The Up-or-Down Vote on Obama’s Presidency
By FRANK RICH
NYT
WEDNESDAY’S health care rally was one of President Obama’s finest hours. It was so fine it couldn’t be blighted even by his preposterous backdrop, a cohort of white-jacketed medical workers large enough to staff a hospital in one of the daytime soaps that refused to be pre-empted by the White House show.
Obama’s urgent script didn’t need such cheesy theatrics. At last he took ownership of what he called “my proposal,” stating concisely three concrete ways the bill would improve America’s broken health care system. At last he pushed for a majority-rule, up-or-down vote in Congress. At last he conceded that bipartisan agreement between two parties with “honest and substantial differences” on fundamental principles wasn’t happening. At last he mobilized his rhetoric against a villain everyone could hiss — insurance companies. In a brief address, he mentioned these malefactors of great greed 13 times.
There was only one problem. This finest hour arrived hastily and tardily. At 1:45 p.m. Eastern time, who was watching? Of those who did watch or caught up later, how many bought the president’s vow to finish the job “in the next few weeks”? We’ve heard this too many times before. Last May Obama said he would have a bill by late July. In July he said he wanted it “done by the fall.” The White House’s new date for final House action — specified as March 18 by Robert Gibbs, the press secretary — is already in jeopardy.
“They are waiting for us to act,” Obama said on Wednesday of the American people. “They are waiting for us to lead.” Actually, they have given up waiting. Some 80 percent of the country believes that “nothing can be accomplished” in Washington, according to an Ipsos/McClatchy poll conducted a week ago. The percentage is just as high among Democrats, many of whom admire the president but have a sinking sense of disillusionment about his ability to exercise power.
(More here.)
NYT
WEDNESDAY’S health care rally was one of President Obama’s finest hours. It was so fine it couldn’t be blighted even by his preposterous backdrop, a cohort of white-jacketed medical workers large enough to staff a hospital in one of the daytime soaps that refused to be pre-empted by the White House show.
Obama’s urgent script didn’t need such cheesy theatrics. At last he took ownership of what he called “my proposal,” stating concisely three concrete ways the bill would improve America’s broken health care system. At last he pushed for a majority-rule, up-or-down vote in Congress. At last he conceded that bipartisan agreement between two parties with “honest and substantial differences” on fundamental principles wasn’t happening. At last he mobilized his rhetoric against a villain everyone could hiss — insurance companies. In a brief address, he mentioned these malefactors of great greed 13 times.
There was only one problem. This finest hour arrived hastily and tardily. At 1:45 p.m. Eastern time, who was watching? Of those who did watch or caught up later, how many bought the president’s vow to finish the job “in the next few weeks”? We’ve heard this too many times before. Last May Obama said he would have a bill by late July. In July he said he wanted it “done by the fall.” The White House’s new date for final House action — specified as March 18 by Robert Gibbs, the press secretary — is already in jeopardy.
“They are waiting for us to act,” Obama said on Wednesday of the American people. “They are waiting for us to lead.” Actually, they have given up waiting. Some 80 percent of the country believes that “nothing can be accomplished” in Washington, according to an Ipsos/McClatchy poll conducted a week ago. The percentage is just as high among Democrats, many of whom admire the president but have a sinking sense of disillusionment about his ability to exercise power.
(More here.)
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