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During his interview with Bret Baier, Obama made these remarks about the health insurance bill:
Now, we can fix this in a way that is sensible, that is centrist. I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the left wanted that are — you know, they were very adamant about because I thought it would be too disruptive to the system.
The truth has finally come out. I had always thought the public option, drug reimportation, and direct Medicare drug price negotiation were traded away because large corporations hate them. But there is more to it. Apparently, saving the country $350 billion a year, halving our per capita costs, saving over 45,000 lives annually, making lifesaving biologic drugs of the future affordable, and achieving better health outcomes are ideas too "disruptive" to our President because these are ideals espoused by radical leftists!
You’d think a man that has such disdain and scorn for progressive principles would run into fierce opposition from the Progressive Caucus, but every member that pledged to oppose any final bill without a public option has already caved. I guess having deeply held principles on how to reform health care is only important when it doesn’t interfere with scoring a political victory for leadership. Nevermind that supporting the bill will only enrich and strengthen the same industries that comprise our immoral health care system.
The Obama administration will begin to tout this as a major victory this November, but you have to wonder how much longer they can continue making a mockery of liberals and not see their support become truly eroded. As long as we support representatives that are only interested in our vision for America when it is convenient for them, don’t expect this to change any time soon.
65 Comments
No link?
hello, reform is supposed to be disruptive to the system.
jeez.
Transcript is here. Video is everywhere.
added.
“I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the left wanted”
President Obama
And people still don’t get it?
Obama is the ENEMY of progressives, not their friend.
He SLAMS Howard Dean and the progressives, but not the Republicans or the Blue Dogs. He wants to raise taxes on union members (GWB’s proposal) to pay for funelling healthcare dolalrs to insurance companies, but he rejects the House’s proposal to tax the rich to pay for healthcare. Sounds like a Republican.
He belongs to the Blue Dog “centrist” party consisting of Lieberman, Baucus, Lincoln etc.
Why did Progressives support him in the primary? I knew he was a centrist, disliked him from the start, and I opposed him in the primary. Why is that I could see it, and others could not?
Of course, it’s supposed to be disruptive to the system… because the system is sclerotic!
Perhaps he knew he could never run successfully for elective office as a Republican. Certainly, the GOP is where his sympathies appear to lie.
I stood up to the Liberals! Hurrah! This is going to be his mantra for the rest of his presidency, because he’s got nothing else left. I thought when I voted for Obama, I was voting for an end to this stupid, cowardly, counter-productive triangulation strategy which damages the progressive movement. I was seriously bamboozled.
What happened to Yes We Can? Now Change I Can Believe In is considered too disruptive?
Here Mr. President. Take a good look at yourself only 6 months ago:
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/president-obama-strongly-supports-publi
No one ever likes to be deceived. Sure, I know your plan was to let Harry Reid take the hit for the public option’s demise, but it is the truth that shall set us free.
- Tom
And I guess the fact that things like the public option and drug reimportation have majority support makes them … uncentrist? Decentered? Incentralike?
Whatever.
I thought “change we can believe in” was, by definition, disruptive to systems that we don’t believe in — like our disastrous health care system?
” … You’d think a man that has such disdain and scorn for progressive principles would run into fierce opposition from the Progressive Caucus …”
(cue loud, bitter laughter)
No, not at all! Didn’t you know that “reform” is designed as “perpetuation or mild worsening of the worst aspects of the current status quo”?
It was clear to me that Obama was a fraud from the get-go. Obama’s war votes and his vote for the FISA Bill, even after he’d gone on record as opposing the FISA Bill and our Iraq war, his promises to escalate our war on Afghanistan, and his dealings with Tony Rezko, should’ve sounded an alarm.
Ditto!!!
“but you have to wonder how much longer they can continue making a mockery of liberals and not see their support become truly eroded.”
The DLC doesn’t want or need liberals anymore. You have been shown the door. Isn’t it a bit awkward hanging around where you are not wanted?
And you somehow imagine that any of the other candidates would have resulted in a different outcome?
That’s even more naive than believing Obama was left of center.
I like how he never gives any actual *reasons* for rejecting things.
“Other countries have single-payer, but that wouldn’t work here.”
(WHY NOT?)
“…”
“Other countries have a government policy as well as private policies, but that isn’t practical for America.”
(WHY NOT?)
“…”
“I rejected a bunch of stuff the liberals wanted!”
(WHY?)
“…
watch this 3 pointer!”
I laugh at anyone that voted for this clown. I met him 5 years ago and was impressed and honored. A week after that, the flip flopping began (“tough talk” on Iran and Pakistan) and I knew I could never support this guy for President.
Glad most people are seeing the light. Let’s not make this mistake again.
You gotta understand that Obama sees himself as a Progressive compared to Attila the Hun, Mussolini and GW BV$H. He’s a Reagan Progressive LOL! This guy punk’ed us good didn’t he but many of us will only be fooled by this lying shit bag once.
Here’s the bad news. As German companies establish themselves in the United States they learn quickly how kind they have been to their employees in Germany and begin to make gradual adjustments. Now people have to pay higher monthly premiums for health insurance, on top of the 10.00 Euros a quarter they were used to paying (including vision and dental care). This trend will only continue.
In the words of an old song: “Does the whole world have to be just like us?”
Apparently yes.
Dont worry guys he will be back begging for votes and when he does we can remind him of his little comment about the left. He fooled us, we got screwed, lets get even by staying home on election nite in 2010 and 2012.
Wow – “too disruptive to the system.” This is coming from the same candidate who repeatedly told Democratic primary voters that if he had to create our health care system from scratch, he would go with single payer.
Nobama wanted Fox to know he was a FRIEND.. Hey guys “I’m with you,” but you never appreciated that I bumped off the Left and their disruptive ideas.
Remember when he was among Liberals in SF, he was heard to say, “Hey, those people in Pennsylvania embrace their guns and religion.” This jerk will say anything to ingratiate himself..We’re talking narcissistic sociopath.
I think Obama wants to lose Congress to Rethugs so he can be truly bipartisan and privatize Social Security and gut Medicare.
They were in love. After a few of these disappointments of the heart, you learn to look for the walk. There were background articles about Obama that presaged his presidency.
I supported Clinton, but I never trusted her. She won’t stand her ground against opposition. However, I thought her the best of a mediocre lot. Looking back and around me now, I can’t say Clinton would have been better. Different, yes, better, probably not. Crappy in different ways is not an improvement.
I don’t understand this comment. That’s not how the health care system works in Germany.
http://www.medhunters.com/articles/healthcareInGermany.html
CHANGE™ is disruptive.
Barack Obama is either an idiot or a liar; feel free to choose which one. Don’t dismiss the possibility that he’s both.
I agree. Sickening, isn’t it. I saw the writing on the Washington wall months ago and every other word was privatize.
My favorite thing about Barack Obama is that he’s living proof that it takes nothing more than a smile, a dab of charisma, and a Pepsi-Cola marketing campaign to become President of the United States.
I suppose everyone else here saw this, but it sort of made me sick anyway.
Until relatively recently I used to read the New Republic quite a bit. I really don’t know what to make of this left bashing. You’re right. You’re not wanted.
Take a good long look at our electoral system. Do you think it’s even possible for a person to be anything other than a narcissistic sociopath, and succeed in getting elected to public office?
Altruism and benevolence as primary moral imperatives are exceptionally rare qualities to find in people, and the people who do have them are exceedingly unlikely to engage in shameless self-promotion and a cut-throat multiyear popularity contest.
I haven’t voted for a national Democratic candidate since Bill Clinton’s 1st Presidential campaign. After health care ’94 went down in flames it became obvious to me that the Democratic Party was a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business. Plus Nader’s writings made that abundantly clear. Remember Nader describing Washington as corporate occupied territory? Extremist wacko!
A good rule of thumb is to watch who is surviving after the 2nd primary. Any candidate still standing has been thoroughly vetted and approved by the Great Powers. In the old days you might get a thing or 2 out of them that was worthwhile. Those days are gone. Whoever you see after the 2nd primary will be a worthless disappointment.
Anyway all this is moot because we have all seen the light and will never vote Democratic again, right? Right??
Obama is an Edmund Burke Conservative
They are certainly rare now.It was not always that way in this country.. The right wing libertarians and Calvinists have had their way. But it’s really been only about 40 years. I continue to have faith they are qualities more comfortable and certainly more generative in man.
We were all fooled by our desperate wish for the meanness and hatred to be wiped out and projected all those wishes and emotions onto a slick intellectual elite.
Looks like Mr. Changey Hopey was working the crowds during 2008 in ways that were less than honest. Maybe our Mr.Yes We Can thinks American liberals,progressives and farther left types are dupes and imbeciles.
Funny how he didn’t bring up his bullshit centrist “point of views” while he was out trying to get our votes.
Our fair weather “election friend” seems to have not been so very upfront with a good number of we liberal and progressive Americans who voted for him. Downright dishonest in fact. He maybe should consider more carefully how this all works out the next time he comes acalling for our votes. Maybe our votes won’t be so easy to sway and get next time. We now know who we are dealing with. A closet Blue Dog.
As for his WH CoS Emanuel being the horses ass some claim he is evidently Barack Obama picked him because he is such a stand up guy. Just like our new POTUS. A real standup guy. Selling stuff he didn’t believe in at all.
I’ve been thinking about that too. How all members of Congress and indeed the President resemble middle-management. Possessing all of the slimeball qualities it takes to ATTAIN mid- management rank, but none of the skills it takes to do a good job once you get there.
Good catch, good read, thanks and recc.
When you really dismantle representative democracy, your only real hope of having your representation actually service the public-trust semi-regularly is by electing people driven by vindictiveness, rather than narcissism, and hope that the target of their wrath happens to coincide with your own.
don’t expect anything to change anytime soon because a whole lot of so-called progressives will still vote for them and they know it.
Hopefully we don’t fall for this again, but remember, he ran to the left and that is because he knew this country was to the left. We can change things if we quit acting from the fear that if we do not vote for democrats, we will be stuck with republicans.
Don’t dismiss the fact that he is brilliant and we are in for a whole lot of crap that Bush did not have the intelligence to put on us.
Nice posts above.
“I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the left wanted”
Obama
Just think about the above comment by Obama. The phrase “the left” has unfortunately been developing negative connotations, more so than the phrase “the right.” It seems to imply “extremists,” or “crazy” or “communists.” Its equivalent will be more like the word “rightwing.”
Imagine GW Bush saying “I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the right wanted.” GWB would NEVER say that. GWB at least delivered to his base, something Obama does not do. That is because GWB has loyalties, but Obama does not.
Using this word to refer to progressives who want a public option is in itself an act of betrayal. Like any Tea Partier, Obama is implying that people who want the public option are extremists, and that he is not one of them. He is slurring his very base, the very people who donated to his cause, who worked for his campaign tirelelssly, who put faith in him, who GAVE HIM MONEY.
“I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions.” Obama is also admitting he killed (1.) the public option, (2.) the Medicare expansion, (3.) taxing the rich instead of the middle class.
Watch. Next Obama is going to privatize Social Security etc. He favors regressive VAT taxes. etc.
This man is an opportunist, an illusionist, unprincipled, disloyal, a cynical manipulator… He will use you and dump you. I have always disliked him from the start. How right I was.
Fuck you, Barry….AND your 11 die-mentional chess bored.
So I guess come November he won’t want my vote.
Hell will freeze over before I vote for that jerk off ever again!
I could care less what he does or says from here on out, in my mind it is over and I do not need to see anymore of this Lying sack of shit.
you do realize this was Fox news. He had to be sure to let his republican friends know that he hates us liberals.
I saw it. You were not alone.
Anne Applebaum wrote egotistical egomaniacs. Same sentiment. As you and Anne point out, the electoral system screens out anyone else.
Well put.
This was related to me by a friend from Germany. It is entirely possible that she did not explain this correctly, as she was rather upset and believed that she was going to be paying considerably more than she had been.
his biggest character flaw is that he is a “people pleaser” codependent, adult child, however you want to say it. He is afraid of making the “perceived powerful” angry.
He got where he got by “being nice”. This got him elected. But leadership is different than “being nice”. It’s making decisions and standing up for what really works despite a current that often will run against it.
He only wanted change so long as it didn’t piss off the people with the money.
And for pissing off those that don’t matter, there’s Rahm.
Amen.
Give me a break, you know as well as I do that all Democrats are as much automatons as Republicans. They can’t let “the other team” win. They’ll give such rallying cries as, “So what if they ignored us for years, we can’t let the team down on the verge of whatever idiotic crisis they cite…”
I can see it now, because so much of the Supreme Court is old and needs to die off, it will be “Democrats need to retain the White House to nominate Supreme Court justices!! Do it for the judiciary!!” Already hear Thom Hartman talking about that from time to time.
Nope, won’t do it. This country needs a 3rd party and I am tired of continuing to support a Democratic party who consistently ignored liberal ideals _off the bat_ in pursuit of “bipartisanship”.
Any liberal who votes for this liar in 2012 will get exactly what (s)he deserves. What a lying sack of s&$% this guy is.
Until liberals/progressives/lefties develop some political courage and make the Democratic Party pay a political price, we will never be heard. We are irrelevant until then.
You will be irrelevant after that as well.
Do you really think that an electoral loss would tell the Democratic Party that they weren’t being Liberal enough?
It would be clear evidence that America wants more conservative leaders.
Not vote? or not vote Democrat? Certainly everyone has that choice, but the legitimacy of that position escapes me when I look at the potentially disastrous consequences of such a stance, i.e., another Republican dynasty. And all because I refused to vote for a Democrat? I don’t think so. I believe the path that makes the most sense is to remold the Democratic Party into the party of progressives. That will take a lot of doing as progressives are a very loosely aligned lot. President Obama has not been all I had hoped for, that’s for sure. But I still have to compare that with the possibility of a return to power by the malignant right.
Voting for this health care bill is the democrats purple poisonous concoction. Knowing this vote will flip the house to republican control is truly remarkable. I guess their platinum retirement plans are gift enough for screwing the American people. I will never ever vote democrat again. Jane Hamsher for President 2012 because I still want my vote to truly count.
Here’s how explain the situation to people. We all were sold and voted for Barak Hussein Obama a black lawyer and Community activist from Chicago. A MAN of the people who understood from his own life experience what the masses of the American public wanted and needed to make Change real. Ok, here’s what we actually bought after we opened the package and wound up our new President and let him rip. We got BARRY ” HOOVER ” OBAMA the white ( mulatto) Harvard educated Corp. Lawyer from somewhere in the Midwest ( like maybe Missouri). As a Corp Vice-pres. in charge of Corp. & Gov’t affairs, Barry works for his various Corp. clients on Gov’t contracts for them. Barry is in fact the ultimate LOBBYIST.
I heard an analyst on Bill Moyers show at least a year ago saying exactly that- that the Administration wanted reform that wasn’t disruptive. It was clear then that they had no idea even what the word reform meant. So sad for the country! A huge step backward to support a dysfunctional system.
UNfuck-you, Barry.
Yep. That’s almost exactly what I was told by a very wise psychologist during the primaries.
Obama is what I always thought he was, a moderate Democrat who explicitly said that he would *not* try for a single payer system or remove troops from Afganistan. Should he have provided stronger leadership and demanded Congress deliver a public option? Absolutely. I think he didn’t out of a lack of experience and an overly cautious nature of being afraid to commit to something he wasn’t sure would pass. That became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That being said, this bill will provide coverage for 30 million Americans, eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions, and begin piloting Medicare payment reforms that will save the country trillions. IMO it is a huge mistake to walk away from this bill at this point. Not to protect Obama (or the Democrats), but because this bill is MUCH better than the status quo and doing nothing for 20 more years.
All Democrats should be supporting this bill.
–
matthh
>>>”Now, we can fix this in a way that is sensible, that is centrist. I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the left wanted that are — you know, they were very adamant about because I thought it would be too disruptive to the system.” BO< <<<
Sure it wasn't the bribes from BigPharma to kill drug reimportation and the for-profit hospital industry to kill the Public Option as confirmed by Jim Messina?
Here Pelosi clearly states the problem with the current system:
http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/factcheck?id=0088
It’s poor people who don’t have insurance