DINGELL:

Paul W. (Smith), we’re not ready to be doing it, but let me remind you, this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

It’s going to take a long time to control the people… John Dingell, the most senior Democrat in the House of Representatives.  It’s going to take long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

Guess what?  Obama’s out there touting the fact that as of now, children with preexisting conditions are covered. They forgot to include it in the bill.  It is not there. They’re going to have to go back and fix it somehow.  They left it out.  Now, the point of this is pure incompetence.  They’re out touting all of these wonderful things in the bill and preexisting condition coverage for kids, it’s not there.

The Associated Press

“Administration officials are now scrambling to fix a gap in highly touted benefits for children. Obama made better coverage for children a centerpiece of his health care remake, but it turns out the letter of the law provided a less-than-complete guarantee that kids with health problems would not be shut out of coverage.”

Now, if he cares so damn much about the kids, how did this happen?  The point of this is, if this is a major thing to them and they screw this up, these are the people that are going to be writing a hundred thousand additional pages of regulations to go along with the health care bill that’s already 3,000 pages. We’re dealing with strict, utter, total incompetence.

Who the hell is this guy to run health care?  What’s Barack Obama ever done but learn Saul Alinsky?  What’s Barack Obama ever done but learn what he doesn’t like about this country? But what has he ever run?  What has he ever done in the private sector or the government sector that’s ever worked?  It’s an absolute mess.

Now, the public won’t feel the mandate until four years from now, and until then, Obama will cynically argue that nobody’s complained yet about the mandates, when there aren’t any.

In fact, do you remember when he ripped and criticized Hillary Clinton for health care mandates during the campaign?

This happened in 2008, February 21st in Austin.

OBAMA:

When Senator Clinton says a mandate, it’s not a mandate on government to provide health insurance.  It’s a mandate on individuals to purchase it.  Massachusetts has a mandate right now.  They have exempted 20% of the uninsured because they’ve concluded that that 20% can’t afford it.  In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can’t afford it so now they’re worse off than they were.  They don’t have health insurance and they’re paying a fine.  In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you’ve got to have a very harsh, stiff penalty.

Here he is ripping Mrs. Clinton for exactly what is in his health care bill.  Obama is ripping Senator Clinton for suggesting a mandate for people to have health insurance.  He’s ripping her for that, which is what his health care legislation — what he just signed — does, although not ’til 2014, after the next presidential election.

Why is that, Mr. President, by the way? Why is it that the mandate doesn’t kick in until two years after you, God forbid, are reelected?

Friends, this is what we got.

He has not made good on a single promise.  Even now he still speaks about his promises since most of his health care bill phases in over four years.  And the mandates don’t happen for four years.  And the preexisting coverage for adults, that doesn’t happen for four years.  It’s not until 2019 that 32 million people are covered.

Do you understand that?

Thirty-two million people, that’s the current number, will not be fully insured until 2019.

That’s ten years, nine-and-a-half years: 2019 for all 32 million to be covered.  If you believe that.  I don’t even believe that.  In fact, the Senate bill doesn’t come close. No, it won’t cover all 32 million by 2019.  It won’t even be close to it.  There’s nothing in this that you can believe.

He’s criticizing Hillary Clinton for having a mandate that everybody buy insurance, and he’s pointing to Massachusetts where it doesn’t work because 20% of the people can’t afford it and then he says,

“In order to get people to do it you have to have a harsh, stiff penalty,”

…and he’s criticizing Hillary for having that idea.

That idea was signed into law yesterday.

The Washington Post,

Pelosi is out threatening the insurance companies: If you raise premiums, we’re not going to let you in the exchanges.

They’re going to have no choice but to raise premiums if they’re going to have to cover preexisting conditions, if they’re going to have to cover people from the moment they get sick and not before.  So if they raise premiums, uhhhh, they’re not going to be allowed in the exchanges. That’s Nancy Pelosi.  I don’t know if that’s in the legislation or not, but if it’s not in the legislation, they’ll pass it.  Nobody can stop ’em.

So there you have it. If they’re kept out of the exchanges, guess what?

Hello, single payer!

Even sooner than we feared it would happen.

Among the cuts Defense Secretary Robert Gates is proposing is the F-22 Raptor fighter jet program. Secretary Gates is focusing the Pentagon to address the smaller, lower-tech battlefields the military is fighting right now, and, he says, will likely confront in the future.

It remains to be seen how the Democrat Congress will handle these proposed cuts, but this is a party that has never been enamored of defense spending.

Let me remind you of a few things Democrats are keen to forget.

The euphoria at the end of the Cold War was followed by talk of the

“peace dividend.”

The Clinton Administration cut defense spending, and never took seriously the threat of international terrorism — we witnessed the results on 9/11.

If Defense Secretary Gates is right — and American troops will only be confronted with lower-tech, smaller threats in coming years — then these cuts to our defense systems will be but a footnote in history.

But what if the Obama Administration is wrong?

With North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela, and other nations making mischief — with China and Russia spending more on defense — we had better get this right.

Because if there’s a miscalculation, and if instead we will face sophisticated threats requiring futuristic weaponry, then this could very well be an error of epic proportions.

We hope not, but it could be.

ROBINSON:

Obama is a winner this week because he got through a huge, complicated, almost $800 billion spending rescue bill in record time. This doesn’t happen in Washington. And — and, you know, sure, the beginning of an administration is the time when you really want to spend some political capital and — and — and — and those chips, but, wow.

Eugene, do you have the slightest idea what’s in this? Eugene, did you read it? Obama won? What about America? Did America win here, Eugene, or does that not matter to you people in the media anymore? It only matters that Obama won, right? Screw the American people. As long as Obama wins and the Republican Party loses, you’re happy, right, Eugene, and the rest of you guys in the media? Did America win? Did you read this? Would somebody tell me why it is so crucial that this thing pass last Friday and get signed into law tomorrow? And if it’s so crucial, how come he didn’t sign it Friday night while leaving to Chicago for a date with Michelle on Saturday night?

He can sign these things anywhere, if it’s such a catastrophe, such a crisis. Hell, the country could have gone bankrupt, Saturday, Sunday, could happen today. The bill wouldn’t be signed to save us.

But, Eugene, do you even know what’s in this? Did you read it? Or are you just marveling that Obama got something done faster than anybody else ever has? What if it’s no good, Eugene, what if it’s bad for the country? Or is that not possible since Obama’s behind it? I wish somebody in the Media would tell me what is it about Obama that this thing had to pass without anybody knowing what it is. It was more important that it pass regardless what anybody knew its contents were, it had to pass, it had to pass, it could not fail. Why?

Here is Ronald Brownstein, Atlantic Media. Ron Brownstein said this about the deal.

BROWNSTEIN:

The magnitude of — this bill was a presidency in a box. He achieved more of his aims in this single legislation than many presidents will achieve in an entire term. I mean there’s more new net public investment here on things the Democrats consider essential for long-term growth like education, scientific research, alternative energy, than Bill Clinton was able to achieve in two terms.

You know they’re in the tank when they tell us that one boondoggle of a debacle piece of legislation was more than Clinton got done in two terms.

I ask the same question of Mr. Brownstein: Have you read this? Do you know what’s in it? Do you know how it destroys welfare reform? Do you know how it adds to the welfare rolls? Do you know how it creates dependency? Do you know that it nationalizes or sets up the bureaucracy to nationalize health care? What is this rigmarole, net public investment on things the Democrats consider essential for long-term growth? Yes, of their party.

See, Mr. Brownstein, you’re correct when you say Democrats consider essential for long-term growth, but you stop there. Education, scientific research, alternative energy. They are looking for long-term growth of their party and their power.

And finally, here is Roger Simon from The Politico.

SIMON:

I don’t think it was such a bad thing for President Obama to reach out his hands to the Republicans and have those hands slapped away. Here’s a party shattered after two congressional elections in a row whose only unifying principle is that they’re against Obama. In the end, that’s not a winning hand for the Republicans. President Obama is being seen to get things done. Now, if those things succeed and that’s a big “if,” that’s huge victory for him and a huge defeat for the Republicans who turned their backs on it.

Oh, you still lamenting and worrying that the Republicans aren’t part of the deal, eh, Rodge?

Big “if” if this succeeds, huh? Big “if”?

Huge victory for Obama, huge defeat for Republicans… really?

By the way, Mr. Simon — We’re not against Obama. We’re against what Obama stands for. We support the president. We just don’t support any of these policies, or very, very few of them. They are horrible. They are a disaster. I can’t speak for the Republican Party, but we conservatives stand for ideas and core principles. We just don’t abandon them because we are pressured by our opponents to get along, for the sake of a new president.

Why? What is so important, Mr. Simon, that this guy succeed? Especially if we don’t think it’s good for the country? We’re not gonna park our principles at the door, check ’em at the door and then walk in to the party.

It’s a mistake in understanding for the Media to think that our only unifying principle is that we’re against Obama.

We’re against Obama for reasons.

The headline and the subheadline of the piece are this:

“Judge Obama on Performance Alone — Let’s Not Celebrate More Ordinary Speeches.”

He, too, was one who thought that yesterday’s speech was somewhat ordinary. There are a lot of people who have that view.

Others have a completely different view, of course, but it was unremarkable in a number of ways. But I want you to read a portion of Mr. Williams’ column here.

He’s black — and that, of course, in our culture will give him a little bit more credibility than say if he were white writing this.

About, oh, 25% of the way through, he asks this question:

“But now that this moment has arrived,” <Obama’s inauguration>

“there is a question: How shall we judge our new leader? If his presidency is to represent the full power of the idea that black Americans are just like everyone else — fully human and fully capable of intellect, courage and patriotism — then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and tumble of political criticism experienced by [other presidents]. To treat the first black president as if he is a fragile flower is certain to hobble him. It is also to waste a tremendous opportunity for improving race relations by doing away with stereotypes and seeing the potential in all Americans. Yet there is fear, especially among black people, that criticism of him or any of his failures might be twisted into evidence that people of color cannot effectively lead. That amounts to wasting time and energy reacting to hateful stereotypes.”

“It also leads to treating all criticism of Mr. Obama, whether legitimate, wrong-headed or even mean-spirited, as racist. This is patronizing.”

“Worse, it carries an implicit presumption of inferiority.”

I want to stop there, because I don’t know that Mr. Williams knows how profound what he wrote is.

To not criticize Obama as a president — forget that he’s black, forget that he’s a man — to not criticize him because he’s black is “patronizing” and “it carries an implicit presumption of inferiority.”

That is profound.

Because I maintain to you that the Democrat Party and the American left indeed view African-Americans as inferior, incapable of success without the help of the Democrat Party, without the help of government programs like quotas and affirmative action.

Now, in truth liberals look at all people with contempt. They look at all average Americans with contempt, think that they’re stupid and incapable of handling the rigors of life on their own.

But with African-Americans it’s even more pervasive. They feel sorry for them. The American left feels sorry, be it because of the original sin of slavery or what have you.

The real racists in this society are our friends in the Democrat Party and on the left, and now we’ve gotten to the point here where Obama is too big to fail.

He’s too big to fail. Why? ‘Cause he’s too historic.

Why? What’s historic about it? The color of his skin.

That’s the typical way liberals look at people, the typical way the way the Media looks at people: skin color. Yes, and “we’ve been so mean to these people in the past that we can’t be critical now.” You see it. You see it in the hero worship, the idolatry of the media.

It’s sickening and dangerous as well, and Juan Williams understands it.

“[I]t carries an implicit presumption of inferiority” to not criticize Obama. “Every American president must be held to the highest standard. No president of any color should be given a free pass for screw-ups, lies or failure to keep a promise. During the Democrats’ primaries and caucuses, candidate Obama often got affectionate if not fawning treatment from the American media. Editors, news anchors, columnists and commentators, both white and black but especially those on the political left, too often acted as if they were in a hurry to claim their role in history as supporters of the first black president.”

He is exactly right. They, the Media, considered their role in this to be historic. They wanted to be the ones to put him over the top. They wanted to be central players and figures in this moment of history.

“For example, Mr. Obama was forced to give a speech on race as a result of revelations that he’d long attended a church led by a demagogue. It was an ordinary speech. At best it was successful at minimizing a political problem. Yet some in the media equated it to the Gettysburg Address. The importance of a proud, adversarial press speaking truth about a powerful politician and offering impartial accounts of his actions was frequently and embarrassingly lost. When Mr. Obama’s opponents, such as the Clintons, challenged his lack of experience, or pointed out that he was not in the US Senate when he expressed early opposition to the war in Iraq, they were depicted as petty.”

–the Clintons were.

“Bill Clinton got hit hard when he called Mr. Obama’s claims to be a long-standing opponent of the Iraq war ‘the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.’ The former president accurately said that there was no difference in actual Senate votes on the war between his wife and Mr. Obama. But his comments were not treated by the press as legitimate, hard-ball political fighting. They were cast as possibly racist.”

This is what caused Clinton to say they played the race card on him.

“This led to Saturday Night Live’s mocking skit — where the debate moderator was busy hammering the other Democratic nominees with tough questions while inquiring if Mr. Obama was comfortable and needed more water. When fellow Democrats contending for the nomination rightly pointed to Mr. Obama’s thin proposals for dealing with terrorism and extricating the US from Iraq, they were drowned out by loud if often vacuous shouts for change.

“Yet in the general election campaign and during the transition period, Mr. Obama steadily moved to his former opponents’ positions. In fact, he approached Bush-Cheney stands on immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperate in warrantless surveillance. There is a dangerous trap being set here.writes Juan Williams.

“The same media people invested in boosting a black man to the White House as a matter of history have set very high expectations for him. When he disappoints, as presidents and other human beings inevitably do, the backlash may be extreme.”

“Several seasons ago, when Philadelphia Eagle’s black quarterback Donovan McNabb was struggling, radio commentator Rush Limbaugh said the media wanted a black quarterback to do well and gave Mr. McNabb ‘a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve.’ Mr. Limbaugh’s sin was saying out loud what others had said privately. There is a lot more at stake now, and to allow criticism of Mr. Obama only behind closed doors does no honor to the dreams and prayers of generations past: that race be put aside, and all people be judged honestly, openly, and on the basis of their performance,” …

–which is what Dr. King wanted.

Juan Williams fears we’ll not get that with Obama. We won’t get a judgment based on honesty, openness, and the basis of his performance, but rather, that his criticism will only be behind closed doors. The Brokaws of the world might criticize him, but they’ll never do so publicly because he’s black.

“President Obama deserves no less” than the standard of other presidents in treatment by the press, writes Juan Williams.

Link:

Judge Obama on Performance Alone

It is pure psycho-babble hero cult worship.

They’re trying to outdo each other to see who can be the most loyal, celebratory, wax the most eloquent about the lofty descriptions of the personality and personage of Barack Obama.

On the one hand, they speak of how historic this occasion is because the American people elected a black man as president. But they won’t come out and say that they’re amazed by this because they believe the American people are racist. They’re ecstatic that they have caused (in their own minds) this historic election to take place. The Media think they made this happen. That’s why they’re totally invested in this, which is why Obama is too big to fail.

The media are so in the tank, he’s too big to fail. They will not allow him to fail because they have to take themselves down with him since they have put him on this pedestal, above everybody else. But there will be those out there who will put this into context, who are not personality-affected by this.

We’re not groupies.

That’s the best way to describe it. The Media have become groupies for Obama and all of the things that they have made up that attach themselves to them.

The American people were not racist before the election. The American people are not racist now. I’m not sure how many Americans are caught up in this whole notion. Fifty-five million people voted against Obama. I don’t know where the notion got started that 80% of the country is excited and can’t wait and doesn’t want the president to fail, wishes him success and all this sort of stuff.

The fact is, this country is the most tolerant society on the face of the earth, which explains one reason why people flee here from every corner of the earth. But the Media, and the American left have it in their heads that this is still the antebellum slavery days that, that it may as well be the 1860s or it may as well be the 1960s with Bull Connor still running around out there.

They have lost all perspective. They have lost all responsibility. These white anchors and commentators are now fully revealing their political agendas, which for decades they denied. This is their agenda.

When they insist that we all get behind Obama, only for one reason, ’cause he’s black?’ Well, maybe there’s another reason, because he’s not George W. Bush?

Obama’s historic election is behind me now.

I don’t see black people when I look at people. I don’t see women. I don’t see groups of people.

I see Americans.

When I look at Obama, I see my president. I see a man who’s in charge of this country for the next four years. I care very deeply what he intends to do. I care what his policies are.

I’m not going to give him a pass because he represents some sordid past of our country and as such he gets free rein to do what he wants while we say nothing because we “owe” this to him, based on our original sin of slavery. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way here.

He’s the president. He has policies. I know what they are. I’ve studied ’em. I have every bit of understanding I can on where he wants to take this country.

I don’t want to go there! I don’t want this to become a western European socialist country, and it’s going to.

If we get socialized medicine, if we get national health care, it’s over. That’s the end of the country as we know it. We get national health care. From that point on, there’s no reversing it. You create that kind of dependency in people, and there will be no reversing that. There will be calls for adding more to the whole concept of the government should do everything.

Why should we get behind Obama, especially if he urges policies that we reject? Why should we do this? What is the point?

What do we gain by this? All we gain is what the left has been trying to do to us for years and that’s silence ourselves. Okay, so we shut ourselves up. Do you think we’re going to get praised for this? Do you think we’re going to be credited, you think we’re going to be brought into the tent, you think we’re going to be brought into the, quote, unquote, “big clique”?

Hell no.

They say everybody wants him to succeed. Why’s that?

Did everybody want Bush or Clinton or Reagan to succeed?

Can somebody go back in American history and tell me when we had a president that everybody wanted to succeed?

I’m not even sure every American wanted George Washington to succeed. There are a lot of people that were not quite happy about the way that was all going down.

What reason must we all shut up and hope Obama succeeds, especially when he has policy ideas that I reject?

He’s not a “black” president. He’s not “the first black president” to me. That’s done. That’s the past.

That’s no justification for engaging in errors and making mistakes and doing the wrong things while people shut up simply because of the historic nature here. We want him to succeed because he’s the first black president? If that’s the case, then who’s suspending reason and acting out their own racism?

The racism here is on the left! Everything we’re doing here, we’re supposed to do because of race. He’s the first black president, so we’re to shut up and we’re to root for him? We’re going to say we hope he has a successful presidency.

“Well, everybody wants him to succeed.”

Well, no. And it isn’t based on race! As it always is, the racial element or component in all of this is being injected by the Media.

A president is to be supported or opposed, whichever is the case, based on what he stands for, what his policies are and so forth.

Not his race.

Why should anyone want a president to succeed if his positions are considered damaging to the economy and national security? And, by the way, who are the true classical liberals now? Who is it that’s obsessed with race, as opposed to being colorblind and addressing issues based on their substance? We’re not getting any substance in terms of reporting about Barack Obama at all because the left and the media are obsessed with the racial component, while they claim they’re the ones who are colorblind.

Another point of hypocrisy that I wish to add here as a means of illustrating what’s going on.

Remember when Justice Thomas, Clarence Thomas, was nominated as only the second black man to the Supreme Court, he was trashed. They tried to destroy him simply because his views did not comport with those of the liberals.

Did you ever hear the media say,

“We need to get behind Clarence Thomas; we all want Clarence Thomas to succeed because of the symbolism behind his appointment?”

No. You heard that he was unqualified, that he was over his head, that he hadn’t accomplished much in his life, and then they sent out the character assassins to try and derail his nomination, and this guy had a record of performance.

But now we’re supposed to set all this aside and just blindly say,

“Oh, yes, I hope he succeeds.”

So it clearly is only historic when the minority is a liberal, and we should only unite behind the person if it advances the liberal agenda.

We’re supposed to get behind Obama even when we disagree with him, but they are free to continue to trash Bush when he was elected and when he is leaving office.

I’m still waiting for Obama to tell us how the government is going to sacrifice, folks. Everybody else is supposed to sacrifice, but the government’s not. It’s employing more people, it’s spending more money, it’s printing more money. The government isn’t going to sacrifice here at all.