Author: Eli

Kos summarizes the findings of the poll he commissioned on the Republican base:

Their base are conspiracy mongers who don’t believe Obama was born in the United States, that he is the second coming of Lenin, and that he is racist against white people. They already want to impeach him despite the glaringly obvious lack of high crimes or misdemeanors.

Republicans – and most of the media – act as if these anti-science, homophobic paranoids are perfectly reasonable people whose well-developed ideas should be respected and carefully listened to.  At worst, they might consider them lovably cantankerous, like an eccentric uncle who blurts out wacky unpredictable things.

Meanwhile, Obama and the Democrats – and most of the media – act as if their base are unclean, raving lunatics whose nonsensical fringe notions must be watered down or repudiated so they don’t scare the rest of America away.  Instead of an eccentric uncle, we’re treated more like a deformed freak who has to be kept chained in the basement so the neighbors won’t see.

Okay, I understand that the Republicans should listen to their base because, well, they’re their base and they can’t win without them.  Plus they’re probably a little scared of them – I know I would be.

But if only one political party’s base gets to be taken seriously, does it really have to be the one that parades around with pictures of the President Of The United States dressed as a witch doctor?  When did crazy become sane and sane become crazy?

 

Yes, Orrin Hatch really did accuse Democrats of acting in bad faith for considering budget reconciliation to fix health care reform, and threatened them with – wait for it – partisan hostility.

The highlights:

1) Hatch claims that if the Democrats use reconciliation to fix the Senate health care reform bill, they will be launching “one of the worst grabs for power in the history of the country.”  Apparently the Senator slept through the entire George W. Bush era.

2) Hatch accuses the Democrats of not “act[ing] in good faith on this” and “not even putting on the veneer of bipartisanship.”  That is so true – I can’t even count the number of times that the Republicans have extended the hand of compromise and pulled back a bloody stump.  Mainly because I can’t think of any.  There’s been an awful lot of bloody stump-pulling in the opposite direction, though.

3) Hatch warns of “outright war” and “heated animosities” if the Democrats use reconciliation.  Um, Senator?  I think that ship is halfway around the world by now.

In essence, Hatch is threatening that Republicans will be obstructionist assholes if Democrats try to do something about Republicans being obstructionist assholes.  I don’t doubt that they’ll make good on his promise, but I’m not sure how effective it is to threaten to do the exact same thing that you’re already doing and were going to continue doing anyway.

Hatch’s Slaughterhouse Five pretzel logic reminds me of how the Republicans used al Qaeda’s presence in Iraq after the invasion as some kind of retroactive vindication of it: “You see?  We had to invade Iraq to prevent it from harboring al Qaeda after we invaded!”  What should be a rebuke of Republican irresponsibility instead becomes its justification.

 

Having taken a peek at the copy, it looks like Bob McDonnell’s main focus will be on unemployment which, as we all know, is caused by taxes, regulation, lawsuits, deficits, environmentalism, and government.

McDonnell will also speak fondly of: The GOP’s love for bipartisan cooperation; improving health care by making it harder to sue incompetent doctors (also, the magic of the free market!); ineffectual government; Drill Baby Drill; the Afghanisurge; and treating terrorists as unlawful combatants.  The FDL backstage crew and I will speak… somewhat less fondly of him.

My deepest, most sincere apologies if I’ve spoiled any surprises.

Eli: Look!  Minorities!  And women!  We are totally diverse and stuff!

Eli: “Jobs are awesome.  Some people do not have them, and that is bad.”

Eli: Is it just me, or is he trying a little too hard to pose heroically?

Thers: I like how they tastefully scattered the brown people behind him. Like sprinkles on the vanilla cone!

Eli: I sure do love how Republicans suddenly got religion about deficits.  I thought Bush/Cheney proved they don’t matter.

bmaz:  Couldn’t they have gotten Mark Sanford to hike the response trail?

Eli: See, he did say Republicans like cooperation!  I didn’t just make that up!

Scarecrow: Time to restore the proper limited role of government at every level. That will show those banks!

Eli: A titter at Twitter.

Gregg @Thers: Those seem to be the only two “sprinkles” in the whole five gallon carton.

Thers: This is weird as hell. The tumultuous applause for banalities is the kind of thing you see in late night infomercials. I like the ShamWow guy better.

bmaz:  Nice helmet of hair the dude has; must go to Blago’s barber.

Suz: this guy is boring and is not comfy reading off the teleprompter

Scarecrow: now is the time to lower energy prices, by subsidizing the capital costs and risks of nukes!

Suz:  not seeing many happy faces in that crowd of campaign supporters pretending to be his audience

Eli: Afghaniquagmire is AWESOME!

Thers: Oooh, boldly thanking the troops. That’ll make headlines.

bmaz:  I miss Booby Gindoll

Eli: Of course, everything Republicans say about business and employment makes a lot more sense when you translate “jobs” back into “profits.”

Thers @Scarecrow: On the other hand, Virginia’s vast offshore oil reserves will satisfy all of America’s energy needs for three very satisfying minutes.

Scarecrow: We should not overregulate those banks, because that will inhibit their ability to attract new derivative traders.

Eli: Oh yeah, Republicans have done a bangup job at protecting innocent human life.

Scarecrow @Thers — well there’s enough hot air in this speech to power a hundred offshore wind turbines.

Gregg: Looking at this guy is giving me weird ’60s TV sitcom flashbacks. I keep waiting for the canned laughter.

Eli: Heh, even wingnut Brian Williams pointed out the carefully coordinated rainbow of diversity behind him.

Thers @bmaz: I will remember that speech forever. When does the Republican response go live again…?

Scarecrow: Hurray!  He’s done.

Suz:  did he say his daughter was available *wink wink*

 

Another day, another poll showing that the message of the Massachusetts massacre was that Obama and the Democrats need to go further on health care and opposing corporations, and that most people like the public option and would be more likely to vote against someone who tried to kill it.  Less than a week later, President Obama leaps into action with… a spending freeze:

In his budget for Fiscal Year 2011, to be presented on Monday, February 1, President Obama will propose a three-year hard freeze on non-security discretionary spending, to last from 2011 through 2013.

This will save $250 billion over the next decade, senior administration officials told reporters. (The debt during that same period is projected to grow by $9 trillion.) By 2015, non-security discretionary spending will be at its lowest level as a component of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product in 50 years.

Wait… what?  That’s the message Obama took away from MA?  A spending freeze?  Not “more jobs,” or “make health care reform not suck”?  Okay, it’s more of a cap than a freeze, but it’s still a lot more likely to make employment and the economy worse than better.  Of course, backing Ben Bernanke for re-confirmation doesn’t really help employment much either.

And on the legislative side, where they’re finally talking about budget reconciliation again?  Is Congress heeding the clarion call for a public option, or working to remove the hideously unpopular excise tax?  Uh, not so much…

According to Politico, the potential reconciliation measure contains six major components:

1. An increase in the Medicare payroll tax for the rich
2. More cuts to Medicare Advantage
3. The special excise tax deal for unions
4. Small increases in affordability tax credits
5. A fix for the Nebraska Medicaid deal
6. Closing the Medicare Part D donut hole by 2019

So instead of trying to fix the bill, Congress is apparently determined to leave its suckiness inviolate.  (#3 is especially brilliant, as it would make everyone hate Democrats and unions)  They have forgotten that:

A) They only need 50 votes to pass a measure through reconciliation, so it doesn’t matter if the Sabotage Caucus of Lieberman, Nelson, Bayh, Lincoln and Landrieu doesn’t like it, and:

B) There are 65 progressive Representatives who have already signed a letter pledging to vote against any health care reform bill without a public option.  Although it sure would be a big help if they would recognize that “when you have leverage” is the absolute worst possible time to waffle.

Last week I was hopeful that the Democrats’ peek into the abyss had finally shaken them up in a way that progressive petitions and protestations never could, but it appears that the effects were far too fleeting, and now they’ve gone back to rearranging deck chairs.

It’s truly amazing.  The American people spoke up loud and clear, saying, “We want health care reform.  We want a public option.  We want jobs.  We want someone to take our side against Wall Street.  We want the change we were promised.”

And the Democrats responded, “We can’t hear you… kcchhkktt… you’re – ksshk – breaking up…  kkrrkk… We’re going into a tunnelkrrccchhhkkttttcckk!”

 

So let me get this straight – after his brilliant float-above-the-fray strategy resulted in a hideously compromised Senate healthcare reform bill which America hates so much that the Democrats lost a Senate seat in Massachusetts, Obama’s Cunning Plan to fix the healthcare reform mess is… to float above the fray some more?

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is engaged with House progressives, trying to tease out a solution to the health care reform impasse–but he says that at the highest levels of the Senate and the White House, there’s still no plan, and he doubts whether President Obama will insert himself forcefully into the process.

(…)

[H]e doesn’t imagine the President will lay out a way forward in his State of the Union address next week, and he won’t push any buttons in the Senate.

“I doubt if he does, I don’t think he’ll do a procedural thing. I don’t think he will engage in process,” Brown said of State of the Union.

Traveling with Obama today, he and House members from Ohio aired suggestions and opinions about how to get the Senate back into the game–but Obama’s not on the same page. “Everybody had opinions about what the President should do [vis-a-vis the Senate and particular senators],” Brown told me. “But he ain’t bitin’.”

I guess Obama will come out with a forceful statement about how he’s totally rooting for Congress to fix the healthcare bill somehow, and then just sit back and wait for the magic to happen.

Seriously, someone Obama actually listens to (Reid? Pelosi? Plouffe? Axelrod?) needs to get in his ear and tell him that he needs to do everything he can, both publicly and privately, to push the Senate Democrats to pass a sidecar fix, and push the House Blue Dogs to vote for both the current Senate bill and the sidecar bill.

True, it might still get done without Obama’s help, but does he really want to bet his presidency on it?