TIME cnn
Politics
By MICHAEL SCHERER/WASHINGTON
Jul 31, 2009
Six months into the Obama Administration, a clear pattern of legislative pragmatism has emerged: focus on winning the big votes and don’t fret too much about losing some of the details.
Working at a furious pace, Obama’s team has racked up by almost any measure one of the most successful early records in modern memory, especially if you focus on big scoreboard numbers and not the detailed stats. But each of his team’s major accomplishments — from the stimulus to the House energy bill to the health-care-reform proposals now making their way through Congress — has been just as notable for what Obama has agreed to give up during the negotiation process. (See TIME’s video “The Story of an Uninsured Woman.”)
In the last week of July, news leaked out of Capitol Hill that the President’s proposal for a so-called public option on health care was unlikely to make it into the Senate Finance Committee bill. As recently as June, Obama had told a gathering of doctors in Chicago that there “needs to be a public option” in the health-care-reform bill, to help control insurance costs. But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has declined this week to say whether Obama is still fighting for a public health plan over the alternate proposal for a “co-op,” which would attempt to insert competition into the marketplace by promoting the formation of nonprofit health entities made up of individuals or small businesses. “We’re influencing the process forward,” he said on Tuesday when asked if the White House opposed the co-op alternative. “We’re hopeful that they’ll make progress.” …
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1914008,00.html
DAMN, DAMN, DAMN …I was hoping he would have failed by now! |
THINK PROGRESS
Radical Right-Wing Agenda By Faiz Shakir on Jan 20th, 2009
Limbaugh: ‘I hope Obama Fails’
“Are conservative talk-show hosts eager to go on the attack, after years of defending Bush?” asks the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Larry Muhammad. The answer is clearly yes.
Barack Obama has not yet taken office, and Rush Limbaugh is already rooting for his failure. On his radio show last Friday, Limbaugh said, “I disagree fervently with the people on our [Republican] side of the aisle who have caved and who say, ‘Well, I hope he succeeds.’”
Limbaugh told his listeners that he was asked by “a major American print publication” to offer a 400-word statement explaining his “hope for the Obama presidency.” He responded:
So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it
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