Posted on 12/18/2009 10:02:54 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
So here we are, not a year into the Change & Hope presidency, and we're already divining Obama's demise.
We're not talking about the actual presidency, which has three years to run. We're talking about the illusions and promises we wrapped around him. Promises dashed, compromises made, fortune reversed. So much gone so soon. We've got a president in a tailspin. His base is in revolt, his party in disarray. We've got a health care reform bill that has no reform left in it, and which even those who back it call "crap." We've got a Senate where one man (today it's Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska) holds his own party and president hostage to his demands. After months of razzle and dazzle, grandiose statements and even more grand cost estimates, lobbying, back-channel deals and jowling and cajoling, it's not certain today that the Senate will pass this mess of a bill by Christmas Day.
While Washington poses and pivots, the rest of the country, the real America, wonders where all the jobs are going and when credit will loosen up and when the drumbeat of economic bad news will stop. The people's anger and frustration are coming through loud and clear in grassroots protests and political polls. The president's approval ratings are tumbling day after day. Last week a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll said 46 percent of voters don't believe President Obama will be re-elected in 2012. Four days later, on Wednesday, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found his approval rating dropping to a new low of 50 percent. The next day, on Thursday, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed his approval rating at a new low of 47 percent, and even more startling, a survey suggests that the rowdy and rude anti-government Tea Party Movement enjoys more support than Democrats and Republicans.
What's most surprising about all this is how quickly the president lost the high ground, how quickly he lost his footing, and how quickly his own base turned against him.
This has left savvy political insiders in the Democratic Party wondering where things went wrong. A veteran Democratic political analyst who stays plugged into Washington from his perch in New York framed it for me very simply: Obama abandoned his vision, his promises, and his goals. "One, his vision of unity and bipartisanship went out the window early,'' he said. "He hasn't even kept the party united. Two, he didn't keep his promise to fight the lobbyists. Lobbyists are not only immersed in the health care bill, they are running it. Three, he gave in to opponents and let the Senate strip the health care bill of the things like public option that he had promised during his campaign. Four, he's bought into the conventional wisdom that says that a bad health care bill is better than nothing.''
A week that started with Sunday Bloody Sunday, when the Connecticut senator, Joseph Lieberman, jumped ship to everyone's shock, got only worse. Lieberman, in that didactic tone that can irritate the most temperate listener, announced on national television that he would not vote for the health care bill if it contained the public option provision (darling of liberals) and/or a Medicare extension to people 55 to 64. He won. Goodbye to the public option and Medicare extension. Then, the next day, Howard Dean, former Democratic presidential candidate and party chief, got on his high horse and, as is his wont, furiously called for the bill to be killed. Better dead than watered down was his thinking. The party went berserk.
Al Franken, the comedian who is now a Democratic senator from Minnesota, made a jerk of himself by cutting off Lieberman's statement on the Senate floor. Bill Clinton leaped into the fray, calling for passage of an imperfect bill rather than ending up empty-handed. Everything is unraveling. And that's where we are today. And where's Obama? In Copenhagen, taking on China on climate change. Good luck!
“...the rowdy and rude anti-government Tea Party Movement”
Total BS.I was in DC on 9/12/09, over a million people, not one arrest. These people drive me crazy!
The author labels the Tea Party “rowdy and rude”?
Not from what I saw.
Clean venues after rallies, holding their own against media types who more or less insulted the intelligence of attendees and the viewing audience, . . . .
So she is a former NYT’er?
Makes sense.
this is not surprising at all. obama was sold to the public by an adoring media as the answer to all problems, real and perceived. nobody investigated his background, and those that tried were given the stiff arm by his fellow travelers in academia and elsewhere. the media was pissed about the swift boat ads that killed their last crappy candidate in 04 and worked hand in hand with obama’s campaign to prevent that from happening again. come to find out, he’s just as liberal as the right said he was. so naturally when the American middle found this out (the super gullible) they weren’t impressed.
Yeah, these rowdy and rude middle Americans who leave the place cleaner than they found it.
“This has left savvy political insiders in the Democratic Party wondering where things went wrong.”
Things began to go wrong when citizens realized what the real intentions of these “savvy political insiders” in the Democratic Party were. As long as Democrat senators and congressmen have the audacity to tell their audience that it is impertinent of them to want to know what is contained in their rotten legislation, the only thing they will have going for them will be their media stooges and their SEIU thugs.
Not surprising at all! With this moron's background, associations, and narcissitic personality, it was quite apparent to FR that he was in over his head. It has taken way too long for things to fall apart, a lot of damage has already been done. May the end come even quicker.
You might also add how the media engineered McCain's nomination, then attacked McCain and Palin. The real problem is the media.
The main problem that Obama has is that this country is still OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people. He shelved that idea so early on and exposed his downright Communist/Alinsky upbringing, surmising that after 30 years of public schooling most of the masses are dumb, stupid and too into the newest American Idol to notice his sliding us into totalitarianism with him and his cronies at the reigns of government. This country “tolerates” the Pelosis, Reids, Franks and Kerrys, but we are AMERICANS first and foremost and still salute our flag and honor our country, right or wrong. Obama wanted to “fundamentally change’ our country but underestimated the AMERICAN people who still bleed red, white and blue.
Obama’s already killed any chance his party will hold on to power after the 2010 elections.
Nice job chief!
While Washington poses and pivots, the rest of the country, the real America, wonders where all the jobs are going and when credit will loosen up and when the drumbeat of economic bad news will stop. The people's anger and frustration are coming through loud and clear in grassroots protests and political polls... a survey suggests that the rowdy and rude anti-government Tea Party Movement enjoys more support than Democrats and Republicans... A veteran Democratic political analyst who stays plugged into Washington from his perch in New York framed it for me very simply: Obama abandoned his vision, his promises, and his goals.I have to disagree -- this is just some more partisan media shill activity, planting the meme. All Zero has to do is get back to his vision, promises, and goals, and all will be okay again. Whew.
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