I Feel Bad About My President's Neck
You know what makes for a bad morning? It's when you finally read one of those 9000-word HuffPo pieces that have been going around for a couple days, about how the President is whiffing, and how this healthcare bill is kind of bullshit and… you pretty much agree with it? I am not really feeling the love. I kind of want to go back in time and vote for Kucinich or maybe your mom. Anyway, when it comes to HuffPo, it helps if you: 1. Ignore any of the writer's historical examples, because I actually don't know anything about history and yet his simmering reduction of the past is suspicious to even me? And: 2. substitute any common word such as "said" or "expressed" every time the author (Drew Westen) uses "messaging." 3. Also, it really wouldn't take an editor longer than 8 minutes to cut 500 words, consider springing for that Arianna. (<3 you, whatevs!) Oh and 4. This essay is a total cheat because it's about "perceptions" and he has no idea what is going on in the White House behind "clothes doors." (Eighth-grade joke.) But other than that…. really, it looks like this healthcare bill is the worst Christmas present ever.
Sanjay Gupta–remember him? He was Surgeon General for around 20 minutes?–was on CNN this morning, and he said he'd read the whole bill, and HE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT. But he pretended to anyway, which is why he should be Surgeon General.
In any event, this HuffPo piece is worth every penny the writer was paid for it. Put those dollars on the page, Choire–don't waste them on an editrix.
As a gift to myself, I was planning (unless something impossible to ignore)to close my eyes and ears to any political news/editorials until after Christmas. I just need some space and time away from it.
The midterms campaign starts right after Christmas, get ready!
"Behind clothes doors" is a place I would like to get loose in for real, and not just perceive what's there. BTW.
So HuffPo is essentially the online version of The Atlantic? Good to know.
Many of us take healthcare for granted until the day comes when we really need the pills and the pharmacist won't accept the prescription because something about the DEA registration number being smudged and the schedule II code being wrong even though Jerry was able to get this exact same one filled 20 or 30 times already. But that was at the Rite-Aid in Laurel County where they don't check as close and you can't even buy enough goddamn cough syrup to fill a shot glass cause of the meth labs. Man, it is colder than a witch's tit out there. If I drive over to Sandy's I can probably get a couple Xanax but the liquor stores don't open 'til noon and that shit is worthless without a bottle.
Agree with you in principle, but this Huffpo dirge is all too typical of the liberal/progressive jibber-jabber that makes me avoid the site except for those brief moments when I've exhausted every other opportunity to relieve tedium.
This, or nothing at all? Hobson's choice, but you may want to ask some of those who may now qualify for health care about it if this gets through the ultra-right and left gauntlet and out of Congress.
This is pretty much the way I felt about Obama during the primaries – once he beat Hillary I tried to ignore my gut instinct that he was going to waffle (mmm, waffles) but I am sadly not surprised things are developing the way they are, even if he was handed a rigged deck.
He is doing a better job with the economy than I think John McCain would have done, for whatever that's worth.
I'm trying to not watch the news, and to ignore the fact that my mother procured all the fixin's for Bloody Marys for the week I'm home. Otherwise I'll be dead by Saturday.
Your mom = awesome.
Hug your mom.
I'm waiting to see if we get real financial regulatory reform (strongly doubt it!). Then I'll know whether to fully lose faith in Barry. In a just society there would be a few bankers' heads on pikes right now.
I get very emotional about this issue. My father was a small business owner, and so much of my his income went to health insurance that was merely catastrophic. I remember waiting four hours in the free clinic waiting room to be seen for strep throat (and then being forgotten in the little office for an hour), and that look my mom got when I broke my glasses. I got my first ever PCP last year.
I was nearly quick to jump on the Howard Dean bandwagon, but then I saw Ezra Klein on Charlie Rose the other night. I thought his position was pragmatic and requires managed expectations, but I felt comforted. I would link to the video, but it is a flash interface; it can be seen at the homepage under "recent episodes," although not under the A-Z archive. But I might just be gullible.
Well, I found this Ezra Klein thingy at WaPo fairly comforting.
Team Pareene!
Exactly. Pareene's headline (for those too lazy to click) says: "News of first major progressive legislation in 30 years enrages liberals." It really concerns me that you find great wisdom in this HuffPo piece, because I first read it in 1985. It was in The Nation and it explained how, if only Walter Mondale had offered a truly progressive message, he would have inspired legions of non-voters and not lost 49 states to Reagan. Last year, as Obama vanquished Hillary to my great anguish, I thought the one silver lining was that an entire generation of all-too-impressionable kids would soon get a valuable life lesson in reality and "sour on politics," as this guy complains. Now that Obama is doing a much better job than Hillary ever could have, simply by being the uber-grownup we haven't had in the White House in my lifetime (unless you count Gerald Ford, but that's iffy) of course his numbers are going down. It's because he's doing a lot of necessary things that will hopefully pull us out of the ditch, but for which there is no constituency. That includes making unpleasant compromises on health care in order to cover 30 million more people, bring down health care costs that drain the economy and increase the deficit, etc., etc. It was the one elective goal he chose this year (everything else – the economy and banking system, Iraq, Afghanistan – came up of necessity, not choice) and I'd wished he left it for later on the theory that we wouldn't get a good bill during a recession. But he was right and I was wrong: this is the best we're going to get; the 60 "Democrats" (if you count Lieberman and the other moderate creepers) of today, together with a progressive-minded Democratic administration, is going to be the high-water mark for the progressive side during the first two decades of this century. The norm is for the forces of darkness to gather strength, as they have been doing all year. Soon they will overwhelm us again, and we will all be grateful to Obama's wisdom in choosing this brief moment of sunshine to get health care done.
Agreed. It's a filthy stinking compromise, but I'll take it.
Peter always wins.
YAY for this message, Peter Feld.
Also, I hope Choire didn't mean my mom. Thank god he didn't vote for her! I mean I love her, but NO.
Agree 100%.
By expressing my own views so well, you saved me much carpal-tunnel-inducing comment typing, which is a benefit to my own healthcare.
Let's revisit this topic in six months and see how everyone feels!
I didn't say it was a piece of "great wisdom," either.
I'm saying: I'm not thrilled. From Afghanistan to healthcare, I don't really think these are "unpleasant compromises." I think this is "shit not getting done right," by a party that is ALLEGEDLY in CONTROL of the government.
Whatever. It's just too bad I didn't buy Aetna stock last week.
But yes. I don't expect politics to exactly be idealistic. (Despite the fact that his platform was, actually, IDEALISM, in whole and in part, by the way!) I DO know better.
Where is Ronbo when you need him?
I'm with Choire.
Listen to the content all those "pretty speeches" Obama made on the campaign trail (and after) and you'll notice some recurring themes. This is no time for (partisan) politics as usual, for example. Or that the issues facing our nation are big enough that we can find common ground within them.
What the author calls a "quest for the lowest common denominator" is, in actuality, exactly what Obama promised us. Let's pass the parts of health care reform we agree on (and, despite the constant bellowing from pundits and senators alike about public options or abortion rights, there *is* a lot we agree on) and move on to the next thing. Because there are a whole lot of next things waiting for our attention.
Anyway, this Atul Gawande piece in the New Yorker makes me think what we're getting isn't so bad in the first place: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande
This bill is the best you can get, by exactly the minimum number of votes. I mean, what do you want him to do, declare the Senate unconstitutional? I'm a Hillary person (still–you go Goons) and was never particularly fond of Obama, but what the fuck is he supposed to do?
Politics by anecdote, American style. My parents (whom I'm visiting) are massive Republicans and doctors and we all got into a huge fight about health care last night. A long way into it I asked, bottom line, is this bill better than what we have. No one denied this. So there, that proves everything!
Hillary's claim that she would be better suited to negotiate the legislative hurdles of the House and the Senate (spun as 'business as usual' during the primaries) have a certain resonance for me in light of recent affairs and I think we would have gotten a stronger Healthcare bill for it.
And in the Watchmen universe Fox would never have canceled Arrested Development.
I continue to think you're awesome.
I have nothing against a pragmatic approach that slides us a few bricks closer to building a pyramid. I get it that in this chatterbox, overheated world, it's the best you can hope for. I truly wish that what we're doing is actually a "step forward," and can have a practical impact as well as serve as a moral victory over forces of distraction.
I also understand there's a huge cohort of society that believes even half-measures plunge them off a cliff; and that this throbbing slice of our populace must be consoled, catered to–whatever you want to call it–in order to take even baby steps toward a humane approach that honestly confronts the beastly challenges of an overpopulated, bloated world crowded with stone cold whackjobs.
But it would be just flat silly to say that watching the process play out–and knowing this is really the best we can hope for–is not dismaying. In the extreme. That there are crazies and dolts who can paralyze a show, and who can hijack debate with canards and irrational fears. Who can change the game without bothering to offer a new field to play on.
What makes me Afraid For My Country, Glenn Beck, is that the kajillion pieces of it don't really add up to much of anything anymore. . .if they ever really did.
There is a lot of good stuff left in this bill, believe it or not. Let's just see how it plays out (of the next few years) before we get too depressed.
It would be huge progress. HUGE! (said in Larry David voice)
I just want to drown my ambivilance in Nog. And hope I never ever ever ever need to see a doctor for anything other than a 'script for a powerful sedative.