The Professor
07-25-2009, 03:02 PM
POLITICAL PRATFALLS and MISPLAYS
1. The president was trying to get thru to two separate audiences, wanting to work them his way on this overweening worry of health care reform. First, Obama was reaching out to the American people. He aspires to swell support broadly for his proposals such that those stubborn sticks-in-the-mud inside his own party are pressured by their constituents back home to stop acting like Republicans and MOVE.
2. While the president's familiarity with and fluency within the issue were seen generally as vastly improved over even the week prior, his facility tossing around terms like "medicare payment schedule" and "uncompensated care." Unfortunately, increased facility of language will not suffice. The American people want answers. Obama himself said, "I'm the president, people look to me." However, while the president appeared to normal Americans MORE like a man who understands the problem than he did before the conference, his leadership is still woefully short of MOVING Mom and Pop America.
3. If you think that much smaller audience in the first place watching that presser were amped up by the president's more professional performance sufficient to pressure Mike Ross to ACT, I'm afraid you're dreaming.
4. Viewers were tediously bored to death, rather, instead.
5. The second audience Obama must get thru to is comprised of the adults within his own party. The lay of the land in this particular context is such that separate, specific clumps of resistance remain steadfastly standing between Obama and his ambitions: the Bluedogs, Baucus, the CBO, the freshmen, the governors...
6. These folks, unlike the 9 to 5 commuter crowd which changed the channel half an hour ago, are FASCINATED by every mention of a COST CURVE, each reference to a Medpac Panel. A very sophisticated, personally interested and invested assemblage of onlookers, these. And exceedingly immovable, this mass. "The default position is inertia," said Obama.
7. And what the wonks want is ANSWERS. They seek SPECIFICS, need NUMBERS. They crave political COVER.
8. Instead, the president's pitch, to the professionals, appeared shapeless, rambling, lacking unity, sans cogency, without large-view vision. Obama came off as defensive.
9. And he had absolutely NOTHING NEW to say to add to this already tortured discussion. THIS is his political failure on Wednesday in one word. He offered not a single idea not already rehearsed a hundred times before this exact exhausted audience forced to endure it all yet one more tedious time.
10. He spent half an hour describing exactly where we are, how bad our situation truly is. He's very good at this. Not incidentally, however, everyone already knows.
11. As for solutions, he says he's going to find 2/3 of the cost for all this in SAVINGS he's serendipitously discovered which the VETERANS, the LIONS of his own party for 50 years have been apparently just too stupid to see. An ineluctable insult to the LEGACY of Ted Kennedy.
12. Indeed, this very nite (!!!) Obama is growing confident he can BEAT that 2/3 figure. He can uncover, what, 80%? In the areas of waste, fraud and abuse, wellness/prevention, IT...
13. He pretends the GOP is his problem when everyone knows, especially his target audience, that it's the mountain of moderates within his own movement that stays his story. Even MSNBC's Chuck Todd knows it, who made intra-party recalcitrance the topic of question #3.
14. Obama offhandedly blames Congress for failing to accomplish his agenda. HIS favorite measure, he tells us, is to tax the heftiest benefit packages, splitting the difference, he explains, between the claim in question and the regional average---BUT NONE OF THE PLANS SO FAR SUBMITTED GOES THERE. The House bill, he understands, includes a surcharge on incomes over a million (as of today)---which fundamentally meets my requirements IN PRINCIPLE.
15. He repeatedly comes across as childish. "If there were a red pill and a blue pill and they both could cure you, and the red pill cost 1/2 the price..." "If you discovered your neighbor is driving the same car as you but it cost him $6000 less..." "If one set of doctors is performing a series of tests simultaneous with a second group of physicians, and the results of those first examinations are never forwarded..."
16. "We have to stop paying for things that aren't making us healthier."
17. Tonsils for profit. "If you have a bad sore throat, uhh, make that your child... If your child has a bad sore throat, and the examining general practioner determines..." Why, he may prescribe SURGERY (even tho he's the GP and NOT the surgeon) because it pays HIS COLLEAGUE, presumably, more than merely treating "allergies," which is the real cause...
18. It's no mistake that the president here is actually trying to "gin up" resentment against doctors amongst his shrinking primetime audience, now watching Can You Dance. For the purpose of putting the screws to the whitecoats in the future, purportedly while the Moms at large cheer on.
19. He appreciates that Americans have grown QUEASY with debt, bailouts, bonuses, omnibuses... Folks are "ginned up," he recognizes, against "the Obama administration spending and spending." But he HAD to do a stimulus, you must understand. He's constrained BY LAW to put out a budget. Things are not as bad as they would have been OTHERWISE. Without his massive spending, all would be much WORSE. He hasn't reduced red ink as much as he would have liked, he rationalizes.
20. He takes a bizarre, incomprehensible VICTORY LAP. The nurses and I have saved $2.2T over 10 years. Doctors, hospitals and myself, he asserts, have reached agreement in practice resulting in an addtional $1.6T of reduction. AARP has jumped aboard, the AMA, pharmaceuticals. "The stars are aligned."
21. "It's not how far we have to go, it's how far we've come."
22. All this whining about what he inherited. He comes across as excuse-making, not presidential, a blamer instead of LEADER.
23. Questioned by Chuck Todd, Obama actually blames the folks he, out of the other side of his mouth, claims he intends to help, those currently uninsured amongst us, whom Waxman and Rangel would FINE into compliance, precisely because most of them can't AFFORD coverage in the first place. Under the category of uncompensated care, he includes the person run over by that now famous bus whom WE (meaning the White House) are currently stuck with paying for.
24. When ABC's Jake Tapper asked about "pain" and "sacrifice," what "referrals denied," "tests" not applied, and "end-of-life" issues, Obama was at his worst. Part of the "give and take," responded the president. The half-price blue pill is "not incentivized." We must become "discriminating consumers."
25. Chrissy Parsons then challenged, where's the transparency? You said committee proceedings would be shown on CSPAN. Health care execs have been visiting the White House and you refuse to release lists of names. Obama lamely replied, the press corps are free to photograph those coming and going. His health care "kickoff" was on Brian Lamb's public service channel, he countered. I don't think there's a lot going on in committee that's secret anyway. Just yesterday, however, Jay Rockefeller expressed the resentment of SENATORS in his own party over closed-door in-dealings going on within Baucus' Finance.
26. Which brings us to the president's BIG FINISH. Two questions before Lynn Sweet's now famous setup established the prof vs po-po premise, Obama called on a guy he thought was Steve Kroff of the Cleveland Plains Dealer.
27. Except he wasn't. Whoever the IMPOSTER was, never identified, he challenged the prez to pledge himself and congresspeople to swallow whatever pills of health care they're gonna shove down the throats of every other American. After getting a giggle for mentioning his shadow-like presidential doctor, Obama agreed to "abide" by whatever the rest of us must. Even tho a provision of the Heller Amendment pressing such a mandate upon congress was defeated in committee largely along party lines. Obama then went on to talk about his ensuing next-day visit to the Greater Cleveland Free Clinic.
28. Except the questioner wasn't Kroff of CPD. When Obama called on Ms Sweet to set him up, the briefing room went a-bubble with hubbub. What? Obama didn't understand. That wasn't Kroff, press in attendance explained. The real CPD is OVER THERE (pointing)
29. Oh.
30. Well, hurry up. I gotta get to Ms Sweet. The REAL Kroff asked, do you expect an endorsement from the Cleveland clinic? Which Obama had just answered. He mumbled a prevarication about the prestigious Mayo supporting his plan, which it explicitly does NOT. Then turned to Ms Sweet to CHANGE THE SUBJECT OF THE ENTIRE NATIONAL DISCUSSION AWAY FROM HEALTH CARE instead to focus like a laser-point on the prof and the po-po.
Overall, a disaster.
Scope out The punctilious Prof's Report Card Part One, in which he painstakingly points out TEN positions put forth by the spasmatic president which, to put it explicitly, are open to scruple.
The president's performance---POLITICALLY---at his primetime presser has been comprehensively panned.
Progress on the problem of health care---within his own party---has proceeded retrospectively, ie, backwards, in reverse, since the president's primetimer.
The Prof
1. The president was trying to get thru to two separate audiences, wanting to work them his way on this overweening worry of health care reform. First, Obama was reaching out to the American people. He aspires to swell support broadly for his proposals such that those stubborn sticks-in-the-mud inside his own party are pressured by their constituents back home to stop acting like Republicans and MOVE.
2. While the president's familiarity with and fluency within the issue were seen generally as vastly improved over even the week prior, his facility tossing around terms like "medicare payment schedule" and "uncompensated care." Unfortunately, increased facility of language will not suffice. The American people want answers. Obama himself said, "I'm the president, people look to me." However, while the president appeared to normal Americans MORE like a man who understands the problem than he did before the conference, his leadership is still woefully short of MOVING Mom and Pop America.
3. If you think that much smaller audience in the first place watching that presser were amped up by the president's more professional performance sufficient to pressure Mike Ross to ACT, I'm afraid you're dreaming.
4. Viewers were tediously bored to death, rather, instead.
5. The second audience Obama must get thru to is comprised of the adults within his own party. The lay of the land in this particular context is such that separate, specific clumps of resistance remain steadfastly standing between Obama and his ambitions: the Bluedogs, Baucus, the CBO, the freshmen, the governors...
6. These folks, unlike the 9 to 5 commuter crowd which changed the channel half an hour ago, are FASCINATED by every mention of a COST CURVE, each reference to a Medpac Panel. A very sophisticated, personally interested and invested assemblage of onlookers, these. And exceedingly immovable, this mass. "The default position is inertia," said Obama.
7. And what the wonks want is ANSWERS. They seek SPECIFICS, need NUMBERS. They crave political COVER.
8. Instead, the president's pitch, to the professionals, appeared shapeless, rambling, lacking unity, sans cogency, without large-view vision. Obama came off as defensive.
9. And he had absolutely NOTHING NEW to say to add to this already tortured discussion. THIS is his political failure on Wednesday in one word. He offered not a single idea not already rehearsed a hundred times before this exact exhausted audience forced to endure it all yet one more tedious time.
10. He spent half an hour describing exactly where we are, how bad our situation truly is. He's very good at this. Not incidentally, however, everyone already knows.
11. As for solutions, he says he's going to find 2/3 of the cost for all this in SAVINGS he's serendipitously discovered which the VETERANS, the LIONS of his own party for 50 years have been apparently just too stupid to see. An ineluctable insult to the LEGACY of Ted Kennedy.
12. Indeed, this very nite (!!!) Obama is growing confident he can BEAT that 2/3 figure. He can uncover, what, 80%? In the areas of waste, fraud and abuse, wellness/prevention, IT...
13. He pretends the GOP is his problem when everyone knows, especially his target audience, that it's the mountain of moderates within his own movement that stays his story. Even MSNBC's Chuck Todd knows it, who made intra-party recalcitrance the topic of question #3.
14. Obama offhandedly blames Congress for failing to accomplish his agenda. HIS favorite measure, he tells us, is to tax the heftiest benefit packages, splitting the difference, he explains, between the claim in question and the regional average---BUT NONE OF THE PLANS SO FAR SUBMITTED GOES THERE. The House bill, he understands, includes a surcharge on incomes over a million (as of today)---which fundamentally meets my requirements IN PRINCIPLE.
15. He repeatedly comes across as childish. "If there were a red pill and a blue pill and they both could cure you, and the red pill cost 1/2 the price..." "If you discovered your neighbor is driving the same car as you but it cost him $6000 less..." "If one set of doctors is performing a series of tests simultaneous with a second group of physicians, and the results of those first examinations are never forwarded..."
16. "We have to stop paying for things that aren't making us healthier."
17. Tonsils for profit. "If you have a bad sore throat, uhh, make that your child... If your child has a bad sore throat, and the examining general practioner determines..." Why, he may prescribe SURGERY (even tho he's the GP and NOT the surgeon) because it pays HIS COLLEAGUE, presumably, more than merely treating "allergies," which is the real cause...
18. It's no mistake that the president here is actually trying to "gin up" resentment against doctors amongst his shrinking primetime audience, now watching Can You Dance. For the purpose of putting the screws to the whitecoats in the future, purportedly while the Moms at large cheer on.
19. He appreciates that Americans have grown QUEASY with debt, bailouts, bonuses, omnibuses... Folks are "ginned up," he recognizes, against "the Obama administration spending and spending." But he HAD to do a stimulus, you must understand. He's constrained BY LAW to put out a budget. Things are not as bad as they would have been OTHERWISE. Without his massive spending, all would be much WORSE. He hasn't reduced red ink as much as he would have liked, he rationalizes.
20. He takes a bizarre, incomprehensible VICTORY LAP. The nurses and I have saved $2.2T over 10 years. Doctors, hospitals and myself, he asserts, have reached agreement in practice resulting in an addtional $1.6T of reduction. AARP has jumped aboard, the AMA, pharmaceuticals. "The stars are aligned."
21. "It's not how far we have to go, it's how far we've come."
22. All this whining about what he inherited. He comes across as excuse-making, not presidential, a blamer instead of LEADER.
23. Questioned by Chuck Todd, Obama actually blames the folks he, out of the other side of his mouth, claims he intends to help, those currently uninsured amongst us, whom Waxman and Rangel would FINE into compliance, precisely because most of them can't AFFORD coverage in the first place. Under the category of uncompensated care, he includes the person run over by that now famous bus whom WE (meaning the White House) are currently stuck with paying for.
24. When ABC's Jake Tapper asked about "pain" and "sacrifice," what "referrals denied," "tests" not applied, and "end-of-life" issues, Obama was at his worst. Part of the "give and take," responded the president. The half-price blue pill is "not incentivized." We must become "discriminating consumers."
25. Chrissy Parsons then challenged, where's the transparency? You said committee proceedings would be shown on CSPAN. Health care execs have been visiting the White House and you refuse to release lists of names. Obama lamely replied, the press corps are free to photograph those coming and going. His health care "kickoff" was on Brian Lamb's public service channel, he countered. I don't think there's a lot going on in committee that's secret anyway. Just yesterday, however, Jay Rockefeller expressed the resentment of SENATORS in his own party over closed-door in-dealings going on within Baucus' Finance.
26. Which brings us to the president's BIG FINISH. Two questions before Lynn Sweet's now famous setup established the prof vs po-po premise, Obama called on a guy he thought was Steve Kroff of the Cleveland Plains Dealer.
27. Except he wasn't. Whoever the IMPOSTER was, never identified, he challenged the prez to pledge himself and congresspeople to swallow whatever pills of health care they're gonna shove down the throats of every other American. After getting a giggle for mentioning his shadow-like presidential doctor, Obama agreed to "abide" by whatever the rest of us must. Even tho a provision of the Heller Amendment pressing such a mandate upon congress was defeated in committee largely along party lines. Obama then went on to talk about his ensuing next-day visit to the Greater Cleveland Free Clinic.
28. Except the questioner wasn't Kroff of CPD. When Obama called on Ms Sweet to set him up, the briefing room went a-bubble with hubbub. What? Obama didn't understand. That wasn't Kroff, press in attendance explained. The real CPD is OVER THERE (pointing)
29. Oh.
30. Well, hurry up. I gotta get to Ms Sweet. The REAL Kroff asked, do you expect an endorsement from the Cleveland clinic? Which Obama had just answered. He mumbled a prevarication about the prestigious Mayo supporting his plan, which it explicitly does NOT. Then turned to Ms Sweet to CHANGE THE SUBJECT OF THE ENTIRE NATIONAL DISCUSSION AWAY FROM HEALTH CARE instead to focus like a laser-point on the prof and the po-po.
Overall, a disaster.
Scope out The punctilious Prof's Report Card Part One, in which he painstakingly points out TEN positions put forth by the spasmatic president which, to put it explicitly, are open to scruple.
The president's performance---POLITICALLY---at his primetime presser has been comprehensively panned.
Progress on the problem of health care---within his own party---has proceeded retrospectively, ie, backwards, in reverse, since the president's primetimer.
The Prof