Omnibus 2009 Petard Hoistment Reform Bill
It needs to be far-reaching and epic. So here’s what he should do.
Insist that they dump the Medicare expansion and the public option, just like he’s doing. In fact, insist that they dump anything even related to health care, except maybe some tort reform, cost containment measures, that kind of thing. If they have to actually spend something, then make it about, I dunno, highway infrastructure repairs, military spending, whatever. Something useful that will actually create real jobs in the middle of a recession. As long as there are a couple of Bandaids in it and they can call it “Health Care Reform,” they’ll do it. That’s how desperate they are.
Also, make them call a joint press conference where they have to say just four simple words. ”George Bush was right.” That’s all. OK, that might be too much. Governing is all about compromise, the art of the possible, after all, and it’s hardly reasonable to expect them to be able to form those words with their lips, push them out over their tongues. Six other words, then. ”We were wrong. Lieberman was right.” Obama, Reid, Pelosi, backed by the Cabinet and their top chairmen march out, the principals say the words, and then they turn around and walk out. Then, they make him chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Just for fun.
Politico: White to Reid, Cut Deal with Joe Lieberman.
NYT: Payback’s A Bitch … (OK, that’s not exactly how NYT put it.)
FOX: Dems furious …
Just kidding with the Leiberman shakedown proposal. OK, not kidding. We’ll probably still get saddled with some destructive and onerous monstrosity, designed not so much as to address issues of cost and access to health care as to save the face of a woefully inept president and and his laughably inept Congress. Might as well enjoy the political farce in the meantime.
Memeorandum: Big fat lefty rage roundup. Here’s a good one. TBogg wishing the left had a Rove. Yeah, but for that, the left would need to have a Bush. You know, someone with backbone, who actually believes in something.
Hyscience with the dunnage … $15,200 for some middle-class families. That’s before you get to the onerous national debt part.
Legal Insurrection on the vindictive targeting of Lieberman’s wife and the cause of breast cancer awareness and research … by women concerned about health care!
Byron York at the Washington Examiner with some Dem strategists on deep background about why the Dems are pushing ahead with something that is increasingly unpopular, is going to cost them seats, and probably won’t end up being anything they want, either.
In the end, perhaps the most compelling explanation for Democratic behavior is that they are simply in too deep to do anything else. “Once you’ve gone this far, what is the cost of failure?” asks the strategist.
Allah at HotAir on the Lieberman flip-flip: “I prefer the ‘he screwed the Democrats just to screw them’ theory. Makes me smile.” Also via HotAir, “The View” trashes Obama’s self-grading. I dunno, it’ll be interesting to see how he grades himself at this time each year, on up to 2012.
Moe Lane: “White House blinks … Ah, the politics of fear.”
Kos, via Surber: 1 in 4 Dems hate their party. That’s all?
UPDATE: Howard Dean plays hardball: Kill the bill! Ha! That’s like trying reverse psychology on someone halfway through committing harikiri!
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:27 am Comments (3) on Tuesday, December 15, 2009
3 Responses to “Omnibus 2009 Petard Hoistment Reform Bill”
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December 15th, 2009 at 9:01 am
I enjoyed Byron York’s reporting of the Democratic strategist’s analogy that Democratic leaders were like bank robbers.
I would like to think that your recommendations would be followed, or at least considered, but I am skeptical that Democratic leaders would reconsider.
December 15th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Whatever deal is struck to pass this monstrous hack-job of a bill, how can anyone be sure there isn’t wording in all those thousands of pages that slips a foot in the government-option back door? Seriously, how does the opposition know this?
December 15th, 2009 at 10:29 am
In the NYT article, the writer cited “Campaign finance advocates” as a group who have attacked Lieberman as an insurance industry puppet. What the hell are “Campaign finance advocates”? Bloggers? I really should get a NYT style book to keep up with their stupid euphemisms and evasions. This is right up there with “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.”