plan that extends health care to all Americans.
I hope he does not demonize Americans, call them a mob (or worse) and dismiss their very real concerns. I hope he does not vilify his opponents.
We will see.
Caprice, I'm not certain I understand your comment and I hope you'll return and add more.
Thank you both for stopping by.
Caprice hopes you are right...that Obama will fail miserably, as do I. There is no way anyone is going to come up with a consensus on health care in a short time. Everyone is on board with reforming the health care system, but we couldn't disagree more on how to do it.
Lee has a nice blog entry looking at Singapore's health care system, which shows a lot of promise as a model for the US.
What we need to do is have a frank discussion of the pros and cons of various health care systems. We need to stop the innane vilification of insurance carriers and others in the medical industry. If we could honestly focus on trying to address the shortcomings of our medical system, we might get somewhere. Unfortunately, one party isn't interested in better results; they are only interested in the government taking over.
Flogging and mutilating the dead carcass of Bipartisanship is not the way for Obama to succeed. He needs get out in front on single-payer and lead. If Republicans want to be recorded by history as dissenting or delaying, let that be their legacy.
Vig, you really dont realize that the approval ratings, and democrats afraid for thier fat padded paychecks and power, are abandoning our devalued president as he trys to organize his community? How many GOP votes does he need? None.
How many people are happy with our Liberal government? Less and less as jobs keep going bye bye.
Of course none of this matters to an someone who values Party over people.
Looks like you nailed it. Energy and health-care are two areas where I think the problems are not so much technical as political. And I don't see that improving much in the short term. Count me among the 57% who would like to throw *all* of the bums out ;)
My problem with the president's speech, is that to be believed it would require a huge amount of trust in the president.
The sort of trust would have been earned by a fair accounting of the critics'serious objections. And that WAS NOT in the speech.
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