Some of them have been stone-cold realists; others have been starry-eyed dreamers. Some have been warriors; others have been pacifists. Some have been strong; others weak. Some were visionary; others couldn't see past tomorrow. Some were transformative; others were merely stewards of existing policy, placeholders.
We've had all kinds in the presidency. But the current occupant represents a first.
All previous presidents had a guiding political philosophy. And all of them---whether you agreed with them or not---at times bent their political philosophy when it became too politically difficult to stick to it or when the American people resoundingly rejected what they were doing.
Some of them pressed on anyway, but all of them at least acknowledged the American people. All previous presidents had a responsiveness to the people they led.
Not this one. This one is driven by such devout and fervent ideology that nothing---not even the Constitution---and no one---not even big majorities of the American people---will stop him.
We've had other transformative presidents---presidents who created the nation, saved the nation, and moved the nation. But in each of those cases, the president sought to restore the country to its Founding principles or save the nation from losing its way. This is the first president who---deliberately and perniciously---is moving to destroy it.
He's not doing it alone, of course. He's got willing wingmen in the Congress who will lie just as easily as he does in order to accomplish the destruction.
Health care is not about health care. It's about stripping you of more and more of your private property and your freedoms while re-modeling America into a two-bit, second-rate, debt-laden European socialist backwater.
Congratulations, Bama and Team Dem: part of your mission has been accomplished. But you have awakened a sleeping giant known as the American people. We will fight your takeover as passionately as we would fight the takeover by a foreign enemy. Because you ARE foreign to us. You are foreign to the Constitution and to our Founding principles. We will fight your attempt to destroy this nation the way we would fight the destruction caused by any enemy of the United States.
It's sad and pathetic that our fellow countrymen are the enemy, but their actions leave us no choice but to see them as such. We will save the nation from their destruction. And we've only just begun to fight.
Solution to the "X" problem: Don't read the dribble.
Posted by: soggy | March 23, 2010 at 01:42 PM
"Solution to the "X" problem: Don't read the dribble." - SB
Of course. Nothing can knock a Nazi out more than truth slapped between their eyes like the crunch of a Louisville Slugger baseball bat.
Only Nazi people, afraid of truth, attempt to censor or encourage censoring the views of others.
I'm not afraid to read the views of Nazis; how else would I hang them with their own words?
Posted by: xbjllb | March 23, 2010 at 03:20 PM
"SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!" - DJ
Does listening to Fox and LImbaugh make you THAT out of touch with reality? Or that stupid?
The CBO (Congressional Budget Office), a non-partisan agency that keeps checks on Congress, stated that the bill would REDUCE the deficit by $138 BILLION over a decade, and 1.3 TRILLON over 20 years. You know, the exact same non-partisan CBO that the GOP touts every time the figures go THEIR way?
And THOSE numbers don't even figure in the readily acknowledged additional savings of preemptive care give to millions who never had it before.
You guys need to quit listening to paid whore liars. Really. Those rabble-rousing creeps will have you out in the street with rubber bullets in your chest and choking on teargas before you can say "Dittohead."
What is crippling the United States is 1, unwinnable war, and 2, LACK of healthcare for MILLIONS. People without it get it at the end of life, in emergency rooms, where it costs the US FAR MORE than it would have had they been treated all along.
Get real. Quit listening to liars.
Posted by: xbjllb | March 23, 2010 at 03:31 PM
Thank you for being the voice of the free citizens of this fine country.
Posted by: mc | March 23, 2010 at 04:05 PM
"Does listening to Fox and LImbaugh make you THAT out of touch with reality? Or that stupid?"
--------
HAHA!
"The CBO (Congressional Budget Office), a non-partisan agency that keeps checks on Congress, stated that the bill would REDUCE the deficit by $138 BILLION over a decade, and 1.3 TRILLON over 20 years."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
And if you beleive that, I've got a bridge I want to sell you.
Please excuse me, X-Man, but I know very well you are too smart to beleive your own BS.
Posted by: DJ | March 23, 2010 at 06:28 PM
"What is crippling the United States is 1, unwinnable war"
-----------------
Agreed.
Posted by: DJ | March 23, 2010 at 06:58 PM
"Agreed." - DJ
And where were conservatives when Bush/Cheney started it?
"And if you beleive that, I've got a bridge I want to sell you.
Please excuse me, X-Man, but I know very well you are too smart to beleive your own BS." - DJ
First of all, I believe my own Truth. Implicitly. Second of all, if CBO projections are good enough and factual enough for the GOP to tout like gospel every time the results suit them, then they must be accurate when they cut the opposite way.
What's accurate and true for one hand must be accurate and true for the other.
Actually, I think the projections are on the low side. Once the value of preemptive care kicks in, even more money will be saved.
In fact, right there is the summation of the differences between the two parties.
GOP? Party of preemptive war for all.
Democratic Party? Party of preemptive care for all.
Wait until that one hits twitter.
Posted by: xbjllb | March 23, 2010 at 10:44 PM
"What's accurate and true for one hand must be accurate and true for the other."
--------------
Wrong!
You're using flawed logic to arrive at your conclusion. "Two wrongs do not make a right."
First of all the defict reducing numbers the CBO came up with are based on proposed Medicare cuts, excise tax on high-premium insurance, and other budgetary gimmicks. What if they never materialize? If they don't, then the Bill will most definitely result in deficit spending, thus increasing the overall debt. Secondly the CBO numbers do not reflect the "doctor fix". That alone will cost 208 billion over the next ten years wiping out all the deficit reduction leaving it 50 billion in the red. That's just for starters. Higher taxes in the form of a national value added tax (VAT) are in the offing; no one will be spared. How do you think that will effect job creation?
Posted by: DJ | March 24, 2010 at 08:13 AM
DJ, your proposing a lot of "ifs". The Congressional Budget Office, on the other hand, is actually sometimes right. And it's their job to get it as right as they can. That's why it's a nonpartisan agency.
And, over the course of its existence, I'd say the times it was right about the cost of GOP proposals would average out against the times it was wrong about the cost of Democratic proposals, and vice versa.
Like it or not, depending on how it's reporting at any given time or what side it props up, it's the only way we, the People, have to judge various programs.
It is easy to say they're never right and you can't rely on ANYTHING they say, but that would be innacurate also.
How I decide an issue for myself? I look at who is fighting for each side, and what their true motivations are.
I then ALWAYS pick the side of the lesser evil. All the major corporations and big money are or the GOP side on this one, therefore the status quo, in THIS case, MUST be the greater evil.
No one can deny for a single second that Big Insurance is absolutely evil, unless of course they are sucking at their teat.
It couldn't be any simpler.
Posted by: xbjllb | March 24, 2010 at 02:51 PM