By re-electing Nancy Pelosi as minority leader, liberals more than anyone have shown they really don't know how to win at anything. And after reading comments by those who opposed her but voted for Pelosi anyway, its clear Democrats still don't get the message of the election.
Pelosi and Obama are the two biggest reasons Democrats took the clobbering they did because neither Pelosi and certainly not Obama, delivered on the promises made and the expectations people had based on the snake oil Obama sold them during nominating process. Instead they blew the biggest congressional majority either party had in 50 years.
Forget the nonsense that the agenda was too liberal and that taking on healthcare was a mistake. The mistake was that Obama was and is an inept unqualified president with no political skills combined with no convictions or inner strength to get anything done.And both Pelosi and Reid has let him get away with it. Healthcare reform with the public option should have been rammed through the senate the day after the CBO said the public option would cut the deficit by $ 160 billion. But Obama, who has no real convictions about anything, floundered for a year, groveled to Republicans, brought the entired process to a slog trying to get one Republican voted, and botched the entire process letting a party that was distinctly in the minority run the show. And when the going got tough, Mr. Going to Change How Washington Works got going by cutting a sleazy back room deal with healthcare industry lobbyists ( as reported by the NY Times and admitted by Tom Daschle) to drop the public option throwing 300 million Americans under the bus because he couldn't stand the Hitler signs. Obama couldn't stand the heat, but stayed in the kitchen and cooked up a royal inedible mess than gave Democrats heartburn. He was the cook but it was Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who served it. Even the Democrats who voted for this mess of a healthcare bill could only call it better than nothing. But it wasnt. Howard Dean was right. If that was the best Obama could manage the congress should have dumped it and started over.
But to show how easly duped and led around by the nose many are, including those in the media still deluded about Obama, an article in Think Progress by Lee Fang said the following:
"This morning, Bloomberg reporter Drew Armstrong broke an incredible story revealing that health insurance companies, like UnitedHealth and CIGNA, funneled $86.2 million into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2009 to pay for the Chamber's multifaceted campaign to kill President Obama's health reform legislation"
President Obama didn't have any healthcare legislation based on any convictions. He only took it on because it had been on the Democrats wish list for 60 years. Secondly president Obama gutted health care reform and as Matt Taibi pointed out in Rolling Stone, pulled a bait and switch hoping no one would notice, ditching healthcare reform mid way through the debate for what Obama started calling "health INSURANCE reform". If Fang or Think Progress did any real thinking they'd realize that the health insurance industry wasted their money trying to gut healthcare reform because Obama did it for them.
If you think the bungling of healthcare wasn't noticed by liberals moderates and independents then you don't remember Lincoln's admonition that you cant fool all of the people all of the time. These Democrats, moderates and independents are the people responsible for clobbering Democrats in the last election by staying home, not the people who never would have voted for them in the first place.
And Pelosi and Reid are partly responsible because they never stood up to Obama when he sank healthcare reform and turned into the garbage legislation that both conservatives and liberals detest but for entirely different reasons. Yes Pelosi publicly said " we dont have a public option in the reconciliation bill because the president didnt fight for it or stand up for it". That is only partially true. We also dont have a public option because Pelosi and Reid let Obama get away with the double dealing when they could have defied him and taken matters into their own hands. What would have Obama done with the public option passing? Veto it?
The plain fact is that by not delivering on promises and playing Obama's game of compromise and capitulation, and with Obama showing no leadership skills, Pelosi, Reid and Obama turned the biggest congressional majority since Lyndon Johnson was president into the worst defeat suffered by either party in 80 years. And it took them only two years to do it. The fact that it wasn't at the hands of the people who never voted for them in the first place has totally escaped Democratic politicos. And congressional Democrats are still slow to understand that.
It was rank and file liberals who were the most angry over Obamas first two years, liberals whose ideas on healthcare reform demanded the public option and it was liberals who lost the most because of Obama, Reid and Pelosi. So it was liberals and moderates, the people Gibbs called "the professional left", and fed up with Obama who stayed home and dealt the Democrats the clobbering they saw on election day, yet it was liberals in the House who re-elected Pelosi. As Casey Stengel once said about the 1962 Mets, cant anybody here play this game?
Obama capitulated to Republicans and Pelosi and Reid capitulated to Obama and while Pelosi will no doubt loudly oppose it, if there isn't a credible challenge to Obama in the 2012 primaries by a Democrat who knows what they are doing, someone who actually stands for something and knows how to get it done, and Obama runs for re-election, they will lose the White House too.
A sports psychologist once described it best : losing is a disease. And too many Democrats are infected with it, afraid to lose, and so they do.
Pelosi and Obama are the two biggest reasons Democrats took the clobbering they did because neither Pelosi and certainly not Obama, delivered on the promises made and the expectations people had based on the snake oil Obama sold them during nominating process. Instead they blew the biggest congressional majority either party had in 50 years.
Forget the nonsense that the agenda was too liberal and that taking on healthcare was a mistake. The mistake was that Obama was and is an inept unqualified president with no political skills combined with no convictions or inner strength to get anything done.And both Pelosi and Reid has let him get away with it. Healthcare reform with the public option should have been rammed through the senate the day after the CBO said the public option would cut the deficit by $ 160 billion. But Obama, who has no real convictions about anything, floundered for a year, groveled to Republicans, brought the entired process to a slog trying to get one Republican voted, and botched the entire process letting a party that was distinctly in the minority run the show. And when the going got tough, Mr. Going to Change How Washington Works got going by cutting a sleazy back room deal with healthcare industry lobbyists ( as reported by the NY Times and admitted by Tom Daschle) to drop the public option throwing 300 million Americans under the bus because he couldn't stand the Hitler signs. Obama couldn't stand the heat, but stayed in the kitchen and cooked up a royal inedible mess than gave Democrats heartburn. He was the cook but it was Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who served it. Even the Democrats who voted for this mess of a healthcare bill could only call it better than nothing. But it wasnt. Howard Dean was right. If that was the best Obama could manage the congress should have dumped it and started over.
But to show how easly duped and led around by the nose many are, including those in the media still deluded about Obama, an article in Think Progress by Lee Fang said the following:
"This morning, Bloomberg reporter Drew Armstrong broke an incredible story revealing that health insurance companies, like UnitedHealth and CIGNA, funneled $86.2 million into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2009 to pay for the Chamber's multifaceted campaign to kill President Obama's health reform legislation"
President Obama didn't have any healthcare legislation based on any convictions. He only took it on because it had been on the Democrats wish list for 60 years. Secondly president Obama gutted health care reform and as Matt Taibi pointed out in Rolling Stone, pulled a bait and switch hoping no one would notice, ditching healthcare reform mid way through the debate for what Obama started calling "health INSURANCE reform". If Fang or Think Progress did any real thinking they'd realize that the health insurance industry wasted their money trying to gut healthcare reform because Obama did it for them.
If you think the bungling of healthcare wasn't noticed by liberals moderates and independents then you don't remember Lincoln's admonition that you cant fool all of the people all of the time. These Democrats, moderates and independents are the people responsible for clobbering Democrats in the last election by staying home, not the people who never would have voted for them in the first place.
And Pelosi and Reid are partly responsible because they never stood up to Obama when he sank healthcare reform and turned into the garbage legislation that both conservatives and liberals detest but for entirely different reasons. Yes Pelosi publicly said " we dont have a public option in the reconciliation bill because the president didnt fight for it or stand up for it". That is only partially true. We also dont have a public option because Pelosi and Reid let Obama get away with the double dealing when they could have defied him and taken matters into their own hands. What would have Obama done with the public option passing? Veto it?
The plain fact is that by not delivering on promises and playing Obama's game of compromise and capitulation, and with Obama showing no leadership skills, Pelosi, Reid and Obama turned the biggest congressional majority since Lyndon Johnson was president into the worst defeat suffered by either party in 80 years. And it took them only two years to do it. The fact that it wasn't at the hands of the people who never voted for them in the first place has totally escaped Democratic politicos. And congressional Democrats are still slow to understand that.
It was rank and file liberals who were the most angry over Obamas first two years, liberals whose ideas on healthcare reform demanded the public option and it was liberals who lost the most because of Obama, Reid and Pelosi. So it was liberals and moderates, the people Gibbs called "the professional left", and fed up with Obama who stayed home and dealt the Democrats the clobbering they saw on election day, yet it was liberals in the House who re-elected Pelosi. As Casey Stengel once said about the 1962 Mets, cant anybody here play this game?
Obama capitulated to Republicans and Pelosi and Reid capitulated to Obama and while Pelosi will no doubt loudly oppose it, if there isn't a credible challenge to Obama in the 2012 primaries by a Democrat who knows what they are doing, someone who actually stands for something and knows how to get it done, and Obama runs for re-election, they will lose the White House too.
A sports psychologist once described it best : losing is a disease. And too many Democrats are infected with it, afraid to lose, and so they do.
Why blame Pelosi? Why drag down women who are not the president and who if they oppose The Anointed One are trashed by the entire left for not knowing their place. That Pelosi could get anything passed with that BO ball and chain is miraculous. He handed her a plate of shit and she did her job with a lot of skill. The Dem's elected her because she gets things done and because they are willing to use a women to blame for their president's incompetence.It is not the people - it is the president's allegiance to the money that put him in office and his willingness to abandon his campaign promises. It was his lies about health care that caused the working class anger that will not be appeased.
ReplyDelete"Why blame Pelosi? Why drag down women who are not the president and who if they oppose The Anointed One are trashed by the entire left for not knowing their place."
ReplyDeleteBecause she ran the House. Everything that happens in the House is decided by Pelosi. And there were more than enough liberals in the House opposing Obama's handling of healthcare to have done what Howard Dean suggested -- junk Obama's bill and pass a public option. what would Obama do? Veto it? She came out publicly and said the public option was "the centerpiece" of healthcare reform but when push came to shove she capitulated to Obama, led the entire House down that path and they got clobbered because of it. It wasnt because she stood up for something. It was because she didnt. And as Speaker of the House it was her responsibility and she shirked it. She could opposed his lies on healthcare because thats exactly what they were -- lies. But she didnt stand up against it and didnt insist on passing a public option even though she knew it was the right thing to do. All Pelosi did get passed were the bills made tepid and toothless by Obama. She went along with him even though she knew it was wrong and for that she deserves blame.
I understand your anger but I could not disagree more. Hillary DARED to run against him and she was crucified and called a racist. If Nancy dared do what you suggest they would have burned her alive. Then the student loan thing would have failed along with everything else. No democrat would have followed her. You highly over rate those boys. Look now - what are their priorities now?
ReplyDeleteGo over to Uppity Woman. See her post on health care. Things are so bad only changing the balance of power can help us now. We are living in an oligarchy.
and Hillary is going along also. She gutted all Condi Rice's programs for Muslim women in the state dept and replaced them with speeches which she sends around to us in PR releases.There is no hope - the system is more powerful than any person and it has been sold to the high bidder. The repubs have targeted Pelosi. Don't help them.
ReplyDeleteGreenconsciousness: You seem to have all the buzz words down pat but no real understanding of what they mean or how anything works. Marc is absolutely correct, Pelosi did not do her job - fact. Pelosi was so intent on hitching her wagon to a rising, "god-sent" star, she forgot what her job was, was complicit in Clinton's defeat and broke most of her campaign promises too. It's demeaning to all women when one very powerful woman is negligent and cannot be criticized. Whilst it's a little amusing that you are lecturing Marc Rubin, of all people, on health care and advising him to go to another blog to read about it - don't, just don't. Plus this love affair with Dr Rice you have going all over the Internet has got to end - seriously.
ReplyDeleteSophie
Uppity has an interesting list of just who got HC waivers --I thought Marc would find it interesting. The Sophies of the left always know so much more than anyone else - lecture? I wouldn't dare. I presume you mean feminist buzz words which are what they are to you. I wish i did have left criticism buzz words down pat- then I would not have to take Sophie's kind of condescending shit. I could find acceptance in her herd. But i am interested in reality, the world where the working class has to survive. I tried to accomplish things and felt the incredible difficulty of it all. I admire women who can actually produce instead of just complain even if i do not agree with them. I do not agree with either Hillary or Pelosi at this time but I very much admire Condi Rice. And I am not going to get over it because smart ass do nothing women have a lot to learn from Rice about what real relief programs are and what feminist looks like in the real world..
ReplyDeleteWatch out the cult brigade is out in force especially the paid bloggers....Pelosi was a joke but she raised lots of money for Dems so she gets to stay while others lost their jobs. Obama was a joke too. As Carville so aptly said Obama has no balls !!! Obama is good at buying favors, maybe the only good thing he knows how to do.
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget that Nancy Pelosi took the issue of George Bush's impeachment "off the table."
ReplyDeleteOff the table is a euphemism for ignoring the law, and ignoring that we were lied into war.
Now Ms Pelosi remains leader of the House Democrats.
It's clearly time for anti-war folks to abandon the two major parties.
I blame Pelosi for derailing Hillary Clinton's 2008 democratic nomination, and more disgusting still, Pelosi has a man crush on Obama.
ReplyDeleteShe literally starts batting her eyes when she dreamily recounts how Barack Obama reminds her of John F Kennedy.
Tell that to the millions of folks unfairly losing their homes to unethical foreclosure practices.
The House under Nancy Pelosi was ready to institute a public option in the health care bill, which was quashed by Harry Reid and Barack Obama. That alone would have completely changed the electoral variables and would have made Republicans an unacceptable risk for the majority of voters. She has pushed through hundreds of bills, many of them major pieces of legislation only to have them killed in the Senate with luke warm to no support from Barack Obama.
ReplyDeleteThe House Democrats aren't stupid, they would have replaced Nancy Pelosi if they didn't recognize the quality of her leadership, of doing her job, which is passing bills in the House. She's got far less than great allies in the Senate and the White House and she's done a pretty remarkable job even as it became obvious that Barack Obama is an impressive facade covering a center-right cave-in artist. He had a lot of people fooled for a long time, some of them pretty smart people.
You're blaming the wrong congressional leader, it's Harry Reid who shares the responsibility for what happened in this election with Barack Obama and his team chosen from the staffs of Daschele, Gephart and the protegees of Rubin. It is Barack Obama who ran as a leader and has held office as a shirker.
Anthony McCarthy
"You're blaming the wrong congressional leader, it's Harry Reid who shares the responsibility for what happened in this election with Barack Obama"
ReplyDeleteYou make it sound as if Pelosi was powerless instead of what she was -- Speaker of the House. Its not as if she and Reid dont talk. They should have said no to Obama and passed the public option. What would Obama have done? Veto it? Yes the votes were there in the senate but Pelosi refused to have another vote on the public option in the bill that was passed through reconciliation because she knew Obama had already sold it out to lobbyists and chose not to defy him and his selling out even though she knew the public option was the right thing to do. Reid also shares responsibility but it was Pelosi who was in the forefront of corrupting the nominating process to get Obama in, even to the point of publicly and intentionally misrepresenting the role of super delegates in the nominating process to create the expectation that Obama would get the nomination.
The unprecendented drubbing the House Democrats received after only two years of power as well as Obama even being in the White House is something Pelosi can take partial responsibility for and is a consequence of many of her actions which Im sure she regrets.
Harry Reid is definitely the Chief pimp. But just how many moderate democrats were there in the house? I think they call them blue dogs though I do not know why. And I do not think they were moderate as much as reactionary and opportunistic.But that is why Pelosi had to agree to modifications to get anything of benefit. Yes I wish she had stayed true but then she would have got nothing. I think politicians like Pelosi think they should take what they can get and fix the bill when conditions are better. But that is risky.
ReplyDelete"But that is why Pelosi had to agree to modifications to get anything of benefit."
ReplyDeleteThis simply isnt true. I give Pelosi credit for getting the bill everyone wanted which included the public option passed in the House.
And for a brief moment standing up to Obama and saying the public option was the centerpeice of reform when Obama was trying to publicly lowball it. Where Pelosi lost her leadership credentials was in backing down to Obama instead of continuing to defy him. She didnt have to modify anything. The bill that was originally passed in the House was the one everyone wanted. And had Obama wanted it he could have Reid pass it in the senate with reconciliation. They both backed down to Obama's unscrupulous deal with healtcare industry lobbyists and the Democratic congress paid the price. Liberals and moderates who voted for the public option the first time should have replaced Pelosi. That would have sent the right message and showed they understood the election, not a message that says there will be continued capitulation to Obama's ineptitude, lack of conviction and underhanded political decisions.
Here you can see clearly what Pelosi thinks about Reid courtesy of Uppity Woman:
ReplyDeleteUPDATE: YOu can get your copy of that video here. Notice I had to post three of them as the first two got deleted.
http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/harry-alphas-his-date-nancy/
Greenconsciousness, I don't recall Hillary Clinton opposing Harry Reid's leadership of Senate Democrats.
ReplyDeleteI think you read too much in appearances. If there's one thing you can't judge, it's the way that politicians present themselves to the public because most of them are well practiced at hiding their reactions for reasons of political efficacy. Nancy Pelosi's record is there, it is objectively one of the most impressive records of achievement. Denying that in favor of the subjective interpretation of images is not serious.
Anthony McCarthy
You make it sound as if Pelosi was powerless instead of what she was -- Speaker of the House. Marc Rubin
ReplyDeleteFor heavens sake, you seem to ignore how hard it was for her and the vast majority of Democratic and independent voters, the majority in the House AND THE SENATE to revive health care when Obama and Reid wanted to call it over and dead.
If the House Democrats by almost three to one chose to keep her as leader they've got a really good reason to do it. It's because they know that among Democratic leaders in office, she was the one who tried hardest to keep faith with the voters and the agenda of Democrats.
Anthony McCarthy
Anthony
ReplyDeletewhat did i say to make you think i am deceived by appearances?
No one in my life has disappointed me more than Hillary Clinton who was the first person I believe in for a long time and who has been a total tool of Obama. She actually does have independent power in the state dept as obama needs her cover. But she has not used it to help women globally with liberation programs as C Rice did. I thought she would take Rice's programs, fund them, expand them and involve US feminists in partnership with the indigenous women of the middle east as the Rice afghan education programs did. Instead she has her pictures taken with oppressed women and then leaves, makes speeches about her commitment to women's rights which she distributes by email and hires her friends to work in the state dept as "ambassadors" without programs. Yeah, these appearances do not deceive me. I look at the programs and policy. I also expected her to promote the passage of the IVAWA. Instead she works with the UN as Obama directs her to do. So we get a woman's rights council made up of patriarchal thugs who stone, torture, and traffic women and Hillary goes along to get along.
"you seem to ignore how hard it was for her and the vast majority of Democratic and independent voters, the majority in the House AND THE SENATE to revive health care when Obama and Reid wanted to call it over and dead."
ReplyDeleteYoure half right. Obama did want to ditch healthcare reform after Scott Brown won in Massachussetts in the typical knee jerk way he's famous for. But it wasnt Pelosi who revived healthcare.
In a closed door meeting with Senate Democrats, Axelrod laid out Obama's plan to ditch healthcare reform and focus on "jobs jobsjobs"
(obviously Obama cant focus on more than one thing at a time). At that meeting as related by someone in the room, Al Franken got into a shouting match with Axelrod over dumping healthcare accusing him and Obama of having no convictions. Other senators joined Franken in that sentiment and the next thing you know Obama is making a public speech telling Senate Democrats to show some backbone and support healthcare reform.
As for why they re-elected Pelosi, first over 50 Democrats voted against her, secondly, unfortunately appearances do matter to politicians and there was a lot of sentiment in the House that ditching Pelosi would give the Republicans something to crow about and make it seem as if they were being reactionary so that was an appearances and political decision as much as anything.
And I cant agree about the legislation Pelosi got through. While I dont dispute her heart was in the right place on most things, and she did get some things through, she failed on the most important -- the public option and healthcare reform which in terms of righting wrongs and creating equality in access to healthcare, was the most important peice of legisaltion since the Civil Rights Act and while it was Obama who sold out, he couldnt have done it without Pelosi's and Reids help. Howard Dean said the healthcare bill that was in the House that didnt have the public option should be junked, and every Democrat who voted for it could only call it better than nothing.
Pelosi did some good things but healthcare was a monumental failure under leadership that without a doubt cost the Democrats the House. Yes its tough to stand up to a president of your own party but she and the Democrats paid the price for not doing so.
The cult brigade is out in force...LOL
ReplyDelete