This is Getting Boring...It's so easy to reveal the flaws in their arguments!

Joe Klein posted another inane collection of words.  We go through it below. My remarks are in red. For the record, this is Joe's unexpurgated column.  

The Health Care Summit

Posted by JOE KLEIN Friday, February 26, 2010 at 10:28 am

Shame on me. I was elsewhere yesterday and missed the health care summit. I'm catching up now, and the tea leaves seem to indicate that Obama came out well ahead of the Republicans. How do I know that? From Matt Drudge, of course. I mean, Drudge's takeaway from the summit is that the President talked a lot--actually, the President, the Congressional Democrats and Republicans each spoke an equal amount--the Times of London found it boring and the networks turned to other programming.

1. Times of London has no standing in this issue, and besides, who the hell cares what they find boring?

2. The networks are a business.  Businesses make money.  I know the concept of capitalsim is abhorrent to you (unless you are the beneficiary of it), but they're not there because it feels good.  They're there to make money.  It was not money making television.  You yourself, in the same damned paragraph just cited the Times of London's assertion that is was boring as gospel... so... Duh.


3.  The purpose of this meeting was to have a bipartisan summit on this democrat crafted bill.  That would entail, it seems, letting the Republicans have their say.  Of all the available minutes, Republicans got ONE out of THREE.  You can denigrate the facts all you want Joe, and regard the observation of them as stupid.  But it doesn't CHANGE them.  Why do libs insist on denigrating the observation of facts as "stupid"?  It's an observation of fact....hellloooooo?  Let me help you here, Joe.  I'll give you an example of a truly stupid observation that could be made about the health care summit so you can see the difference between stupid and not stupid, okay?  STUPID observation of fact:  With few exceptions, everybody there, except the President, appeared to be "not black." THAT'S a stupid observation of fact.  Ooops.  Sorry.  The fact that the President is black and so much of the House and Senate and.... America, in fact, is "not black" has been observed repeatedly on MSNBC, CNN, etc. and deemed to be proof that any time anyone disagrees with Obama it's racism.  Got it straight now?  Of course... they elected him, but we won't let that little detail get in the way of a good racist argument, huh??????

Reading between the lines, you can conclude that the Republicans had nothing very interesting, or clever, to say (and were never able to get the President's goat). And that the President was his usual, unflappable, well-informed self. You can also conclude that not much progress was made at the summit, as Karen reports here--but that's a huge surprise, right?

1. We're "reading between lines" now?  Hey, Joe, ever heard of a VCR/DVR/INTERNET?  You could WATCH the whole thing once you got home THEN draw conclusions.

1.a. So "we can conclude" based on NYT reportage?  Isn't this a little like "I don't know the whole story but the police acted stupidly" Joe? SIT YOUR BUTT DOWN AND WATCH THE DAMN THING.  WORK.  EARN YOUR KEEP.  There are plenty of out of work reporters out there who would be HAPPY to do the work YOU ARE NOT DOING.

Reading further, in the New York Times, I can't find any indications that the Congressional Democrats were actually present at this meeting. Certainly, they had nothing notable to say, no new compromises to propose--which leads to another obvious conclusion: the Republicans have been absolutely recalcitrant in this process, but the Dems are no bargain, either.

1. You're so even handed, Joe.  That was really fair of you there, big fella!  The NYT is so even handed in their reporting I'm sure any conclusions you draw from them are accurate.  I mean, after all, they were way out in front on Van Jones....er... ACORN... oops.  Sorry.  Shouldn't have mentioned that.  My bad! ;(

I remain convinced that if the Republicans actually wanted to deal with this issue, they might have gotten some major concessions from the President--malpractice reform, for sure; perhaps a greater use of insurance polices that emphasize catastrophic coverage (as the Republicans wanted), maybe even a system--as John McCain proposed during the campaign and health wonks everywhere favor--that truly limited the deductability of  corporate health care benefits. To get these things, however, the Republicans would have had to say yes at some point. As in, YES, I'll vote for the bill if you throw in malpractice and pay for it with the money you get from limiting deductability. That is what happens in a negotiation. That is what is supposed to happen in a democracy.

1. You "remain convinced that if the Republicans actually wanted to deal with this issue, they might have gotten some major concessions from the President" Got your people mixed up there, big fella.  The sentence should have read "... convinced that if the PRESIDENT actually wanted to deal, he might have made concessions..." IT'S A DEMOCRAT BILL.  What do the REPUBLICANS HAVE TO CONCEDE?  One can't concede something ONE DOESN'T HAVE.  That sentence ALONE reveals you to be the theoretician that you are.  You have never actually had to hammer out an agreement in your entire life, have you?  Always had an agent or a lawyer or representative of some kind.  Maybe once, early in your career, over something small, you might have had to negotiate, but not lately, that's for sure.  And like you, I can make assumptions about who got the better of your early negotiations, my friend.  Two can play at the "reading between the lines" game.  You LOST.

2. "That is what is supposed to happen in a democracy."  This is not the first time you have made this glaring error.  We live in a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.  NOT a democracy.  Get it straight, will you!

But the obvious truth here is that the Republicans do not want any sort of health care bill to pass at all because they do not want to hand President Obama a victory. Shame on them.

1. Those meanies.  Those big, bad, mean Republicans.  They "obviously" want people to drop dead in the streets and die, die, die.  They're the party of "no."  Okay Joe, let's take this slowly... The framers intended that this kind of legislation be hard...That's why they built in this concept of... say it with me, now....the supermajority.  That means, and we're going to take the math part really, really slow, you need 60 senators out of the 100 to pass legislation.  Too bad you never had 60 dem... Oh, wait... Until a few weeks ago, in fact, for the entire first year of Obama's administation, you DID have a 60 vote supermajority in the Senate with 60 democrats so you could have....passed...anything....you....wanted... so help me out here, Joe, cuz I'm just a big-dum-dummy... If you had a 60 vote supermajority, therefore rendering the Republicans LITERALLY HELPLESS TO STOP ANYTHING, how exactly are they the party of "NO"?

Joe, listening to you and your lefty friends whine about how the Republicans have "stopped" healthcare would be like listening to the 2004 Yankees complain that those mean mean Red Sox should have LOST game 7 of their series because "We want to win it!  We want it and they won't give it to us.  Waaa haaa haaa...We keep throwing pitches and they keep hitting them.... Waaahaaahaaaa.... Why don't they strike out?  Why don't they drop the ball so we can win....?  Waaaahaaaahaaaaa.....We're the YANKEES....."

Gotta get YOUR OWN TEAM to win it, Joe.  It's called THE BATTLEFIELD OF IDEAS.  WIN ON THE POINTS and quit yer whinin'.

Sorry.


http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/02/26/the-health-care-summit/#ixzz0gji1sb2R

"Pounding Their Spoons on Their Highchairs"

Jonah's got it exactly right on Obama's infantile attitude here!

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE          www.nationalreview.com 

JONAH GOLDBERG
FEBRUARY 19, 2010 12:00 A.M.
Pick an Excuse, Any Excuse
Dems think none of their problems are their fault.

Remember that great scene from the Oscar-robbed classic The Blues Brothers? Jake and Elwood (John Belushi and Dan Akroyd) are finally cornered by Jake’s former fiancée (Carrie Fisher). Jake left her at the altar with 300 guests and the best Romanian caterers in the state waiting.

“You betrayed me!” she exclaims.


“No I didn’t. Honest,” Jake explains. “I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!”


This is pretty much how Democrats sound these days. None of their problems are their fault.


For the first time, more than half of voters think President Obama doesn’t deserve to be reelected. Almost three out of four Americans believe that the stimulus was wasted.


Evan Bayh’s retirement has triggered a bowel-stewing panic among Democrats. Bayh is from Indiana, one of the two crown jewels of Obama’s “red-blue” victory (the other being Virginia). Even a month ago, the notion that Republicans could get within striking distance of taking back the Senate was considered absurd. Now, it’s a live possibility.


Obama’s defenders claim that he is personally popular, which is at best debatable. But even if that is true, Obama’s personal political capital is as non-transferable as an out-of-state check drawn in crayon. It’s certainly useless in getting Obamacare or cap-and-trade passed. And, so far, it hasn’t helped Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey, or Massachusetts.


Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader and Obama’s lead legislative Sherpa, is almost surely toast in his reelection bid. Richard Blumenthal, the popular Democratic candidate running for retiring Sen. Chris Dodd’s seat in Connecticut says it’s an “open question” whether he will even invite Obama to campaign for him. That’s a vote of confidence.


Why is this happening? If you listen to the White House and its defenders in the press, the answer is simple: It’s everyone else’s fault.




Well, that’s not entirely right. The Obama administration admits one mistake — and one mistake only. It didn’t explain itself better. In both his State of the Union address and interviews, Obama insisted he got all the policies right. It’s just that the reportedly greatest orator in the history of the republic couldn’t quite make himself clear enough.


The good news is that he recognizes his mistakes and is going to try again. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told the Washington Post this week that “in 2010, the president will constantly be doing high-profile things to be the person driving the narrative.”


The multiple trips to Copenhagen, the five-Sunday-shows-in-one-day marathon, the three joint-session addresses to Congress in one year, the prime-time news conferences, the state dinner, the speech in Cairo: These don’t add up to “constantly” doing “high-profile things”? I can’t wait to hear what “high-profile” means. Explain health-care reform while parting the waters of the Potomac?


But even this explanation amounts to dodging blame. It’s still code for “you stupid Americans, why can’t you understand I’m right and you’re wrong?”


That’s certainly how Joe Klein, Obama’s de facto press flack at Time magazine, sees things. In a piece titled “Too Dumb to Thrive,” Klein argues that Americans are too stupid to understand how totally awesome the stimulus was. (Time’s Peter Beinart makes a similar argument in a debate with me for Bloggingheads.tv.) What’s funny about this is that if nearly two-thirds of Americans are idiots, that means roughly half of Obama’s voters were idiots, too. His election was once the epitome of American wisdom. Now it seems he was elected despite the stupidity of his supporters.


Of course, the Obamaphiles switched to this argument only after months of pounding their spoons on their high chairs about the unfairness of Republican “obstructionism” in the Senate. The filibuster was once a bulwark against tyranny, according to Democrats trying to block George W. Bush’s agenda. Now, it’s proof that the American political system “sucks,” according to Obama confidante and liberal super-wonk John Podesta, and evidence that America’s system is arguably “worse” than totalitarian China’s, according to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.


And they switched to that argument only after insisting that Bush was responsible for every evil under the sun. (Now, the White House brags about using Bush’s anti-terror policies and insists it deserves the credit for success in Iraq.)


Coming soon: A terrible flood! Locusts! Anything and everything to avoid admitting their problems are their own fault.

— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. © 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.