Meanwhile, The Game Of Bipartisan Chicken Continues

Wait… there’s something familiar about this… didn’t we used to play this game when we were in grade school: “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours..”?
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And isn’t this more a game of “Bi-partisan Chickensh!t”, rather than “Bi-Partisan Chicken”?
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God… I THOUGHT the grownups were supposed to be in charge when you got to this level…

MS – It is ironic that the Repubs have spent all of this time complaining about the Dems plans/bills and have yet to show an actual plan of their own. It appears that you’ve missed that.
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The Repub response will be a combination of a and d. I believe that Boehner has already said as much.

What is the point of all of this, if they’re going to use reconciliation?

diecash,
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Can we send ALL of these clowns to their rooms without supper for a week? Take away their allowance? Something that matches the level of maturity being shown?
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A proper punishment for a bunch of eternal, overpaid adolescents…

I’m all for that. Most of them are clowns anyway.

I believe that the summit is the carrot and reconciliation is the stick.

“Yep, this is what public discourse has come to: Obama has showed his, now Republicans have to show theirs”
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This bad how?
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“It is an ironic tack coming from a White House that steadfastly refused for about a year to explain exactly what President Obama’s plan for health care reform entailed.”
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I guess it would be ironic if the Democrats hadn’t had any proposals but now demanded one from the republicans.
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Oh wait I forgot rule numero uno-Everything is equal.

They need to move public opinion to get convince 51 senate dems and enough dems in the House to go along. They don’t have the votes yet for reconciliation.

This bad how?

You got me.

A question for Mike – you just wrote an entire post talking about the need for compromise and bipartisanship. How do you expect Washington to achieve compromise if one party refuses to clearly lay out what it wants?

To engage children one needs to play “GO Fish”.
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Sorry I have to defend the WH on this!\
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Perhaps if the press had pointed out the false indignation, hypocritical attitude of the GOP it wouldn’t have come to this. I find it self serving when the Press played all this up and, then try mto blame both parties.
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I read your earlier post and didn’t think muych of it.

I know I was busy with personal issues this summer, but I could swear I remember a lot of discussion that Obama was trying to avoid the problem the Clinton’s had with hcr by allowing the branch that is constitutionally supposed to legislate to actually legislate. Much ado made about it in the press.

And then there was more time and delay trying to get a bi-partisan bill (oh Holy Grail) through the Senate Finance committee with Backus and Grassley and even President Snowe courted for a while. Perhaps it was only through the haze of pain killers that I recall Grassley saying he didn’t care whatever they came up with, he wouldn’t vote for it – after all, death panels for granny.

Every single thing that progressives hoped for was deleted in order to appease those who would not be appeased.

The Republicans kept saying we have a plan – the Democratic bill must be scored by the CBO (sorry, ours can’t be, but it must be better – even though it isn’t really a plan.)

There is a gop plan for health care, released last year. See here:

http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare

“We will not be posting a comprehensive alternative to commence a staring contest”
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Goodness, they just aren’t even trying anymore to have anyone not already in their camp take them seriously.

“…We will not be posting a comprehensive alternative to commence a p—ing contest.”
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Fixed it for you.

MS — Thanks for responding to the comments.
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Correct me on this but IIRC, when this Repub plan was scored by the CBO, it did very little other than to preserve the status quo and it covered an additional 5% of the uninsured over ~10 years while doing little to nothing to bring down the cost curve.
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Perhaps the GOP should scrap this joke of a plan and start over.

There will be no reconciliation. I commend President Obama for his dogged determination to get this his key project reviewed and passed but his approach was fatally flawed from the start.

I do not think starting with this sort of heavy and massive initiative was a good idea for a NEW President who was still navigating the wilderness also known as Congress.

Next, he had not reigned in the Democrats. They were all dancing to their own tunes and failed to see how a failure of the plan would impact the party as a whole.

In other words, the President did not gradually build his team and show his leadership and strength over them.
The result is the usual thing; self serving, re-election focused Democrats whose loyalty lies only to themselves.

Lastly, the President and his lieutenants did not do enough media runs.

As I always state here and elsewhere, for some reason, the public is very easily controlled or confused by the media. How else can you explain that many people believed Palin when she said there were “death panels” hidden in the bill? People clutched their hearts and screamed in fright. Silly but just th way things are…

There is a battle in the political arena for the minds of people.
Sensationalized garbage can only be counteracted by a continued and unrelenting flow of the truth.
Obama launched his plan and did not follow it with the usual selling it in the media.

These days everything has to be treated like a campaign.
If Obama wants to get anything done, he cannot only be dogged in Congress but must have his people continue to do the rounds with monastic consistency, selling and explaining all his key initiatives.

Again, maybe Obama has a plan. There is no reason to expect anything different from the same approach to a problem or even with a limited revision of the same approach.

Sadly, though I want Obama to succeed for his sake and the sake of our country, I do not think the Healthcare review plan will make it.

However, I still pray that he has some plan that no one can deduce. Some big “card” he will play.

I am not hopeful but you never know. I am waiting and hoping he pulls a shocking victory.

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/stalking-criminality-the-law-and-women/

Well that didn’t take long.
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Not long ago, Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was elected to the United States Senate and a nation rejoiced, because he was going to drive down to Washington D.C. and become the President of Filibusters. But a funny thing happened yesterday, when Brown decided not to cast the 41st vote, and instead to vote as if he’d like to one day get re-elected to office in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:
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That was enough to earn Brown the Drudge banner, complete with the demon-red tint of betrayal! And, subsequently, Scott Brown’s honeymoon came to an end like all political honeymoons: amid hotheaded recriminations on Twitter. Ken Layne at Wonkette documented the carnage.
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Over at Scott Brown’s Facebook page, the mood is much the same, probably because David Broder hasn’t written a column yet telling America that the jobs in this jobs bill are so much more awesome than the jobs that came before them because they are “bipartisan.” Some of Brown’s fans are giving him some support, but the lion’s share of comments read like “LYING LOW LIFE SCUM HYPOCRITE!” and “What a bummer dude. We didn’t need another Olympia Snowe,” and “BROWN, YOU JUST REMEMBER YOU DOUCHEBAG…WE ARE WATCHING YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! AND YOU FAILED AT THE FIRST CHANCE…YOU SCUM SUCKING ASS!!! GUESS MY 10-15 HOUR WORK DAYS WILL HELP PAY FOR THIS TOTAL BULLSH*T!!!!!!!!”
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/23/conservatives-turn-on-sco_n_473192.html

MIchael if the senators did what the constituents of their states want which is a Public Option they would have more than 51 votes.
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Support dropped not only because of the Nelson fiasco but because they dropped the popular Public Option, and did not fix insurance ratio of three to one on age 55 and up. Those 55 and up have paid for years when they were healthy and feel this is not fair.

Dang, Gunny. I didn’t know I was that prescient when I responded to Matt yesterday:
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8. “Scott Brown says he is on board. The GOP can’t abandon their newest star on his first big vote, can they?”
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8.1 I can blow off the GOP in one vote!

But the Village bobbleheads said that Scott Brown was elected by teabaggers (not true), that his election was against health care reform (more or less ignoring the miserable Coakley campaign), that Democratic hope for a filabuster proof majority was over (always ignoring the Blue Dogs). Of course, like every pol he will vote his own self-interest.
How can we live with the fact they were wrong. I was on a WP Q & A this morning with Eugene Robinson. I asked him a couple of weeks ago why pundits feel they need to profess expertise on everthing. He gave me a witty response. Today on his Q & A someone asked a question and Gene said “I don’t know” and “I have no idea”. How revolutionary.

If the Administration’s Health Care Plan has been such a big mystery for the past year, how is it that HCR has been called Obamacare for the past year?

And how is it that most Americans can repeat the Republican lies and not know what has been in the bill until some pollster tells them what’s in the bill

Isn’t TIME a news Magazine? Aren’t the NYT and WaPo Newspapers? The lies are news? The facts are? What?

Can we be BFF?

We’re already there and we’re the ones taking it . . .

Michael Scherer

It is an ironic coming from a White House that steadfastly refused for about a year to explain exactly what President Obama’s plan for health care reform entailed. But pay no mind.

That’s a fairly obtuse view of the President’s actions. Yes, he didn’t explain exactly what his plan was. What he did do was tell Congress generally what he wanted to see in a bill. Whether or not that was the best approach is certainly up for debate. To insinuate that somehow the President was being cloak and dagger is quite a stretch, though.

So instead we have 2 Demo plans that the public has already held thier nose and said thanks no thanks while the President who has been screeching HC reform for 2 years delivers nothing more than a campaign statement without any detail or costs.
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The GOP has had a plan out which shows how interested the WH is in reaching any sort of bipartsian agreement with Repubs. For months the Demos have lied and said none existed.
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You may not like it but at least it doesn’t unnecessarily turn the HC sector upside down to end up with little cost savings. CBO has said that the current plans will raise premiums and taxes with the true end controlling people’s choices and not reforming HC as the oft repeated campaign lie led people to believe.

‘I could swear I remember…’
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That was soooo last year. We’re supposed to hit the reset button and purge our memories each time a new argument appears. You’re interfering with the meme.

MS: There is no comparison between MSNBC/Daily Kos and the right wing echo chamber. Fox is a total propoganda machine for the Republicans. Even though they helped create the “grassroots” tea partiers, they are now trying to remove themselves from a group that is threatening the Repulicans. Kos and Olbermann have no where near the invective that is spewed everyday from Beck, Hannity, etc, the freeper blogs, and the hate filled conservative talk show outlets.
I mean who can compete with Beck’s tears, Limbaugh’s lies, and the dangerous hysteria coming from the right.

Bipartisanship is the pony — those who wish to avoid the hard work of finding real solutions to problems — keep trying to ride. It doesn’t matter if the problems ever get resolved, only that we are all stuck in the mud together.

“2 Demo plans that the public has already held thier nose and said thanks no thanks”
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Again, your rhetoric doesn’t square with the facts. According to a recent Newsweek poll, the majority of Americans support the reforms that are included in the Democratic health care bills:
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http://www.newsweek.com/media/84/1001_ftop_v2.pdf
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The Repub plan is a joke. It does little more than perpetuate the status quo while insuring an additional 5% of the uninsured over the next 10 years. It, like them, is a complete waste of time.
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The REAL Repub plan was let out of the bag by Ryan: Eliminate Medicare and turn it into a voucher program as a giveaway to the private insurance market and scale back and then eliminate Social Security, among other assorted bad ideas.
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You’re right about one thing: The Repubs are the party of no ideas, just the party of BAD ideas.

“I believe that the summit is the carrot and reconciliation is the stick.”
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Let’s see, the carrot 3 essentially identical plans that the voters have given the thumbs down. The stick is a gun held to head of who? Don’t be surprised its Democrats who take the gunshot

Derek,
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Doesn’t matter where we end up… as long as we end up there together, huh?

Jeez… I’d hate to take a vacation trip with these clowns…

Freeper says “Let’s see, the carrot 3 essentially identical plans that the voters have given the thumbs down.”
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what?? voters have given the thumbs down?? where?? when?? Was there a secret referendum on the HCR plan?
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“The stick is a gun held to head of who? Don’t be surprised its Democrats who take the gunshot”
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The gun will now held to the head of repugs in full public glare.. under the C-SPAN cameras.. Just as Obama promised during his campaign and what repugs kept insisting that he has broken !!
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Well, now Obama has kept his promise.. freeper, ask your leaders to walk the talk and walk the walk.

Michael,

I read the GOP healthcare plan you linked to. In the game of “I’ll show you mine” I’d say the Democratic plan is about 4 inches (hopefully it’s a grower not a show-er), and the Republicans are eunuchs.

“And how is it that most Americans can repeat the Republican lies and not know what has been in the bill until some pollster tells them what’s in the bill…”
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You know the answer – there can be only one – Beltway journalists will never admit.

thecommittee: Are you saying the Republican plan is the Rush Limbaugh of health plans and needs to take a trip to the Dominican Republic?

Sorry sweetheart polls ar not facts. Fact they had bills they forced through but Demos went running for cover when the voters began to revolt. If so many folks were for the plans they would have passed before Christmas That’s the fact.
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This won’t fare any better. In general polls folks may like certain things given a certain phrase. Add to it what it will cost them, what the deficit will be and it will be run for cover again.

“what?? voters have given the thumbs down?? where?? when??”

In VA, NJ and MA, you know a couple of the 57 states Obama visited. Demos heard the rumblings and ran like the morally bankrupt cowards they are.

REALLY, why are we even having this discussion — is the government REALLY are our side MORE than big business — are you kidding? In fall 2008 I learned that they don’t really care about what we want, they care about money in their pockets. All during 2009 up til now I’ve seen that the other party wants to ignore a large sector of the law-abiding, tax-paying citizenry and shove their progressive ideals down our throats.

Given the choice, I’ll work with Cigna, who my company can negotiate with, who calls me begging to help me, offering services, etc. so that my surgery doesn’t lead to post-op problems and more costs. Although you might call us the exception not the rule (we work for a good company) when could I ever expect that from the Federal government? Are you KIDDING? If we add competition, give us options for banding together as small-large groups to negotiate and increase competition and so forth, while it might still have problems I’d rather battle one large company than a bloated, faceless, corrupt $100 trillion in debt (unfunded liabilities) government run by men largely in the pockets of those or other companies… At least I’m one level down in terms of the battle… We the People – HA!!!

Stick to ignorance, it’s really your best and most consistent quality.
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Believe what you want regarding the elections you cited. They are less a referendum on health care reform than a representation of dissatisfaction with the gridlock in DC. Gridlock, I might add, that is largely the fault of the Repubs.
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It’s a nice bit of cognitive dissonance, believing that those elections represent outrage over health care yet discounting poll after poll that shows support for the underlying provisions of the bills and popular support for the public option.