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The MSM is already screeching it’s “Make or Break” time for the White House. (BTW, do people want an open chat room for it tonight)?
I’m sick of the bickering in the media and on the Hill; if we could only get passed this major hurdle we could get some focus back on LGBT legislation. I’m afraid that whatever we end up with will be so complex and watered down, that we won’t see any reform in the near future, never mind down the road.
In what is a telling sign that the White House is floundering, Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-MT), who has an alternative plan without a public option, passed it on to his masters some of the special interests in the health care industry before the Obama admin and Congress.
To show you how the Republicans are viewing this address, take a look at who is doing the official party response. From the press release of House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH):
House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) announced today that Cong. Charles Boustany (R-LA) will deliver a Republican address following the President’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress on Wednesday, September 9th. Boustany, a doctor with more than 20 years of medical experience, has long advocated for reforms that lower health care costs for all Americans and believes that maintaining the doctor-patient relationship must be a critical component of any proposal.“Dr. Boustany has been a tireless advocate for reform that lowers health care costs and expands access for the American people at a price our nation can afford,” Boehner said. ”He understands why a Washington bureaucrat – as Democrats have proposed – should never get between a doctor and his patient. I’m pleased Charles has agreed to speak to the American people about a Republican vision for reform and the need for both parties to come together to craft a responsible proposal at a time when people across the country are focused on jobs.”
Earlier this year, Boehner asked Boustany to reach out to Congressional Democrats to find a bipartisan approach to health care reform. Despite Boustany’s efforts, Democrats refused to work with him and other Republicans on a responsible proposal that the American people could support.
Did you know he’s a birther? He told blogger Mike Stark when asked about whether the President was a U.S. citizen: “I think there are questions.”
The other laff riot is that he’s actually the author of the so-called “death panels” proposal (voluntary end-of-life counseling), and has been critical of the teabaggers, talking heads and general unbalanced citizenry who keep pushing that meme.
He says those discussions are a “good medical practice,” and doctors who spend time counseling their patients about their wishes should be reimbursed through the Medicare system, as the legislation allows.Now, Boustany says proponents may have to “back off” and reconsider the issue “at some point when the temperature had cooled down.”
“Frankly, this thing got really out of hand,” he says.
Hat tip, Think Progress.
9 Comments
Speech isn’t free
Sorry, but this is not a statement that should be allowed to be dimmeminated in the media UNLESS it is followed by concrete, verifiable specifics as to HOW.
sp. – should have been “disseminated”
exactlyIf this were from anyone but a tea-bagging birther, the MSM would be all over us with quotes from people asking for concrete plans and emotional Midwesterners.
Yes, please re:chat tonightGreat idea.
Thought this cartoon in the Bangor Daily by George Danby rather nicely shows the tone nationally:
Phooey.Resized it, but it still came up tiny. Oh well…
Kids crowded together watching TV in a classroom (teacher in foreground)- announcer says, “And now with the rebuttal to President Obama’s ‘Back To School’ address, here’s John McCain!”
Geez, Louise.
Thank you!
Weathervane
Goddess knows I have been a fierce critic of Mr. Obama, but it has been in the sense of the “go out and make me do it” urging of FDR to black civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph which Obama quoted during the campaign and urged Americans to do, likewise, with him.
My deep disappointment in him has not just been about LGBT issues, but the many ways a would-be lion has turned into a timid house cat-either ignoring the screeching, rabid opponents of change [of whatever] or responding too late, too weakly.
If we see him approach tonight his #1 initiative with the same naive, impotent, “can’t we all just get along” context of a self-deluded Sunday School teacher, as he has so many things, rather than as a noble LEADER with the balls to denounce the Tea Bag Taliban for terrorizing and dividing our country it will be the political weather forecast for years to come. Place your bets: three years or seven years until he’s voted out and replaced by a Repug Troglodyte who will return us X years to the 50s.
For the entire period Bush fils was President, during which, time and again, his incompetence and villainy were as obvious as the sun, I seriously considered the possibility that the Rovians had found a way to put undetectable tranquilizers in the nation’s water supply that would explain why more people weren’t rising up to drive him out. I wept as, among endless unforgiveable images post Katrina, we saw an elderly dead woman in a wheelchair simply covered with a blanket in the open, helpless air while survivors waited for rescue from the indifferent leader of the Home of the Brave.
Now I wonder the same thing about Dems in Congress who are acting exactly as if they were the MINORITY party in both houses of Congress, a mix of mice and rats too narcotized to even leave the sinking ship let alone try to save it.
Obama was envisioned as many things during the campaign. If he isn’t a Pied Piper on steroids tonight it won’t just be health care reform that is doomed.
Pelosi said she won’t send a Bill out of the House without Public OptionLooks like Nancy is going to have to beat down the Democratic Senators in conference.