Earlier today John Podhoretz listed the Democrats' options on healthcare reform and found them all bad (for the Dems). He finds this situation unique:
I don’t think there’s ever been a situation like this in American political history. Every way you look at it, Democrats are boxed in, forced to choose between extraordinarily unattractive options. What makes it especially noteworthy is that this was a calamity they summoned entirely upon themselves.Jennifer Rubin takes it from there:
Obama and the Democrats are giving themselves four weeks — another inexplicable move. What will occur in that time? Why Republicans, Tea Party activists, and other anti-ObamaCare forces will work themselves into a fevered pitch, and the Reid-Pelosi-Obama brain trust will twist in the wind. It is yet another nearly unimaginable move in a series of calamitous political decisions. If Obama and the Democrats had tried, they couldn’t have come up with an approach better designed to invigorate their opponents and dispirit their own base.So what's at the root of this bungling? Pelosi and Reid are merely power-drunk on their majorities. It will take another election to sober them up. Obama is suffering under the delusion that the ephemeral personal magic of '08 was real and that it persists even now, in the face of his poor job performance. I don't know what kind of intervention would break that spell.
Update from CBS News:
President Obama will make an announcement sometime next week on what he "believes is the best way forward" on health care reform, the White House said Friday.Huh? Everyone knows we don't need legislation for that.
"We've had many weeks to contemplate where we are," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
The president will consider areas of common agreement discussed yesterday at the White House health care summit and work with his team to possibly incorporate them into the health care proposal he has put forward, Gibbs said. Some of those ideas could include Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.)'s suggestions on cutting fraud and abuse from Medicare.
Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)
Most recent posts here.
After watching this entire process from the beginning up until "the summit" I have reached an undeniable conclusion. Nancy Pelosi is just plain stupid and Harry Reid is so out of touch and such a Beltway insider that he can't see what the POTUS is doing to him and his colleagues on the left side of the aisle. Nancy Pelosi salivates at any chance to perpetuate anything Socialist and can't help herself.
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