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.
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