Lost amidst the left-wing chest-thumping about allegedly mean-spirited, racist, anti-gay, horrible, no good, very bad Republican and Tea Party reactions to the passage of Obamacare is the absence of magnanimity from the victors. The signing ceremony resembled a “partisan pep rally“. The president and his Democratic allies behave as if conservatives lacked legitimate reasons to oppose his plan (even as they lost one-eighth of their caucus on the vote and had to twist arms and bribe lawmakers to get enough reluctant House Democrats to vote for passage to muster a meager majority.)
Instead of acknowledging how the debate engendered bitter exchanges while intensifying political differences in Washington and across the country, the president seeks to perpetuate them, mocking “Republicans’ campaign to try to repeal his new health care law, saying Thursday they should ‘Go for it’ and see how well they fare with voters.” “A better man”, Dan Riehl writes, “would have tried to mend fences, not widen gaps.”
On Good Morning America, Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts*) called the president’s rhetoric “inappropriate.” Indeed it is.
Rather than herald the passage of reform in unifying terms, the president returns to the stump, making campaign-style speeches. And he all but refuses to the concerns of opponents of the legislation, dismissing them instead as partisanship gamesmanship. He prefers to rally his base. A healer and a united he ain’t.
Maybe more people would rally to his health care overhaul if he chose to confront those concerns rather than dismiss and otherwie belittle them.
In this way, the incumbent very much resembles the worst aspects of his predecessor who did not often enough take to the airwaves to explain why his Iraq policy was in the national interest. Only George W. Bush did not so mock his partisan adversaries.
The president has a great gift for the spoken word; it’s unfortunate, he’s not using it to unite the nation.
*I so love writing that, I had to spell the state’s name out.
hmmm…well, how much has the gop’s rhetoric changed since the passage of the bill?
Yeah, but Chad, maybe you should read the headline before you comment. The President is the leader of this country. The GOP is a partisan movement.
And still, I think you’ll find that the rhetoric of Republicans leaders is far less divisive than that of the President of the United States.
Barry is turning out to be a first-rank jerk.
I had to laugh at his claims that signing the bill didn’t bring on Armageddon (no meteors, birds still singing, and all the rest). So he fancies himself the power to do all that? I mean, he lowered sea levels, didn’t he?
Armageddon doesn’t have to occur in an instant… it can be slow and painful. Like this:
AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama, the most of any U.S. company so far. – Bloomberg
Let’s see, I’ve also read that John Deere will take a $150 million charge; Caterpillar $100 million; Valero $250 million; 3M $85 million.
There’s an odor of off-shoring in the air…
Interesting timeline here (especially starting in 2011):
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/WM_hcr_timelinel.pdf
On Good Morning America, Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts*) called the president
’s rhetoric“inappropriate.”Fixed the typo.
dan, you’re rude.
Obama has lowered the Presidency by mocking his opponents the way he does. The arrogant uppity way he does it, like he knows all, he’s better than everyone. What goes around comes around Mr President. Americans usually make sure those that fly high and love themselves eventually come to a crash. God Bless.
The mark of a bad product is when the salesperson tears down the competition rather than focusing on its virtues.
Obama is a failure. Fortunately for him, he’s surrounded with liberals like Chad who will always support him because of his skin color, regardless of his lack of character.
oh nd30, the irony of your righteousness is just delicious. when have you ever responded to a comment without levelling ad hominem attacks against your opponent?
Hey Chad,
“You bring a knife, we’ll bring a gun!”
Ghetto trash or an appropriate comment from a President of the United States?
Health care reform is now the law of the land.
What part of “illegal” don’t you understand?
I think it’s important to work to replace unjust laws with just laws. That’s why I support Obama working to give amnesty to “illegal” aliens.
If you can work to repeal health care laws which you see as unjust, why is it wrong to work on immigration laws I think are unjust? Why are the groups protesting health care any better than the groups protesting the current immigration laws?
Why did gays work to overturn sodomy laws? What part of “illegal” didn’t they understand?
Ghetto trash or an appropriate comment from a President of the United States?
Well, Chad would think it ghetto trash if it came from a white President.
But since Chad makes decisions based on skin color rather than the content of character, he has no choice but to say that Obama is appropriate in saying it.
Unless, of course, Chad wants to criticize Obama, which in the past Chad has shrieked is always the result of racist beliefs.
nd30, when have i ever said that criticism of obama is per se racism? prove it, or stfu.
Oh, so now you’re flip-flopping and saying that criticism of Obama isn’t racist? Thanks for joining the reality-based world, but what made you change your mind?
flip flop? you can’t show that i ever said criticism of obama was racist in the first place. in order to flip-flop, there has to be a slip first. like i said, prove it, or stfu.
and when you can’t prove it, admit that you’re a liar.
My, my, my, the poor liberal is trying to whine and scream that he and his fellow liberals have never called opposition to Obama’s policies racist and claimed that all tea partiers can be traced back to the likes of George Wallace and the KKK.
You lose.
And of course, watch as the racist chad spins to avoid criticizing a black columnist. Again, the skin color trumps all.
you’re a liar, nd30. a bold-faced, trashy, P.O.S. liar. you accuse me of claiming that all criticism of obama is racist, and when i challenge you to prove it, you link to a column written by someone else? you do understand that i’m not colbert king, right?
for the last time, prove it. prove that i have ever claimed that criticism of obama is racist. if you post here again without such proof, i will consider that a tacit admission that you’re a liar.
You do realize, Chad, that your support and endorsement of Colbert King and now Frank Rich, both of whom nicely demonstrate the liberal ideology that all criticism of Obama is racist, does in fact demonstrate my point that you think all criticism of Obama is racist.
Now, if you’re such an independent in this regard, prove it. State that Colbert King and Frank Rich are wrong and are in fact acting in a racist fashion themselves. If you post again without stating this, it will be taken as a full admission that you support and endorse their views that all criticism of Obama is racist.