And if Obama, like the Greek heroes, wishes to find success in his endeavors, he’ll heed the advice of the owl-eyed goddess blogress pundit.
Peggy Noonan contends (and I agree) that if the President pulls make from making this a priority and admits he “made a mistake,” it will increase his standing with the American people:
I suspect the American people would appreciate seeing Barack Obama learn from this, and keep going. He’s their president. He will be for the next few difficult years, which will no doubt contain moments he will have to lead us through. They also probably wouldn’t mind seeing a wry, modest, very human and self-critical stance from a new president who doesn’t strut and doesn’t swagger but does have a level of 1950s cool, Old Vegas cool, of supreme and confident smoothness that one wouldn’t mind seeing ruffled a bit by that old ruffler, reality.
Basically, Peggy thinks the president has failed to rally the American people around his notion of reform because he hasn’t clearly explained it:
Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. . . . . The president’s health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of “he hasn’t told us his plan.” I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—”single payer,” “public option,” “insurance marketplace exchange.” No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.
And when normal people don’t know what the words mean, they don’t say to themselves, “I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect.” They think, “I can’t get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I’ll vote no.”
In that last paragraph above, Peggy gets at the essence of the problem. Unlike President Obama, the American people have a natural distrust of government. We may give new leaders the benefit of the doubt, but we still want them to explain what they are doing. In terms we can understand. Especially when there is a near-trillion dollar price tag attached.
It’s Peggy, just read the whole thing.
I will read Peggy when she says she was wrong and we would have been better off with Hillary. And then her head explodes.
ALERT ALERT, JERRY MCNENERY, CA-11, DEMOCRAT HAS AGREED TO A TOWN HALL TOMORROW 12 TO 2 IN PLEASANTON, CA Congressman Jerry McNerney’s Pleasanton office:
5776 Stoneridge Mall Rd. #175 Pleasanton, CA 94588
WHEN: Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 12-3 pm
I’LL BE THERE, PLEASE JOIN ME.
Read Peggy this morning, another one of her good ones. Although I was sorry to see that she like obama always has to get her digs in at Bush.
This is one of her good columns, she does ‘get’ the American people, the fact that we are not sheep.
John, too far from Pleasanton, can’t even make it to the local tea party in Westwood. Fight the good fight for us!
Meanwhile, ma’am boxer has a new canned response to letters, all about the wonders of obamacare. And from DiFi I don’t even get a canned response.
Oh, please. That’s ghastly writing, in style as well as well as the ludicrous content.
No again. Obama *has* explained what he wants to do. In terms we can understand. So that’s not “the essence of the problem”. The problem is: he’s been lying. (Example – pretending his plan would be deficit neutral, that it would leave all the good parts of our current system unchanged, and other Obama bald-faced lies to the American people.)
(Dramatic example – Obama claiming that he has “never” supported single-payer when there is YouTube video of Obama literally saying “I support a single payer system”…)
Noonan the Populist, invoking a Bushism (“…voodoo…”) that was used to criticize her meal-ticket and a movement she increasingly fails to understand? She has mistaken conservatism for snobbery, i.e. her ‘unique insight’ is not only a mirage — it’s antithetical to the conservative spirit of profound self-respect, respect for others, and individual initiative, something we all possess.
The profound man seeks the clarity of truth; the man who wishes to be considered profound only seeks to obscure it. – F. Nietzsche
Athena? I think not. Hera, maybe- jealous, obsessive, inconstant, destructive towards any woman more beautiful or talented, ot-nay ootay rightbray.
Michelle Malkin or Ann Coulter might deserve that name- but not Ms. ObamaPecs.
Sarah Palin has a better claim as the Huntress, seeing as how she’s already brought down some big game. But Noonan? She has forgotten the face of Ronald Reagan.
Yahoo-Reuters headline right now: “Obama again tackles ‘myths’ on healthcare reform”.
It should be, “Obama again tells lies that only his cultists believe on healthcare reform.”
#9: Yep, ILC. Obama is just repeating the same tired, obvious lies that have been causing his approval numbers to sink–claiming he wants “vigorous debate” while demonizing his critics. He’s even still trying to sell this whopper:
“As I’ve said from the beginning, under the reform we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period.”
BS you can believe in.
Re-read Peggy. Gotta say this again. Obama’s health care plan IS understandable, in simple phrases like she outlines. It is: Government takeover of health care. The problem with Obama’s sales pitch has been him lying about it. Turns out most Americans still hate being lied to and are finally seeing that Obama is just a used car salesman.