Posted on 08/07/2009 8:23:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
President Obama's decision to unleash his operatives at the DNC, surrogates like Barbara Boxer, and his staff like Linda Douglas to slander and attempt to intimidate opponents of Obamacare not only has badly backfired, it has opened another front the president now finds himself fighting on: Does he intend to be the new Nixon, rather than the new FDR? Like Nixon, will he unleash a political operation that spirals out of control and ends his presidency?
More than a million people have signed a petition to stop Obamacare, and the president and his Chicago-rules enforcers have serially insulted each one of them and every other citizen who rejects Obamacare for any of many reasons.P>
Appealing as the president did via the White House web for snitches to turn in "fishy" citizens smacks of the lowest sort of thuggish politics. It took Chuck Colson a couple of years and the repeated leaks of national security information and massive protests of the Vietnam era to get the Watergate-era Plumbers up and running. A mere six months into his unsteady start, the new president is reaching for the political blackjacks. "The White House request that members of the public report anyone who is spreading 'disinformation' about the proposed national health care makeover could lead to a White House database of political opponents that will be both secret and permanent, according to Republican lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are examining the plan's possible implementation," writes Byron York in the Washington Examiner. A new Enemies List! Can break-ins to doctors' offices be far behind?
The opposition to Obamacare has exploded and spread in a natural, viral way across the country to various events sponsored by various congressmen and senators. Because the issue if of such enormous consequence to their lives, the opposition will continue to spread. It is the same sort of energy that accompanied the immigration debate of a couple of years ago when all participants in the Congressional debate --GOP and Democrat-- were perceived by the public as not being candid and responsive, and before that during the recall of Gray Davis in California following the rolling blackouts of energy and Davis' near complete collapse in his ability to be believed.
This voluble crowds and loud expressions of disdain and dismay arrive when political elites attempt to jam down very unpopular policies or explain away very pressing problems with manifestly absurd arguments or dodges. The concern and anger that has been on display the past two weeks and which is likely to continue to grow is rooted in the fact that (1) Obamacare is rightly understood to be a threat to people's existing insurance and doctors and (2) the president repeatedly and falsely "guarantees" voters that they can keep their insurance and doctors. The refusal of proponents of Obamacare to honestly address these obviously major problems and concerns feeds the fear which feeds the anger. The president, Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and the rest are hiding the truth about the consequences of Obamacare and voters know it.
There's a reason why Democratic Congressman Collin Peterson of Minnesota declared his opposition to Obamacare this week --he wants to keep his job.
Two Arkansas Democrats, Mike Ross and Vic Snyder have to be recalculating their political futures after a hometown crowd of angry constituents blasted the "compromise" Ross and other "Blue Dogs" worked out with the hard left Henry Waxman. Conservative Democrats and moderates are not buying the idea that the left will genuinely compromise and are assuming, correctly, the good ole boys got hornswaggled by the sharpies from the coast and the cool guy in the White House. They are working and they like their health insurance and don't want to be pushed into a tin-cup government plan. They know Medicare is slated to put the screws to doctors again, which means seniors will be even less likely to get appointments and procedures. And they know that the political elites of the Beltway will continue on with their platinum-plated FEHB plan, free of any concern over life's health insurance lottery.
There are lots and lots of Democratic congressmen and Democratic senators up for election in 15 months. If Obamacare is pushed through on narrow majorities using street thug tactics and supported by Pelosi-Boxer San Francisco sneering over the objection of core Democratic constituencies, the Obama coalition will be as dead as the prospect of efficient and effective health care in America. Retreating from the brink would be a defeat for Obama, but not the Waterloo predicted by Senator Jim DeMint if the president disengaged artfully and instead imposed a package of necessary reforms on the senate and the house but one that excluded the government option and massive tax hikes.
President Obama is still in a position to declare are a victory and achieve a useful bit of reform, but all signals are that his ego is engaged in winning the end of American medicine as we know it, and forcing tens of millions of Americans into a half-way house to single-payer while punishing doctors for their past sins and collecting information for opponents' permanent records.
The reaction to this thrust for power is more political resistance. When the DNC puts out a scurrilous ad like yesterday's branding opponents as part of a right wing extremist mob, I and other radio hosts gladly play it again and again. When Barbara Boxer astonishes rational people with her diatribes, we play Boxer's rants again and again. We play the president's "guarantees" again and again, and Robert Gibbs' shambling rambling non-sequitors again and again. (Does Gibbs go the way of Stephanopoulos soon? George S. was a great asset to Bill Clinton but not so good in the Press Room and got yanked in favor of David Gergen about six months into Clinton's first term. Is Gergen warming up in his permanent D.C. bullpen?)
All the hit pieces and all the supporting fire from a still cheering MSM (there are credible exceptions like ABC's Jake Tapper and Politico's Mike Allen) are not going to turn the debate on Obamacare because it sets up a "government plan/private option" that will attract thousands of employers to dump millions of employees into it. That's the hard reality, the granite fact, at the heart of this debate. Tens of millions of Americans don't want to go into the post office or DMV equivalent of health care, and they will continue to say no --at various volumes-- and to learn every day that Team Obama just doesn't care what they think. The concerned citizens should sit down and shut up according to all the president's men and women. And those men and women are taking names.
Actually, Hugh, they know we are smart. And that’s why this scares the crap outta these cowards. Like spoiled brats, they can’t stand the heat.
Jeez. We are supposed to be intimidated By ACORN and Union thugs. Please..We are not Pussy ass Liberals. I know of nobone who is scared of this rabble. They are afraid of us. Paper Tigers only propprd up by the Libs in the Press. The real fear is theirs of Regular taxpayers in the street confronting the Taxtakers.
love these videos!!!! cant wait for a town hall near me again. people let your voices be heard!! keep calling your reps
Please, if anyone has not signed it, please do.
Fair enough, they take our names, we kick their @$$ out of Washington.
"President Obama is still in a position to declare are a victory and achieve a useful bit of reform, but all signals are that his ego is engaged in winning the end of American medicine as we know it, and forcing tens of millions of Americans into a half-way house to single-payer while punishing doctors for their past sins and collecting information for opponents' permanent records."
Even the union thugs are not going to change my mind.
I hope Hugh is right on this one. I believe that the Dem thuggery at town hall meetings etc is going to grow and will get violent. The imported union and ACORN thugs at these events are nothing less than Brown Shirts. Nothing less. They are going to start beating up defenseless people. Bet on it.
We are Germany in the 1930s. Question is, do all of us middle class “Walter Mittys” have the will to stand against the violence and the soon to come government retribution?
These people are making it very clear, they are playing for all the marbles. No more incrementalism. They are planning to sledgehammer us into submission.
Part of the problem is the fact that the democrats are attacking more than just those who traditionally oppose the democrats. My uncle is a Teamster and former Obama supporter who says he’s had enough of the name calling and divisive politics of these idiots.
I’ll have to wait till I get home to sign, dang firewall at work
What? You mean The Failed Obama Presidency© may have to RESIGN!
If it comes to blows I'll bet on our ex-military people against their union thugs any day.
Charting America’s Health Care Future
Join us for an Important
Dialogue on
Proposed Health Care Reform
With
Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)
&
Monday, August 17th
7:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Southern Methodist University
Umphrey Lee Ballroom - Umphrey Lee Center
3300 Dyer St.
Dallas, TX 75205
Click here for a map.
Registration is free - Advanced Registration is required.
Click here for a printable flyer and registration form.
Click here to register online.
They have awaken the sleeping giant. Time to draw a line in the sand. They have gone too far.
This is about FREEDOM!
Please...be careful out there...what the MSM WANTS is footage of conservatives pushing back...hard.
Don’t play into their hands.
Don't rule out angry seniors with mace, either. Should make for some great You Tube...
But by all means push back firmly. They can take my name, my family already relies as much as possible on black-market healthcare because we already HAVE socialized medicine for all intents and purposes. They just want to complete this trend of forcing other people to pay for a given person’s health care (i.e., theft).
Ya gotta be there. I suggest you go get out of the house and show up. It really is not that big of a deal. But it does scare the Libs to death when Regular taxpayers show up. It intimidates them. They are the Taxtakers do not forget. They are the theives. They know it. Basically theives and robbers are cowards. Tampa prooves it. They ran like the Skunks they are.
Please enter a valid Email!. I am using my valid email address
Ping
Yeah, I am so angry over it all, that I used my real name and real email address too.
It’s the old self defense trick.
The push first, we SHOVE!!!!!!! and get it all on tape
Obamacare plans to eliminate (or subsume) Medicare so they can ration elder care and help the seniors die. It is being presented as a “cost cutting measure, folks. As was Hitler’s final solution.
I agree somewhat. Although I think they still think they’re ahead in the numbers game, I do believe they know we’re smarter than their usual plantation constituency of dependent losers. We’re the people who make things work, the fixers, the engineers, the schedulers, the doctors, the pharmacists, the builders, and the entrepreneurs who keep the pistons greased and the water flowing, so they know we’re not the usual greedy whiners and lazy dumbasses that can barely tie their shoes they’re used to dealing with.
By the way, does anyone know if it’s true that malpractice suits cost $200b a year?
I hope they have a lot of luck with that. There is a reason that a lot of Americans bought guns since Nov 08 and they were not for hunting. There is a massive difference between the average German and the average American. Most of them will not put up with this. The sheep are starting to wake up and that is not good for the libs.
Did they accept your real email address?
[[We are Germany in the 1930s. Question is, do all of us middle class “Walter Mittys” have the will to stand against the violence and the soon to come government retribution?
These people are making it very clear, they are playing for all the marbles. No more incrementalism. They are planning to sledgehammer us into submission.]]
Spot on- and like previous grassroots processions, this too will pass, and those protesting will just fade into hte background and be portrayed by the mainstream media as nothign but an insignificant rabble-rousing fringe group UNLESS we collectively decide our RIGHTS are morei mportant than our current freedom (We’ll be subjected to false imprisonment for opposing Obama, and I think many will shrink away when we are unfairly imprisoned- I’m not sure just how far we hte people arte willing to go with htis- we’ve becoem awful comfortable and not willing to give up this comfort I’m afraid- but we’ll see)
It’s getting ugly out there, with Obama calling on union and ACORN thugs to intimidate protestors. Anyone who goes to these townhalls is advised to be careful and be ready for violence. It’s already started, fomented by the POTUS and the DNC.
As an old debater, one well-known rule is that if the other guy loses his temper, you win. One of my standard tactics was to say somethign I knew would get someone on the other team tolose his/her temper.
We’re being forceful but respectful. They’re losiong tehir temper and displaying their contempt for their employers (us.) That only hurts them.
BTTT
” We’re being forceful but respectful. They’re losiong tehir temper and displaying their contempt for their employers (us.) That only hurts them. “
That’s “Revolution 101” — provoke (or frighten, if you will) your opponent into outrageous over-reaction...
The over-the-top rhetoric from Pelosi, DNC Talking Points, and even The White House - not to mention the violent incidents in Tampa Bay and St Louis last nite - show that it’s working....
We need to keep up the pressure
You are exactly right. I think sometimes it’s better to let the other side think they won.
When they slander the protesters, there are millions of others who share the same concerns, as the ones who have been slandered. They know that the same things would have been said about them, had they been able to be there. They also know that these things would have been lies. This makes it very easy for them to see that the politicians are lying about the motives of the protesters.
Who ever made the site is an idiot. I just tried to sign the petition again using the Opera browser. Same result as before. Then I signed the petition again, this time using an old expired email address that I had several years ago and it was accepted
Stay armed. Stay ready, don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
I agree!!
Reporting for duty Sir.
I don't know why ABC is letting Jake get away with being more even-handed and centrist. He's taking a few issues head-on. I'm not sure which side he's on though. He doesn't have to be and perhaps shouldn't be journalistically on any side, objective reporting is refreshing.
Mike Allen I don't know. I will never forget Jake's taking on the Palin haters about those despicable t-shirts, think he called them vile and exposed the individual and group behind that. I thought that was decent of him as he could have joined the chorus of Palin haters because it probably got more hits when there was a negative story about her.
I also like Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck. There, I said it. The left despises them, dismisses them without even attempting to refute anything they say. I remember Lou Dobbs getting too "big for his britches" on CNN when he was reporting about possible voter fraud by Obama workers. I don't know if they canned him for it or he got a better offer from FOX.
Ya know what the “kicker” is, not only that they are smart ,they are armed. ( that is what sets them apart from becoming slaves)
Can you imagine if President Bush had done this?
Bush tried to privatize a portion of Social Security. He was told to shut up and don’t think about bringing the idea up again.
I still want a graphic with the Obama, Peolosi, Reid & Rahm waterboarding the USA by shoving the health care bill down our throats.
It will make him stand out from the rest of the lemmings in the media.
It's too bad the media has become so partisan. It seems to me either conservatives are comfortable with what is now and continue watching, but you'd think they'd have more viewership if they were more balanced.
I'm not against tv particularly but am so out of the habit of watching it that I haven't bothered to try to hook up my converter box, get my news off the web, and a lot of it is msm but with my own filters lol.
I can't watch fox regularly, and know how the left derides them, too. Even when they report verifiable facts. They back off the hot button stuff usually, too.
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