Will Wednesday Bring Us Another Appearance Of Waffles The Clown?

One theme seems to be emerging prior to Barack Obama's really big health care, er, insurance, er, whatever the fuck it is today speech on Wednesday, and it's a shocker... He's going to equivocate:

White House senior adviser David Axelrod tells POLITICO that the administration is not dialing back its support for a public health-insurance option as part of a reform bill, and that a comment he made on NBC’s “Meet the Press” was misinterpreted.

Yeah, whatever.

Axelrod told NBC’s David Gregory that President Barack Obama “certainly agrees that we have to have competition and choice, to hold the insurance companies honest. … He believes the public option is a good tool. Now, it shouldn’t define the whole health care debate, however.” 

Yeah, whatever.

The Associated Press, which often sets the agenda for how other news organizations cover Sunday shows, popped up a headline saying: “White House shifts on public health care option". The story's lead: "WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's top political adviser is backing away from having a government health care plan compete against private carriers.” 

Axelrod disputed that interpretation in an email.

Yeah, whatever.

Indeed, Axelrod also told Gregory: “He said there must be an exchange where people can get insurance at a competitive price. He believes in competition and choice. The public option is an important tool to help provoke that where there is no competition. He still believes that. ... So we want to create a pool in which people who don't have insurance, and small businesses, can go and get insurance at a competitive price. And a public option would be a valuable tool within that group, that package of plans that would be offered, private and public.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs made similar remarks on ABC’s “This Week.”

Yeah, whatever.

Now, for the nitty:

Host George Stephanopoulos, summing up a long exchange, said to Gibbs: “The president, from what I can hear, is going to make the case for the public health-insurance option — for a form of the public health-insurance option — on Wednesday, but he is not going to say: ‘If you don’t bring me one, I veto the bill.’”

Gibbs replied: “I doubt we’re going to get into heavy veto threats on Wednesday. We’re going to talk about what we can do, because we’re so close to getting it done. He will talk about the public option, and why he believes, and continues to believe, that it is a valuable component of providing choice and competition, that helps individuals and small business, at the same time provides a check on insurance companies.”

In other words, he's going for Town Hall Sales Job Redux. As opposed to, say, taking a stand and actually providing some leadership.

Now if that isn't super-genius thinking, what is?

The bottom line is this: The only way Obama can "win" on this issue is to take a stand and fight for it. It appears he will once again choose to do neither.

So based on what we now know, come Thursday morning we are going to be exactly where we were three months ago on the issue of health care, er, insurance, er, whatever the fuck it is today reform: Nowhere.

 

Waffles the Clown: "Will somebody please make my mind up for me?"

Comments

[Mona]

Dennis wrote: The bottom line is this: The only way Obama can "win" on this issue is to take a stand and fight for it. It appears he will once again choose to do neither.

Yup. I don't even agree with O on everything, but he has broken so many campaign promises that caused "civil liberties extremists" like me to vote for him, won't fight for what he and his party ostensibly believe in & etc, that I could just puke. He is just another politician.

Many designated (rightly or wrongly) to be on the left totally get this. But then, too many don't.

[JeffS]

Mona, I think it's better to say that far too many don't get it, and probably don't want to. Regardless of his multiple back flips, broken promises, and outright lies, Obama remains The One, and is all about Hopen Changey stuff.

I'm just hoping that America will survive this thug and his flying monkeys. As it is, he's done more damage in 8 months than Jimmy Carter did in 4 years. And we still aren't over that clown.

[PeterUK]

Would it not have been better to vet Obama on his achievements and personality before electing him? It is obvious there are great gaps in his CV,no, not his birth certificate,but what he had been doing since leaving college.

[JeffS]

Even without his records of college and post-college years, Peter, Obama's record has been abysmal all along. Even Sarah Palin is more qualified (marginally so, and I am not plugging her for 2012, I am just making a comparison). He is spectacularly unqualified to be President, and should never have been nominated in the first place. Obama is a celebrity, not an executive, let alone a leader.

Obama sold himself first as "Not Bush", second through his charm, and third by appealing to the racial guilt prevalent in a significant portion of Americans. At a guess, 48% of the voters bought into all three shticks, and 4% went mostly for #1.

[PeterUK]

JeffS.
Don't forget the very convenient economic meltdown.Oh,and the ACORN muscle.
It is also reminiscent of the record producer who gets the hots for an unknown and uses his muscle to try and make him a star. Even with the big money behind him,Obama is going to be a one hit wonder.

[Mona]

Jeff writes: Mona, I think it's better to say that far too many don't get it, and probably don't want to. Regardless of his multiple back flips, broken promises, and outright lies, Obama remains The One, and is all about Hopen Changey stuff.

While there is some truth to that, he made specific promises about ending warrantless wiretaps, no more detention without access to lawyers and one's day in court, transparency in govt, and -- whatever one thinks of healthcare reform and the proper way to effect it, he's just spineless on the whole issue -- many "left" bloggers are majorly pissed. But others are not, so much. And at least where I live here in the Midwest, most O supporters (but not all) remain clueless and jubilant.

However, I spent years trying to convince Bushies that you cannot trust the "Good Man" theory of govt to allow W to do as he did. That opinion also was usually not well-received.

[JeffS]

That opinion also was usually not well-received.

I am aware of that. I may have been on the receiving end of that criticism more than once. Because I was (still am, to some extent) a "Bushie", although he made a lot of mistakes, and I didn't always agree with him. But follow him blindly? Nope. Not a chance. And, yes, I did know people who did follow Bush blindly. There must be some sort of a Bell curve distribution involved.......

So most of the Obamabots are unlikely to see the real problem; heck, I know a few people myself like that now. Add in the willing cooperation of the main stream media, the Dhimmicratic spin machine, and it's very unlikely we'll see a total reversal of his popularity.

Still, Obama's polling numbers are plummeting, so maybe we can get something of a balance in the system come 2010. Except that I have little faith in the Republicans to learn from all of this, in large part because they're still acting like idiots.

[JeffS]

Heh, Peter, that's a good analogy!

[Mona]

Add in the willing cooperation of the main stream media, the Dhimmicratic spin machine, and it's very unlikely we'll see a total reversal of his popularity. Add in the willing cooperation of the main stream media, the Dhimmicratic spin machine, and it's very unlikely we'll see a total reversal of his popularity.

Jeff, do you REALLY believe that most of the MSM is all lavering love and glory on O, and is into "Dhimmitude?" They are corporatist employees (not free marketeers), and speak "news" usually about as would a dumb sack of rocks, and/or those who are corrupt.

[just passin by]

Mona,

A media industry that did not have it's tongue firmly planted between THE MESSIAH's cheeks might have done a little more investigation of...
an American hating "pastor"
a 60's terrorist political mentor
the video of THE MESSIAH palling around with Pali terrorists
THE MESSIAH's quote that he was going to bankrupt the coal industry
any discernible improvement in the communities the THE MESSIAH "organized"
the apparently non-existing time he spent in college
his "present" voting record throughout his career
THE MESSIAH's lack of integrity in breaking a campaign promise for public financing...

and that's just the tip

The reason that you didn't hear a lot of this on broadcast TV or in most large newspapers because 90% of the people in that "business" are exactly the type of snotty, self-absorbed, pretentious, liberal dipshits that DTP discusses in the next post.

[JeffS]

Jeff, do you REALLY believe that most of the MSM is all lavering love and glory on O, and is into "Dhimmitude?"

Yes.

Case in point: Van Jones. Many people woke up this morning to read that he resigned, and most of them said, "Who's he?" This was NOT covered by the MSM, save Fox News, Glen Beck, and conservative bloggers. Yet the matter was controversial enough that he resigned.

Now, imagine if Bush had appointed a conservative as an environmental adviser who once was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and ask yourself: what sort of news coverage would we be seeing?

Actually -- there's no need to imagine. How many Bush appointees were ran through the ringer by the media? More than has happened in Obama's administration, that's for certain. Maybe they deserved it, and maybe they didn't. It's that we've heard NOTHING from the media about these sort of problems.

And that's part of the problem: if the media is biased, how are we supposed to get unbiased reporting? "We" includes, I might add, the same Obamabots we discussed earlier.

[PeterUK]

JeffS.
More to the point, nobody has asked Obama for a statement concerning the nocturnal departure via the servants entrance of Van Jones.

[JeffS]

Not yet, anyway, Peter. But I rather doubt that they will. Maybe someone will ask Gibbs during a press conference, but that's it.

[Mona]

Well, I heard plenty about Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers on TeeVee before the election -- and I seldom watch Fox. Obama's team was stoopid for not vetting Jones; it is idiocy to appoint someone who rather recently declared himself a "communist."

[richard mcenroe]

The Punk in Chief does not fight.

He is hell on wheels at bullying those he thinks weak enough to bully (veterans, the elderly, military dependents, pension funds, bankrupt companies, radio hosts) but folds like an origami swan at the first sign of real resistance (veterans, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck).

[JeffS]

...it is idiocy to appoint someone who rather recently declared himself a "communist."

By all reports, Van Jones became a communist (his own words, so I won't use any danger quotes) in 1992, as a result of the LA riots. This is hardly "recent".

[audre]

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