When, if ever, are people going to stop pretending that the Democrats are "inept" or "spineless", and just admit that they simply work for the same interests as those on the other side of the aisle.
The entire system is corrupted by big money interests. It's obvious...hell, they even admit it, yet lefties continue to play stupid and believe that Democrats are simply weak or stupid, or "inept".
As if there's any difference in a person's abilities based on which club they pretend to belong to.
mirth
· 4 months ago
Yes. YES!
Chris From Maine
· 4 months ago
they are losing the debate, and we all are losing.
its now obvious there will be no real reform. It will be a weak bill, full of republican crap, and once again health care reform dies due to the health industry and the right wing.
dont we have a large democratic senate, house, and white house? oh wait, I forgot.. the Democrats are still spineless.
Õ¿Õ
· 4 months ago
Then they need to get out of the way and let us assume their roles...
Karen
· 4 months ago
My husband and I keep wondering why Obama doesn't have Dem congress members lined up to do rapid response to the Repub talking points. Has he alienated his own party members? Do they feel they can't trust him and therefore won't extend themselves publicly for fear he'll later cut them off at the knees? The lack of a counter offensive from our side is glaring.
It's astonishing. The Dems had a trial run with healthcare in 1994 and should've been prepared. But they seem, if anything, even MORE passive in the face of the now (greatly diminished) opposition party. Why did Obama launch this effort with so little apparent preparation for the inevitable onslaught? There is nothing worse than a leader who leaves his supporters and party with the feeling that he doesn't have their back. That's what this feels like.
PROUD_TEXAN
· 4 months ago
85% of people polled are happy with their healthcare. Cramming a socialist healthcare system down their throats would be political suicide for Democrats.
Gridlock
· 4 months ago
Amazing! I guess that's why 70% polled want a public option at least and most want single payer!
But hey, let's believe YOU instead.
p.s. how are your socialist roads, your socialist military, your socialist schools, socialist street signs, socialist water and power systems, socialist government agencies that keep your food safe and your products from killing you? Hmmm? NAH, you didn't know about those, right...
Jophus
· 4 months ago
My socialist FDA isn't working to hot.
kevinbgoode
· 4 months ago
Uh-huh. Why, every morning, I get up and turn the television and the radio on and listen to glowing accounts by average American citizens about how much they love their healthcare system.
Not even Rush, Sean, and Glen Beck are stupid enough to pretend there are millions of testimonies out there of how amazing our health care system is. . .all I ever hear are complaints. Simple surgery w/private insurance? 18 different statements. Waiting time to see a doctor for an initial evaluation outside the emergency room? 2-3 weeks. In some places, a month.
Maybe they need to be polling the people who have most recently been using this private enterprise rip-off system. . .not the ones still under the illusion that health care is just like it was in the 1970's.
sullivan
· 4 months ago
That is an idiotic statement! Are you talking about the 50 million who don't have health care? Show the link to your research and by the way, I am offended by your picture!
Õ¿Õ
· 4 months ago
There's one of those 'joker' placards now of Michelle.
a. mcewen
· 4 months ago
And their health care wouldn't change under the new plan if they are happy with it. if you weren't so busy passing around ugly pictures of Obama and using buzzwords like "socialism," you would know that.
it doesn't take that much to get informed on the facts. just stop listening to the conspiracy theories.
What really annoys me is people like Bill Clinton telling sane people they aren't doing enough to fight back? Well, what are we fighting for? I didn't vote for Obama so Obama could be President. I voted for him to push for good policy. I'll support the President if he gives me something to support, but working with asshats like Grassley is not change I can believe in. If I wanted that I'd be lamenting that Senator McCain was not President.
Indigo
· 4 months ago
Shouting faces make a picture the media understands. Reasoned discussion does not. Television is a cool medium; blogging is an abstract hot medium. Television wins the public image every time. It's the message is the medium, not the message is the message time again. Welcome back to the 60s, revised bigot edition, just in time for the 40th perverseaversary of Woodstock.
Jophus
· 4 months ago
You know, when the Republicans are in power it is all about them. When the Democrats are in power it's all about the Republicans. What would happen if we just pointed the cameras at something else?
PROUD_TEXAN
· 4 months ago
Democrats don't need one single Republican vote to pass this legislation. It's your own party draggin their heals.
JNo
· 4 months ago
No Democrats for some naive reason thought the repubs could be reasoned with and get a bi-partisan bill. Idiots all around.
PROUD_TEXAN
· 4 months ago
If they are so sure that this is going to be a wildly popular program once it's passed, they need to just ram it through. Later they can proclaim, "We told you so."
Õ¿Õ
· 4 months ago
You wingnuts want to degrade Heath Ledger's memory with your racism, too.
Õ¿Õ
· 4 months ago
You bigoted wingnuts are attacking Obama with racism with that image in The Joker and Heath Ledger's movie roll in Brokeback. Two dog-whistles in one.
PROUD_TEXAN
· 4 months ago
How can you sit there with a straight face and say you're upset with my image, when I didn't hear one thing from libs being upset with the Joker image of Bush portrayed on the cover of Vanity Fair?
Yes that was my point. Why should they give a shit about the republicans, we don't need them. Out of sight, out of mind.
Õ¿Õ
· 4 months ago
There's placards of Michelle of that "joker makeup." It's a racism dog whistle.
Dateline_Molly
· 4 months ago
Deer in the headlights, indeed.
Krugman is talking about this in his column today (over on the right, Republican Death Trip). How Obama was engaged in the fantasy in 2007 that he could "bring the country together in bipartisan spirit." And apparently Krugman back then said he wouldn't be able to do it.
Now the White House is flummoxed and sitting around wondering what the hell happened.
I honestly don't think Ob is going to "rethink" bipartisanship. His personality and character traits preclude his ability to fight with passion and determination for strong positions, whether the "other side" likes it or not. He simply doesn't have it in him psychologically.
So we'll just limp along and the pwogs will lose fight after fight because Obama's conflict avoidance tendencies will keep him from taking a stand on anything worthwhile.
Obama is right of center anyway. For all intents and purposes, he's a Republican.
norca66
· 4 months ago
Democratic weakness is a feature, not a bug. The Blue Dogs are nothing less than a GOP sleeper cell. Your government will force you to buy private health care insurance and you will tithe your earnings to a third party. Welcome to your servitude. The Constitution is no longer in effect. This is the government of the Corporation, by the Corporation and for the Corporation. Welcome to Dystopia.
SCLiberal
· 4 months ago
I am not holding my breath on any meaningful reform. You can look at past events for guidance but the truth is this: never in our history has there been such a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and never has there been such a strong influence by corporations over government.
Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. ------------ Though income inequality has been growing for some time, the paper paints a stark, disturbing portrait of wealth distribution in America. Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000.
story here There is a complete disconnect between the people and the majority of elected representatives. There is a deep corruption at all levels of government. There are no controls or brakes on spending for Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, the energy giants and the pharmacuetical corporations. I see only two outcomes for us. We completely collapse as the Soviet Union did, or the people literally take to the streets to demand change. And frankly, I don't see the latter happening.
Dateline_Molly
· 4 months ago
Nothing is going to change through the channels of government. With the exception of Sanders in the Senate, every congressperson, every person in the cabinet is a neoliberal. They love crapitalism. And they don't want it changed.
The last thing they want is for the common folk to have health care. Hell, they don't even want anybody to have a job! This is a government that has through the years looked the other way when corporations leave and abandon millions of jobs here. They just don't give a shit.
I honestly don't see how anybody can think Obama or Democrats are part of the solution.
KerrynowCampau
· 4 months ago
I used to think they were the lesser of two evils
With Obama ramping it up in Afghanistan and allowing the drone attacks to continue I would say the above no longer applies
KerrynowCampau
· 4 months ago
Why does everything have to be so complicated??!!! That is why democrats lose the message war. Start expanding Medicaid ASAP It is simple to understand
mirth
· 4 months ago
It isn't complicated. The message war is being lost because the agenda is a corporate one and the public is hip to it. The sleeping giant awakes and s/he's pissed.
KerrynowCampau
· 4 months ago
I meant to say why does heath care reform have to be so complicated
mirth
· 4 months ago
Oh. I see now that's what you wrote, kerry. I'm doing too many things at once, Sorry. :(
And my point was confused because while it doesn't need to be complicated, it has become complicated. Our government is doing something that the public does not want it to do - continued and even more corporate control of our lives - and as more and more speak out against that, without true leadership it's all sinking in a murky mire. Seven months in, with a citizen-representative gov't, actual healthcare reform would already be implemented.
That is, I admit, somewhat simplistic given the antics of media-magnified freako bots. But with a strong-leader president and an uncorrupted Congress, their crap would be nothing more than a tinny nuisance. We wouldn't be worrying about flying bullets.
I suspect that Obama considers all the idgit noise a help in covering for his sellout. In fact he's even helped amp it with his smack on Pelosi's "unamerican" statement.
Gah! I am so disillusioned that I can't even express untangled thoughts.
KerrynowCampau
· 4 months ago
It's OK mirth. I had a day like that yesterday....
mirth
· 4 months ago
LOL
Thanks, Luv.
oneway
· 4 months ago
Exactly. Why are the D's out there countering with "Republicans want to continue killing poor people"?
HereinDC
· 4 months ago
Does The White House realize that these antics will be 24/7 for the next 40 months of his Administration?
I'm personally getting exhusted trying to defend President Obama.
It was difficult and exhusting enough supporting him till Election Day November 2008...
but now.....I STILL have to use that much energy as I did last Fall?
Come on Barack.....
I can't keep "doing this".
PROUD_TEXAN
· 4 months ago
I'm personally getting exhusted trying to defend President Obama.
I hear ya, that's a tall order!
kimbutgar
· 4 months ago
Unfortunately, our country is too far gone at this moment to have the era of change and partisanship. Faux has destroyed whatever civility we had in this country. President Obama has to show some balls now and fight back. The rethugs steamrolled over the Dems during the bush years and now they are rolling overs the Dems even they are the majority. Rethugs like Grassley are showing their true colors and the President has to push back hard. Otherwise the rethugs will be controlling the Senate in 2011 and President Obama will be a lame duck.
Houndentenor
· 4 months ago
When are Democrats going to learn that lengthy fact-based speeches are not adequate to counter catch-phrase length lies? When? We don't have serious debate in this country. We fling sound bites at each other. If you don't play that game to win, you lose. It shouldn't be that way but it is. When are the Democrats going to figure this out?
Jophus
· 4 months ago
When are they going to learn they have to make their own headlines?
cjjason
· 4 months ago
Democratic leaders should call a spade a spade - these fabrications are LIES - should be called lies - should be called RUDE and OVERBEARING protesting. But all the mainstream media like to show the titillating sound bytes and sensational video. Also, most of the red neck dummies are watching Fox - which is fueling the fire. Dangerous times, these days are. Too many red necks who don't think - just follow, baaahing all the way. Weird thing, is it's working for them. Damn!
DaveVentura
· 4 months ago
The problem is that the focus is on passing the legislation itself, not what is in the legislation. Like gosh, I'm not going to support a piece of legislation that was hammered out in secret to the benefit of the industry in which is supposed to be reformed. All these non-transparent deals with PhRMA and others don't exactly point to a reason why the legislation should be passed, but rather quite the opposite. Also being told that the legislation (or more accurately the Congressional Democrats and Obama) is basically "too big to fail," so the legislation has got to be passed no matter what. Having the industry write their own legislation and then trying to extort people into supporting it no matter how bad the legislation is isn't exactly a way to win friends and influence people. Look at how much "too big to fail" Wall Street enriched themselves and I see the same thing happening all over again.
ComradeRutherford
· 4 months ago
THey are OBVIOUSLY doing tis intentionally. The Dems NEVER fight back, the NEVER have fought back since the late 1970s (at least).
I saw a headline 'White House Pushes Back' and they were reporting that there was a new .gov website about health care. Yeah, that really showed those far-right extremists!
The Democratic Leadership is under the direct control of the GOP; the Dems are not ALLOWED to fight back, their overlords have told them not to.
Chimpeach
· 4 months ago
I'll say it again. Democrats bring sporks to knife fights and think they are being bipartisan. bah
barthome
· 4 months ago
That's it... SPINNING the message!
Democtrats try to explain healthcare to American through inciteful, articulate, well-educated and lengthy prose.
Republicans explain their stance on the healthcare debate with one liners and quips like 'Freedom ain't Free' 'Socialism' and 'Nobmama Care'.
Guess which the audience is going to be more trusting and receptive?
barts
· 4 months ago
barts = barthome
a. mcewen
· 4 months ago
With all due respect, we have seen this thing before on the campaign. Republicans go wild, we panic, Obama stays calm. We all know how that ended.
I'm patient on how this will turn out.
John Aravosis
· 4 months ago
Actually, what WE saw on the campaign was Republicans went wild, Obama stayed calm, then Obama realized everything was going to hell, and then the campaign freaked out and wanted our help. Again and again and again. They did not stay calm. They only stayed calm until they realized they were losing. Just as they did with the stimulus package. Just as they're doing with health care reform.
tardigrade
· 4 months ago
Reading this story and the one of Clinton (just before this one) and how congress sunk decent policies for DADT and such.... makes me think that most people who go to congress are just plain mean.
Some may wave the Dem flag and say they are for things for the good of society, but are really like Spector, ready to drop anything to stay in power. And, they will roll over and let the worst of their group to take control - he made me do it.
I think all the lawmakers need term limits and of course public financed campaigns (with limitations). Maybe, that would allow those who have to 'guts' to do something. It might allow for more Spectors... but I think the world just happens to have more of them then those who have integrity.
dula
· 4 months ago
Bipartisanship is really working out well, huh Obama? I would think such a supposedly brilliant man like you would KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
DaveVentura
· 4 months ago
He's his own enemy. All the legislation in the House is just a "sideshow." All that really matters is what Baucus is doing as the WH and Baucus are in constant contact between Obama speaking to Baucus personally on a weekly basis and Obama's Deputy Chief of Staff Messina (a former Baucus aide) at Baucus's office more frequently. Obama has pretended to be above the fray, when in reality he's already set the Baucus legislation to be the only one that matters.
RitornaVincitor
· 4 months ago
This is very alarming, and if true, then I was wrong about the public being at the tipping point where all the shouting, bullying and misinformation would backfire on the Right. At this point Obama needs to grab control. He could start with one of his spectacular addresses like the one he gave during the campaign about the Rev. Wright uproar that had threatened to derail his candidacy. He is also going to have to push for a specific health care package that he can explain to confused and wavering Democrats. It's not too late.
Ginger_FL
· 4 months ago
I think the right has poluted the message with all their screaming and lies. I was at a teaher workshop this week and heard all the lies from my bosses father who happens to be the big boss. It was embarrassing....he gets his information from the RADIO and I told him I was sorry but they are lying to him. He was outraged and said they don't lie on the radio.
See, we have gone completely through the looking glass and at least in my area of Rednickistan...there is no way to climb back out of the rabbit hole as long as the RW control the Media and 99% of talk radio.
Õ¿Õ
· 4 months ago
Hey, I plan to stay with Obama with it until I just can't anymore and I can still go a long ways. But he really put the 'Evil Eye' on it all and then so-callled "progressives" were fine with that and throwing us under the bus with his move because "he had more important things to do." And after what we went through with Prop 8. Sheesh. And not even a backward glance from them driving off? I tried to tell them. Gah know I try.
There is a way but nobody will [listen] to me...
shell
· 4 months ago
Yes, "no one respects weakness," but why would they support "strength" (meaning loud, shrieking lies)?
Americans are really ignorant. Just because they are pissed at Democrats for being weak (which I am, too), why would they automatically support the screaming liars?
Remember -- just being loud doesn't make you strong.
I would like to see the poll questions. They might be good, but all too often, they aren't.
johnnyk
· 4 months ago
Once again the spineless DNC lets the GOP lie machine steamroll right over them. In Obama I thought we elected a tireless progressive champion, instead we got a bend-over beltway player. Where did all the passion and righteous anger go?
Dateline_Molly
· 4 months ago
Read his books. Check his political history.
He never had any passion and righteous anger. At least not for any causes that would benefit the working class.
Ferdiad
· 4 months ago
Guys, call me what you want, but I just really think you are wrong on this. It isn't that the Dems can't spin the issue correctly, it is that most American distrust government. Yes they want health care and they want good jobs, but they have seen so much corruption in government (both sides) that they are tired of it. It is somewhat irresponsible to forget that one of the driving factors behind the public support for Obama last year was a general disgust for the lack of ethics and corruption in government. People really thought that Obama would change the way Washington works, not simply change the policy initiatives that are ushered through the halls of power. Please do not take my comments as support for the GOP or lunatics on their side, but people are generally supportive of citizens standing up to their government. You really need to step back and understand this perspective. When you do you will realize where the Democrats are going wrong.
kevinbgoode
· 4 months ago
And they haven't seen any uncontrolled, unregulated corruption in private companies?
bob_h
· 4 months ago
With the AMA, the nurses, the pharmaceutical companies, the unions, and God knows who else starting to advertise, I think the message war is going to turn in our favor pretty soon.
Ferdiad
· 4 months ago
Of course they have. And they have seen the Obama administration bail out those bankers and car makers and permit enormous salaries and bonuses. They have also seen Obama sell out to BigPharma to garner support for health care reform. That isn't changing how Washington works, that is just changing the initiative that Washington supports. Besides, people are naturally more concerned about government corruption than they are in the private world (rightly or wrongly) because in the private sector they have the choice to simply stop patronizing that particular business.
The main point here, again, is that the Dems need to stop attacking the messenger and start attacking the message. In doing so they will learn that the public is generally frustrated.
All Comments
The entire system is corrupted by big money interests. It's obvious...hell, they even admit it, yet lefties continue to play stupid and believe that Democrats are simply weak or stupid, or "inept".
As if there's any difference in a person's abilities based on which club they pretend to belong to.
its now obvious there will be no real reform. It will be a weak bill, full of republican crap, and once again health care reform dies due to the health industry and the right wing.
dont we have a large democratic senate, house, and white house? oh wait, I forgot.. the Democrats are still spineless.
It's astonishing. The Dems had a trial run with healthcare in 1994 and should've been prepared. But they seem, if anything, even MORE passive in the face of the now (greatly diminished) opposition party. Why did Obama launch this effort with so little apparent preparation for the inevitable onslaught? There is nothing worse than a leader who leaves his supporters and party with the feeling that he doesn't have their back. That's what this feels like.
But hey, let's believe YOU instead.
p.s. how are your socialist roads, your socialist military, your socialist schools, socialist street signs, socialist water and power systems, socialist government agencies that keep your food safe and your products from killing you? Hmmm? NAH, you didn't know about those, right...
Not even Rush, Sean, and Glen Beck are stupid enough to pretend there are millions of testimonies out there of how amazing our health care system is. . .all I ever hear are complaints. Simple surgery w/private insurance? 18 different statements. Waiting time to see a doctor for an initial evaluation outside the emergency room? 2-3 weeks. In some places, a month.
Maybe they need to be polling the people who have most recently been using this private enterprise rip-off system. . .not the ones still under the illusion that health care is just like it was in the 1970's.
Show the link to your research and by the way, I am offended by your picture!
it doesn't take that much to get informed on the facts. just stop listening to the conspiracy theories.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ries/bush-joker-posters-6y
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/...
Krugman is talking about this in his column today (over on the right, Republican Death Trip). How Obama was engaged in the fantasy in 2007 that he could "bring the country together in bipartisan spirit." And apparently Krugman back then said he wouldn't be able to do it.
Now the White House is flummoxed and sitting around wondering what the hell happened.
I honestly don't think Ob is going to "rethink" bipartisanship. His personality and character traits preclude his ability to fight with passion and determination for strong positions, whether the "other side" likes it or not. He simply doesn't have it in him psychologically.
So we'll just limp along and the pwogs will lose fight after fight because Obama's conflict avoidance tendencies will keep him from taking a stand on anything worthwhile.
Obama is right of center anyway. For all intents and purposes, he's a Republican.
story here
There is a complete disconnect between the people and the majority of elected representatives. There is a deep corruption at all levels of government. There are no controls or brakes on spending for Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, the energy giants and the pharmacuetical corporations. I see only two outcomes for us. We completely collapse as the Soviet Union did, or the people literally take to the streets to demand change.
And frankly, I don't see the latter happening.
The last thing they want is for the common folk to have health care. Hell, they don't even want anybody to have a job! This is a government that has through the years looked the other way when corporations leave and abandon millions of jobs here. They just don't give a shit.
I honestly don't see how anybody can think Obama or Democrats are part of the solution.
With Obama ramping it up in Afghanistan and allowing the drone attacks to continue I would say the above no longer applies
Start expanding Medicaid ASAP
It is simple to understand
And my point was confused because while it doesn't need to be complicated, it has become complicated. Our government is doing something that the public does not want it to do - continued and even more corporate control of our lives - and as more and more speak out against that, without true leadership it's all sinking in a murky mire. Seven months in, with a citizen-representative gov't, actual healthcare reform would already be implemented.
That is, I admit, somewhat simplistic given the antics of media-magnified freako bots. But with a strong-leader president and an uncorrupted Congress, their crap would be nothing more than a tinny nuisance. We wouldn't be worrying about flying bullets.
I suspect that Obama considers all the idgit noise a help in covering for his sellout. In fact he's even helped amp it with his smack on Pelosi's "unamerican" statement.
Gah! I am so disillusioned that I can't even express untangled thoughts.
Thanks, Luv.
I'm personally getting exhusted trying to defend President Obama.
It was difficult and exhusting enough supporting him till Election Day November 2008...
but now.....I STILL have to use that much energy as I did last Fall?
Come on Barack.....
I can't keep "doing this".
I hear ya, that's a tall order!
I saw a headline 'White House Pushes Back' and they were reporting that there was a new .gov website about health care. Yeah, that really showed those far-right extremists!
The Democratic Leadership is under the direct control of the GOP; the Dems are not ALLOWED to fight back, their overlords have told them not to.
Democtrats try to explain healthcare to American through inciteful, articulate, well-educated and lengthy prose.
Republicans explain their stance on the healthcare debate with one liners and quips like 'Freedom ain't Free' 'Socialism' and 'Nobmama Care'.
Guess which the audience is going to be more trusting and receptive?
I'm patient on how this will turn out.
Some may wave the Dem flag and say they are for things for the good of society, but are really like Spector, ready to drop anything to stay in power. And, they will roll over and let the worst of their group to take control - he made me do it.
I think all the lawmakers need term limits and of course public financed campaigns (with limitations). Maybe, that would allow those who have to 'guts' to do something. It might allow for more Spectors... but I think the world just happens to have more of them then those who have integrity.
I was at a teaher workshop this week and heard all the lies from my bosses father who happens to be the big boss. It was embarrassing....he gets his information from the RADIO and I told him I was sorry but they are lying to him.
He was outraged and said they don't lie on the radio.
See, we have gone completely through the looking glass and at least in my area of Rednickistan...there is no way to climb back out of the rabbit hole as long as the RW control the Media and 99% of talk radio.
There is a way but nobody will [listen] to me...
Americans are really ignorant. Just because they are pissed at Democrats for being weak (which I am, too), why would they automatically support the screaming liars?
Remember -- just being loud doesn't make you strong.
I would like to see the poll questions. They might be good, but all too often, they aren't.
He never had any passion and righteous anger. At least not for any causes that would benefit the working class.
The main point here, again, is that the Dems need to stop attacking the messenger and start attacking the message. In doing so they will learn that the public is generally frustrated.