"It's not just DeMint. House Minority Leader John Boehner ......"

I read things like this and I wonder if we live on the same planet. This piece is written as if the critiques by DeMint, Boehner, and others is honest critique, of as if these guys believe what they are bitching about has merit.

No, this is just standard Republican. They are creating crap for Fox News to run on about and for the moron class to yell about at the next Town Hall meetings.

Although, I could be wrong. These guys might not be able to do more than one thing at a time personally, and don't understand that smarter people actually CAN - could be that!

Jim DeMint is worried because in his world chewing gum alone is a major cognitive event. Guys like Jimmy-boy just can't get their smallish brains around the fact that Obama's much brighter than they are. It must drive them nuts. Also with DeMint being from South Carolina, having to be forced to "look-up" to a black man for guidence must be devastating...

I'm lovin' every friggin' rich minute of it.

flinging poo to see what sticks.

Republicans know Presidents have to deal with various complex issues at the same time. They're just hoping/praying YOU DON'T know it, or if they keep braying about it, you'll forget it.

Maybe if the GOP just got out of the way, we could pass health care reform by the end of the week, and even this hypothetical problem that concerns them so greatly would go away.

I think it is unfair to criticize the Republicans for their concerns. After all we just suffered through 8 years of GWB a President who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. A President with an attention span greater than a grape and an interest in the job is something neither DeMint nor Boehner have experienced in a while.

"None of this makes any sense."

It never does. Now watch how fast this becomes a talking point on the networks.

DeMint is truly bizarre. Maybe in his world, a President who can't even think about one thing at a time is the norm. Not in ours, buddy boy.

Could their concern possibly be about war profiteers, possibly Haliburton, and their profits?

I'm beginning to feel that the body politic is suffering from some kind of verbal diarrhea.

After eight years in which the White House did not bother with "policy" discussions if they were not focused on winning elections, is it any surprise that a South Carolina ultra-conservative politician has no clue how Presidential policy-making actually works?

So, the new way to kill healthcare reform is to say it's not as big an issue as the economy or the war. I'm surprised they don't want something done about Mackenzie Phillips' childhood too.

If memory serves me, when Republicans were in office they did the opposite of what they accuse Obama of doing--focusing entirely on warmaking while domestic issues were neglected Stateside.

Come to think of it, they pretty much FUBARed warmaking, too. So they failed at everything. But we knew that.

DeMint may not realize this, but the president has a variety of policy advisors and experts

No, what DeMint knows is that the president has CZARS. If we can just get rid of all those CZARS, then the president will only be able to do one thing at a time, and it will be the thing DeMint and the Republican leadership demand that he do. (Probably clearing brush with a chainsaw.)

They somehow managed to do the Medicare prescription drug thing during the Bush years while fighting all these wars.

The GOP is so crude and club-footed in their transparent desire to defeat *any* health care reform, no matter how small. I hope it bites them politically.

Perhaps if the previous administration, with the help of Demint and the rest of the GOP, didn't screw things up so badly, Obama wouldn't have so much on his plate right now. Just saying.

Or here's a thought - maybe Demint, Boehner and company could become responsible partners in dealing with the issues that we are trying to tackle instead of trying to destroy Obama. That way the President wouldn't have to waste his time debunking "death panels" and "government takeover of healthcare" claims and could concentrate on more worthy issues.

Yes, captain dan @ 9;04, it has everything to do with greasing the military-industrial gravy train. As does tying the HCR initiative in knots. The perfect 'starve the beast' scenario. Bankrupt the country by funneling future income into the military gravy train while simultaneously giving you the excuse that we can't afford any reforms that might actually help PEOPLE. They spend scare resources on creating munitions to kill people we don't know ensuring we don't have the money to give quality health care and end up killing the people we do know. BASTARDS ALL!!!!!!!!!!!

These Repukes have no shame. For 8 years Afghanistan was almost TOTALLY ignored by these dip ships in favor of Bush's great and glorious "Mission Accomplished" war in Iraq. A place where we still have almost twice the number of troops that we do in Afghanistan. Yet It is all Obama's falt that we are having trouble there. They are so ignorant it would be funny if it were not so tragic.

They need to remember that there was an inauguration back in January and stop confusing Obama with Dubya.

I can't believe Republicans are holding up war funding by obstructing health care reform. They might not agree with the Democrats proposals, but in a time of war, we all must make sacrifices for the good of our nation and our troops. Call the GOP and tell them to stop distracting Obama from prosecuting the war!

USA! USA! USA!

Jim DeMint isn't very bright.

Yeah, that's the headline news of the day.

The administration doesn't seem to care what conservative lawmakers want.

Nor, frankly, should it. As the GOP was fond of saying back when they were in ascent, elections have consequences. The past two elections had very clear consequences: the GOP lost control of both houses of Congress + the Presidency, and did so rather dramatically. If elections are to have consequences- which, in a democratic republic, they certainly should- then the concerns of conservative lawmakers- who lost by a landslide, despite what DeMint, Boehner, + their ilk believe- then the President shouldn't care about what conservative lawmakers want.

Now, if the Dems could only realize this re: health care reform.

-Z

My God, a chief executive is supposed to deal with multiple issues. We elected Obama because he has the intelligence, energy, demeanor, etc. to administer not one, not two but a broad range of issues -- two wars, terrorism, economic recovery, energy policy, health reform, diplomacy . . .

Republicans got too accustomed to hearing "9/11" as an answer to every question for eight years.

I vaguely remember a vast amount of media oxygen spent on privatizing Social Security while we were waging the same two wars we are still waging.

Somehow the urgency of Social Security privatization then was higher than that of healthcare now.

What they lack in common sense they replace with message discipline.

"The administration doesn't seem to care what conservative lawmakers want."

This should be the governing rule for the rest of the term. Harry Reid should get this message too.

The Republicans are killing or boys by holding up healthcare and keeping Obama from working on Afghanistan. What kind of monsters are they?

You have to realize that one of the tests you have to pass to join the Republican Party is you have to demonstrate that you can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

I'll second the motion that the Republicans stop holding up health care reform so that everyone, not just Obama, can focus on Afghanistan.

There are two problems with their position. One is that if it is true that concern with health care reform is harming our troops, then from the obstacles that they are putting in the way of health care reform, it is obvious that they really don't care too much about the troops. Second, they seem to be projecting their own deficiencies on everyone else. They can only deal with one thing at a time so they don't understand that other people can focus on several things at once.

Jim DeMint isn't very bright.

Jim DeMint isn't a lot of things. Like: competent, qualified, knowledgable, honest or capable, in additon to not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. In other words, he's perfect GOP material.

i guess the gop simply can't grasp muti-tasking....for you younger readers, lbj once described gerald ford as "so dumb he couldn't fart and chew gum at the same time." time to dust that one off again...it certainly fits demint

The republicans view any distaction/obstruction as a success. If they think Obama has abandoned hcr, they'll say we need to be addressing it. If they think he has not addressed the issue in Afghanistan, they'll say we need to be addressing it.
When the H of Rs. was debating on whether to reprimand Addison Graves Wilson, every republican that stepped into the well suddenly wanted to work on hcr. I was hollering and cursing at my teevee because of their hypocrisy. They never intended to work on hcr. The talk was a part of their "delaying a vote tactic." With them, politics is a game of power and benefits to themselves. I also believe, but have no proof, that what Wislon said in the joint session was pre-planned. I also believe that the republicans had no idea that Wilson's outburst would culminate in passing a resolution to reprimand him for breaking Congressional rules for decorum.
When republicans complain about the pace Obama sets or about doing more than one thing at a time, I never get upset because I realize that the basis of these protestations is jealousy and laziness on their part. Obama is running rings around GWB, and the republicans are so lazy that they don't want to tackle difficult issues.