Comment Rescue: The Delusional Far Left
John Manifold points us to this article, John Conyers Loves Obamacare. Why Do Some of His Fellow Liberals Hate the President Who Made it Happen? Yeah, it’s a long title but the post is short enough that you can read it while going through your morning emails.
Ted Kennedy couldn’t do it; it was the greatest regret of his political career. Jimmy Carter couldn’t do it. Bill Clinton came into office with both Houses of Congress in his party’s hands yet almost ruined his presidency trying to do it. President Barack Hussein Obama did it.
Yet a persistent minority of putative progressives speak of holding their nose and voting for Obama against Rick Perry, or call the President a failure, a traitor to liberalism, an icy technocrat, a heartless plutocrat, more conservative than Barry Goldwater, I could go on but I won’t.
[snip]
If someone thinks universal health care would have passed easily if not for the President’s bumbling (or corruption by industry), then that person must think he is living in France 30 years ago rather than in the United States today. If someone thinks President Obama should have won every single political battle in which he has engaged, then that person is confusing the powers of a U.S. President with those of a king. And if someone thinks that somewhere out there is a politician who would never make a mistake as president, then that person is deluded about human nature.
Tags: Far Left
The fallacy of the blog post is the conceit that Obama did the thing that Carter or Clinton failed to do. He didn’t. Compare the plans.
What’s so hard about passing a Republican health care plan? Carter or Clinton could have done the same thing at any moment. But they didn’t, because they knew it was wrong; unthinkable even. I doubt it even occurred to them.
But President Barack Hussein Obama did it.
Yeah, he managed to squeak through a bill that will probably be declared unconstitutional in enough respects that the whole thing collapses — it can’t work without the individual mandate — and he got one passed which won’t even take effect until after the next election, and he got one passed which helped get the Democrats thrown out of power in the House of Representatives, several state legislative chambers, and lose most of their edge in the Senate.
Then, in January of 2013, the Congress will pass a bill repealing the whole thing, and President Rick Perry will sign it. 🙂
I used to think all democrats/liberals were, by nature, smarter and more rational than republicans/conservatives. Turns out both sides (he he) have irrational idiots with no memory and just react with emotion and however their favorite fire breathing radio host tells them to.
Why is the GOP getting a pass for trying to destroy the country? Ive said several times that i was wrong in thinking Obama’s pragmatic and grown-up approach was the way to go…. but i have never been surprised by what he has done. I, unlike a lot of democrats knew exactly what i was voting for. What i was voting for has not worked in an environment where a political party seeks only to gain back power. But to all you democrats who have failed to mention the GOP and only blame Obama for not being a progressive Bush, you are worse than the GOP. you enable the terrorists and allow them to continue their evil scheme.
This is the problem with progressivism. We are too disorganized and self righteous about our personal causes to see that there is a bigger battle than “should we protect women’s rights first, or gay rights. do we end socio-economic disparities or provide health care for all?
The right wing has a set agenda that the voters know will be enacted if they follow orders and fall in line. We destroy our agenda by throwing our whiny little hands up at the first sign our leaders impure. They we spitefully let the weasels take back power as a way of punishing ….. who exactly? You sit this election out, let Rick Perry win, and guess what Jack…. you’ll be hurt too. not just the DNC front office. There will be time for debating what is progressive enough after we defeat the REAL enemy.
“it can’t work without the individual mandate ”
Good, then they will have to go back and do it the right way.
When you say “it can’t work” you mean it can’t work for the insurance companies. We will then have to go back to the drawing board and create a plan that works for the American people.
The Dem pragmatists always said we would “fix it later,” well they might get that opportunity sooner than they think. Maybe it is more broken than they bargained for.
It will be interesting if the individual mandate is struck down while the rest of the plan remains in effect.
“Why is the GOP getting a pass for trying to destroy the country?”
You will have to ask Obama that. Or ask Coons Carney Carper. I haven’t had much luck figuring out their psychology and motivations for giving Republicans a pass. Some think it’s money, but I’m not so sure.
Their motivation for “giving them a pass’ is, everything the GOP did is protected by the constitution. The administration or senate leadership couldn’t legally stop them from lying or filibustering. are you suggesting that we live in a country where people have to sink to the level of these Tbags to be effective?
Puck sez “What’s so hard about passing a Republican health care plan?”
Yeah, you could really tell that from how all the Republicans voted for it.
You sir have no sense of history.
Their motivation for “giving them a pass’ is, everything the GOP did is protected by the constitution. The administration or senate leadership couldn’t legally stop them from lying or filibustering.
In the first half all the important stuff passed the House but failed by a handful of votes in the Senate, some of them Democratic votes. Obama and Biden have a combined 35 or so years experience in the Senate and didn’t lift a finger to push their own campaign agenda over the goal line. In fact Obama tipped them off that he didn’t expect them to vote for it because he would be offering up a more Republicanized bill next week (public option, tax cut extension).
In the second half, Obama had the upper hand on the debt limit until he folded willingly.
The economic and political outcome of these failures is haunting his re-election prospects and if he loses, that will be why. Not because some clear-thinking Democrats called him out on it.
what are you talking about puck. the GOP voted against the plan because it was put forth by a democratic president…. and a black man at that. Yes, it was a republican plan, but if you think there is one single republican alive who will let a democrat do anything good for poor, non white, non christian, female, people, you are dead wrong.
How come you didn’t call Obama “delusional far left” when he was running on those same things in 2008?
Delusional not too strong a description for this: “Obama and Biden … didn’t lift a finger to push their own campaign agenda over the goal line.”
Delusional? Obama was in AFGHANISTAN when his signature middle-class tax cuts were on the Senate floor. And that was happening while Biden was meeting with senators privately telling them not to feel any pressure, because the president would support a full extension the following week.
And then the tax cuts for the rich got by Reid, and then by Obama himself, like a slow ground ball going between the legs of the first baseman and the right fielder.
Try again, Belinsky.
Nader can likewise change the subject with agility.