Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Always searching for common ground:Obama: “We thought that if we shaped a [health care] bill that wasn’t that different from bills that had previously been introduced by Republicans, including a Republican Governor in Massachusetts who’s now running for President, that we would be able to find some common ground there." Looks as if he'll be trying to find common ground with Republicans on Social Security.
posted by Quiddity at 11/09/2010 10:01:00 PM
18 comments
“We thought that if we shaped a bill that wasn’t that different from bills that had previously been introduced by Republicans, including a Republican Governor in Massachusetts who’s now running for President, that we would be able to find some common ground there,” said Obama. “And we just couldn’t.”
So we just shrugged our shoulders and rammed it up your collective asses, you unappreciative hicks.
He's such a uniter.
re healthcare, obama took the path of least resistance.
you're right. this doesn't bode well.
i said it at the time when everybody was waiting to see if the public option would survive through the winter when obama had throw it under the bus the spring before.
the public option was the canary in the coal mine.
6:36, the healthcare bill included over 200 republican amendments. republicans contributed to obamacare.
jesus, are you spoonfed everything via fox?
Who spoonfed you that talking point, omen?
Yes, the Republicans offered hundreds of amendments to try to mitigate the damage of the legislation, which is absolutely their job. Are you suggesting that because the Republicans didn't want the Democrats bill, that they were somehow morally obligated to stand by and completely refuse to participate in any way whatsoever? That's nonsense. The only way for the Republicans to fight the bill was to offer amendments and then lobby the Democrats to include those amendments. Those offered amendments ranged from technical definitions all the way up to complete replacements for the text of the bill.
In the end, the Democrats chose which amendments to include, and cynically cherry-picked some of the less consequential opposition ones in no small part so they could make that exact claim -- that "Republicans contributed to Obamacare." This is nonsense. The final text of the bill was completely controlled by the Democratic leadership. They chose what amendments to allow into the final bill, which resulted in the text of the bill, a bill so completely unacceptable to the Republicans that every single Republican member of congress voted against the bill.
Republicans contributed to Obamacare. What ridiculous spin. No they didn't. They fought it with everything they had.
I can't help but notice that the effectiveness of this particular talking point is completely dependent on the recipient having a lack of understanding of how the legislative process works. No surprise that it appears to find such resonance with liberals.
Omen, I think you can take that for a 'yes'.
The final text of the bill was completely controlled by the Democratic leadership. They chose what amendments to allow into the final bill,
and republicans acted differently when they held the senate?
which resulted in the text of the bill, a bill so completely unacceptable to the Republicans that every single Republican member of congress voted against the bill.
republicans have been the party of no since day one. not just on this bill.
you copped to admitting the bill including republican amendments only after i pointed it out.
admitting republican amendments were included hardly fits your earlier characterization of the bill as being rammed down your throat. with the inference being there was zero republican participation.
7:19 Republicans contributed to Obamacare. What ridiculous spin. No they didn't. They fought it with everything they had.
what a crock.
weeks before congress let out for the midterms, senator
demint held up and froze all business in congress.
Sen. Jim DeMint warned his colleagues Monday night that he would place a hold on all legislation that has not been “hot-lined” by the chamber or has not been cleared by his office before the close of business Tuesday. Although the South Carolina Republican has objected for years to the hot-lining of legislation until his staff at the Republican Steering Committee has reviewed it, DeMint’s threat to essentially shut down legislation in the chamber is remarkable. [...]
[I]n a terse e-mail sent to all 100 Senate chiefs of staff Monday evening, Steering Committee Chief of Staff Bret Bernhardt warned that DeMint would place a hold on any legislation that had not been hot-lined or been cleared by his office before the close of business Tuesday. [...]
Democratic and Republican aides alike were stunned, arguing that DeMint had essentially made a unilateral decision to end legislative activity in the Senate.
why didn't demint do this to block healthcare?
For that matter why didn't Senator DeMint bring a "street sweeper" semiautomatic shotgun to the Senate and simply start blasting away at Democratic Senators. In just a few minutes, he could have slaughtered enough Democrats to prevent a successful Senate vote on the health care bill. Senator DeMint's failure to massacre the Democratic majority with a multi-cartridge shotgun meant that the Republicans not only contributed to Obamacare, but forced the legislation through against the united opposition of the Senate Democrats! Bastards!
typical. when out of ammo to defend your position, baggers make shit up.
and republicans acted differently when they held the senate?
(facepalm) That's how the Senate works. Bills are introduced and amendments are offered. The majority party compiles an amended bill and brings it to the floor when they are confident that they have or will have the votes. The bill is bipartisan to the extent that members of both parties support the final bill, not because the bill is an amalgam of amendments offered by both parties.
admitting republican amendments were included hardly fits your earlier characterization of the bill as being rammed down your throat. with the inference being there was zero republican participation.
The ramming was what took place when the bill was brought to the floor. The bill was opposed by every single Republican in both houses, and when the Democrats voted to pass it over the unanimous objection of the Republican legislators, which, I will remind you, represent around half of the population of the United States, that was the ramming. I never said anything about throats BTW.
As far as DeMint's tactic, apparently the tactic had never been used before. I suppose that DeMint could have used it to unilaterally shut down the health care bill. It's one thing to use that sort of tactic weeks before the midterm elections. It would have been quite another thing to unilaterally shut down the Senate for over a year, although in retrospect the country would have been better off if he had done so. I doubt it occurred to him at the time. Had he done that, Democrats would have been screaming bloody murder for over a year now, and people would have been actively furious at the Republicans for obstructing. Maybe that's a reason why he didn't do it.
Another possible solution to the problem might have been to write a health care bill that was moderate enough to attract a dozen or so Republican votes, thus creating an authentically bipartisan bill. But that would require maturity and willingness to compromise, neither of which are found even in trace quantities in this particular Democratic party majority. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The Democrats could have had a bipartisan bill, but chose not to. For spinsters to say that "Republicans contributed to Obamacare" is completely dishonest. It's an attempt to confuse people with semantics. I don't buy it and I suspect that you don't really believe it either.
I find it curiously bemusing that you are so convinced that I "get things" from certain sources, which you openly imply are sources like Fox news, Beck, Hannity, etc. For the record, I don't have cable and actually hardly watch any television at all. The only regular television I watch are the Chicago Bears games. The only cable conservative I have ever watched was a 20 minute Glenn Beck clip, which I will admit was entertaining. In my life I have listened to under an hour of conservative talk radio; A few minutes of Rush and about a half hour of Michael Savage, for novelty sake. (I couldn't believe he was for real.) I'm forced to listen to NPR at work and find it tiring and slanted. My opinion sources are mostly conservative blogs, although I do read a few liberal blogs, this one included. My news sources are mainly blog-linked mainstream media articles, although I scan the headlines of a Chicago Tribune perhaps twice a week (to see what stories the print media is covering.) Believe it or not, I'm not getting my opinions from the Rush/Beck crowd, although, according to you, I'm tracking them closely. They are probably reading the same blogs and news links as I am, so it seems to me that their opinions must be a reflection of what is going on in conservative blogland, not some sort of fountainhead of conservative ideas as you believe.
For what it's worth, liberals who read Kos, Thinkprogress and the like appear just as in lockstep to conservatives as conservatives do to liberals.
The bill is bipartisan to the extent that members of both parties support the final bill, not because the bill is an amalgam of amendments offered by both parties.
you are blaming democrats for lack of bipartisanship when it's been republicans who've been obstructionist. not just once, but repeatedly.
democrats weren't this obstructionist when bush was in power and when republicans held the senate.
it is not democrats fault that republicans insist on voting against their own amendments, despite working working together with democrats in conference in order to shape the bill! you can't say they didn't because i watched them do so.
Democrats voted to pass it over the unanimous objection of the Republican legislators, which, I will remind you, represent around half of the population of the United States, that was the ramming.
you didn't have a problem when bush rammed through his agenda that wasn't supported by the plurality of the country. even resorting to using reconciliation when republican initiatives lacked 60 votes.
I find it curiously bemusing that you are so convinced that I "get things" from certain sources, which you openly imply are sources like Fox news, Beck, Hannity, etc. For the record, I don't have cable and actually hardly watch any television at all.
maybe if you had the fortitude to use a nickname, i wouldn't confuse you for an anti intellectual, dittohead teabagger.
For what it's worth, liberals who read Kos, Thinkprogress and the like appear just as in lockstep to conservatives as conservatives do to liberals.
just take for example the latest righwing drive to demonize allegedly overpaid government workers. a lot of this stems from "studies" pushed by heritage and cato. think tanks which are funded by billionaire koch brothers. the wealthy, in order to protect their own self interest, invest in the conservative messaging infrastructure that exists to push slanted data. studies that msm willingly picks up. there is no liberal media. if there was, democrats would hold power perpetually. republicans have held the presidency more often that democrats have. republicans have been able to make bigger gains in congress after clinton deregulated media and passed the telecommunication act. in the end, corporate media serves to defend corporate interests.
think progress works to expose and correct rightwing/corporate misinformation.
Another possible solution to the problem might have been to write a health care bill that was moderate enough to attract a dozen or so Republican votes, thus creating an authentically bipartisan bill.
obamacare is equivalent to romneycare. the healthcare proposals that nixon proposed is said to have been more liberal than what we have now. there have also been comparisons to the bob dole's proposal. obamacare is to the right of hillarycare.
the entire rightwing base came down upon the heads of republican senators threatening them not to vote for the bill. you then turn around and act like a babe in woods, shocked, shocked, shocked that no republicans vote for the thing. give me a fucking break.
Democrats voted to pass it over the unanimous objection of the Republican legislators, which, I will remind you, represent around half of the population of the United States, that was the ramming.
republican senators represent sparsely populated red states.
i would bet that southern california holds more people than
than combined population of idaho, wyoming and both dakotas.
blue states are underrepresented in the senate.
Democrats voted to pass it over the unanimous objection of the Republican legislators, which, I will remind you, represent around half of the population of the United States, that was the ramming.
republican senators represent sparsely populated red states.
i would bet that southern california holds more people than
the combined population of idaho, wyoming and both dakotas.
blue states are underrepresented in the senate.
maybe if you had the fortitude to use a nickname, i wouldn't confuse you for an anti intellectual, dittohead teabagger.
Shouldn't make a difference. However, I do sometimes post under the nickname jms, other times as anonymous, out of sheer laziness. I'll try and use the nick if it's important.
so jms, you concede the healthcare bill was a moderate product and that republicans were forced into an obstructionist posture, partly out pressure from their own base but mostly out of strategic design meant to undermine obama in an attempt to deny him any accomplishments. a level of obstructionism taken to a point that republicans were willing to undermine the economy in order to force obama to carry the blame.
that's very gracious of you.
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