i think it is breath-takingly clear...we all get to be buried in obama tee-shirts... i got mine from summer '08...

And she insisted she's going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt. (Laughter.)

Ha. Ha. Asshole.

The shirt should say, "I campaigned, donated, and voted for change, but all I got was a funeral and this lousy t-shirt."

Obama needs to tell the house what to do. The Senate is incapable of doing anything. The house simply can't decide to do anything.

If Obama tells them to pass the bill they will. If he leaves them wiggle room to do nothing and blame the Senate they have a good chance of doing that.

If he very publicly tells them what to do and they don't they all go down hard. They will realize this and they will pass the bill.

Will he do this however? Personally I doubt it. He, bizarrely, still seems to think he can get things done with "bipartisanship" and further seems to think that getting nothing done is better than getting things done without republican support.

But think about this: She was fighting that whole time not just to get me elected,...

I also loved this bit.

Yes. Can you believe that people were fighting not just to get him elected? But for actual policies and stuff that would make the country better? Can you wrap your mind around that concept? It wasn't ALL about him. Heavy.

"let's walk through them in a methodical way so that the American people can see and compare what makes the most sense"

A 2 hour primetime special "walk through" perhaps? I would suggest it be sort of like the Baltimore Q&A: have a few Dems and Repubs in the room, Obama walks through one part of the bill summary, gets one question from each party.

The important thing is not to create doubt about the process. If the President can't do that much it would be better to avoid saying anything at all.

Obama needs to tell the house what to do. The Senate is incapable of doing anything.

No, Jeff.

The Senate can pass the House Bill or it can pass a compromise bill. And it can do it with 51+ votes. All they have to do is accept that there will be a filibuster and wait it out.

How much do the Democrats want HCR? Are they willing to let the GOP make asses out of themselves for a week or two? If so, the Senate passes a bill. Its that simple.

Real filibusters do not last forever, no matter how much Sen. Reid wants you to believe that they do.

Hell, it sounds like Obama is fixing to run against his own congress.

I was formerly persuaded that "making them filibuster" was a non-starter. Still is in the eyes of Senators, but now I've decided it shouldn't be. As I understand it, it ties down about 50 Democratic Senators (to assure a quorum) to listen to a lone Republican talk. But Health Care is really, really important, so they should just suck it up, move into the Chamber every day, and stay there. And spend their time lambasting the use of the filibuster. Over, and over.

Maybe I don't understand the procedural niceties, but seems to me it's about time to put an end to this stuff. Might be better now to do it on the jobs bill or on the Shelby-blocked nominees (if the same procedure is applicable) and then on HCR. But do something.

But...but... I don't want transparency. I want Palin-type tax evasion, tanning bed wiring, etc.

Why should we care what's in the bill?

I trust that what's in it is more than the ink on paper, the words therein.

I am a real American. I charge people to eat lobster and hear the Palin goddess profess tax obfuscation virginity.

No.

Shelby.

Obfuscation.

What words hath the republicans wrought?

Let's read em and weep. God forbid we should actually do legislating rather than pontificating, obfuscating, etc.

Obama's not hiding in cabins in the woods.

I think it would have a chance if it were not all so logical and full of logical assumptions that rational, non compromised minds will be in control.

Hell, it sounds like Obama is fixing to run against his own congress.

With their own desire for inaction and inability to make decisions on their own, I'd consider it.

I think Obama told democrats to finish the bill and he'll take it from there for clarity. Recall the poll last week that changed minds when items in the bill were explained in English rather than code words. Obama doen't speak in code.

"And it may be that -- you know, if Congress decides -- if Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not. And that's how democracy works. There will be elections coming up and they'll be able to make a determination and register their concerns one way or the other during election time."

I believe this means "okay, if those fools in Congress want to go back to their states & districts to face a bunch of attack ads and explain a whole year wasted on posturing with nothing to show for it, then I guess the voters can decide if they're cool with that." IOW, bail on HCR and lose for sure, suckers.

Dave, I think you are totally right. Everyone knows by now, or they should know, that the President can boil a pile of wordiness down to sentences that even a simple person can understand (I was going to say a "teabagger" but that would have been mean). He is getting the word out now and I have faith people will get it.

Guys! I don't think you get it. Obama is looking for cover. He's not taking a leadership role because he knows healthcare is dead. He's laying it in the lap of Congress because he thinks that if it fails they will get the blame. I think more and more Dem members of Congress are realizing that. What other explanation is there for his constant "doublespeak" on this issue? The man is no fool. He's Harvard educated.

It is so frickin' unbelievable! Obama is destroying his remaining political capital so fast with all this mealy-mouthed bullshit, it will be impossible to recover. That's even doubly the case considering all the strength of conviction and optimism he expressed just weeks ago.
If the House continues to refuse to pass without more hand-holding the structure of reform the Senate handed to them (which is ready to be passed tomorrow, literally, with the amendment bill the House wants to hand over to the Senate for majority reconciliation vote), it will undo what was accomplished in 2006 and 2008. Even worse, it will forever brand the Democratic Party as the party of weakness, the party of cowards, the party that talks big about being for "the people" but refuses to deliver when they get some resistance from Republicans. Good luck on exploiting that image to convince Americans that Democrats will be tough on terrorists!

If they are going to have a prayer of saving themselves, the House needs to act now with no leadership from the White House, which it is obviously not going to get (despite the apparent best thanks-I-needed-that face-slap efforts of Senators Franken and Sanders towards Axelrod), and with no advance commitment from the Senate. I started with considerably less skepticism of Obama and his team than Krugman -- in fact, virtually none, since we gave much in money, time and effort to his campaign, including the primary -- and I have come so far so fast to the dark place where Krugman's at now it astounds me.

The first blow was naming an arrogant, divisive, principle-less and ultimately weak bully like Emanuel his chief of staff. The second was, despite Obama's public protestations to the contrary, deliberately scuttling the public option, including the compromise idea that received promising comment from a broad spectrum of Democrats and would have been politically difficult to oppose. There was the complete and ongoing failure to educate Americans on both sides of the debate as to what exactly is and is not in the bill.

And now this. It certainly sounds like a plitical consultant's idea of how to let the public down gradsually. Nobody who actually cares could give up this quickly and abjectly.
Posted by: urban legend on February 5, 2010 at 2:53 PM | PERMALINK

TLDR.

...the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not. And that's how democracy works. There will be elections coming up and they'll be able to make a determination and register their concerns one way or the other during election time."

What does this @#$%^^%$##@!! MORON think the American people are going to do if this happens? Elect more Democrats to get things right?? What the hell fantasyland does this idiot live in????

For Christ's frakking sake, this dolt got elected President - that means leader - so why in hell doesn't he damn well LEAD????

Franken was right to rip that braindead Axelrod a new one today - too bad he didn't kick him in his balls (assuming there's anyone in this "administration" who has any).

Every time I think the guy I raised $350,000 for in the campaign is still there (like the rumble in Baltimore), he comes along with this bullshit and I end up regretting every penny, and feeling like a fool for believing his baloney.

If HCR dies, and, after the dust settles, it really is clear that it could have passed, but it was actually the President who was running for the hills, and therefore didn't provide the pressure to get it over the goal line, then I see no reason not to encourage and support a primary challenge to Obama. I really admire this presdient, and I never thought I'd be thinking this way, but if in the end the White House causes the bill to fail by choice -- because of political calculus, I don't see the point in having them in the White House. Future Democratic administrations have to be made aware that their constituents aren't fools to be taken for granted. And they also have to be made aware we won't tolerate the mad folly -- it's really a form of politcal malpractice -- of striving for bipartisanship with an opposition that's interested only in taking back power.

Not sure whom I'd support to challenge Obama, or if anybody will rise to the occasion. I'd be tempted, though, to get on the Dean bandwagon (because he's an actual, you know, liberal) or the Hillary bandwagon (because she, you know, is clear-eyed about the use of power.

TCinLA, do you really expect us to believe you raised $350,000 for a man you call a moron, idiot, and dolt? You're either lying or have a very unsophisticated grasp of how government works. Health care reform is the single most difficult job there is, and has been for decades. Here we are, one year in, and because Obama hasn't singlehandedly created a paradise on earth for you yet, you go berserk. Dude, you need a shrink.

Guess I'm giving away my age when I write that I learned in HS that Congress is supposed to write the legislation and the Executive branch see that it is enforced. It seems to me that President Obama was simply stating the obvious: the members of the House and Senate are going to have to face the voters in November and they're going to have to explain why they wasted so much time on HCIR if it wasn't worth passing. Not to mention the field day failure will give the Republicans...
Slightly off-topic:
I continually see references to FDR and LBJ and how they managed to get things done. A check of the historical record would show that a lot of myth has grown up over the years about both presidents.
True, FDR had his "100 Days". He also had a country that, literally, had come to an economic halt. Over half the states had passed emergency laws that closed the banks. Unemployment was officially over 25% and, counting "underemployed" workers, probably closer to 50%. Farm prices were so low farmers were dumping milk, using corn as fuel and enforcing crop embargos and halting foreclosures by threats of force. Child malnutrition was endemic and coroners were routinely listing "starvation" as a cause of death. That is just part of the background that made the passage of so much of the "First New Deal" possible. However, for a more realistic assessment of FDR's political skills managing in a Congress no longer frightened out of its wits, you should read about his 1937-41 term.
LBJ inherited a nation traumatized by the assassination of a charismatic President, but even then it wasn't until the year after his landslide victory of 1964 that the Civil Rights Act was passed. And two things need to be remembered: the bill received the support of quite a few Republicans in the Senate and it destroyed the Democratic Party in the South. LBJ's vaunted "arm-twisting" came at a very high price for his political party.
We need to constantly remember that NO legislation proposed by President Obama can count on ANY Republican support in either chamber. The current filibuster rules in the Senate make passage of anything non-budget-related problematical. Nor can the President change the Senate rules. And as long as Sen. Reid frets more about harming the "collegiality" of the Senate than actually passing legislation, nothing will change.