Thoughts on Kathleen Sebelius:
The mere presence of Sebelius at the top of HHS will be enough to push millions of pro-life Americans into adamant opposition to the whole health-care reform enterprise. The president and his team may think it won’t matter — that they can pass their bill anyway. But passing a massive and expensive health-care bill was going to be complicated enough without a fight with social conservatives. The president didn’t need to alienate a sizeable portion of the electorate with a controversial selection for HHS — but he did. He has made his choice, and I think he will come to regret it.
I really think that the president imagines that his political views are mainstream. That’s what happens when you live in a leftist cocoon your entire life. It’s a problem that many journalists have as well.
[Update Thursday evening]
Well, that expains it. I was wondering why I was getting so many moonbat comments on this post. Apparently, it was linked by Firedog Lake.
“His negative number on Health Care is 26% — support outweighs opposition nearly 2-to-1.”
Well sure the general public has nothing to oppose yet…once the “single payer” solutions start coming known and people begin to pay attention to the debate and how it will affect them personnally, count on a portion of the 24% undecided and some of the supporters to switch camps.
No one may be openly advocating socialized medicine but they sure are polling on it. I have been called by two polls in the last two weeks that were clearly geared towards finding where the limits of further government interference in health care exist. The term “single payer” was used in several instances along with questions regarding the need for the government to exert greater price control over pharmaceutical companies even “if that means fewer new drugs coming to the market”.
MPA-
“universal” healthcare DOES NOT equal “socialized medicine”.
That was my point. I’m well aware that a majority of Americans want some kind of universal healthcare.
But the wingnuts insist on calling it “socialized” as a scare tactic – like the “death tax”.
No democratic politician I am aware of has called for socialized medicine. But wingnuts don’t understand the distinction.
“That’s what happens when you live in a leftist cocoon your entire life.”
“Only political simpletons feel the need to put people into arbitrary boxes and labels.”
DING-DING-DING! We have a winner!
Ouch Rand. That has got to hurt..
🙂
One might be tempted to think his ideas are mainstream when one wins an election. As I recall the previous President called that the accountability moment and the time one “earns” political capital. But I suppose when you’ve lived in a rightist cocoon all your life . . .
Of the Pew Poll, “Those are adults, which always skew Democrat.”
I couldn’t agree with you more, Rand. Except you misspelled the adjectival form of “Democrat,” which is “Democratic.”
Kraut-
What you mean is once the rightwing noise machine gets geared up and starts advertising more scare tactics like they did when Clinton had his stab.
I don’t think it’s going to work this time. The American population is tired, tired, tired of being screwed only to enrich billion-dollar corporations, to wit the Medicare D plan that sent billions of tax dollars to the richest companies in the world. Oh, and the number of uninsured continued to increase.
We get it now: rightwing lies because they are paid to in order to protect their corporate masters.
I find it interesting that liberals always demand that conservatives live up to the standards the liberals themselves have discarded.
Yes, because the conservatives are in favor of having their standards enforced on everyone else, so it’s a matter of living up to the standards one sets for ones self.
Liberals are ‘hypocritical’ for pointing out when conservatives don’t live by the bromines they prescribe for everyone else in the country.
Sometimes it backfires, as in the “Back to Basics campaign, with no input from the English equivalent of liberals
Back to Basics was an ill-fated attempt to relaunch the government of British Prime Minister John Major in 1993. Announced at the Party Conference of that year, the initiative was intended to focus on issues of law and order, education and public probity (especially single mothers) after the debacle of Black Wednesday had damaged the UK Conservative Party perceived ability to safeguard public finance. Back to Basics was widely interpreted as a moral campaign, and hence was vigorously attacked by political opponents using the revelation of several instances of “Tory sleaze,” including:
* David Mellor’s extra-marital affair with bit-part actress Antonia de Sancha (ca. 1992)
* Tim Yeo’s extramarital affair resulting in him fathering a “love-child” in 1993
* Michael Mates’s resignation as a Minister of State following allegations he had accepted cash and gifts from the fugitive businessman Asil Nadir (1993)
* Stephen Milligan’s accidental death by auto-erotic asphyxiation on February 7, 1994
* Michael Brown’s involvement with a then-underage man in 1994, and his subsequent implication in the ‘cash for questions’ affair.
* Neil Hamilton’s alleged acceptance of ‘cash for questions’ from Mohammed Al-Fayed in 1994
* Tim Smith’s admitting that he took cash for questions from Mohammed Al-Fayed.
* David Ashby discovered to have shared a bed with a man on a trip paid by expenses. Ashby was married at the time.
* Jonathan Aitken’s alleged procurement of prostitutes for Arab businessmen, their payment of his Ritz hotel bill, and his subsequent conviction and prison sentence for perjury after the resulting libel trial in which he unsuccessfully attempted to sue The Guardian over the story.
* Graham Riddick’s entrapment for, and acceptance of, ‘cash for questions’ in 1994.
* Hartley Booth’s amorous, unreciprocated pursuit of his secretary in 1995
* David Willetts’s disciplining by the parliamentary ombudsman over his intervention in a parliamentary enquiry in 1996
* Piers Merchant’s affairs with a night club hostess, and his researcher in 1997
Ironically, several years after his term of office ended, it emerged that John Major himself had engaged in an extramarital affair with fellow Conservative Party MP Edwina Currie. By this time, however, the “Back to Basics” campaign was all but forgotten.
The phrase has since become used by UK political commentators to describe any failed attempt by a political party leader to relaunch themselves following a scandal or controversy.
Sometimes we condemn those who not only fail to live up to the standards whose side they claim to be on, but do things that you won’t find liberals advocating, like going to a prostitute while you’re married is okay, see Vitter, David.
That has got to hurt..
Why?
One might be tempted to think his ideas are mainstream when one wins an election.
Only if one doesn’t understand the nature of politics, and a dumbed-down electorate. They voted for Obama because they liked his smile, they were angry at the Republicans, and McCain ran a terrible campaign. Most of them couldn’t tell you what his ideas were, other than “hope” and “change.”
“The American population is tired, tired, tired of being screwed only to enrich billion-dollar corporations”
Explains the Tea Parties doesnt it?
“We get it now: rightwing lies because they are paid to in order to protect their corporate masters.”
…and the leftwing lies because they are paid to in order to protect their union bosses. Right?
People who disagree with the leftwing arent shills and are not in the paid thrall of “evil” corporate masters or scared by lies from a noise machine anymore than leftwingers are all SEIU thugs…
I’m sure Obama’s been thrown off by the large margin of victory in the Presidential election.
Rand:
Only if one doesn’t understand the nature of politics
Last year your understanding of the nature of politics was such that you deemed Obama unelectable. Maybe your sense of what the American mainstream believes is a bit off?
Maybe your sense of what the American mainstream believes is a bit off?
No, I just didn’t factor in how completely in the tank the MSM was going to be for him, and how bad McCain’s campaign would be.
Rand Simberg Says:
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:11 am
One doesn’t have to be “right wing” to recognize leftists.
….Then, exactly 16 minutes later….
Rand Simberg Says:
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
Why deny it?
Because it’s not true?
Only political simpletons feel the need to put people into arbitrary boxes and labels.
I don’t think I’ve seen self-pwnage like that since Michael Goldfarb humiliated himself on CNN.
I don’t think I’ve seen self-pwnage like that
Ummmm…hate to break it to you, but I’m not the one putting people in the box. Leftists are generally proud to call themselves leftists.
“I really think that the president imagines that his political views are mainstream. ”
Winning elections and maintaining sky-high approval ratings have that effect on presidents.
Actually, no. But let’s not get caught up keeping track of the things you don’t know.
I hate to break it to you, but not everyone – or even most – who voted for Obama consider themselves “leftists”. In fact, and as a liberal I can say this with considerable more authority than you, most people who consider themselves to be liberal don’t consider themselves to be “leftists”. Do a Google Blog search – only about 5% of the results are from liberal blogs; the rest are all rightwing conservatives. They – and you – use the term as a way to associate anyone to the left of Arlen Specter with Che Guevera and communists. While there are some genuine radical leftists out there who do, probably, call themselves “leftists” with pride, they are such a minority as to be irrelevent to the national conversation.
Kind of like what you and rightwing conservatism are becoming.
And for the record, I do agree with you – you are a political simpleton.
Rand – you are a crybaby. Your bullshit about the MSM not covering the retarded teabagging is transparently false – Fox covered the s**t night and day and every other network covered fairly extensively, which is stupid given the seriously low turnout.
The MSM was never ‘in the tank’ for Obama. The GOP had a s***y candidate, an even s***ier VP candidate, and eight years of constant f***ups, mendacity, and failure to blame.
Iraq war: failure. Denial of habeas rights: unconstitutional, miserable failure. Economy: epic failure.
Failing to recognize any of this: pure idiocy.
And for the record, I do agree with you – you are a political simpleton.
Apparently, then, you don’t agree with me.
And you’re no liberal, and neither is Barack Obama. I’m a liberal. I believe in free minds and free markets.
Winning elections and maintaining sky-high approval ratings have that effect on presidents.
I agree (though his approval rating has been declining steadily since his inauguration). I’m not sure what your point is.
And you’re no liberal, and neither is Barack Obama. I’m a liberal. I believe in free minds and free markets.
Ah…I think I see the problem here.
You don’t know what “liberalism” stands for, do you?
Rand – you are a crybaby.
Boo hoo. I’m being called names by a foul-mouthed Internet drooler.
You don’t know what “liberalism” stands for, do you?
Of course I do. The people who don’t know what it stands for are the so-called American “progressives” who don’t even understand their own intellectual history. Europeans know what “liberal” means. They don’t like them.
The “Dark Avenger” (LOL, and I could swear some doofus using that nic used to troll my blogs back before I set up registration to filter out such twaddle as infests this comment thread) said:
“…conservatives don’t live by the bromines (sic) they prescribe for everyone else in the country.
Sometimes it backfires, as in the “Back to Basics campaign, with no input from the English equivalent of liberals”
(snip long batch of stuff about government shenanigans in the UK)
1. You meant “bromides.”
2. You do realize that this is a website based in the US, and that Obama is still just president of this country, not the world — not yet anyway?
3. From what I’ve read what you funny foreigners call “conservative” we over here call “socialism.”
Elections have consequences.
Wing-nuts have every right to pee their diapers about it, but you’re simply fooling yourselves by trying to push the “America is a center-right nation” meme.
Maybe it was in 1983, but it’s not in 2009. Americans want to get out of Iraq and increasingly Afghanistan. They want some form of national health-care. And more philosophically, they want government to help alleviate the Bush Recession, particularly in terms of unemployment rates. Government is no longer the problem, but the partial solution. Allowing Bush and the Republican Congress ca. 2001-2008 to ruin the American economy is the reason why.
But have fun in your little cocoon. Come out and hang with us reality-based adults some time if you feel like it.
Wing-nuts have every right to pee their diapers about it
Thanks for indicating that you have nothing of interest to convey to this forum. The notion that you are “reality based” is uproaringly hilarious.
Rand Simberg Says:
“Those are adults, which always skew Democrat.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
I set up registration to filter out such twaddle as infests this comment thread)
You should have no problem demonstrating what I cited as twaddle, right?
As for your 1st point:
Thanks for the spell-check, perhaps you do windows as well? I hate to see such a well-honed intellect such as you’ve displayed here so not demonstrating its full potential.
2. You do realize that this is a website based in the US, and that Obama is still just president of this country, not the world — not yet anyway?
You didn’t realize that I was illustrating the dangers of not practicing what one preaches, did you? I didn’t invoke Obama or anything else about him, but thanks for the info.
3. From what I’ve read what you funny foreigners call “conservative” we over here call “socialism.”
Actually, I was born in San Jose, CA, but if thinking I’m foreign makes you feel superior to me in some way, go for it, your self-esteem is more important that reality, IMHO, heavens knows I hate to go against what you’ve “read about funny foreigners”.
Also, one could hardly accuse the English Tory(Conservative) party of being socialist(which is the English party that was behind the Back to Basics campaign), that goes to the Labor party these days.
Thanks for demonstrating what John Stuart Mill wrote to a friend:
” I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.”
Letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March 1866)
Congrats, Rand, on getting the moonbats to gather in one place.
Just for the record, 57% of Obama voters didn’t even know which party controls Congress. 56% were not able to identify Obama as the candidate who started his political career in the home of two former Weather Underground members. [Try Googling “Zogby Obama voters”.] I think that goes a long way towards explaining the nature of Obama’s victory — and his approval rating. And, for that matter, the endearing mixture of ignorance and malice displayed by the moonbat swarm. We have a generation of folks whose only memories of Presidential administrations involve a Bush or a Clinton — and they are folks who have never experienced an economic downturn, who have no concept of what kind of casualties a real war entails, or even what it means to live daily with a sustained mortal threat to one’s country. They think the voting booth is like a channel-changer.
The threats that Obama poses are all prospective. That the vast majority of government-educated folks have no concept of how collectivism and nationalism can wreck an economy should surprise no one. But, hey, just suppose that running deficits of 12% of GDP year after year really is stimulative! What if having a federal czar dictate whether your cancer surgery is cost-effective makes life much more healthy and happy for everyone? What if government ownership of the auto companies and the banks (and, what the heck, let’s take over the oil companies!) is exactly what is needed to invigorate the economy? In fact, what if the government dictated the precise gender balance in science and engineering majors, and that opened up a wellspring of innovation and technology? Well, if all those things come true, then conservatism (well, at least conservative libertarianism) will have been proven wrong.
And monkeys might fly out of my butt.
El Tiburon: If you believe no one is advocating socialized medicine, you are not paying attention. Go read Daschle’s book. And we have universal health care in this country. What we don’t have is universal health insurance. What Democrats want is government health care. Think I’m blowing smoke? Go_read_Daschle’s_book. No, seriously, you can find it online.
And like many liberals, you seem to think that the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals want to help poor people and conservatives don’t. Fatuous. The difference between L and C is that conservatives actually understand how things work. Conservatives understand that simply paying people not to work only produces more poverty — liberals don’t get it. Conservatives understand that you have to put people in jail to lower crime rates. Liberals are confused when crime rates go down when incarceration goes up — they think someone’s playing a trick. Conservatives understand that trashing your country when you go abroad, telling people you want to abdicate American leadership, chumming up with the scum of the earth’s leaders, will embolden, not pacify, the Hitler wannabes who run the worst places on earth. Liberals are confused when sucking up to dictators doesn’t bring peace on earth. Go figure.
Jim: Rand was not objecting to the Clean Air Act per se, only to the (litigated, not legislated) requirement that it be extended to cover carbon dioxide. There is no way that regulating carbon dioxide is analogous to removing particulate matter from the atmosphere. There is absolutely no way on earth that adding CO2 to the list of EPA-regulated pollutants will save a single life in this country. You are usually more honest than this.
BBB
New poll:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042503120.html?wprss=rss_print
Yep, Obama is far out of mainstream….