This cartoon would be slightly more accurate, although still tendentious, if you'd portrayed Speaker Pelosi instead of Obama. The actual star of the cartoon ought to be Rep. Stupak, or the gang of conservative pro-life Dems led by him.
I do not understand how you blame Obama for this, yet. Part of the Democratic caucus misbehaved, and even Speaker Pelosi had limited leverage because that part of the caucus held the balance of the majority for passage. (The final tally was only 2 above the required 218 at 220.)
A 'poison pill' provision is an unexceptional parliamentary move that most people knowledgeable about legislating understand. The people to blame for the poison pill are those who put if forward, not those who are left the choice to either swallow it or vote down the bill if it is bad enough. Not the president.
How is the president supposed to prevent passage of a poison pill provision, exactly? He has no parliamentary power. His role comes later, using his veto power to influence the outcome of the reconciliation, and if necessary, to veto the end result if he doesn't succeed in his attempt to influence the final reconciliated bill.
Not blame Obama for this? Isn't health care reform his signature issue? (Or was that being antiwar? It's hard keeping the Obot delusions straight).
Dennis Kucinich told Democracy Now yesterday in no plain terms that the robust public option, the Weiner amendment and the Kucinich amendment were ALL taken out at the administration's behest. Yep: Every single part of this craptapulous bill that was worthwhile was stripped out by The One's intervention -- why? As Kucinich said, the administration "was terrified" of offending the insurance companies.
That's why Kucinich voted against the bill. He thinks it sucks. And I agree.
Unless, of course, you believe that "the administration" refers to some shadowy figure not yet named, Emanuel "Irgun" Rahm perhaps?
The Stupak amendment relates not at all to any of the other things in or not in the bill. That is, even had single payer been ruled in, insisted upon, and the caucus pressured to walk that (way socialist) plank by Obama, this Stupak amendment could and would still have been brought forward to poison the House bill.
I ask again, how do you put this debacle at the feet of Obama? He could have stopped it, how? A president has little formal power, and relies on persuasion when it comes to Congress, until and unless the veto power exercise looms.
Unless you'd have him declare war on the recalcitrant members of the caucus, threaten them with primary challengers and campaign appearances for them by the POTUS, or have Pelosi and the leadership threaten their committee memberships, chair and sub-chair positions, or perhaps loss of prime office space or something.
Then, we'd hear about Chicago thug tactics, certainly, without any guarantee that such heavy handed tactics would work in the instant case, let alone not backfire badly down the road by destroying Obama's relationship with the caucus.
Show me any analysis describing how Obama or Rahm & Co. engineered this, or admit that they are victims of this poison as much as is Pelosi.
Any idea why the media is so silent about the other complaint you raised about the bill -- the criminalization of failure to pay mandatory premiums and the high fines?
Your blog and a Republican website is the only place I saw the penalty discussed.
My observation: The whole "11-dimension chess" argument is dead and buried, as the time has passed and the conduct is too much of a pattern to be denied. I know people whose opinion has weight to me, who still seem to hold a high opinion of Obama, and as I know them to be thinking, reasonable people... I don't even know how to start the conversation. As others can surely empathize with, my dilemma is... how do you talk to those who you essentially agree with, politically and philosophically, while trying to awaken them to the fact that they've been hood-winked?
Obama is Preznit. Leader of world that is free and Dem party. Dem party controls the Congress. Who is head of Dem. party again....wait...still not bag of Obama? Well, he say many, many bad things happen to people who don't support what he really want, which nobody put in bill that Congress vote on. He say many many good thing happen to people who support what he want, and still nobody say 'YAY'. He use his most powerful power but it not enough. Poor Obama. I like him. He have nice teeth and good hope..
I'm surprised that nobody has taken the two or so Obama apologists to task for their defense of his "inaction" on the Sthuppak amendment. LBJ got civil rights legislation done with an openly hostile congress on both sides of the aisle. But then, I knew LBJ and Obama is no LBJ, a Nixon maybe.
You make a great point about LBJ. Civil rights legislation, the New Deal--all done over the strenuous objections of his opponents on the Hill.
Don't forget FDR. Passage of the WPA and other populist measures induced mouth-foaming virulence from Republicans, but he didn't give a damn. Au contraire, remember what he said: "I welcome their hatred."
Not to mention all the things Clinton managed to get done while being dogged day and night by an openly hostile Republican Congress AND an openly hostile press. And an impeachment attempt.
Even Dubya, while we may disagree with the *value* of what he accomplished, certainly managed to get a lot of things done. He was the Decider, remember?
MrMike, the superficial comparison you draw of Obama with LBJ could not be more inapt.
Whatever LBJ's opposition from the GOP side, more than half of the GOP voted FOR the Civil Rights Act, both because the GOP used to be a far more responsible party, and also because LBJ waved the bloody shirt of the just-martyred JFK ("this is Jack's bill").
Moreover, LBJ was himself both a creature and the master of the Senate as its formidable just-past Majority Leader. His best friend and neighbor was J. Edgar Hoover, who specialized in finding and storing blackmail materials against everybody in Washington. These two attributes were unique to LBJ, haven't been seen before or since, and will probably never be seen again in one individual as president.
What's worse with your comparison is that, yes, indeed, LBJ did get the Civil Rights Act passed, and as he sagely predicted at the time, that accomplishment has lost the white vote for the Democratic Party for a generation or two as of now. Never since that time has a Democratic nominee, even those who have won the presidency, won a majority of the white vote.
A more accurate comparison would be to the Clinton experience in failing to pass health care reform. Clinton, like Obama now, faced nearly unanimous opposition from the GOP, together with a typically fractious Democratic caucus.
Clinton's bottom line of results on health care reform was, if I recall correctly, no bills passed out of the Senate, and one bill passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee under Rostenkowski's chair.
So Obama is way ahead of the Clinton record at this point.
I do not recall anybody blaming Clinton's failure on his having a secret anti-liberal position against health care reform, or failing because of character flaws. It was fairly easily understood that the GOP stood 100% against him on this, and that alone makes passage of anything highly unlikely. The role played by THE DEMOCRATS in torpedoing the effort is less well appreciated, but suffice it to say that Chairman Moynihan and President Pro Tempore Byrd were a kind of combo Stupak and Lieberman for their day in the negative roles they played.
I agree that if Obama allows the Stupak amendment language to pass out of the reconciliation process, or if it does, and he does not veto it, he will bear his own part of the responsibility for that bad result. As of then. Now, not so much, based on what we have on the record so far.
Another one for the T_shirt! As for anonymous who wants to isolate Obama from this, Nancy said without his vision, this couldn't have happened. And she was right as his vision was "not sneaking any payment for abortions with government money. Besides keeping W's conscience clause.
What is with this O-apologist and his windy defenses of Zero? Zerobama has been infuriatingly antiabortion way before this Stupak amendment. Over and over he's been "reassuring" the womb-police that no public money would go for abortions. Did you somehow miss that XI? Some of us have been ranting about that from the moment Zero threw us under the bus. Zero also put an antichoice activist in charge of the Dem Party (Kaine) and one in charge of Bush's "faith-based" office which Zero expanded and made part of our government under HHR. Zero's minions are out in force trying to mislead women on Stupak, as well. There are a disturbing amount of young women who think Stupak's amendment is simply the status quo.
Faith-based Office, expanded. Rendition and military tribunals, continued. If anyone can regress a woman's right to choose, it will be this Trojan Ass willingly rolled into the White House by dupes.
27 comments:
Ayup
BTW - I think you made him look too dark, which makes you a you-know-what.
You know, every time I do an Obama cartoon, I'm petrified that someone will say something like that seriously.
Of course, I took the color from the mid value of the original Ms cover.
How about the Pied Piper? Leading his "followers" into the brink with promises he was never going to honor.
My disgust is unprintable.
Excellent work!! You could do a nice business selling Tee shirts with that graphic.
Check with Riverdaughter at T C.
Love it! I would steal the 'toon and post it but you could be a secret agent for the AP.
I'm not, and feel free. Just don't sign your own name to it.
Ayup! The 'FeMANist', who will be welcomed with open arms at the Bush reunion...he did what Bush I and Bush II couldn't.
This cartoon would be slightly more accurate, although still tendentious, if you'd portrayed Speaker Pelosi instead of Obama.
The actual star of the cartoon ought to be Rep. Stupak, or the gang of conservative pro-life Dems led by him.
I do not understand how you blame Obama for this, yet. Part of the Democratic caucus misbehaved, and even Speaker Pelosi had limited leverage because that part of the caucus held the balance of the majority for passage. (The final tally was only 2 above the required 218 at 220.)
A 'poison pill' provision is an unexceptional parliamentary move that most people knowledgeable about legislating understand. The people to blame for the poison pill are those who put if forward, not those who are left the choice to either swallow it or vote down the bill if it is bad enough. Not the president.
How is the president supposed to prevent passage of a poison pill provision, exactly? He has no parliamentary power. His role comes later, using his veto power to influence the outcome of the reconciliation, and if necessary, to veto the end result if he doesn't succeed in his attempt to influence the final reconciliated bill.
XI
Not blame Obama for this? Isn't health care reform his signature issue? (Or was that being antiwar? It's hard keeping the Obot delusions straight).
Dennis Kucinich told Democracy Now yesterday in no plain terms that the robust public option, the Weiner amendment and the Kucinich amendment were ALL taken out at the administration's behest. Yep: Every single part of this craptapulous bill that was worthwhile was stripped out by The One's intervention -- why? As Kucinich said, the administration "was terrified" of offending the insurance companies.
That's why Kucinich voted against the bill. He thinks it sucks. And I agree.
Unless, of course, you believe that "the administration" refers to some shadowy figure not yet named, Emanuel "Irgun" Rahm perhaps?
What's with the cameltoe, Joe?
Sign me up for a bunch of those t-shirts. I've got daughters!
From a Mission Accomplished codpiece, to a cameltoe on the cover of Ms. Magazine? You saying he's really a she?
> I do not understand how you blame Obama for this, yet.
Last I checked, Obama was the Democratic Party's leader. Making your point about Parliamentary procedure true, but irrelevant.
absolutely brilliant!
The Stupak amendment relates not at all to any of the other things in or not in the bill. That is, even had single payer been ruled in, insisted upon, and the caucus pressured to walk that (way socialist) plank by Obama, this Stupak amendment could and would still have been brought forward to poison the House bill.
I ask again, how do you put this debacle at the feet of Obama? He could have stopped it, how? A president has little formal power, and relies on persuasion when it comes to Congress, until and unless the veto power exercise looms.
Unless you'd have him declare war on the recalcitrant members of the caucus, threaten them with primary challengers and campaign appearances for them by the POTUS, or have Pelosi and the leadership threaten their committee memberships, chair and sub-chair positions, or perhaps loss of prime office space or something.
Then, we'd hear about Chicago thug tactics, certainly, without any guarantee that such heavy handed tactics would work in the instant case, let alone not backfire badly down the road by destroying Obama's relationship with the caucus.
Show me any analysis describing how Obama or Rahm & Co. engineered this, or admit that they are victims of this poison as much as is Pelosi.
XI
Any idea why the media is so silent about the other complaint you raised about the bill -- the criminalization of failure to pay mandatory premiums and the high fines?
Your blog and a Republican website is the only place I saw the penalty discussed.
Your best EVAH.
Sign me up for the tee-shirt!
My observation:
The whole "11-dimension chess" argument is dead and buried, as the time has passed and the conduct is too much of a pattern to be denied. I know people whose opinion has weight to me, who still seem to hold a high opinion of Obama, and as I know them to be thinking, reasonable people... I don't even know how to start the conversation. As others can surely empathize with, my dilemma is... how do you talk to those who you essentially agree with, politically and philosophically, while trying to awaken them to the fact that they've been hood-winked?
Obama is Preznit. Leader of world that is free and Dem party. Dem party controls the Congress. Who is head of Dem. party again....wait...still not bag of Obama? Well, he say many, many bad things happen to people who don't support what he really want, which nobody put in bill that Congress vote on. He say many many good thing happen to people who support what he want, and still nobody say 'YAY'. He use his most powerful power but it not enough. Poor Obama. I like him. He have nice teeth and good hope..
I'm surprised that nobody has taken the two or so Obama apologists to task for their defense of his "inaction" on the Sthuppak amendment.
LBJ got civil rights legislation done with an openly hostile congress on both sides of the aisle.
But then, I knew LBJ and Obama is no LBJ, a Nixon maybe.
Just perfect!
You make a great point about LBJ. Civil rights legislation, the New Deal--all done over the strenuous objections of his opponents on the Hill.
Don't forget FDR. Passage of the WPA and other populist measures induced mouth-foaming virulence from Republicans, but he didn't give a damn. Au contraire, remember what he said: "I welcome their hatred."
Not to mention all the things Clinton managed to get done while being dogged day and night by an openly hostile Republican Congress AND an openly hostile press. And an impeachment attempt.
Even Dubya, while we may disagree with the *value* of what he accomplished, certainly managed to get a lot of things done. He was the Decider, remember?
Obama can't even rise to the level of Dubya.
MrMike, the superficial comparison you draw of Obama with LBJ could not be more inapt.
Whatever LBJ's opposition from the GOP side, more than half of the GOP voted FOR the Civil Rights Act, both because the GOP used to be a far more responsible party, and also because LBJ waved the bloody shirt of the just-martyred JFK ("this is Jack's bill").
Moreover, LBJ was himself both a creature and the master of the Senate as its formidable just-past Majority Leader. His best friend and neighbor was J. Edgar Hoover, who specialized in finding and storing blackmail materials against everybody in Washington. These two attributes were unique to LBJ, haven't been seen before or since, and will probably never be seen again in one individual as president.
What's worse with your comparison is that, yes, indeed, LBJ did get the Civil Rights Act passed, and as he sagely predicted at the time, that accomplishment has lost the white vote for the Democratic Party for a generation or two as of now. Never since that time has a Democratic nominee, even those who have won the presidency, won a majority of the white vote.
A more accurate comparison would be to the Clinton experience in failing to pass health care reform. Clinton, like Obama now, faced nearly unanimous opposition from the GOP, together with a typically fractious Democratic caucus.
Clinton's bottom line of results on health care reform was, if I recall correctly, no bills passed out of the Senate, and one bill passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee under Rostenkowski's chair.
So Obama is way ahead of the Clinton record at this point.
I do not recall anybody blaming Clinton's failure on his having a secret anti-liberal position against health care reform, or failing because of character flaws. It was fairly easily understood that the GOP stood 100% against him on this, and that alone makes passage of anything highly unlikely. The role played by THE DEMOCRATS in torpedoing the effort is less well appreciated, but suffice it to say that Chairman Moynihan and President Pro Tempore Byrd were a kind of combo Stupak and Lieberman for their day in the negative roles they played.
I agree that if Obama allows the Stupak amendment language to pass out of the reconciliation process, or if it does, and he does not veto it, he will bear his own part of the responsibility for that bad result. As of then. Now, not so much, based on what we have on the record so far.
XI
Another one for the T_shirt!
As for anonymous who wants to isolate Obama from this, Nancy said without his vision, this couldn't have happened. And she was right as his vision was "not sneaking any payment for abortions with government money. Besides keeping W's conscience clause.
What is with this O-apologist and his windy defenses of Zero? Zerobama has been infuriatingly antiabortion way before this Stupak amendment. Over and over he's been "reassuring" the womb-police that no public money would go for abortions. Did you somehow miss that XI? Some of us have been ranting about that from the moment Zero threw us under the bus. Zero also put an antichoice activist in charge of the Dem Party (Kaine) and one in charge of Bush's "faith-based" office which Zero expanded and made part of our government under HHR. Zero's minions are out in force trying to mislead women on Stupak, as well. There are a disturbing amount of young women who think Stupak's amendment is simply the status quo.
Faith-based Office, expanded. Rendition and military tribunals, continued. If anyone can regress a woman's right to choose, it will be this Trojan Ass willingly rolled into the White House by dupes.
i take a truck load of t-shirts!
Beautiful. I love it! You're very talented...and if this does become a t-shirt somewhere, I'm buying it.
Post a Comment