RSS Feed MenuCantor deftly identifies the core Republican message: The federal government will henceforward define what is essential and what is not. This summit is turning into Baltimore in reverse: the Republicans are winning by giving the lie to accusations that they are angry ideologues.
Posted at 12:42pm
* * *
Obama looking bored. Credit where due : He staved it off for 2 1/2 hours
Posted at 12:38pm via Twitter
* * *
Obama slaps back: we’re not campaigning any more. And then tells McCain he’s engaged in the wrong debate. This is getting real …
Posted at 12:33pm via Twitter
* * *
“Can I just finish please?” McCain slaps down the president. When was the last time a senator did THAT?
Posted at 12:30pm via Twitter
* * *
If Obama’s strategic goal is to use this forum to expose Republicans as mindless obstructionists … then he’s losing.
Posted at 12:14pm
* * *
While the negotiations continue, the press gets this hit from the GOP health summit communications team.
Posted at 11:28am
* * *
If this is political theater, it is theater for people in full-body casts who can’t reach the channel changer.
Posted at 11:21am via Twitter
* * *
Reid’s Doublethink on Reconciliation
Very pissy Harry Reid opening. Great respect AND admiration for Lamar Alexander. That means he’s REALLY mad. Reid says “we havent talked about reconciliation.” Then “as the only solution.” Then: “Not as if it’s never been done before.
Posted at 10:48am via Twitter
* * *
HCR summit helps me understand why we invented the 8-second soundbite.
Posted at 10:46am via Twitter
* * *
The Cost of Transparency
If this White House meeting were being held in private, would the conferees have said ONE WORD of what they just spent the past 34 minutes saying? In private, they could proceed directly to the point, couldn’t they?
Posted at 10:36am
* * *
Lamar’s Better Idea
The renunciation of reconciliation as a commitment for negotiation. The state of play now reminds us why the filibuster can be justified: because today’s minority may be the majority in a very few months.
Posted at 10:32
GOProud // Feb 25, 2010 at 10:52 am
Alexander Lamar is a brilliant man. I wish he’d been able to nab the nomination in 2000 –he deserved it and earned it. Damn those social conservatives who saw him as a RINO.
PracticalGirl // Feb 25, 2010 at 11:49 am
I, too, have wondered about the costs of transparency in these talks. While the GOP was busy yelling about the summit being a “trap”, President Obama laid his own by insisting on having cameras in the room which will encourage only grandstanding and a stubborn restating of party platforms, not real movement. “Political theater” is tasty candy, but I think Americans deserve the whole meal with this one. We’re unlikely to get it when the main concern of the participants will be to play to their respective bases back home. I’ll keep watching, but I for one expect nothing but the same ‘ol, same ‘ol from a format of conflicting oratory.
sinz54 // Feb 25, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I’m glad that these Republican pols didn’t listen to the GOP base, who were demanding that the GOP just boycott the summit because, as they see it:
“Insurance coverage” for pre-existing conditions isn’t insurance, it’s welfare.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/02/25/another-healthcare-charade/
The GOP base really wants Social Darwinism: If you were born with hemophilia or you had a bout of childhood cancer, then you’re on your own. Go begging to charities or something.
Bob Costas Will Come On Later And Give Us The Day’s Medal Count « Around The Sphere // Feb 25, 2010 at 2:27 pm
[...] David Frum at FrumForum [...]
balconesfault // Feb 25, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Thanks for the GOP Press Release. They just forgot to add that the same poll found that 51% of Americans want a public option.
Alexander Lamar is a brilliant man. I wish he’d been able to nab the nomination in 2000
First Republican Senator to publicly back Sonia Sotomayor? That certainly strips any wingnut credentials right away. Lamar is clearly a conservative, but far more rational than most of the GOP caucus. A lot of reason to believe he’d have been a much much MUCH better steward of the economy that Bill Clinton passed along in 2001 than GW Bush was.
Funny that Social Conservatives don’t like him, since he has an 88 score on the Family Council scorecard. I guess anything short of perfect is unacceptable.
GOProud // Feb 25, 2010 at 4:33 pm
BlankHead argues: “(GOProud writes): Alexander Lamar is a brilliant man. I wish he’d been able to nab the nomination in 2000.” First Republican Senator to publicly back Sonia Sotomayor? That certainly strips any wingnut credentials right away.”
Of course it does. I’m not a wingnut. Nor is Lamar Alexander. But you have a strange way of classifying what is or isn’t wingnutry, BlankHead. Honest people can disagree over whether or not Ass Justice Sotomayor was a good choice and if she has what it takes to be a great jurist. Sen Alexander and I both thought that the prez is entitled to appoint judges to SCOTUS with the advice & consent of the Senate… and it must be an incredible issue to rise to the level of withholding that consent of the Executive privilege.
GOProud // Feb 25, 2010 at 4:49 pm
sinz54 contends: “I’m glad that these Republican pols didn’t listen to the GOP base, who were demanding that the GOP just boycott the summit….”
Was that observation based on the DailyKos poll or are you now channeling the spirit of George Soros as a spokesman for the GOP base? Right, the base wanted a boycott? Are you just making this up as you go? “cause that’s what the Obami are doing, it seems.
The GOP base I know wouldn’t have wanted their leaders to miss the opportunity to debate with the Democrats’ biggest, longest-winded mouth since SlickWilly left 1600. Obama and the Democrat health care plan –all 11 pages of it or 2800 pages of the Senate plan that Obama labeled a “prop” for Eric Cantor– are the ultimate reason to say “No, Start Over” and the more the Democrats contend there’s only a little gap between what they want and what Americans and the GOP want, tells all that the Democrats aren’t serious about bipartisanship or collaboration –they just wanted to try to paint the GOP as the enemy of the good.
They failed. Just like those who want to contend the GOP base is up for gamesmanship or brinksmanship and a boycott.
The GOP base knows that Obama and Democrats have far more to lose on the public stage because their position of higher taxes, bigger govt and greater deficits just to cover another 10% of Americans for $1t is insanity. Most Americans are happy with their health plans. Significant reform is doable on a host of issues –sweeping new govt largese, not so.
balconesfault // Feb 25, 2010 at 4:59 pm
not a wingnut.
lol – you prove that you are one here virtually every day, sir. For one, the childish name-calling of anyone you disagree with already puts you a few points into the extremist column. Second, your prolonged “throw everything against the wall” rants finishes it off. Third, I’ve come to conclude that throwing out the “Saul Alinksi playbook” line cinches the status of wingnut for anyone who uses it. It’s akin to trying to discuss theology with a Christian who suddenly decides that anyone who argues against Christs Divinity must be a messenger of Satan, and thus should not be listened to.
You might be more a wingnut because you’re just so hyperpartisan, so that anyone with an (R) next to their name is always and without question morally superior to anyone with a (D) next to their name … I’ll grant that you actually seem capable of rational analysis when you’re not frothing. But you certainly wear the wingnut hat in this forum whenever you get the opportunity.
balconesfault // Feb 25, 2010 at 5:08 pm
By the way – Alexander’s statement on Sotomayor was: “I will vote to confirm her because she is well qualified by experience, temperament, character and intellect to serve”
That’s quite a step farther than “it must be an incredible issue to rise to the level of withholding that consent of the Executive privilege”.
Was that observation based on the DailyKos poll or are you now channeling the spirit of George Soros as a spokesman for the GOP base?
Ahh – THERE’s the wingnuttery coming through!
GOProud // Feb 25, 2010 at 10:44 pm
BlankHead, we detect a bit of frustration and anger in your tone. We think it comes from a growing realization that you and your kind are on the end of losing game, wasting away like so many elderly awaiting the next meeting of the Obami Death Committees. What, didn’t the Obami rise to the impossible task this day in the Capitol District to be the Hype Agent of Hope of Change? As Doug Schoen (yes a Democrat pollster and strategist) has pointed out this evening, it seems the democrats came off looking lame, worn and arrogantly dismissive and the GOPers came off as sane, reasonable and loaded with good ideas. It was a win-win for the GOP who were vanquished from the political landscape by the farLeft just a few short months ago. right around the time of the coronation –ooops, installation… ooops, inauguration of Barrie Obama.
Even the ol’ Obami Magic is fading as your frustration grows. Alas, if it only weren’t so but that’s politics in the raw, no?
Now, Lamar Alexander holds true to the informed Senate tradition begun with Sen Roger Sherman in 1791 and embodied in Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers No 76… that you appear dumb and deaf to that reality is not our problem, but yours alone.
Wingnutry is a tonic that many on the farLeft –like you– swish with a feint. Not very effective but with a drama deserving applause from a lone hand clapping in your support. I pity both you and others of the Obami Cult –nothing is as pitiful as the man and the cause that can’t grasp they no longer matter.
The point in asking Sinz54, an avowed independent, who he was using to determine what the GOP base wanted re: Health Care Summit was because, on this very site a few short days ago, one of your fellow trolls –equally frustrated and confused as you seem to be now– was asking all to incline an ear to a DailyKos poll that purported to know what conservatives thought… like that can even approach credible except on the farLeft spaceship zooming into deep space.
I’m sorry for your frustration. I’ve found that when people like you are frustrated, you don’t do well in handling the reality of your situation –like Rosie ODonnell, you start seeing conspiracies in all sorts of unlikely venues.
Wingnutry may be your tonic. But it’s hardly an effective one to relieve your frustration. I suggest some soul searching and a tad taste of truth? Even you could do that, I hope –but doubt.
kevin47 // Feb 25, 2010 at 11:35 pm
“The GOP base really wants Social Darwinism: If you were born with hemophilia or you had a bout of childhood cancer, then you’re on your own. Go begging to charities or something.”
No. The “GOP base” would (and has) happily support(ed) governmental insurance up to a certain age for families that cannot afford it on their won. If this bill were to introduce a minimum age for denial of existing conditions, it would be met with very little opposition.
Mandos // Feb 26, 2010 at 12:56 am
“No. The “GOP base” would (and has) happily support(ed) governmental insurance up to a certain age for families that cannot afford it on their won. If this bill were to introduce a minimum age for denial of existing conditions, it would be met with very little opposition.”
So, what, if you get cancer in your 30s, you’re on your own? Do you people even listen to yourselves?
GOProud // Feb 26, 2010 at 10:54 am
Mandos, nice try but that observation came from an avowed independent… not a GOPer nor anyone with even a remote sense of what the GOP base wants, needs or is motivated by –or, even, who the GOP base really is.
You do the whole faked outrage thing as well as Obama. Kudo for the acting job.
GOProud // Feb 26, 2010 at 10:55 am
correction –the original observation.
Mandos // Feb 26, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I never said anything about the GOP base. The You People was for Kevin and fellow travellers. Kevin is an independent? Good to know.