Was Barack Obama lying then, or is he lying now? And why isn’t the mainstream press pointing this out?
Oh, right.
[Update a few minutes later]
Thoughts on the unprincipled toads who claim to represent our interests:
In the one exchange I’ve seen, Specter tried to explain how he goes about learning what’s in a 1,000 page piece of legislation. Specter said that, because of time constraints, his practice is to divide responsibility for reading the bill among his staffers. This explanation brought boos from the crowd.
The Senate fancies itself “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Senate is not a deliberative body at all — not when Senators concede that they would vote on legislation to overhaul one-sixth of our economy, and arguably the most important sixth, without having read the legislation. Specter’s defense that there’s not enough time for him to read it all himself simply raises the problem in a more acute from: why would the world’s greatest deliberative body consider legislation on a timetable that leaves Senators with insufficient to see for themselves exactly what’s in the bill?
Americans inevitably will disagree over how our health care system should operate. But nearly every American would agree that Senators should know what’s in major health care legislation before they vote on it, and that such legislation should not be enacted in a rush.
No, there are Americans like commenter “Jim” who thinks this setup is just dandy, as long as it gives him the socialist system that he wishes to impose by stealth on the rest of us.
[Early afternoon update]
Thoughts from Kevin Hassett:
Here’s how it works. Democrats propose something radical and unpopular, like President Barack Obama’s health-care plan. Then the Blue Dog Democrats traipse onto the public stage claiming to carry the banner of fiscal responsibility and moderation.
The show is covered the same way by the media every time. The virtuous, “centrist” Blue Dogs share the concerns of the American people, the story goes, and have enough votes to stop Nancy Pelosi and the fringe from radicalizing American policy. After “tough” negotiating sessions, the Democrats cave in to Blue Dog demands, producing a bill that is moderate and reasonable.
Except that it’s all just nonsense, meant to create the illusion that Pelosi isn’t dictating the details of Democratic bills in the House. In fact, she is.
Take the health bill. For any moderate and sensible individual, the key problem with Obama’s approach is that it calls for a public insurance plan, run by the government, that will compete with private plans.
…Make no mistake. If a public plan is enacted, it will move us swiftly toward socialized medicine with a single government payer, an objective Obama has endorsed in the past.
I agree that the Blue Dogs are not the friends of either the Republicans or the American people, but I also agree with Ramesh that there are other reasons to oppose this bill.
And as an aside, I hate the phrase “make no mistake.” It’s usually a bit of political rhetoric (like Obama’s verbal fetishes of “…as I’ve said before,” and “Let me be clear”) and throat clearing to indicate a massive whopper to come. I don’t think that Hassett is wrong, but I wish that he’d avoid that cliche.
If they don’t read the bills, then all the power is in the hands of those who draft and sponsor the bills. Give it an emotionally charged name, then submit for “debate.”
A company that is too big to fail is too big to be allowed to exist. Likewise, a bill that is too big to read should never be passed.
It’s not that they don’t want to read the bill. They don’t want us to read the bill.
Actually, *they* don’t want to read the bill. Reading is hard. Harder than math, even.
Does anyone know what changes were made prior to the approval last Friday? What was it that made the blue dogs happy?
All I saw was this:
As part of a last-minute series of changes, the committee agreed to cap increases in the cost of insurance sold under the bill, and also to give the federal government authority to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prices under Medicare.
What’s conservative about raising spending levels and adding provisions that give government more authority to strong arm companies?
“Was Barack Obama lying then, or is he lying now?”
You can rarely go wrong by presuming Bambi is lying, period, Rand.
Including when he uses the words “a,” “and,” and “the.” >:-(
Was Barack Obama lying then, or is he lying now?
With just about any politician, it isn’t an either-or proposition. With Obama, it’s a safe assumption that he’s lying any time he opens his mouth.
why isn’t the mainstream press pointing this out?
Because it’s a video editing hatchet job. Click my name for similarly convincing (but more entertaining) evidence that Tony Blair hired The Clash to write his speeches.
What’s conservative about raising spending levels and adding provisions that give government more authority to strong arm companies?
The Blue Dogs are insisting that the public plan negotiate drug prices separately from Medicare. That will make the prices higher; if they could negotiate along with Medicare they’d have more buying power and a stronger negotiating position. [By the way, haggling over prices is not “strong arming”, it’s fundamental to a market economy.]
So the Blue Dog change is conservative, if by conservative you mean stiffing the taxpayers on behalf of drug companies.
Sure, Jim. Here’s what Obama actually said.
“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
To paraphrase Richard Pryor, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying ears?” Because we certainly don’t believe you.
That’s what he said in 2003; the video dishonestly implies that he was promoting single payer in 2007 and 2008.
Jim’s right. In 2004, Obama was complaining about rushing bills through Congress with not enough time to read them, and now look at Obama’s position on that issue.
It is interesting that when you see the honest video, that you hear this:
“A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.”