Posted on 02/15/2010 4:32:06 AM PST by kingattax
How quickly the president and congressional Democrats have turned to tricks and ploys and sham events. ---
How the mighty have fallen! Only seven or eight months ago, President Obama and congressional Democrats were on their way to remaking America along liberal lines and positioning themselves for decades of political dominance.
Their lopsided majorities in the House and Senate, plus the White House, gave them unassailable command of Washington.
Today, they still have those majorities and the presidency, but they’re no longer in command. Their hopes of enacting the most ambitious agenda of liberal legislation since the days of FDR and the Depression are over.
Now they’re reduced to stunts, tricks, and gambits usually associated with embattled presidents and minority parties.
Obama’s invitation to Republicans to join him at a bipartisan health care summit next week has been dubbed the “Blair House stunt” by political analyst Jay Cost. (They’ll meet at the Blair House across the street from the White House.)
It’s supposed to give Democrats and Republicans a chance to compromise on health care reform--on ObamaCare, as it’s been nicknamed.
Fat chance. The invitation makes it clear that Republicans would be props in the televised summit as Obama and Democrats tout their own bill.
Both houses of Congress have passed “comprehensive health care legislation,” it says. “…The Blair House meeting is the next step in the process.”
If that isn’t plain enough about what Democrats are up to, the strategy that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is currently pursuing on ObamaCare should remove any doubts.
She has concocted a three-step process to pass the Democratic bill without any input from Republicans (as usual).
It’s a tricky process, as even some Democrats concede. And it’s both complicated and a last ditch ploy, a legislative hail mary.
First, the House must pass the Senate version of ObamaCare, which won Senate approval on Christmas Eve. Then, in a second bill, the House would enact changes in the legislation to make it more amenable to wary Democrats in the House. The third step would have Democrats use “reconciliation” in the Senate to pass the changes with 51 votes, not the 60 normally needed to overcome a filibuster.
This tactic would touch off a firestorm of Republican protests.
But it may not work. Putting together a majority in the House may be beyond Pelosi’s skill at cajoling and intimidating reluctant Democratic members.
When the House version of ObamaCare passed in November, it got 220 votes. She’s lost 4 votes since then (one by resignation, one by imminent resignation, one by death, one by switching).
That gives Pelosi 216 votes, one short of a majority given the vacancies. Also, a number of Democrats may join Republicans to oppose reconciliation in the Senate.
In September of 2008 Fred Barnes said that any Republican against TARP “is an idiot.” I don’t care what he has to say now, or ever.
Headcounting in the House is not aa straight forward an affair as the article implies and I’m sure Barnes knows it. The last vote was close but some vulnerable Dems were given dispensation to vote against the bill. Pelosi won’t be issuing any hall passes this time.
Last I heard was that she is now 100 votes short to pass anything deathcare bill in the house.
I dunno. Too many Dems, who have been marching lemming-like over Cliff Obama, are now clearly seeing the end of their legislative “careers” (term limits, anyone??). Shark-eyed Pelosi (not to mention milquetoast Reid) have their hands full now.
I think that the Republicans have already won this one. Why would they dive back in for a Re-Play?
I saw a report last week that suggested she was 100 votes short. I can’t credit that but she may have lost a lot of support along the way. The lingering death of this bill reminds me of the SNL skits many years ago about Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain and his long slow demise.
Democrats have turned to tricks and ploys and sham events. Like that is a news item.
Fred Barnes, for all his conservative positions (and he has many) is at heart a “Beltway” boy. His fatal flaw, like the Bush dynasty, is big government. Bigger the better.
I’d like commentators and candidates who openly advocate the abolishment of the NEA, the de-unionization of government employees, and pulling out of the UN.
The “Blair House Stunt” is part of Pelosi-Obama’s plan to ram this through. It’s also the set up if it fails; in that case, Republicans will be blamed in a coordinated SRM cacophony.
Pelosi and Obama hope that this will diminish the strength of the blow this November. Republicans who fall for this are worse than fools.
“Republicans will be blamed in a coordinated SRM cacophony.”
Blamed? The majority of Americans oppose deathcare. What will republicans be “blamed” for when deathcare fails?
He hasn’t fallen as far as he should have, because there are still too many uninformed, useful idiots that still don’t have a clue about what his real intentions are.
I am puzzled why we continue to call it TARP. Originally Paulson told Congress he would buy up the bank’s toxic assets, thereby strengthening their balance sheets and allowing them to return to business as usual. Within days of passage however, Paulson changed the program to just large infusions of cash into the troubled banks. Since the banks still own the toxic assets how can we still call it a Toxic Asset Recovery Program?
“I think that the Republicans have already won this one. Why would they dive back in for a Re-Play?”
Because Republicans (at least up to now) love Lucy’s football.
“Fred Barnes, for all his conservative positions (and he has many) is at heart a “Beltway” boy. His fatal flaw, like the Bush dynasty, is big government. Bigger the better.”
I dropped him 6 years ago, when he came out in favor of amnesty.
Good analogy. Like the Colts inviting the Saints to have a Redo of the Super Bowl and the Saints accepting the invitation.
Is Franco still dead?
“Like the Colts inviting the Saints to have a Redo of the Super Bowl and the Saints accepting the invitation.”
Yours is even better. LOL!
McCain is probably apoplectic that he was not invited to the “aisle reaching” contest.
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