POTUS is standing pat with a script that cannot change from the SOTU, and he must pursue his healthcare neverland as if the ambition is a policy. Same arguments; same disdain; same arranged crowd of well-wishers behind him; same inattention to the polls and the demoralized Democrats. The best House whip count anyone can find this news cycle is fewer than 200. Financial Times political correspondent Anna Fifield tells me that the FT hears that Bart Stupak has 12 negative votes. I have not heard movement from the 37 Blue Dogs. Jason Altimire, a Democratic freshman of 4th Pennsylvania, was feted at the White House last week but is reported (by Salena Zito, Pittsburgh T-R) to be unmoved from his "No" vote. Spoke John Fund, WSJ, who continues to hear fewer than 200. The March 18 date is likely to slip; and Anna Fifield mentions Easter break as the drop-dead date. After that, the Tea Parties own the argument again. The best case for POTUS is to get the bill signed and change the subject. John Fund raises the scenario that the whip count will not move, and that when POTUS returns from Southeast Asia he will change the subject. What healthcare?
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Of course Obama 'stands pat' with the script. He is the anvil on which our political system is forged into a new beast. Suppose in the next election cycle we are faced with four parties instead of two. Would we be prepared to deal with that? We are not used to a parliamentarian system. We still worry about what would happen if a third party were introduced into the mix. What about four? Clearly, the Republican Party has fractured; clearly, the Democrat Party is fracturing.
Already words like 'ungovernable' are being heard. Today there was an editorial by Bret Stevens in the WSJ entitled: “Iraqis Embrace Democracy. Do We?” Why are we so willing to have the whole notion of representative governance undermined? Why would so many of us agree that legislative gridlock can be blamed on a leader who is either inept or prevented from executing his mandate by a fatally flawed system? It never occurs to many of us that the agenda itself could be flawed. It never occurs to us that the real agenda may not be health care, cap and trade, comprehensive immigration reform, gay rights, abortion or even jobs. The agenda may well be to paralyze our system of governance. Four or more political parties could do it, leaving only the executive branch as a viable way forward.
Of course Obama stands pat and pushes for the impossible to happen. When it doesn't, the system is declared broken; ergo a new system is called for; a system along the lines of totalitarian rule. Obama is not behaving like he's worried about the next election. Why? Could it be because he believes he will have broken the system by then? All the calamities that are certain to accrue will only strengthen his hand. He will not blame himself; he will not apologize; he will not commit seppuku. He will offer himself as the only viable alternative to broken, discredited governance. And the people, in the throes of calamitous upheavals will grasp at straws.
Rush may only be partly right when he says that the aim of putting a majority of Americans on the public dole is for the sole purpose of keeping Democrats in the majority in perpetuity. The real purpose of this sordid exercise may not be so much to keep Democrats in power, but to keep Obama in power (in perpetuity).
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Obama is delusional if he thinks he will be in power in perpetuity. Not even FDR managed to do it. There exists a couple things now that didn't 70 years ago: The new media and conservatives represented on radio and TV. People are better informed and informed much more quickly. Obama continuing to be the answer will ring hollow as most people are coming to the conclusion at the very least he's incompetent, at most a mountebank.
We did have 4 parties running for president once before for sure: 1860. Lincoln won with 39% of the vote.
Just like the global warming hoax, healthcare is an impending doom that must be resolved or we're all dead. We;;, we're still here and global warming is a hoax, and for the most part so is the healthcare problems. The problem isn't about people not getting healthcare, it's who pays for it. It's reported that it costs us 57 Billion to cover uninsured people now. So how is spending trillions for 10% of the population a good thing? It's cheaper now. It's all part of the economic populism "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" non-sense. A straw man that doesn't exist. If the government wanted to fix anything, they would get out of it and get out of the way and BTW, Rush also says that the healthcare grab is a way of getting more revenue in, so the government can continue to try to bribe us. The question is, do enough Americans want to be treated as farm animals as they do in Europe? I hope not.