Walking, Chewing Gum
That’s what USA Today cruelly calls the stumbling on economic and health-care agendas. Hey, that’s hurtful. Maybe it’s not that bad.
Opposition to Obama’s health-care reform remains high, but there’s a potential for softening … if he ditches it. OK, that’s not exactly what the Washington Post is reporting:
President Obama continues to face significant public resistance to his drive to initiate far-reaching changes to the country’s health-care system, with widespread skepticism about central tenets of his plan, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
But after a summer of angry debate and protests, opposition to the effort has eased somewhat, and there appears to be potential for further softening among critics if Congress abandons the idea of a government-sponsored health insurance option, a proposal that has become a flash point in the debate. The gap in passion, which had shown greater intensity among opponents of the plan, has also begun to close, with supporters increasingly energized and more now seeing reform as possible without people being forced to give up their current coverage.
Sounds like what he needs to do is reform his reform. OK, that’s the chewing gum part.
Here’s the walking part. Though NYT suggests it’s more of a toddle:
A year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the rescue of American International Group, the administration’s plans to overhaul the deeply flawed regulatory system have stalled in Congress. Like the president’s health care plan, the financial overhaul has fallen victim to political skepticism and high powered special interest lobbying. Mr. Obama’s speech this morning in New York, like his address to Congress last week on health care, is part of an effort to put the plan back on political track.
FOX, cynically, “Wall Street will never be tamed by a mere politician.” I’m going to guess not this one.’
Don’t worry. it’s not all bad news. If he’s having trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time, fortunately he can claim wild success on the candy toss … how driving up the national debt by $1.3 trillion and counting has been our financial salvation.
UPDATE: some running speech coverage compliments of the Boston Herald, hurtful noting a lack of enthusiasm among Wall Street execs.
In other business, Pew: Public assessment of the accuracy of news stories hits a two-decade low. Plummeting acorss the political spectrum.
Malkin, even more cynically: “Now that I’ve made big banks even bigger, we should do something about this … ” Regarding the gum part, she’s also calling out O’s faulty healthcare anecdotes and on Baucuswatch.
Surber spots AP calling out Obama on empty threats to Wall Street. That’s different. Meanwhile, Surber cruelly suggests Obama is punting on healthcare, but losing yardage the same way Bill did. Funny, I could have sworn I heard O on lefty radio today saying that going down like Bill* line Republicans are peddling won’t work.
Obamacare UPDATE via HotAir: Back-to-back Sunday talk show appearances planned.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:00 pm Comments (0) on Monday, September 14, 2009
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
