David Broder got paid to write this:
Obama has not intervened with a heavy hand as the bill has moved through the House and Senate, but now it is time for him to act.
It would help a lot if he reached out personally to those few Republicans who might still want to improve the bill rather than sink it. And it would help even more if he shamed the Democrats into rescinding some of the crasser bargains they made to buy votes along the way.
The country would welcome even a few signs that this legislation has bipartisan support.
Then we could applaud its final passage and take our thumbs from our noses.
How do you reach out and get a sign that Republicans support a bill that they just unanimously rejected? Olympia Snowe just voted ‘aye’ on an amendment that calls the mandate ‘unconstitutional.’ Is she going to turn around and vote for the bill anyway? It would be hard to wank harder to the God of bipartisanship than David Broder. No amount of proof seems capable of teaching him what this generation of Republicans is all about.
He believes in fairies. His version of politics is Democrats = bad, Republicans = good.
ding, ding, ding…we have a winner.
l believe it was upton sinclair who said: it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his livelihood depends upon his not understanding it.
.
(NY Times) – “People will be hunting Democrats with dogs,” said Senator Phil Gramm of Texas.
This was 1993, in the fragile first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, on a vote to raise taxes for the wealthiest 1.2 percent and cut them for the poor and small businesses. That budget bill passed without a single Republican vote.
What followed was the greatest period of peacetime prosperity in modern times, a budget surplus of $559 billion and a president who left office with an approval rating of 66 percent — the highest of any since World War II.
Read on …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I get the impression that his thumb is in a location other than his nose.
This is a really good article showing how Reid got the bill through the Senate. Key to understanding how difficult the process is, and how fragile the result:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-health-ticktock24-2009dec24,0,2438755.story?page=
1&track=rss
P.S. I want to thank BooMan for a year of really stellar pieces of sanity that were all too rare in this debate. Way to go, BooMan!
He’s senile. There is no other explanation.
He’s not senile … as Digby’s been pointing out .. “The Dean” has been writing the same garbage for 40 years now
You may think that I think too much of us here on the other side of wing-nuttery, but often I feel as if Broder, and people like him, write such nonsense as for no other reason then they get a kick out of reading our responses to their stupidity.
In other words, Broder and his ilk simply love the attention we give them and/or love getting a rise out of us and/or enjoy getting beat up in a literary way, i.e., journalistic masochism.
How else would you explain the fact that every media outlet that exists has been blaring the fact that Obama has been criticized roundly for many months by his supporters for patiently, yet fruitlessly, engaging in his silly bipartisanship dance with same Republicans who have voiced their party’s policy as one that seeks to destroy health care reform in any form, and proved that is the case up till the bitter end?
Either Broder is in a coma 99% of the time, or he is simply having his fun with us.
I do not believe he writes these things, truly meaning what he says, unless he is as dumb as many claim him to be. Hmmmmm, until I typed these last words that never occurred to me as a realistic alternative. . . .
now be nice Milty, it’s x-mas.
Okay then.
Merry Christmas Mr. Broder, next year we’ll send you for a check up, you can use your medicare card, and we can get an objective opinion.
All’s fair . . .
I don’t remember any such appeal to Bush and the GOP to reach out to Democrats – did I miss it or is Broder’s idea of bipartisanship Democrats caving to Republicans.
But it was not a call to offer answers. It was a call to fall in line and rubber-stamp Bush.
Oh yes, a threat to nuke the filibuster if they didn’t, followed by a wholesale collapse of Democrats in fawning adulation.
I’ll say one thing for the Republicans: They are crazy but they have balls. I’m reminded of the scene from “I,Claudius” in which Claudius and Livia are sitting outside the Senate while awaiting the Senate’s decision on a successor to (I think) Tiberius. “They won’t let me in because I’m a woman and they won’t let you in because you’re a fool. Which is strange because there are nothing but fools and old women in there!”
He doesn’t want to learn the reality of the GOP and hasn’t a clue about what the country cares about. He’s right about the Dems, though. One out of 3 ain’t bad when your thumb is up your nose — especially when it’s the nose that’s behind you.
Christmas or not, Broder is still bonkers. I think he is a completely bought soul, purchased by his masters in corporate America whom he serves with marvelous fidelity.
Umm.. Taxation without representation, anyone? The mandate has to go except for children and perhaps wards of the state. Why? Because representation IS actually a core American value under threat from the Senate bill. The cohorts I mention do not have the rights the rest of us do or would actually benefit from the state being required to take care of them. Why can’t people see the Senate bill is suicidal for this reason. Obama did in the campaign and I hope he finally steps in a swats the mandate down, as he did then. I personally think it was the issue that won him the campaign and got him the most support from Independents.
It is a reverse blame game by Broder. If Obama had kissed our Republican arse more Republican Senators would have be willing partners.
As I see it Republicans are there own worst enemies. I am just wondering why aren’t there any “blue Dog Republicans…or whatever. Willing to cross that party line???
David Broder? We’re supposed to actually finish reading anything he has to say?
And then read the analysis of it? Okey dokie then.
Glenn Greenwald, maybe. Other than that, it’s very difficult.
Sorry.