It is really phony to criticize Obama as if he ran as a socialist or left email list member or someone opposed to the market or opposed to private corporations making profits , but that now he has switched. I don't know who these "outraged" left critics think they are fooling except themselves. Obama never promised y'all socialism, so stop talking like he did.
Charles From: Max Sawicky In re: Bro. Sirota, whom I like, his relentless self-promotion notwithstanding: > - Why do Republican presidents and politicians never bash "The Right," > but President Obama uses a joint session speech to bash "The Left?" BHO was symmetrical, triangulating if you like, but pretty gentle on the left. By contrast, the right he called outright liars. > - Obama felt the need to tell the country that he's devoted to making > sure the wildly unpopular private insurance industry at the heart of the > health care meltdown remains profitable. He also made sure to forget > that Americans love Medicare and hate private insurance when he went out > of his way to reiterate his support for "market" economics (shocker - > this was the line both parties stood up and gave a thundering round of > applause). Awesome. Market plus advocacy of a public option to foster competition, which is a notion of market foreign to the right. > - Completely unclear why Obama promised to "call out lies," and then > proceeded to embrace the Right's most dishonest narrative about tort > reform being a major vehicle to fix health care (not surprisingly, the > "don't negotiate with legislative terrorists" lesson was reinforced when > the GOP response called Obama's bluff and pushed to work with him on > tort reform). Did he say "major"? I don't remember that. Tort reform could come out good or not. Depends on the details. > - The wavering on the public option would be hilarious if it wasn't so > serious. Really - his insistence that he supports it but might also > support removing it reminded me of a Saturday Night Live skit parodying > wavering and waffling Democrats. Obviously he just had to listen to I spoke to this previously. > pundits insisting he must abandon the public option, when a huge > majority of Americans continue to support it, and he has a huge > legislative majority in Congress. He obviosuly just HAS to compromise on > it because...well...just because - and he certainly can't use > reconciliation like President Bush did because...well, again, just > because. And, of course, those of us who don't expect him to compromise > away an already compromised yet still wildly popular public option are > obviously on the radical fringe regardless of polling data. Obviously! Reconciliation is tough to use, all those arcane rules David apparently is unfamiliar with. > - Though he didn't draw a direct equivalence, he implied there was one > between the progressive push for single payer and the ultra-conservative > push to destroy the entire health care system. Sick. Opportunistic. See triangulating, above. > In sum, when you couple this with the speech's fawning praise for > lunatics like John McCain and Chuck Grassley and add to it the news that > the White House is holding closed-door compromise meetings with > corporate Democrats tomorrow, I felt like I was listening to a parsed > screed by President Rahm Emanuel, not a call to arms from the Barack > Obama who actually ran for president. There was lots of passionate talk > about the problem, and little courage to demand a serious solution. > I mean, I seem to remember an election just a few months ago that > resulted in a Democratic president, and huge Democratic majorities in > Congress - and I seem to remember there was a Barack Obama who only a > short while ago said geting those electoral results was the only > obstacle to a full-on single payer health care system, much less a > weakened public option. But again, I guess it's just too bad that after > that election, President Emanuel now rules America. As I told the frantic "netroots" way back, a Democratic year means a lot of characters in marginal districts who think like Republicans. It doesn't mean the Dems can do whatever their more leadership wants. Bottom line, once again, an insurance exchange with community rating and subsidies for low-income purchasers that provides a haven for the uninsured and uninsurable, plus more regulation of all plans to block lapses or denials of coverage, would be a step forward, even if all we had in it was private companies. ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
