Math And Protocol
Or rules, points and yardage if you like. GOP rep gives the other team more ammunition with an outburst. There’s shock, scandal and snark. What’s this nation coming to? Hey, once upon a time they used to fight duels and cane each other. It isn’t like the other side is exactly a picture of decorum. Turns out what goes around, comes around. That said, cork it, Rep.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press, the powderpuff team that long ago forgot the point of the game, gets one right. Sure, its Obama health-care speech main was a punt, to put it politely:
WASHINGTON — Shaking off a summer of setbacks, President Barack Obama summoned Congress to enact sweeping health care legislation Wednesday night, declaring the “time for bickering is over” and the moment has arrived to protect millions who have unreliable insurance or no coverage at all.
But the AP’s fact check is an interception and a touchdown:
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation’s health care system without adding “one dime” to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.
The president’s speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.
Uh oh. Insurer stocks waver in reaction to Obama’s “Give me socialism or give me political death” speech. AP again. Hey, I thought that thing was supposed to be good for the economy.
So who wins? CNN post-speech poll gives it to Obama. Two in three viewers like the plan after watching the speech, 14-point jump for the Big O. Only one problem. There still isn’t any actual plan, and it still needs to get through Congress. Does this give him the momentum he never really had? Sure, for about 15 minutes after last night’s speech. But you know what they say. It ain’t over till it’s over. They might even pass something remotely resembling whatever it is he’s been trying to put over.
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Topics: Obama
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:52 am Comments (5) on Thursday, September 10, 2009
5 Responses to “Math And Protocol”
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September 10th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I listened to the first half hour of Obama’s speech on NPR while driving home last night. I was laughing out loud as some of the whoppers he was dropping (e.g. “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.”). In general the whole thing was nothing more than a flight of fancy with no grounding in reality, and there was nothing in it we haven’t heard many times before.
The man clearly thinks that the American people are idiots who can be suckered again by pretty rhetoric and vague promises. Hopefully he’s wrong, for the sake of the nation.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
“Give me socialism or give me political death”
I know which one I’d pick.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
AP’s fact check blows it on the coverage for illegal immigrants lie. They fail to mention that Democrats defeated amendments that would have explicitly denied coverage to illegal immigrants. That proves without a doubt that the Democrats intend to leave loopholes in (or add them at the last minute) that will allow illegals to be covered, and the AP article should have at least mentioned it. I suppose they felt they had to give Obama a tentative nod on at least one point.
September 11th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Of course the poll showing the jump was weighted 2-1 democrats, but hey….
September 27th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
[...] Herald editor and angry blogger Jules Crittendon didn’t think much of my September 9 cross-posting of “Health Ins. VP sends Obama Hate-mail on Company Account [...]