“Dems to Self-immolate via Reconciliation” Dan Perrin of Red State predicts:
The Dems cannot accept the defeat of ObamaCare and will try reconciliation because Majority Leader Reid is desperate for liberal support for his failing re-election effort; Speaker Pelosi is genuinely irrational about ObamaCare, and the President believes that the entire Dem Congress should politically self-destruct to save his bill.Mainline Dem strategists like Charlie Cook call it a “massive miscalculation.” Cook’s interview is a MUST WATCH here, at the National Journal.
Meanwhile, today the Hill is reporting that the GOP says the Dems do not have the votes on the Senate floor. This intelligence is accurate, but the Dem Senators will not embarrass Senator Reid by contradicting him publicly.
Add irrational to desperate and you get the Dems attempting to pass ObamaCare via reconciliation.
But the tough problems remain. Like abortion. The whole idea of forcing the country through months more of health care, to make the bill more liberal, and then send it back to the House floor where you would force Members in an election year to walk the plank again on abortion, ObamaCare, Medicare cuts, tax increases, the individual mandate, health benefits for illegal immigrants, while spending $2.5 trillion to do it is, quite simply, nutty.
So, let the Dems try to pass ObamaCare via reconciliation.
They will find themselves in another three or four month political valley of death. And they will still not pass the bill.
The country is not in danger of ObamaCare passing via reconciliation.
The country is, however, in danger from politically desperate and irrational leaders who are intent on the political equivalent of self-immolation.
Herein is the drama from no-drama-Obama.
Regarding to the latest cry from the state-run media about gridlock (and remember, it’s either Camelot or Gridlock, it seems), as Byron York recently noted, “Obama flip flops on his own record:”
In his speech at a Denver fundraiser yesterday, President Obama repeated what has become a key talking point for Democrats — that the Senate “doesn’t get anything done” and the reason for that is that some Republicans, who “don’t believe in government,” are happy to block the administration’s initiatives because blocking government initiatives is “consistent with their philosophy.” Here’s what the president said:
Look, something you got to understand — for those who don’t believe in government, those who don’t believe that we have obligations to each other, it’s a lot easier task. If you can gum up the works, if you make things broken, if the Senate doesn’t get anything done, well, that’s consistent with their philosophy. It’s a whole lot easier to say no to everything. It’s a whole lot easier to blame somebody else. That politics that feeds on peoples’ insecurities, especially during tough political times — that’s the easiest kind of politics. There’s a long, storied history of that kind of politics.
It’s a charge you’ll no doubt hear more in the coming campaign. But it’s a striking flip-flop from Obama’s earlier statements in which he praised Congress’ ability to get things done. As a matter of fact, at a DNC fundraiser in California last October, Obama said his administration and Congress had accomplished so much that, “If we stopped today, this legislative session would have been one of the most productive in a generation.” And if you go to the White House website, you’ll find the president touting the very things that the administration and Congress have gotten done — bills passed by the House and Senate and signed by the president. Obama often cites the stimulus bill, the equal pay act, the extension of children’s health insurance coverage, but there are more. On the White House list:
Click over for the very lengthy list; as York concludes:
The fact is, when you hear the president and Democrats in Congress complain about not being able to get anything done, or about Washington being broken, they’re talking about one thing: their inability to pass a national health care reform bill. Congress can do, and is doing, lots of things — just not sprawling, omnibus “comprehensive” bills that are unpopular with the American people. (The same can be said for cap-and-trade legislation, now dead in the Senate.) If you put aside enormous bills that would re-order the American economy in ways the public does not want, Congress can do things just fine.
Exactly. On the other hand, if as Red State’s Dan Perrin predicts, the coming weeks will be spent with an enormous amount of sturm und drang ending in a liberal gotterdammerung*, that does explain so much of the recent hysterics and race baiting from the legacy media. **
Or as Roger L. Simon asks, “So what’s the deal with this clinging to racism – or racial accusations – on the part of some liberals?”
Well, I think it reflects a significant and growing insecurity that they are no longer the cool guys. Via the Tea Party movement and other things, libertarianism – a rather attractive and even hip ideology – is taking over the right. People who love freedom are drifting rightward leaving the left with moribund unions and big government, neither of which seem to work. Liberals don’t have much of a belief system anymore and not enough reason to think highly of themselves, as they used to. Something’s wrong. Therefore, the other side has to be bad.”
Exactly.
(H/T: Maggie’s Farm.)
Related: from Naked Emperor News, “Hypocrite Harry Reid’s Filibuster Flip Flop.” It’s hot Harry Reid on Harry Reid action!
* Two staggeringly pretentious German phrases in a single sentence. Sorry.
** Not to mention the torches and pitchforks. But it’s nice to see that the extras who played the townspeople in Universal’s mid-1930s monster movies are still gainfully employed. Who says the Stimulus hasn’t provided saved or created any new jobs?
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