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Posted on 09/04/2009 8:59:35 AM PDT by La Lydia
This is what a leadership vacuum looks like: House Democratic chiefs, after a calamitous August recess, dispatched Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) to the Capitol on Thursday to try to pick up the pieces of the shattered health-care bill.
"We've heard the stories -- death panels, euthanasia," the vice chairman of the House Democratic caucus told a roomful of reporters and cameras summoned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office..."This is not socialized medicine," Becerra pleaded, before asking consent to deliver a quick message in Spanish: "Hay muchas mentiras!" -- there are many lies.
It was a painfully defensive performance, and if news conferences were subject to death panels, Becerra may well have been euthanized. By the end, the Democratic leader had tossed out his script and was pleading with President Obama to show some leadership when he comes before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday...It's a plea Obama is hearing in more and more places on more and more topics. Proponents of climate-change legislation fear that its prospects are fading in the Senate...And Time's Joe Klein, generally sympathetic to Obama, accused him of a "deferral of responsibility" on such matters as health care and investigating torture at the CIA. "He has to lead, clearly and decisively, starting right now," Klein advised.
So eager was Obama to avoid the mistakes of 1993, when the Clinton administration tried to present Congress with a fully formed health-care proposal, that he left Congress to its own devices on the issue. That led to a disastrous summer: Democrats on the defensive, the left wing snarling, and splits within the White House. It's almost enough to make one nostalgic for George W. Bush's theory of congressional relations: my way or the highway....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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But it gets even better:
CNN's Ted Barrett asked how Democrats could get enough votes to pass a bill. Becerra likened the situation to skydiving: "As I keep saying to my colleagues, you're packing my parachute, I'm packing yours. America needs to know that when we're packing their parachute, we're doing it the right way. We had all of August to tell people how we're going to try to pack the parachute. Now its time to start to get ready and take the jump."
It was an unfortunate metaphor for a piece of legislation that is losing altitude.
...and can kill us.
The problem isn’t the packing of the chute. It’s WHO is packing the chute.
Inexperienced ‘packers’ can get you killed!
lol!
Ain’t that the truth!
That’s going to have Dick Nixon spinning in his grave.
"Terrain terrain. Pull up pull up."
And there ain’t no way he’s coming anywhere near my chute.
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