December 26, 2009

To Better Deceive the People: Hurry Up and Wait

Justin Katz

All revved up for negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of economically destructive health "reform"? Well, you're going to have to wait over a month, until after some soaring rhetoric from the Deceiver in Chief:

The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address — and then plans to make a "very hard pivot" to a new jobs bill, according to senior administration officials.

Obama has been told that disputes over abortion and the tight schedule are highly likely to delay a final deal, a blow to the president, who had hoped to trumpet a health care victory in his big speech to the nation. But he has also been told that House Democratic leaders seem inclined, at least for now, to largely accept the compromise worked out in the Senate, virtually ensuring he will eventually get a deal.

Internally, White House aides are plunging into a 2010 plan calling for an early focus on creating jobs, especially in the energy sector, along with starting a conversation about deficit reduction measures, the administration officials said.

In other words, the propagandists are going to give the United States a break from the masochistic legislative beating that the Democrats have been inflicting on voters, settle down for a few quiet winter weeks to see if Americans will (per habit) lull themselves back into apathetic slumber. Then, the president will play his preacher-like oratorical cards with a state of the union address once again promising the giveaways and fantasy improvements of healthcare and energy legislation that is, although he'll pretend otherwise, still pending and declaring it to be (guessing) "time to move past the divisiveness of the past and do the work that Americans so desperately need done."

Then, in his usual practice, Obama will make vague promises about jobs legislation... that he'll leave entirely up to legislators to define, so as to keep his hands abstractly clean... and try to paint Republicans as obstructionist when they point out that the Democrats are merely proposing to give more (unborn) taxpayer dollars to their political supporters. The only employment legislation that might have a chance of working would have to move in entirely the opposite direction from that in which the Democrats are marching on every single issue in their agenda.

Whether the political choreography will work is another matter. It would certainly be characteristic of Americans to long for some political hibernation, but media cheer leading notwithstanding, the economy is likely to remain stagnant, or worse, and people in pain are less able to drift into sleep. Moreover, a year's experience watching the centrist uniter and his party turn Washington, D.C., into an even more hyper-partisan, money-grubbing, backroom-dealing swamp of oligarchical vampirism should prove to have inoculated a sizable portion of those who've been fooled by the rhetoric before.

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"hyper-partisan, money-grubbing, backroom-dealing swamp of oligarchical vampirism"

Excellent description.


"should prove to have inoculated a sizable portion of those who've been fooled by the rhetoric before."

Not sure if this person would admit to being fooled. But at a Christmas gathering yesterday, a previously devout progressive quietly and concernedly asked me (in the context of this bill and prior ones), "What's with all the spending?"

Posted by: Monique at December 26, 2009 5:23 PM
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