Westen and the Magic Pony Presidency
I’m not sure how many times the NYT will invite him to write the same asinine column with similar basic errors and misunderstandings. And, yes, there’s no actual evidence whatsoever that the mythical deal Obama made to kill the public option actually happened. Although since it had no chance of passing the Senate anyway if he had actually been able to get concessions in exchange this would actually be to his credit, so I don’t think that it really matters anyway. It’s relevant only if you think Obama could have turned Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh into liberals with some harsh rhetoric.
wiley:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:38 am
Quit yer goddamned bitching, you pissing, moaning mouth-breathers of the left. You want FDR? Groom a fucking candidate, run a smart campaign, then vote for the son of a bitch. If that doesn’t work, give up, proclaim the grapes sour anyway, and then you will not have made one iota of change in your processes for evaluating the effectiveness of a leader, but at least you can say you really tried.
Wouldn’t be an effective campaign message, but I wouldn’t blame him for thinking it.
Murc:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:24 am
So what’s the over/under on the length of this thread? I’m gonna say 110.
I would think if Obama had made a deal to kill the public option, he’d have gone loud with it as a way of burnishing his centrist cred.
If you want to distrust Obama on core liberal priorities, there are plenty of things he has ACTUALLY DONE that you can hit him over the head with. The public option kerfuffle is kind of silly. There was no secret deal.
Sidebar: you’ve been keeping very late hours lately, Scott. Or at least you have posts that are going up in the wee hours. You burning the midnight oil on something and making blog posts on your breaks?
wiley:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:44 am
Perhaps he has been bitten and is becoming a creature of the night? Ya never know.
Warren Terra:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:41 am
But does he sparkle?
prufrock:
November 18th, 2011 at 5:44 am
Only his writing.
Davis X. Machina:
November 18th, 2011 at 6:11 am
The “FDR” they want, or say they want, corresponds to no historically-existing FDR. History is tidy. The world is not.
Incontinentia Buttocks:
November 18th, 2011 at 6:25 am
Stupid fucking hippies!
(Now I feel much more serious.)
rea:
November 18th, 2011 at 7:00 am
These guys would all have been supporters of Henry Wallace, back in FDR’s day–or maybe Huey Long. Every man a King! FDR was more compromisng than Barak Obama, any day.
Malaclypse:
November 18th, 2011 at 7:08 am
The “FDR” they want, or say they want, corresponds to no historically-existing FDR.
Are you saying this was not intended as a factual documentary?
Davis X. Machina:
November 18th, 2011 at 7:17 am
I guess. “Hagiography” and “history’ do both begin with ‘h’…
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 7:17 am
So did anyone actually click all the way through to the actual Westen piece? Because even though it’s based in his area of expertise (“Drew Westen is a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of ‘The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.’”), it’s worse than his straight attempts at policy analysis. It reads like a over-long yet half-assed Dowd column. Obama’s a sucky president because he’s a wishy-washy narcissist who’s just like Westen’s seven-year-old kid (a daughter, of course). It’s also loaded with asides that should make Westen question his premise that everything in DC depends on the size and hardness of the president’s cock (“Does he believe that the rich and big corporations should pay more [as he has repeatedly said] or less [as he ended up negotiating for less than a year ago, when he had a lame duck Democratic Congress behind him]?”), but nope; everything is always decided in accordance with what Obama wants.
Taylor:
November 18th, 2011 at 7:36 am
There was a real chance of extending Medicare to people 55 and over. Lieberman stopped it to piss off the libs, and Obama put no pressure on him to back down, even though Obama had saved his committee chair. Lieberman crowed after discussions with Obama that Obama never brought up the PO or Medicare extension in their discussions.
If Obama did not make a deal with the insurance companies to kill off the PO, then he’s an even worse strategist than we’ve been left to believe, since that would mean he left it to wither on the vine without getting anything in return.
If he actually wanted it.
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 7:40 am
So what could Obama have done to secure 60 votes for either a PO or a Medicare extension?
If he really really wanted it.
Brien Jackson:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:04 am
What, you think other people have the ability to count votes and realize how many votes against something there are? Silly O-bot, everyone knows that only the President can do whip counts.
Murc:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:11 am
Obama had no pressure TO put on Joey Joe-Joe.
Lieberman has been mishandled every step of the way. There’s no argument there. But saying to him ‘Joe, support this or else’ gets you the response ‘Or else WHAT?’ and no bill at all. A Senator in his last term in a caucus that’s unwilling to discipline him (and even were he so inclined, Harry Reid could not muster the votes to discipline Lieberman) is basically immune to pressure.
Murc:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:15 am
That’s bullshit. I’m the first to criticize people for magical thinking, but Obama could stand to be more like FDR. I don’t mean the mythical FDR who created modern liberalism with the wave of his hand; I mean the FDR who wasn’t afraid to call out the banksters for the shitbags they are and who, upon signing half-a-loaf compromise legislation, would turn around and say ‘This was half-a-loaf compromise legislation. Now we’re gonna get the other half.’
You know, the class warrior. That guy.
c u n d gulag:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:23 am
The right wing does a good enough job coming up with baseless and stupid meme’s for the MSM.
So, thank you, they don’t really need the help of people on the left.
And this idea that Obama ‘dealt-away/killed-off the PO,’ is, as has been pointed out countless times, not only counterproductive and baseless, it’s actually damaging to him.
There was no magic Pixie dust he could have spread on the Senate – no unicorns – that would have gotten 60 votes.
Besides, if I had a Unicorn, I’d shove that horn up Lieberman’s ass and parade him on TV, that self-satisfied, sanctimonious, smug, and worthless POFS.
And after I get done with Little Boots’ and Darth Cheney’s graves, I want to head on over and piss and shit on Lieberman’s.
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:33 am
I bet if Obama and Reid antagonized Lieberman more then Lieberman would’ve become indistinguishable from Teddy Kennedy.
Ken Houghton:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:34 am
Or if you remember that the final PPACA was passed under reconciliation.
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:35 am
WE’LL NEVER KNOW BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T TRY!!!!
laqwguy:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:37 am
Wait, wait I know this one. The president has no real power to do anything. So it really doesn’t matter because even with a mandate the president can’t accomplish anything.
Does this give me a passing grade professor?
rea:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:37 am
You need to go look up how reconciliation works, before spouting off on the internet about it.
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:41 am
That was the conference committee version, meaning it had already passed the Senate, and that was only done because of the unusual circumstance of Kennedy’s death after initial passage and Scott Brown’s assumption of the seat and pledge to filibuster in the interim.
laqwguy:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:43 am
I think that FDR was less of an ideologue. Or perhaps it is just that Obama is nothing more than a bag man for Wall Street and other major corporations. Dare I mention (attempted) secret deals with the insurance industry and big pharama or isn’t that allowed in these discussions?
If you really think he had any intention of getting anything in the ACA that was even remotely progressive then you believe in magic ponys more than I do.
sleepyirv:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:51 am
I had a physical yesterday and the doctor yesterday was complaining about Obama’s use of executive orders. I did not argue with him, on the principle you should never argue with someone who has their hands around your throat, but it hits me magic pony Presidency is really a reasonable right-wing talking point (they need to blame Obama for the past 11 years) but makes absolutely no sense for a leftie. What’s Westen’s best-case scenario with this editorial? Obama grows a thick beard, smokes cigars, and declares the US to be a socialist paradise?
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:59 am
My timeline is muckled. Kennedy died in August 2009, but he was temporarily replaced by Paul Kirk via gubernatorial appointment until the special election could be held (don’t ask), and PPACA passed the Senate in December with a 60-40 party-line vote. Brown won the special election and replaced Kirk in February 2010, and pledged to filibuster final passage of the bill. Since the seat had switched parties that left only 59 votes. The House then scrapped its version of PPACA and passed the Senate version. Reconciliation was then used to force final passage of what had already been passed with a supermajority.
The point stands that there’s no evidence that reconciliation could’ve been used to pass a different bill, if indeed it was even technically possible.
Murc:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:01 am
Well, no, it doesn’t, because its wrong in nearly every respect. If you think the President has no real power to do anything and that political mandates don’t affect his political options you have a deeply flawed understanding of how government works.
actor212:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:36 am
Wouldn’t a simple prima facie analysis prove that, if Obama had kow-towed like that, the HMOs would have supported HCR and the Tea Party wouldn’t even exist?
Njorl:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:37 am
I agree. Obama got about as much legislatively as he could, but fell miles short of the political gains he could have achieved.
The biggest political failing has been his willingness to claim the bad economy for himself. Every bit of obstructionism should have been met with accusations of repeating the failed policies of the last administration. Instead, he wanted to end partisan rancor. Then he started blathering the Republican party line about government being like a household or a business.
So, here we are in a situation which demands massive government spending, with the government able to borrow at effectively negative interest rates, and we engage in a bipartisan effort to cut spending.
Njorl:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:42 am
So you’re saying that the president is the omnipotent overlord whose will is manifest? It can only be one or the other you know. Thinking anything else means you’re dishonest.
Furious Jorge:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Obama is a lot of things – both good and bad – but I’ve never thought of him as an ideologue before.
Bill Altreuter:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:54 am
A half-assed Dowd column would be approximately one-quarter assed.
Furious Jorge:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Then he started blathering the Republican party line about government being like a household or a business.
Which, considering that governments are completely different types of organizations with different scopes, purposes and goals from both families and businesses, is the dumbest load of horseshit ever. Anyone who really buys into that is a fucking moron.
david mizner:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:56 am
What’s weird about Westen’s pieces that in assessing Obama’s crappy presidency, he scratches his head and tries to come up with explanations yet never acknowledges the obvious: that Obama has cast his lot with the corporate wing of the party. That fact pretty much explains his presidency. From his pushing a Grand Bargain to his killing the effort to break up the big banks to his dismal bank-friendly approach to the foreclosure crisis to his concern about deficits that led to his failure to push a significant stimulus to his bad environment decisions to his casting aside the public option…he’s pulling straight from a playbook that has dominated the Democratic Party since the nineties. No mystery here: this is still Robert Rubin’s party.
BradP:
November 18th, 2011 at 9:59 am
The New York Times reported two deals:
The block on reimportation angers me as more than the death of the public option.
But to the point of this post, how does the second deal not kill the public option?
Scott Lemieux:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Medicaid expansion and bans on pre-existing condition discrimination aren’t “remotely progressive”? Fascinating.
david mizner:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:05 am
As I understand it, there was indeed a deal to kill a form of the public option, the better one but not all of them. Tom Daschle acknowledged this:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2010/10/05/171689/daschle-interview/
So Obama dealt away a PO “that would have reimbursed hospitals at a lower rate than private insurers” but left open at least the theoretical possibility of other lesser POs.
And contrary to your claim that Obama would have touted this to play up his centrist cred, he kept this deal a secret for obvious reasons: dealing away progressive priorities to win the support of corporate entities is ugly stuff that would have infuriated progressives and not exactly charmed independents, who also favored the PO in large numbers.
Scott Lemieux:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:06 am
Midnight is late? What, are you people adults with children or something?
Scott Lemieux:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:06 am
I think it’s more like a thousandth of an ass.
Scott Lemieux:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:08 am
I see. So the fact that Lieberman changed his position solely to piss off liberals means that if liberals put more pressure on Lieberman he would have gone along. Can’t see any flaws in that logic!
Hogan:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:09 am
As Mizner notes above, it kills one possible version of the public option.
Scott Lemieux:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:10 am
Mandate, in this context, is a Latin word meaning “bullshit.” You have the votes in the Senate or you don’t. You have some actual, concrete leverage that can be specified or you don’t.
david mizner:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Westen’s assessment of Obama’s ordinarily bad presidency is basically correct, but he goes off the rails in try to explain why. My sense is he was someone who actually fell for O’s marketing in 2008. That, or maybe Obama’s race, led Westen to believe he was something other than he is.
He doesn’t understand that a black man who blows wind about transformation can be just as corporate and neoliberal as a white man from the South who says the era of big government is over, so he comes up with weird psychological explanations.
Sharon:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:17 am
Winner!
You may argue that he’s the best that this system can generate, but don’t ask m cheer on the DLC win of the party.
BradP:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:21 am
Oh. I got it.
New question:
Why would anyone want to rush to Obama’s defense? Are people really that supportive of the fact that he left open the theoretical possibility of a public option?
Is there a plausible public option that doesn’t pay medicare rates or isn’t managed by HHS?
Rob:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:22 am
The fact that Liberman wasn’t immediately given a job someplace out of the way in the administration (Ambassador to St James would be perfect) is a terrible failing.
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:28 am
That assumes that Lieberman would’ve accepted a crappy appointment and ignores that his replacement would’ve been appointed by Connecticut’s Republican governor.
Davis X. Machina:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:34 am
…and having called them out, turned right around and triggered a second dip, which considered separately from the Great Depression would, all by itself, count as the second biggest economic crisis of the last century.
More like “I welcome their hatred… but I buy their take on the macro-economic situation.”
Sort of like ‘Recovery Summer’, come to think of it.
Captain Splendid:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Wait, the top diplomatic job in the US is a ‘crappy appointment’?
I almost got to live in Mayfair once. There’s worse ways to go.
wiley:
November 18th, 2011 at 10:58 am
I know I feel a lot better about the best friend I ever had not dying from organ rejection after the six years we went through on the waiting list, the horror of the transplant (nobody just gets a transplant—it’s a profound procedure that includes a team of people taking turns having you read and sign papers describing the ways in which you could die on the table), and the not so great results of that transplant, and all that followed because some idiots were crying “socialism” and other idiots were crying “sell-out.”
So all those years of so much investment by so many people may not be flushed down the tubes over an ideological spat that is, on both ends, indifferent to so many people, and my friend may finish his degree, get a job, and get on with it. He did see his daughter finish high school, so I’m not the only one who is glad that he’s alive.
Lee:
November 18th, 2011 at 11:01 am
Shorter liberal ACA critics: But this time after several
past failures, we could have gotten single payer
if Obama tried.
wiley:
November 18th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Can I help? I have power tools and a Sears card if more power is needed.
mark f:
November 18th, 2011 at 11:07 am
I guess I didn’t read Rob’s parenthetical. I withdraw the “crappy appointment” remark.
Nevertheless, whether Lieberman would accept that position is immaterial to the ACA debate considering that he would’ve been replaced in the Senate by a Republican anyway.
wiley:
November 18th, 2011 at 11:07 am
His best isn’t good enough! Where’s the magic negro we voted for?!
BradP:
November 18th, 2011 at 11:27 am
The continuing downturn in the economy and growing dissatisfaction we see in political discourse would lead me to believe that a bitter losing battle over a public option would have been a far better long-term strategy.
I think pushing the public option would have gotten a great deal of public support and put pressure on its opponents to be flexible. Likewise, high public support for the public option would have made it a calling card and cause of future elections were it to fail due to the obstinance of its opponents.
Incontinentia Buttocks:
November 18th, 2011 at 11:33 am
The budget-balancing FDR of the mid-second term is the FDR Obama is like…unfortunately.
James E. Powell:
November 18th, 2011 at 11:49 am
Obama did not ‘cast his lot’ with the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. He is and has been a member of that wing. Also too, so are almost all the Democratic senators. What a shock, then, that their policy choices on health care issues are consistent with their policy choices on other issues.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
You’ve never read anything about FDR’s political life before he ran for the presidency, have you?
You mean the one that is disproved in the link you didn’t read?
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
…except that Obama never actually signed on to any budget-slashing in a depression.
Unlike FDR.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
This precise point is discussed in the link that you didn’t read.
To sum up, acknowledging that they probably don’t have the votes for a public option, and going ahead accordingly (“working assumptions.”) is not the same thing as “dealing it away.”
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
This, too, is discussed in the link. To sum up, he used “…and it isn’t even going to contain a public option” to push back against those who wanted the bill scaled back even further.
Did anybody read the link?
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
You might be right about the politics, BradP. Obama could have probably had a “glorious defeat,” gotten no bill, insured exactly no additional Americans…and a million internet leftists, each of whom currently has excellent health insurance, would have cheered him on.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
No, it wasn’t. This mythical beast you’re calling “the final PPACA” was a brief list of minor changes. The actual PPACA could not have been passed under reconciliation.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
This, too, is addressed in the link. The deal with the drug makers is openly acknowledged. The “deal” with the hospitals was not a deal, but a reassurance Obama gave them late in the process after realizing he didn’t have the votes for a public option.
Once again, did any of the critics actually read the link?
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
I thought Barack Obama would be my number one soul brother, but it turns out that he’s just like my dad.
:-(
Tom Allen:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Then what was that “pivot to the deficit” in 2010? Did that not happen?
My guess is that you’ll say that we weren’t in a depression but a recession, and technically were just starting to inch our way into a very long L-shaped recovery at that, but still — “pivot to the deficit” at that point?
BradP:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
But the public option could certainly been presented as an add-on to the PPACA intended to reconcile its budgetary effects, the purpose of reconciliation.
Malaclypse:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Brad, this is off-topic, but a spambot reminded me that I think you lost a bet.
Tom Allen:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Shorter whole argument: “A tacit deal is not the same as an explicit deal.”
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Procedurally, yes. That’s not the same thing as saying that a reconciliation bill that included it could have passed.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Nor is an acknowledgment of conditions that are not subject to change a “deal” of any sort.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
The line that defines “remotely progressive” was, as in all cases, drawn after the fact, to make sure nothing in the bill would qualify.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
No, no budget-slashing actually happened.
You guessed wrong. There was no budget-slashing in 2010.
There was talk about budget slashing a few years down the road, but talk is cheap, but talking in 2010 about maybe cutting the budget in a few years is not slashing the budget in a recession. Heck, it’s not even talking about slashing the budget during a recession.
As opposed to FDR, who actually cut the budget significantly, while the economy was still weak.
You have a reality-vs.-talk problem, and a timing problem.
Tom Allen:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
And in lieu of including it in the PPACA, Harry Reid promised liberals that the public option would come up for a separate vote in the Senate later that year, or this year.
Of course, that was a lie, wasn’t it?
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
If, in 1936, FDR had engaged in some public discussion about how to bring down the deficit starting in 1940, but didn’t actually implement any cuts, we’d have a legitimate comparison to Obama in 2010.
Njorl:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
The bulk of uninformed independent voters don’t like losing. A politician can support a popular bill, but if he fails, those who would have benefitted from it’s passage are likely to vote for those who defeated the effort.
Elections are decided by the kind of people who will vote for someone who successfully screws them because they like winners.
Tom Allen:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
And actually I agree, the much more apt comparison, sadly, is with Hoover. Center-right president, much better than Coolidge, governed during awful economic times, tried some half-assed supply-side stimulus and tried to avoid cutting benefits too much because of the Depression. Still, things didn’t get much better.
I still don’t know where FDR is coming from. I keep trying to recruit Krugman, but I don’t think he’s budging.
Anonymous:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Replace “crappy” with “powerless”. I see no particular reason to think Lieberman would accept such an appointment; he clearly enjoys wielding whatever power he’s got.
BradP:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Neither the WaPo article linked or the NYT mentioned a time frame, although that NYT article was published in Aug 2009, which seems far too early for Obama to determine he didn’t have the votes.
The Bernstein piece even says this:
That is misleading at best. In the deal the hospitals took on greater costs in order to make sure that there would be no government ran program that paid less than market insurers and wasn’t administered by the HHS.
I would like for you to present a version of the public option that wouldn’t be administered by having the HHS controlling reimbursement rates.
Uncle Kvetch:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Some days it’s easier to buy the “powerless” line than others…
BradP:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
I haven’t lost a bet yet.
How do we handle the automatic cuts?
I mean, you are saying I’m about to lose a bet at the same time the Pentagon is sending out warnings about how devastating the automatic cuts would be.
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-14/us/us_pentagon-congress-cuts_1_defense-secretary-leon-panetta-cuts-base-budgets?_s=PM:US
Malaclypse:
November 18th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
How do we handle the automatic cuts?
In the incredibly unlikely event that they actually happen, you win.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Um, Barack Obama pushed through the largest Keynesian stimulus package in American history (half-assed?) and didn’t cut benefits at all, but rather, expanded them.
Is that your understanding of this country’s economic performance during Herbert Hoover’s term? “Things didn’t get much better?”
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
It’s awfully difficult to take revenge on your list of Washington Figures I Must Punish when you’re in London.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Hold on, you two: Mal’s bet referred to “year over year.” The automatic cuts, IIRC, don’t kick in for two-three years.
Ed:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
No, he wouldn’t, as has been noted, because he was making enough positive noises about the public option at the time to make such an admission look more two-faced than a base that had already swallowed a lot could be reasonably expected to stomach. The WH did everything it could to assure worried activists that they had everything under control and let them deal with it, don’t make waves, etc. For the most part the left did that, until it was too late to make a difference, if it wasn’t always too late.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
If you have even a fourth-grade understanding of how our government works, it is exactly as easy to “buy” the observation that the President has limited power over the Senate on days when he issues an executive order as on days when he does not.
Uncle Kvetch:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Joe, the point of the link was that Obama caved on the issue in question in response to a smear campaign. He was not powerless before the irresistible force of right-wing radio talk show hosts and viral emails, but he chose to capitulate to them anyway.
Sometimes the balance of institutional forces really does make presidential action impossible. This wasn’t one of those times.
In anticipation of a spittle-flecked volley of insults regarding my intelligence and comprehension of the US political system, I remain faithfully yours,
UK
Scott Lemieux:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
I’m glad you’re keeping up the fight against the zero people who think that the president lacks the power to issue executive orders.
Uncle Kvetch:
November 18th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Not even remotely my point, Scott. Whatever.
commie atheist:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Damn straight. This could have been the first volley of the War on Christmas 2011, and Obama blew it by not pushing harder for a Christmas Tree Tax. Now we’ll have to settle for him forcing Catholic healthcare providers to accept more government money in exchange for not hating gays and women.
Scott Lemieux:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Well, I just don’t know who’s saying the president is “powerless.”
Substance McGravitas:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
The point is that rhetoric seems to have some power on a president, but that a president could use rhetorical power is somehow laughable.
Do we only write or post for backslapping purposes or what?
Substance McGravitas:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
I confess to crap writing, but I think you get the drift.
dangermouse:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Elections are decided by the kind of people who will vote for someone who successfully screws them because they like winners.
Except Obama ‘won’ and then republicans swept the house because everyone hates the shitty bill that passed but hey w/ev
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Historical Data:
Federal Budget in 1936: $8.2 billion
1937: $7.6 billion, a 7.3% reduction.
2010: $3,720.7 billion
2011: $3,833.9 billion, a 3% increase.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
OMFG.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:47 pm
You’ll forgive me for assuming your comment was relevant to the thread you posted it on.
Won’t happen again.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Uh…fleck fleck.
Volley volley.
???
dangermouse:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Don’t you know that all senators forever are utterly immune to any form of public pressure?
BradP:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
I don’t know if it was a lie or not, but it certainly insured that the public option would not be treated with the importance the policy deserves.
dangermouse:
November 18th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Yes, Obama has it so much tougher than all of those unemployed people all over the place.
Now watch this pivot.
dangermouse:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Um, Barack Obama pushed through the largest Keynesian stimulus package in American history (half-assed?) and didn’t cut benefits at all, but rather, expanded them.
It’s almost like the measure of success is whether it actually prevented four years of massive unemployment.
dangermouse:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Whoa look at me totally discounting the the possibility that things could turn right around in 2012.
wiley:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Good one, Joe. I’m laughing.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
It’s almost as if you’re ignoring what the discussion was about and intruding irrelevantly into a conversation that has nothing to do with you.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Maybe you should just stop there. It really does sum up what you have to say.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
The co-ops.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Thanks.
That Michael Moore thread had already dropped off the page by the time I came up with that line.
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Not to the public pressure of elections. They pay a whole lot of attention to that.
Hence, the difference between Presidential public rhetoric a few months into his term, when he’s trying to get votes 59 and 60, vs. that in the run-up to an election.
Woodrowfan:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
it sounds like homeopathy. how much can you cut a Dowd column and still have a trace of inanity?
joe from Lowell:
November 18th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
A milli-ass?
david mizner:
November 18th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
“Late in the process”?
July was late in the process?
chris:
November 18th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
and then republicans swept the house because everyone hates the economy the Republicans first trashed, then successfully stopped Obama’s plans to fix, so they could blame it on him
FTFY.
Murc:
November 18th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
It is? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say that.
In the context of this specific discussion, I would say that the President lacked effective rhetorical persuasive tools to use on the people kneecapping him. I’m open to persuasion that this isn’t the case, but what precisely could Obama have said that would have flipped Lieberman, Nelson, Collins, et. al. These are people for whom being the target of rhetorical broadsides of Obama is perceived as a GOOD thing.
BradP:
November 19th, 2011 at 8:50 am
Do you have a link to some sort of estimate showing how effective these co-ops would be?
I also noticed that that program apparently got defunded by the recent budget deal.
BradP:
November 19th, 2011 at 9:18 am
And I should add that I love the idea of health insurance co-ops. I tend to use lodge practice systems of the early 20th century as a model of my preference.
With that said I have two problems with them:
1. I expect them to be ruled and regulated to death until the only ones that exist have some sort of government favor. And generally only entities that support corporate profit margins tend to get government privelege in this country.
2. I don’t believe any consumer-lead health insurance that is so large to overcome the transaction costs and put itself in a good bargaining position.
joe from Lowell:
November 19th, 2011 at 9:33 am
I was answering your question. Should I take your effort to change the subject as an acknowledgment that I did, and that your thesis was wrong?
joe from Lowell:
November 19th, 2011 at 9:35 am
Yup. The process for putting the bill together began when there was still snow on a ground, and it had been mostly fleshed out by the times the leaves had started falling.
July was relatively late in the process of crafting the bill. You might remember ranting and cursing Max Baucus around that time for how long he was taking.
joe from Lowell:
November 19th, 2011 at 9:38 am
It’s funny how eager the Marxist materialists are to pretend the economy doesn’t matter, when it gives them a chance to take a whack at that Kenyan feller.
BradP:
November 19th, 2011 at 10:05 am
History has not been kind to these sort of ventures, and saying “Obama left the door open to this historically unsuccessful option” isn’t a very convincing answer.
If that is the length you are willing to go in your answer, that is fine, but I’m still not happy with the deal Obama cut, and I still feel that it undermined the possibility of any sort of public option that might serve to undercut the priveleged margins and rents enjoyed by private health insurers.
“Tell Congress To Take Its Apporpriations Power And Shove It” - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money:
February 27th, 2013 at 12:16 pm
[...] If only Obama were a leader with leadership capabilities, he would show leadership by issuing a firm, hard presidential statement that would immediately get everyone to agree with him, especially congressional Republicans. Westen was right! [...]
Fear, Southern Democrats, and the New Deal - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:31 am
[...] of its virtues, as you have seen, is that it counteracts the Drew Westen view of the presidency that remains so common. FDR had a greater influence on the trajectory of American [...]