The restructuring of the entire health care system and his cap-and-trade proposal eclipsed the economy and the war. Investor Warren Buffett, the “sage of Omaha,” counseled him against such a foolhardy agenda, but Buffett’s wisdom was no match for the heady prospect of all-encompassing change...We elected a candidate.
A full year after being elected, Obama still does not have a strategy for Afghanistan.... What has he been doing for the past 12 months that took precedence over his responsibility for our soldiers?
The answer is that he made 30 or more campaign trips for the Democratic Party and its candidates, including five events for defeated New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine alone. He repeatedly traveled around the country to keynote campaign-style town hall meetings that were carefully choreographed by his communications advisers. He appears to want to do what he knows best: campaign, rather than engage in what he was elected to do — lead and govern.
November 19, 2009
"Barack Obama... so many tasks that he underinvested in the most critical ones."
Writes Mitt Romney:
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"We elected"?
wv: "difying"
What you mean "we" white man?
We elected a candidate.
The ONE thing Democrats took from the Clinton years: always run the perpetual campaign. That requires someone to always be running against. Ergo, jumping on Sarah Palin 3 years before an election she has not declared she is even interested in. Ergo, a "war" on parts of the nation's legitimate and first amendment protected press. Ergo - you're thinking of some examples right now.
In 2010, at least a few more adults will take the place of several of the children Democrats in Congress. In 2012, real adults - perhaps like Romney - can take the White House as well.
Echoing the others, who's "we?" You helped elect him. Next time the Republican is mildly distasteful, remember how much worse it could be.
"we".
Not me.
On the other hand, in voting for Sarah Palin I inadvertently voted for a doddering old fool.
Shut my mouth.
MITT ROMNEY? That's your go-to guy for the evaluation? Mitt Romney. The mind boggles. News Flash! Mitt Romney is in Campaign Mode as he writes that! Mitt Romney is running for President! HEEEELLLLOOOOOOO??? Anyone home?
I love how everything that Obama does that was completely acceptable when Bush did it is now strange and campaign-like. And it's awesome that we have to hear again and again how Obama is neglecting the troops when he doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan in the past 12 months, switched commanders, and ramped up spending in the country, where we have been fighting for 8 years on a backburner.
Mitt Romney, isn't there a fish fry in Des Moines you should be pretending to enjoy right now??
I think Romney's analysis is right on the mark, and Chase's analysis is also directly on point. In support of their analysis, consider that Obama and his team seem to have had no particular input to the alleged "stimulus" bill, and very little input to either the House or Senate healthcare bills. There is no indication that his staff will have any more importance to the reconciliation than, for instance, the Republicans.
Margaret Chase Smith has had much more input to healthcare than Barack Obama.
He has three years to go, maybe he'll figure it out. Maybe we should be glad he doesn't figure it out, consider his missteps in foreign policy.
Buffett’s wisdom?
How wise can a guy be if he didn't see in BHO the worst CEO in history?
I mean, shit-all, how could Buffett, who is known for decades as being able to astutely size up management teams, how could he have failed to see this coming?
The “sage of Omaha?
What kind of "sage" couldn't read in the ACORN and SEIU and Rev. Wright tea leaves that excellent management just wasn't gonna happen?
Among the big issues, isn't Afghanistan stalled because, unlike healthcare and cap and trade, Afghanistan is one issue Obama can't sluff off or, more accurately, smuff off on his congressional overloards?
Yes, Mitt Romney is who I'd turn to for an accurate, objective assessment of Obama's performance as president.
Does anybody else notice the similarity in the attitude of Major Hasan to his work and duties of being an Army Psychiatrist and the attitude of Barack Obama to the work and duties of being our President? Both are finding some other drummer to march to and are spending their time telling us that we are wrong in our beliefs, but that Muslims are an accepting and noble culture. Hmmm.
We elected a candidate.
That's news?
I wish Mitt Romney were president now, but let's face it, this is the guy that gave us Mass-care, the budget-breaking model for Obama-care.
Romney is the classic example of the administrator-as-executive. What you do is less important than how you get it done.
Given Obama, having a president who knew how to get things done would be attractive, let alone one that knew how to manage a big organization and not piddle out his authority to a thousand hacks.
Obama's in trouble
Off by one letter.
No counter ideas from Willard as to what we should be doing. Just whining from the sidelines. Hmmm, where does that sound familiar.
How's that Dope (not prosecuting hooch users) and Chains (jail sentences for not buying health insurances) working for you.
Montagne Montaigne said...
MITT ROMNEY? That's your go-to guy for the evaluation? Mitt Romney. The mind boggles. News Flash! Mitt Romney is in Campaign Mode as he writes that
That doesn't mean he's wrong.
I say this as someone who cooled very early on Romney largely because of the mess that was, even then, RomneyCare. I don't think he would have been that much better than McCain, although I understand those who would cut him some slack because he was, after all, governing the People's Republic of Taxachusetts.
Bambi's real flaw is not the perpetual campaign. As others have noted, Willie invented it and he was a lousy President, also (no, he wasn't a pragmatist or a centrist, Dick Morris was).
As we see with A-stan, Bambi can't make a decision. As we see with BambiCare, he can't formulate policy. All he can do is talk.
We elected a candidate.
ChickenLittle and Robin (briskly) kicked off the thread with my immediate reaction: We? You got a mouse in your pocket? I had no part in electing Obama. The man selected Joe Biden as his running mate, for God's sake. That alone should have disqualified him for the office.
Romney's a smart guy and a brilliant manager. Obama may be smart but he is book-smart, and book-smart doesn't get you very far into anything but trouble in the presidency.
I have sensed that President Obama has NO plans to restore, establish and strengthen our country. He is acting as a place holder in the President's Office so that no one who would do those things can get in the door. The world can go into crisis after crisis and Place Holder Obama will only talk pretty and make no descisions and make no plans. So what is he waiting for? Is the Israel/Iran War settlement all he wants to be positioned for? The take over of East Jerusalem as claimed by his Muslim comrades to be their State's capital will be the focus of the entire world very soon. Is he just marking time around here to ba able to keep the USA from siding with Israel at the critical time? Obama seems to have no interests in anything going on around here now.
I like Mitt. The Mass health thing will be an albatross (bleedin' seabird flavor) around his neck in any serious election campaign, but the guy brings a lot to the table. It's frankly disheartening that people
MM: So what if he is running? He's NOT the president. He can do whatever he damned well pleases as a private citizen. His criticism, which you did not address, was for a man that STILL running for office AFTER winning the election.
I've long felt that politicians at the federal level need to be held to extremely strict work schedules. To boot, I'm also in favor of a single 5 or 6 year presidential term with no re-election.
garage: Mitt has been rather verbose on other options for the issues he is currently talking about. Just because he doesn't mention them here in a compare/contrast exercise doesn't remove those previously outlined positions from reality as we know. Possibly from reality as you know it, but that's why we love you. Every group needs their own pocket surrealist.
Sorry, Ann, but I'm with everyone else here:
YOU elected a "fool".
"Luckily, it sounds like you've got Meade there now to help with your decision making, and surely little John will wise up as he grows."
Ooooh.
That's probably true, which would be one good thing about this "marriage" of y'alls: it might show you the importance of having a conservative man in the house.
"We elected a candidate."
To quote the punch line from an old Lone Ranger joke - "What's this 'we' shit, Kemosabe?"
More telling than Romney's criticism is the growing angst of O's most ardent supporters. David Gergen is a perfect weathervane to measure it by. His latest column, while still effusive about O at the personal level, compares him to the naive Kennedy who met Niki K in Vienna in 1961. Gergen's take is that O needs to toughen up fast and start acting like a real leader because others around the world are taking his measure and concluding that he can be pushed around.
As Ann says, it's the difference between a campaigner and a leader. That even Gergen has noticed and is willing to say so on CNN is more threatening to O than Romney's take.
"We" elected?
A collective we, as in “we the people”. What a thing to quibble about!
"We elected a candidate."
Don't blame me. I voted for Kodo!
Is he indeed underinvested in issues, or is he simply throwing every issue onto the wall knowing that some will stick?
Once you get some panels and commissions in place, like the breast care panel, you can slowly but surely transform America. Actual bills are so yesterday.
GM;
No counter ideas from Willard as to what we should be doing. Just whining from the sidelines. Hmmm, where does that sound familiar.
I do agree with Romney about BO's preferred style as a "campaign style". I'm waiting for him to shift in "presidential mode". Or to put more bluntly, "less cowbell"
Obama's in trouble
Off by one letter.
??? Osama's in trouble? Obama's on trouble?
And just as GWB's "Texas-twang straight-shooter, good ol' boy" style wore thin after a while, BO's "we're doing great and important things here but doing it thoughtfully and inclusively" is wearing thin.
Romney's problem: He's not concerned where Obama's driving the bus (off the cliff) - just that he's doing it so poorly.
Process over substance, management vs. Leadership. A technocrat who thinks believes anyone with conservatives ideas is an "ideologue".
We need to come to a consensus on how to spell Gabby Johnson's passionate statement of agreement:
Blazing Saddles
That's my first attempt to link a Youtube in this blog...hopefully it will work.
Short of figuring out how do spell revrnmdn (or whatever) we could always just type in caps HOWARD JOHNSON IS RIGHT!
Obama is a politician!
It is shocking! Shocking!!
But you should really add the:" Obama is like every other elected president" tag.
Shocking, I know.
So, who is shallower, Romney or Althouse? I say Althouse because Romney is a candidate and Althouse professes to be an academic.
@rcocean -- That's more or less my take too. I do think Romney, just by virtue of the (R) after his name, would be a better brake on Congress than Obama.
Hey, can I play contrarian Jeremiad for a moment here? Aside from ACORNian shenanigans, it’s still true that “we elected” Obama, in the sense of under the law, the will of “we the People” spoke last November. To say less is politically divisive. We can accept it for the sake of getting along and trying to cobble together a better unity going forward. I guess what I’m trying to say has something to do with the difference between forgiving and forgetting.
I’m not really irked that you voted for Obama-what irks me is your insistence on saying that you were really voting against McCain (I’ve really no clue how you voted in the WI primary, i.e., whether you voted for Romney).
To vote against a person as if it were some sort of yes/no referendum, strikes me as politically corrupting. I know that people like Cedarford have stood up here and tried to put a positive spin on the practice, but I’m still not buying. It seems to me that when you actively vote against someone, you are still buying into the agenda of the one you’re voting for. I mean, you could have voted for someone else, or not voted at all.
I can't wait to see Palin crush Romney in the 2012 campaign.
She will pounce on his liberal, flip flop ways. One commercial of him in the Boston Gay Pride Parade and he is finished.
He is an elite eastern Harvard educated putz.
He is a dirty bastard and Palin won't let us forget it, real soon.
Very exciting.
How were your morning loafs?
Being a candidate is precisely the only thing he ever was his entire life. One year later you get that? Not top of the class there, Ann.
It has just reported that our Bamster will not make a decision on Afghan troop levels until AFTER Thanksgiving.
Boy this better be a humdinger of a decision.
One picture of him having brunch with Ming Vase (the Asian drag queen) and his primary is over.
What an amazingly ignorant statement.
Obama did address the economy. It's called the stimulus plan. The same plan that every single Republican (bar 2 Maine Senators) voted against, because they preferred DOING NOTHING and letting the economy heal itself. There were also about five other significant economic programs that Obama initiated (the mortgage program, TALF, the auto-bailout etc). Republicans opposed all of them. And Democrats will have a jobs bill in December. Republicans will oppose that too.
Or do Republicans now consider a $787 billion dollar plan the equivalent of doing nothing? You can't have it both ways.
As for the war, I believe it was George Bush who was ignored Afghanistan for the last 5 years. Obama actually upped the number of troops there in the Spring. The question now is whether or not he should send even more, and thank goodness he is not taking the situation lightly.
Again - Republicans even denied that Afghanistan was a problem in 2008, so their solution was to leave it as is - or DO NOTHING.
As for health care, the Democratic plan is simple - tax the rich a little bit, press drug companies to control costs, and use the revenue and savings to subsidize insurance for poor people. To the tune of about $90 billion a year (compare that to the cost of increased troops in Afghanistan by the way). You might not like the plan, but it can hardly be considered a complete revamp of our healthcare system. We're subsidizing health care for the poor. Yawn.
As for cap and trade, has any focus really been given here? This is going on completely behind the scenes, and as far as I can tell, it keeps being punted down the road. Nevermind that June - October of this year was the hottest June - October since record keeping began.
So when Republicans say that Obama has ignored the economy and Afghanistan, and is focusing too much on health care and cap and trade, it's obvious that the Republicans are simply projecting.
Remind me again about the Republican solution for all of these problems?
One commercial video of him saying he would be better for gays than Ted Kennedy and he is through.
One commercial of him saying he doesn't want to go back to the days of Reagan and he is through.
Bring it on Barracuda.
I like Althouse's formulation of "we elected a president," because it alludes to the fact that we are "united" states.
Even though I did not vote for MC President, he is still the duly elected president, and hence, "we" elected him.
However, he's still a doofus.
I'd rather we'd pick on Palin, because she can take it. Apparently the President of the United States has such a glass jaw that we must stop criticizing him for his ineptitude.
Eight years of malign neglect left a lot of intractable tasks for Obama to perform, and he's made measureable progress on most of them. As far as the economy goes, my 401K is back to health. This is the best time in history to fix health care -- failing to seize the moment would be idiotic. Cap and trade is the least worst solution to keeping excess CO2 out of the atmosphere because it is market-driven.
Our mission in Afghanistan has changed as al-Qaeda has fled to Pakistan. If we pull out, naturally al-Qaeda will come back. Karzai is no one's favorite to keep A-stan on track. I'm sure Obama will entertain any suggestions Romney has to make -- why doesn't he tell Obama what he would do in his shoes.
As far as thirty campaign trips -- to have a friend, be one. Who will be in Obama's corner if he's too busy to be in theirs? This is Politics 101 -- if Romney doesn't grasp that I wasted my primary vote on him.
@Floydster, I don't really think of Obama as a politician. I think of him as a university professor who has a marvelous opportunity to put into practice all his pet theories with the entire United States as his laboratory (and all of us as his lab rats).
"Measurable" implies that you can find a baseline to measure against.
So, for example, he has increased the deficit from X to Y, Y being in this case $12T.
T r i l l i o n
That's measurable.
Thanks, MC President!
he's made measureable progress on most of them
You measure the economy by your 401K? FLS is employed! Obama rules!
As far cap and trade and healthcare reform -- those are hardly measurable, unless you have a magic ruler.
"My 401k is back to health" translates as "Expected returns on US equities are shit."
We were much better off with the Dow at 7 thousand but with solid dividends than we are now.
@DLT
"June - October of this year was the hottest June - October since record keeping began."
Source please.
Anytime Mitt Romney speaks, I find myself wondering if it's what he actually thinks, or if it's just what he thinks he needs to say for his campaign aspirations.
It sounds good to chide Obama on working on healthcare and continuing to cast a blind eye on our national debt (when lenders are telling you that you can't afford your proposed spending, that ought to be a sign)....but Romney passed universal healthcare in Massachusetts, and it is proving to be the overcrowded and underfunded clusterfudge that most of us expect out of the proposed Federal health care system.
I don't get a sense of core values or principles out of Romney; just a guy with a pollster who tries to look like the guy people say they want as President. That's why I couldn't vote for him in 2008, and why I don't think he'll be the person I'll vote for in 2012.
@downtownlad, where to start with your misinformation?
The alleged "stimulus" has been a fiasco from start to finish -- no wonder the Republicans voted against it. Grownups are allowed to say "No, that's a bad idea." It sent money from places that needed help to places that didn't need much help, but were politically better connected. Even the government's web site, www.recovery.gov, shows how poorly the whole thing is working. Off in Texas they received roughly $1.8B and "saved or created" less than 20,000 jobs. They'd have done better just to sent some folks down to the unemployment offices and handed out checks for $90,000 to a randomly selected 20,000 people.
Cap and trade is a huge blunder, and partly the reason why the Republicans beat Democrats in the Commonwealth of Virginia by not quite 3:2. And this past October is one of the coldest since record-keeping began. Global Warming. Is. NOT. Happening. You are either a liar or someone who has been lied to and so thoroughly gullible that you can't be bothered to check. Bad as Cap and Trade will be for Virginia, it will devastate our neighbors in West Virginia (which, by the way, has so far received less than a quarter billion of "stimulus" funds and "saved or created" only 2400 jobs -- $100,000 per job).
"As for health care, the Democratic plan is simple..." Sonny, there is nothing simple about a 1900 page bill. We've already seen the first "death panel" in the recommendation that women in their 40's not get mammograms. From a purely mathematical perspective it makes sense -- I read somewhere that there are upwards of 4000 false positives for each true cancer discovered in that age group, and the cost of performing those mammograms, not to mention the 4000 unnecessary biopsies, is huge. And in some cases the biopsies are disfiguring. Of course if you're the rare true positive (well, you wouldn't be) then you're probably going to die.
But don't worry, the Democrats will send flowers to your funeral. Pretty pink ones.
dtl: "Remind me again about the Republican solution for all of these problems?"
Quit spending money that we don't have, and quit sending it to congressional districts that don't exist.
This is not some political article, this is Althouse's blog wherein she frequently, if not usually, refers to people here as "we" in the dinner party sense. That is the we.
Many of here not only didn't vote to elect him, we warned as to what O would be like. That we is not part of the "we elected" we.
I have to agree with miller. There is no voting against a candidate. There is only voting for a candidate. Look at the ballot.
"There is no voting against a candidate."
I disagree.
It all comes down to motivation.
My motive for voting for McCain, who I detested, was that as bad as he was I knew Obama was orders of magnitude worse.
Someone who actually feels positively about a candidate votes for them. I did not. I voted against the disaster of Obama the only way I could.
Each downtownlad's post should begin Abandon hope all ye who read hereon.
Romney is your typical "Pragmatic" Republican. Like Ford and Bush I, there's "Campaign Mode" where you say whatever it takes - then there's "Governing Mode" where you get together with the Democrats and solve "problems".
The campaign rhetoric is just that.
Wasn't Mitt Romney the gov of Mass who had approvals in the low 40s at the end of his term (third lowest of any sitting governor) and is in the lead (Gallop) for 2012 with all of 26%...wowser!
is this the Mitt Romney...the same as the quote? The same guy? The guy McCain beat out for the nomination? and is quoted thusly:
"He stated that by staying in the race he would only "forestall the launch of a national campaign and frankly I'd be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Senator Barack Obama to win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding surrender to terror." He went on to say "I am convinced that unless America changes course, we will become the France of the 21st century - still a great nation, but no longer the leader of the world, no longer the superpower."
This is the guy right?
Yea, that does sound right. Romney's experiment in health care is my big disappointment with him. I fear he would have the Bush disease, where you try to do some "progressive things" to be centrist, only to have them fail and simultaneously alienate your base and get zero from the opposition in return.
Most of my friends voted for Obama and most were very supportive of him. Ever since about March, they have, for the most part, stopped even mentioning him, other than to glancingly mumble disappointment. He is in deep trouble and the left is in denial about it. I don't want a weak President, but THAT is what "we elected." Many voted for exactly what he is demonstrating. I think they just didn't think about how dangerous it was. It was and continues to be about Bush for many. The defenders here are incapable of discussing him without constant blame to Bush, which even when correct is worthless and only reinforcing the weakness meme.
This man needs to stop thinking he is special and start doing what history shows to work, and listen to proven leaders who have fought and won tough challenges outside of the derivative worlds of politics and academia.
"Even though I did not vote for MC President, he is still the duly elected president, and hence, "we" elected him."
You can use the royal "we" if you like but don't count me in with the fools (Sorry Professor, but he's hurting our country way too much to soft-sell things now.) who voted for him.
He is America's president and that's as far as I can go.
@downtownlad
Nevermind that June - October of this year was the hottest June - October since record keeping began.
Once again…source, please? Any other of our resident Algoryphants want to take a crack at that?
FLS said:
"This is the best time in history to fix health care -- failing to seize the moment would be idiotic."
Except, the bill the House passed does no such thing as "fix" health care. The Dean of Harvard Medical School said in the WSJ this week (emphasis mine):
"In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system."
But, hey, it’s only the Dean of Harvard Med School. What would he know compared to such great clinicians as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi or The O, right?
the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it.
Does he mean that people currently without health care will receive it? Health care costs money.
Making money available for spending will result in higher spending, yes.
That seems to be obvious.
"Does he mean that people currently without health care will receive it? Health care costs money."
Convenient edit, but he also said: "Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system."
What about the savings? That should make it all better, right?
The level of denial it takes to believe this government program will cost anywhere near projections is proof of a person's need to believe despite unequivocal historical evidence. That's religion I ain't got. It's simply foolish or dishonest to claim this program will save money even with cuts in benefits.
I wonder if Buffett will support a conservative next time. (slap) What was I thinking?
>Titus:
I can't wait to see Palin crush Romney in the 2012 campaign.
...
He is a dirty bastard and Palin won't let us forget it, real soon.
Daaaamn!!!
I felt fine this morning, thank you.
>chickenlittle:
Hey, can I play contrarian Jeremiad for a moment here? Aside from ACORNian shenanigans, it’s still true that “we elected” Obama, in the sense of under the law, the will of “we the People” spoke last November. To say less is politically divisive.
F*** that. Bush wasn't "their" president, and Obambi isn't mine.
Besides, he stole the election.
>BJK:
I don't get a sense of core values or principles out of Romney; just a guy with a pollster who tries to look like the guy people say they want as President. That's why I couldn't vote for him in 2008, and why I don't think he'll be the person I'll vote for in 2012.
Yes!
Remember this guy was governor of MASSACHUSSETTS! No conservative will ever be elected governor of that state; Romney is a pretend-conservative. (But he's clean and articulate!)
"Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system."
How could it? Why should it? As for (1), "Physician, heal thyself!"
As for (2) You fellas don't want single-payer; you'd rather keep for-profit health insurers going.
Pogo said...
Buffett’s wisdom?
How wise can a guy be if he didn't see in BHO the worst CEO in history?
I mean, shit-all, how could Buffett, who is known for decades as being able to astutely size up management teams, how could he have failed to see this coming.
He sized up McCain and the people around him. He sized up Obama and the people around him. He went with Obama as the better choice. As did a majority in this nation.
Even today, there is barely a peep from the opposition that "things would be so much better if only our beloved POW hero-victim was in the White House."
That is the problem when the system ends up giving you a choice between a untested BS artist with a well-oiled organization that has a shot at being a welcome change - and an incoherent dimbulb surrounded by bumblers who is pro-Amnesty, pro-cap 'n trade, is a war-happy tool of the Neocons and who admits he doesn't know anything about the economy.
That's the way it is.
And it sometimes is a contest of bad options. Ford-Carter. BushII-Kerry.
And those contests are sometimes "won" simply by voters seeing one candidate becoming worse and worse as the campaign goes on. Ford, Kerry for sure, McCain, and throw in Dukakis as another. The longer people saw them "interviewing" for the Oval Office job, the less palatable they seemed.
==================
As for Romney, you can see the Republicans schisming between the Executive that shows Obama is an inept boob mismanaging the big issues a Romney or co-great Executive Leader Jindal could do better at. And the Palin Cult. Because, she is right in her heart and a true believer that 30% of hardcore Republicans worship.
Romneycare? Good in the version that Romney put to Teddy and the Dem Mass Legislature. Bad in affordability after Dems poked it up with all sorts of extra bells and whistles. Like the most liberal abortion law in the nation, which Reagan signed back in the day - as Gov you do the best you can to get your input in, compromise...and hope the voters shift the legislative balance so the program can be amended later.
There is no luxury of stonewalling and vetoing everything that a rural white Alabaman Baptist fundie would find ideologically objectionable. 90% of the country thinks quite differently than the Republican Base.
People cut Reagan some slack back in the Day because what Reagan said was different from how he actually governed - and the Base was tuned into what he said.
@FLS
At least in my case, don't mistake a disdain for single-payer for a love of for-profit insurance companies, ie the status quo.
My family and I (me, the wife, four kids) carry catastrophic only. We use an HSA for our health care, which recently handled the birth of my son quite handily.
I'm by no means wealthy. Solidly middle-class. I have taken pains and make decisions/sacrifices to ensure that my decisions remain mine.
Both of the plans on the table right now, as well as the vaunted single-payer concept, remove that choice from my family.
In any case, with this comment, you're doing the flipside of what liberals usually level at conservatives...that of writing with quills instead of crayons.
mariner - Remember this guy was governor of MASSACHUSSETTS! No conservative will ever be elected governor of that state; Romney is a pretend-conservative. (But he's clean and articulate!)
Your argument is that no Republican outside the South and Alaska has any business running for national office because they aren't PURE. To be elected, they must have policies and positions the Palin-Huckabee Wing finds abhorrent.
Same right-wing Republican hardcore idiots who say electing Christie in NJ was a mistake because he is a RINO who is moderate on abortion and gun rights. Better no Republicans North of Mason-Dixon than an impure one.
Reagan failed todays purity test standards of the Religious Right. So did Nixon, Eisenhower, the OK with 1st Trimester abortions Bush 1.
Better Maine had two Democrat Senators, right? And better Chris Dodd stay in office than CT elect someone Sarah Palin says is "squishy on our core values"?
I don't want to be part of the suicidal faction of conservatives who seek to lose "gloriously" to Obama in 2012 by running an unelectable "southern-fried core values" candidate.
I'd rather have a centrist. Someone with solid, successful executive experience in gov't, military, or private business. By 2012 we will be a nation with 12 straight years of bumbling, inept Presidential leadership...our decline as a nation from what we once were before Ruling Elites sold the American worker out - even more dramatic.
And I think the country will be in no mood for a charismatic crowd-pleasing orator of few accomplishments...and will want a solid leader they think has the ability to fix things. Not just say how much things suck and expect an empathy vote. We know things suck.
Remind me again about the Republican solution for all of these problems?
Well, I'm not a Republican, but how about:
ECONOMY: The twice-used Bush stimulus check approach, only bigger. Send everybody in the country with a Social Security number a $1,000 check. Total cost, $300 billion, 40% of the cost of the Obama approach. The money actually gets out there quickly and actually stimulates things, instead of slowly piddling out over weeks. Everybody in the country gets $1,000 of personal value to themselves, instead of passing a billboard on the way to work about how a dog park was ARRA-funded.
AFGHANISTAN: Give the generals the troops they requested. You know, the exact same approach that turned around the situation in Iraq? Actually listen to the commanders in the field, unlike that douchebag LBJ.
HEALTH CARE: Create an interstate market in health plans, bringing competition nationwide. Make health insurance premiums deductible on individual income tax, and phase out deductibility on the employer end, to unlink employment from insurance. Increase Medicaid eligibility. Use a gradual-improvement approach instead of trying to reinvent the whole system in one shot.
AUTO COMPANIES: Let them go bankrupt normally. Make them restructure normally. Let the UAW take its lumps like any other unsecured creditor, normally. We have an entire system for handling this sort of thing already. Doing something special as a one-off is automatically bad policy because it undermines the stability of legal expectations.
CARBON EMISSIONS:
1) Don't do anything that creates a cost structure that encourages manufacturing to move to China and India. You don't make any progress against global warming by merely shifting carbon emissions from one continent to another, all you do is destroy American jobs. 2) If you're stupid enough to ignore 1, at least don't do anything as bureaucratically market-distorting and incumbent-favoring as a cap-and-trade system. A simple carbon tax is macroeconomically equivalent to a properly-functioning cap-and-trade system, but is simpler to properly implement and less vulnerable to regulatory capture. Even better, it can at least theoretically be assessed on imported goods.
Steven, all your suggestions for "macro-level decisions" are good except the following one:
AFGHANISTAN: Give the generals the troops they requested. You know, the exact same approach that turned around the situation in Iraq? Actually listen to the commanders in the field, unlike that douchebag LBJ.
Actually, the douchebag LBJ got in his massive mess PRECISELY because he "LISTENED TO HIS COMMANDERS". He escalated to give Westmoreland the 200,000 extra troops the general and other troops insisted was needed to "Surge", roll back the commies, and win the love of the noble Vietnamese...
Remember this, too:
1. The Soviets built up to 110,000 in Afghanistan. All their "Surge" got was a bigger meat grinder.
2. The Soviets installed a puppet regime with far less corruption problems and incompetence in it than our puppet Karzai Regime.
3. The Soviets had easy logistics. Fuel for them cost 3.90 cents in todays prices delivered to a frontline tank. Equipment was shipped in at a cost of 10-12 dollars a ton. Our fuel costs up to 400 dollars a gallon, supplies between 330 and 710 dollars a ton depending on what it is, and that doesn't count the 7 billion we bribe Pakistan to allow it to be shipped in by air or land.
4. Our logistics paths could be cut off at anytime if the political winds in Pakistan change..cutting off our troops and if not broken by an emergency, wider war, would force a full retreat with most of our equipment abandoned or destroyed as soldiers tried to get to the safety of other 'Stans.
5. The Soviets spent 6 times what we did on "aid to the noble Afghanis". With all the stuff Americans from neocons to liberals are ignorant were tried before and reaped little long term and Zero gratitude for the Soviets. Free healthcare, a billion put into "schools for Afghan girls", 4 billion into electric plants, 3 billion into roads and huge effort to get Afghans to grow something other than opium.
No Miss Althouse - YOU elected a perpetual candidate. You and David Brooks and Peggy Noonan and Marty Peretz and Chris Buckley and a raft of others in the self-described intellectual class who were so easily suckered by this empty narcissist Obama.
As Obama's former colleague at the University of Chicago stated, Obama is not an intellectual. "He is an activist merely mimicking the mannerisms of an intellectual."
It was fairly obvious from the start that the guy was just a bullshit artist, and it amazes me that he was able to gain so much power by appealing to peoples' vanity. and lack of discernment.
Epstein went on to say about the non-intellectual Obama: The fundamental mistake of his entire world view is that he treats contracts as devices for exploitation and not as devices for mutual gain, and he assumes that redistribution can take place without any negative impact upon production.
Ha Ha Ha, what a rube that Obama is!
"We elected a candidate."
No shit, Sherlock. That's how it works.
While McCain wasn't much of a candidate, he was still a candidate.
I am proud I worked for and elected Obama. And I am ashamed to share the country with the demagogue, stooges haters of the modern American Right Wing.
You guys have gone off the deep end, more openly calling for the death of the President, now through twisted invocation of the Bible.
A question I asked on a different thread:
How many Althouse commenters want the President dead and are espousing it through prayer, Facebook vote or other means?
I answered it on the other thread.
You're twisting a misuse of scripture into your romantic notion of assassination.
You should stop.
"You should stop."
Oh, like that's going to happen.
It's a way for liberals to envelop themselves with righteousness and a persecution complex.
I notice how the liberals aren't talking much about how wonderful the dithering President is.
Instead, they want to drag in Bush ("He is still the cause of everything bad!") and want to stop talking about talking about Palin, and yet can't stop talking about her.
Anyone want to defend MC President's $12 Trillion dollar debt? His slapdown by the Chinese? His ludicrous statements that KSM is guilty - statements much like Nixon's remark about Manson?
Boy, that Obama is like Nixon tag is going to get a workout in the remaining 3 years of this failed presidency.
Ceadarford:
Even bad-but-forceful policy beats the bad-and-weak policy of drifting while engaged in endless policy reviews.
Still, my other prong would be: be clear we aren't the Soviets.
That is, make it absolutely clear that we are not trying to rule or run Afghanistan. We are there only to wipe out Al Qaeda and anybody who shelters Al Qaeda. We will then leave Afghanistan. We will continue to ship material aid to the people who helped us afterward in gratitude for help wiping out Al Qaeda, but we won't be propping them up with our troops.
"Drive the Al Qaeda foreigners out of Afghanistan, and the NATO foreigners will follow them out. The Taliban would still be running the whole country if they'd handed us Osama. We want to leave, but we aren't leaving without his body."
Hell, Obama would be much more plausible saying that than Bush or McCain.
Mitt Romney didn't spin the dog thing right but now he can. "If I can be that mean to my dog, whom I love, just think how mean I can be to our enemies."
With The Big O, we don't have so much of a CIC but a DIC.
Ditherer In Chief.
I am trying to fiugure out if we elected Chauncey Gardiner or Elmer Gantry. Frankly I cannot decide.
And I say "we" in the sense that I am American and Mr. Obama is my president. I did not vote for the man but my fate is tied up with his.
Granted, I am not sure if John McCain (who I did vote for) would have been better, but I fantasize that he would have been a nice dull Cincinatus.
Anthony,
Get real.
Your fate is entirely disconnected from Obama's, and that's part of the problem.
No matter what happens to America Obama will be taken care of.
Mariner -- perhaps he will, but perhaps not. In any case, my personal fate is to an extent tied up to what President Obama does.
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