[FairfieldLife] Re: Bush speechwriter David Frum: This is GOP’s Waterloo

[authfriend]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine  wrote:
>
> On Mar 22, 2010, at 12:59 PM, do.rflex wrote:
> 
> My favorite part:
> 
> > No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed.
> > Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in
> > November, how many votes could we muster to re-open
> > the "doughnut hole" and charge seniors more for
> > prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow
> > insurers to rescind policies when they discover a
> > pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25
> > year olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And
> > even if the votes were there – would President Obama
> > sign such a repeal?
> 
> So he's saying, in effect, that the bill is a disaster
> because seniors *can't* be overcharged for their
> medicine, insurers can no longer rescind policies,
> and young adults can no longer be kicked off of 
> their parents' policies, which before left many
> uninsured.  That's what he considers a disaster.

No, that is *not* what he considers a disasater. Read
the whole article, dimwit.

Never mind, it wouldn't help.

> What a schmuck.

What an idiot.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Bush speechwriter David Frum: This is GOP’s Waterloo

[off_world_beings]

The blame can be squarley blamed on religion. The religious
fundamentalists destroyed the Republican party -- it goes way back to
Billy Graham's influence over them in the 1960's. A close friend of the
Bush's, and Reagan, and Nixon.

Christian fundamentalism on the one side, and outright greed on the
other, destroyed the Republican party.

OffWorld




--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
 , "do.rflex" 
wrote:
>
>
> Waterloo
>
> by David Frum  >
>
> Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most
crushing
> legislative defeat since the 1960s.
>
> It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives
> may cheer themselves that they'll compensate for today's
> expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:
>
> (1) It's a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about
> November – by then the economy will have improved and the
immediate
> goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.
>
> (2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill
is
> forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle
> now.
>
> So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes
the
> hard lesson:
>
> A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to
> conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
>
> At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike,
> say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut,
> we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no
> compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be
> Obama's Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton's in 1994.
>
> Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected
with
> 53% of the vote, not Clinton's 42%. The liberal block within the
> Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in
> 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and
> also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.
>
> This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
>
> Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap
> between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big.
The
> Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney's
> Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage
> Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican
> counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
>
> Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have
> leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative
> views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive
> enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business –
> without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.
>
> No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if
Republicans
> scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we
> muster to re-open the "doughnut hole" and charge seniors more
> for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind
> policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes
to
> banish 25 year olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even
> if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a
repeal?
>
> We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and
> they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
>
> There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But
> they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had
> whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making
> was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants
to
> murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody
whom
> your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their
> grandmother?
>
> I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our
> overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but
by
> mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information,
> overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to
represent
> and elected leaders to lead.
>
>
> The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different
> imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on
> confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he
wanted
> President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own
> interests.
>
>
> What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he
> also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they
> govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out
> of office – Rush's listeners get less angry. And if they are
> less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for
> Sleepnumber beds.
>
> So today's defeat for free-market ec

[FairfieldLife] Re: Bush speechwriter David Frum: This is GOP’s Waterloo

[ShempMcGurk]

Canadians reading this forum will know that David Frum's mother, the late 
Barbara Frum, was considered the Edward R. Murrow or, perhaps, the Walter 
Cronkite of Canadian Television News.  She was untouchable as a journalist and 
anchored the CBC Evening News for years.

Frum once interviewed Maharishi.  It was the ONLY interview I have EVER seen of 
him before or since that was done with such incredibly well-done research...and 
done with such intelligence.  If you read the transcript you would have thought 
that a TM teacher had prepared the questions.

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine  wrote:
>
> On Mar 22, 2010, at 12:59 PM, do.rflex wrote:
> 
> My favorite part:
> 
> > No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans 
> > scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster 
> > to re-open the "doughnut hole" and charge seniors more for prescription 
> > drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they 
> > discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds 
> > from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – 
> > would President Obama sign such a repeal?
> 
> So he's saying, in effect, that the bill is a disaster
> because seniors *can't* be overcharged for their
> medicine, insurers can no longer rescind policies,
> and young adults can no longer be kicked off of 
> their parents' policies, which before left many
> uninsured.  That's what he considers a disaster.
> What a schmuck.
> 
> > We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they 
> > led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
> 
> And let's hope the party of perversion goes
> the same way--quickly.
> 
> Sal
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Bush speechwriter David Frum: This is GOP’s Waterloo

[authfriend]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:

> No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if
> Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how
> many votes could we muster to re-open the "doughnut hole" and
> charge seniors more for prescription drugs? [etc.]

True, BUT: The Republicans will use the *threat* of repeal
to get votes in November, and they'll get at least some
because their base won't realize it can't be repealed, and
the Democrats are too chicken to call the Republicans liars,
just as they have been throughout this ordeal.

And if the Republicans *do* manage to take over the
majorities, the rest of Obama's agenda is down the tubes--
regulation and global warming and withdrawal from
Afghanistan and everything else we need to get done.

The Republicans are beyond the pale. But if the Democrats
had only had some spine, they could have discredited the
Republicans from the start. And if Obama hadn't been so
entranced by his vision of himself as the great bipartisan
hero, the bill we have now wouldn't be such a clunker. We
had the majorities; we could have gotten through a much
better bill by bulldozing the Republicans.