Have I ever mentioned to you guys how much I love Charles Krauthammer?
Kidding. I know I tell you that at least once a week. And his latest column is precisely why. The Hammer nails it again.
It’s about the attitude liberals have towards conservatives, as well as liberal blindness to what the majority of Americans want out of their government. I’ve talked about this quite a bit over the last week or two – the reality of the meaning of Scott Brown’s victory is totally lost on Democrats. Their response has been to downplay it, make idiotic assumptions about what voters meant by their votes, and pretend as though the reason people are upset is simply due to their own inability to understand the Democratic agenda.
So at the SOTU and afterwards, Obama pledged to plow ahead on healthcare, plow ahead on cap and trade legislation, and create another stimulus package repurposed as a “jobs bill.” Because that is how stupid he thinks we are.
CK mentions NYT columnist Charles Blow – who Actually Believes that Obama didn’t do a good enough job explaining his agenda to us. He said Obama should speak more, “in the plain words of plain folks,” because regular folks are “suspicious of complexity.” Blow went even further, and said, “The next time he gives a speech, someone should tap him on the ankle and say, ‘Mr. President, we’re down here.’”
And that’s when Krauthammer coined the term “ankle-dwelling mob” which totally gave me the giggles. Obama himself even declared in an interview shortly after the SOTU that he feels bad about not explaining health care to us all more clearly. Apparently the 29 speeches devoted to healthcare were just not dumbed down enough for us ankle-dwellers.
That’s really what they think, you guys. If you don’t support Obama’s agenda, it’s because you’re too stupid to understand it. If you’re “angry and frustrated” by what’s happening to our country under Democratic leadership, it’s because, as David Axelrod said, you “…made a decision…to sit it out and hope that we failed, that the country failed.” Yeah. That’s what I’m doing – sitting around and hoping for the failure of the country I love. GAWD.
Liberals can’t conceive of conservatives simply disagreeing with the Obama agenda based on its lack of own merit. That possibility simply cannot exist. And, even though they’ve been unable to pass any big ticket legislation despite owning the WH, Senate and House, Democrats convince themselves that it’s Republicans’ fault for blocking them.
But it’s like Krauthammer said, “The ankle-dwelling populace pushes back. It re-centers. It renormalizes. Even in Massachusetts.”
That’s damn right.
Unable to think outside their own paradigm. It’s crippling.
“So at the SOTU and afterwards, Obama pledged to plow ahead on healthcare, plow ahead on cap and trade legislation, and create another stimulus package repurposed as a “jobs bill.”
They campaigned on these issues (healthcare, climate change, & the economy), and Americans voted them into power in part because of this. Whatever Scott Brown’s victory meant, it certainly wasn’t a request to return to the GOP’s “glory years”.
PS – they campaigned on those issues, yes. What they DID with those issues completely freaked people out. Do people want health reform? Sure. Do they want to be good environmental stewards? Sure. Do they want a strong economy? Sure.
The problem is, the Democrats went hog wild and waaaaay too liberal on ALL of those issues for the majority of Americans, even the Americans who voted for them. And THAT is the lesson they should have learned from the Brown election. They need to slow down, regroup, listen to the GOP’s ideas, work on legislation that makes sense, and not be so hell-bent on “fundamentally transforming” this country. But instead, Obama is plowing ahead, chiding Congress to remember that they have the majority and to move forward.
Bad idea. And it’ll come back to bite him, in more ways than it already has.
“He said Obama should speak more, ‘in the plain words of plain folks,’ because regular folks are ‘suspicious of complexity.’ ”
Obama should speak plainer? Holy crap, he talks like a Sesame Street episode now! He gives out with those simple-minded pronouncements and his little juvenile rhetorical tricks and gimmicks — like a baby-sitter trying to fool a six-year-old into eating his spinach.
Obama’s shuck & jive is as dumbed-down as any politician’s rhetoric I can remember, and this character tells us Obama’s too smart for us because we’re “suspicious of complexity”? What planet are they living on?
The latest polls regarding health care plans say:
46% – start over
23% – do nothing
23% – approve Congress’ plan
Thus, at a 3:1 ratio, Americans are opposed to the current plan. They didn’t vote for it, or if some of them did (on HOPE), they are having a buyer’s remorse. I am reminded of a somewhat unkind saying: “Hope springs eternal, unless her foot is nailed to the floor.” Democratic approach was to overreach and to abandon economic considerations in favor of ideology – in other words, to nail our collective foot to the floor. They are now paying the price for the arrogance and the lack of transparency.
Pink Slip’s reply is about as clear an indicator of the problem Krauthammer was discussing as you’re gonna get. And what’s better is, there’s a great chance he’s going to defend himself and make it more comical.
PS, I appreciate the fact that you think that. You’re right about the campaign etc, but Mock nailed it. Campaigning on something is one thing, but converting your mandate into license to shove unwanted programs down the throats of the electorate because you “won” is not what people want. Do you really expect citizens to sit back and say, “Well, we did vote him in. If he’s going too far, that’s really our fault. We’ll just have to wait three more years. No use speaking up.”?
Obama campaigned on a public option to be included with his health care plan. He campaigned against individual mandates. He won in part because of this. Now his plan contains no public option & individual mandates, and the majority of Americans are against this. It would be difficult for a rational person to conclude that Obama needs to entertain GOP ideas on health care based on this. Rather, it would be reasonable to conclude that a public option is preferred while an individual mandate is not.
Also, Obama campaigned specifically on cap & trade and an economic stimulus. These were not “unwanted programs”, as dawg claims. Obama campaigned on these programs and was voted into office because the public wanted them (at least a majority did).
You guys are acting as if Brown’s victory gives the GOP a 41-57 advantage in the Senate.
Who needs a 41-57 advantage? Democrats couldn’t pass anything with a super majority.
I’m not even convinced Obama was elected based on issues. He was elected because he was a rock star. More likely than being voted in on issues is the fact that he was voted in on really good (but empty) rhetoric about hope and change. People were ready for hope and change, and then when he started Actually Working, they were all, “Hey – this isn’t what we signed up for AT ALL.”
Mock–the Dems never had a super majority. They had 58 senators. However, I agree with much of the rest of your comment–to an extent.
No matter how many times Americans are found to DESPISE the Obamacare (public option, no public option, compulsory insurance, no compulsory insurance, Louisiana purchase, union buy-offs, etc.) Pink Slip will continue to persist in this Orwellian misuse of language. People hate Republicans, so they vote for one; people detest having programs shoved down their throats, but that is only because deep down they REALLY LOVE those programs. Cap and trade enjoys no support; the fact that Daily Kos and Huff Po audience is enamored of it is not evidence of its popularity. The list is endless – the ill-begotten, Marxist-Kantian ideas is what permeates the liberal thinking. What Democrats and their “progressive” ilk – the ones who call, as Obama did, for breaking the shackles of Constitutional restraints – are aiming at is nothing short of totalitarian regime, controlling all aspects of American life. Niceties and lip service to our liberties and independent thinking notwithstanding, what motivates liberals is contempt for the rest of us. Their wish is for all of us to have a thrill going down our legs (it used to be called sciatica) and to “love Big Brother.” In the words of Huckleberry Finn: they want “to sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”
PS, I’ll give you this: the American people voted for the man who supported programs that they now have decided they don’t like. They voted for the image. Now that it has worn off, they policies scare the crap out of them.
Now, given that, there are two schools of thought.
1 You go with the policies you campaigned on. You were elected to do that and you have to respect the action of the voters who elected you.
2 You change your outlook given the current climate and change things.
In different periods during my life, I’ve espoused both theories and at this point, I don’t see either one as wrong. However, when the people change the make-up of Congress in response to your agenda (remember, Brown ran on anti-health care) it might be time to re-assess because, for the most part, the Representatives and Senators are going to do what they have to do to save their butts. That’s who they are.
So, in the final analysis, I can see why the President may want to stick to his guns, but if he continues forward, he’ll be the unpopular one-termer he claims he’s willing to become.
Obama said he’d prefer to be a one-term good President than a two-term mediocre one. As Charles Krauthammer pointed out, Obama neglected to mention the third option, that of being a mediocre one-term President.
“Marxist”
“aiming at is nothing short of totalitarian regime”
“controlling all aspects of American life”
“Their wish is for all of us to…“love Big Brother.”
Notice the inflammatory rhetoric of the wingnut, absent of reality. The problem is, it sounds to me like genetics73 actually believes this crap. Nothing about health care reform/cap & trade/economic stimulus hints at any of the red-baiting, Orwellian language that genetics73 uses. But whatever dude, sounds like you live in an interesting world.
MD–well said.
PS – genetics73 has LIVED in the “interesting world” he fears this country is turning into. He speaks from experience, not some sort of baseless alarmism.
When you’ve lived it, you’re more likely to recognize it sooner than others, I’d imagine.
Just sayin’.
Obama was not elected because people wanted socalized medicine and Cap and Tax. He was swept in on a wave of anti Bush rhetoric with a side of social guilt and a sickeningly complicit media.
The election of Scott Brown one year later to take the seat of none other than one of Obamacare’s biggest cheerleaders was a shattering rejection of BO’s social engineering prgrams.
People who never cared about politics are very concerned, and are no longer willing to stand by and watch what is happening to this country. How many blue state elections will the Dems lose before owning up to this obvious fact?
Thank you, Mockarena… I suppose it is pointless to have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Wow, you’re like a regular Orly Taitz. It would have been one thing to speak of “creeping” socialism, or some such nonsense. It would have at least allowed for a rational discussion. But you sound like Glenn Beck hepped up on Red Bull
As always, Pink Slip’s response is invectives. Not that I often stoop to that level of discourse, but his/hers? is an example of an indoctrinated mind, if a mind it is, open so wide that it is emptied of meaning. To put it as plainly as I can – Mr/Ms? – is a first class intolerant moron. Not that it matters a great deal (to me, at any rate), but this is the last time I dignify with a response anything that emanates from Pink Slip – those emanations have as much life in them as the keyboard that produces them. In a god Orwellian tradition, Pink Slip has become a nonperson.
Correction – “god” should have been “good.” Unlike the Party of Pink Slips, I do make mistakes.
genetics 73: Well said! I do believe you touched a sore tooth with PS.
Changing the name of something does not change the content, and the Pink Slips of the world need to realize it. You can’t be a little bit socialist, just as you can’t be a little bit pregnant. Or in the words of Benjamin Franklin “In for a penny, in for a pound.” So far all of his policies, or promises according to PS, are socialist heading directly in the direction of communist. The world has seen this before and it is nothing new. What is new is how many deny it for what it is, or else they are simply ignorant and don’t know what socialism is, and where it directly leads.
My question did Obama really campaign on a public option? Who knows since there is rhetoric both for and against a public option from him all over the web.
This country once again is being reminded of the old axiom..”All that glitters is not gold.”
“You can’t be a little bit socialist”
Um, ever hear of a mixed economy? It’s literally a “little bit socialist”. The US has had a mixed economy for a long time. And it hasn’t led to the creation of a totalitarian regime.
A mixed economy does not denote socialist. Don’t play stupid here. You know full well exactly what I am talking about. My time is much more valuable than you, do not waste it with your petty ridiculousness.
Yes, it is literally a mix of capitalism and socialism. We have a central bank, public schools, social security, welfare, etc…these are characteristics of socialism.
“You know full well exactly what I am talking about.”
If you’re not referring to the mix of socialism we currently have, then I have no idea what you’re talking about.