Say that ObamaCare legislation was a little more costly than expected

You don't say Mr. President:

“I made the decision to go ahead and do it, and it proved … probably, actually, a little more costly than we expected,” Obama said, “partly because I couldn't get the kind of cooperation from Republicans that I had hoped for. We thought that if we shaped a bill that wasn’t that different from bills that had previously been introduced by Republicans, including the Republican governor of Massachusetts who’s now running for president, that you know we would be able to find some common ground there. And we just couldn’t.”

This statement, excerpted from Obama's interview on 60 Minutes last night, marks the beginning of the 2012 election season.  Obama ties the vastly unpopular health care law to Mitt Romney rather purposefully wouldn't you say?  Does anyone really believe that Obama purposely shaped the bill to gain Republican support?  Anyone who believes that already drinks the Kool-Aid or was asleep during the entire process.

While Obama makes some effort here to address the impact of health care legislation on the 2010 midterm elections, what we hear is really nothing new.  First he blames Republicans and then blames the messaging.  It seems fairly obvious though that Obama ignored the outrage in America in service of his agenda and legacy such as that will be.

The question remains, will he continue on this same path or recognize he presides over a center-right country?  It seems even many on the left have their doubts:

President Barack Obama has performed his act of contrition. Now comes the hard part, according to Democrats around the country: reckoning with the simple fact that he’s isolated himself from virtually every group that matters in American politics.

Congressional Democrats consider him distant and blame him for their historic defeat on Tuesday. Democratic state party leaders scoff at what they see as an inattentive and hapless political operation. Democratic lobbyists feel maligned by his holier-than-thou take on their profession. His own Cabinet — with only a few exceptions — has been marginalized.

The list goes on and on, of those Obama has managed to alienate in his 2 year stint in the White House.  Read the rest at the link.  Obama has quite a bit of work to do ahead of 2012 but let's not kid ourselves, Dems with their noses out of joint will not throw him to the wind come election time.  That is Obama's specialty and the one thing that comes naturally to him.   Maybe the Democratic establishment should have taken time to know him better before they put the fate of their party in his hands.

More on that at Memeorandum



Tweet

Remember November: "That's what elections are for"

H/T: Fuzislippers on Facebook

I mentioned this the other day, but it bears repeating, it was Obama himself who reminded us "what elections are for:"

"If we're unable to resolve differences over health care, we will need to move ahead on decisions," he said, alluding to using reconciliation, a controversial maneuver that prevents a GOP filibuster by requiring only 51 votes to pass legislation.

Obama added that if voters are unhappy with results, then "that's what elections are for."

Fuzislippers sums up my reaction to Obama's arrogance: "The role of government is not to do whatever the hell it pleases and THEN have voters weigh in during an election . . . after the damage is done. What the hell is that?"  What the hell indeed.  Months after the reckless Democrats had their day of wreckoning, voters will finally have their say.  Still the elitists, who told us they knew better than we did, can't wrap their head around the the tidal wave headed their way:

“It’s absurd. We’ve lost our minds,” Kerry said. “We’re in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in. It’s all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap-seat politics.”

  Speak for yourself there Senator Lurch, we haven't lost our minds, nor are we stuck in Iraq due to our "know-nothingness."  We're a bit less than "non-impressed" with your science and facts and cheap-seat politics.  So while Kerry, Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi strut and fret their hour upon the stage, we the voters are working to make it the final hour.   We know "what elections are for" and Tuesday is "The Final Act:"


Remember November: The Final Act from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.

Tweet

Obama looking like a one-termer says......

Mickey Kaus fears Obama's latest blame-fest might be a "sign after he gets clobbered he won't be able to adjust and turn the setback into a longterm victory the way Bill Clinton did."  That Barack Obama seems utterly incapable of tacking to the center has seemed fairly obvious for some time.  What did he do when Scott Brown won that coveted "Ted Kennedy" seat in Massachusetts after all?

Still, Kaus would prefer Obama making the decisions, especially health care decisions, than "85% of "the likely Republican candidates" so it shouldn't be surprising that Kaus is just awakening to this discovery.  Kaus did have a warning sign however, which he discounted until now:

A few weeks ago a right-wing reporter told me that worried Dem congresspersons who met with Obama left their meetings more worried than when they went in. I discounted the gossip, but now it's begining to ring true. We thought he was a great salesman. He turned out to be a lousy salesmen. We thought he was a great politician. Instead he makes elementary mistakes and doesn't learn from them. He didn't know "shovel-ready" from a hole in the ground, and then somehow thinks admitting this ignorance without apology will add to his appeal.

While Kaus was one of the few to report Obama's shovel-ready admission wasn't exactly news, he does seem to have missed the news that people are afraid Obama doesn't know much of anything from a hole in the ground.  But Kaus is correct, Obama's latest efforts to blame the voters is probably worse than his "bitter clingers" faux pas from the campaign:

It's one thing to say those poor people in Pennsylvania are hostile to gay rights, say, because all their "jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them"—and that they'll change when they get the jobs back.  It's another thing to say those poor people will change when they get their jobs back when you've had two years to get them their jobs back and have conspicuously failed. At that point, blaming "false consciousness" becomes a semi-delusional way of dancing around your own inability to remove the root of that false consciousness. A little humility is in order. If true humility is unavailable, false humility will do.

At least in the campaign Obama limited himself to criticizing Pennsylvanians only; here he expands it across the country in order to avoid facing his inabilities.  As Pundette points out: "He's working overtime not to get this: The trauma is Obama! And the massive rejection of his pernicious agenda is proof that plenty of responsible Americans are thinking clearly and acting rationally, at last."  While Kaus is correct that humility is in order, I disagree that false humility will do.   I think voters have had just about enough of the smoke and mirrors Obama.

Perhaps Obama will find his humility in the face of a sound electoral defeat in November.  If I were a betting woman though, I would bet against that.  What Mr. Kaus and Mr. Obama have missed seems a bit obvious here; it was the passage of health care that proved their agenda more important than the opinion and well-being of the American people.  It wasn't the lousy messaging or the lousy salesman-turned-armchair-psychologist that prevented us from loving health care.  Doesn't that conclusion fundamentally insult the voters too?  Were we really just a successful sales pitch away from being sold on the Shamwow health care law?  I doubt it.

Here is the harsh reality, we are quite possibly eleven years away from reaching pre-recession employment rates according to the Brookings Institute.  This is the rosy scenario mind you; it could indeed be quite a bit longer than that.  Who sincerely believes that imposing a massive health care law on businesses let alone each and every US citizen was going to spur that rosy scenario along?  Mr. Obama would need to bend himself prostrate and beg forgiveness before those unemployed in 2012 before anyone would really think they saw something close to humility and then, I would guess, most would conclude it was false.  Obama is indeed looking like a one-termer Mr. Kaus.  Unfortunately for America, there will have been many many people stripped of their jobs, homes and dignity long before anyone gets health care coverage in 2014.  Was it really worth it?

More on this at Memeorandum
Tweet