A snowly Wednesday
It's not pretty on the highways this morning.
In Washington today, the House of Representatives is expected to take up the president's economic stimulus package. It will pass....but probably not with enough Republican votes for any claim of bipartisan actio, although I do think President Obama deserves some credit for the steps he's taken to reach out a hand to Republicans. Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership in the House isn't quite as out-reaching.
It's expected the real compromise will come out of the Senate.
George Will, the Washington Post columnists, a few weeks ago on one of the Sunday morning TV shows made the comment that what made Lincoln a great president was in some small part possible because of Stephen Douglas. It was Douglas who challenged Lincoln, forcing him to defend his ideas. Will went on to say, what Obama needs for his presidency is a "Douglas."
I think what we're seeing with the Republicans in Washington is the "Douglas" that Will was referring to. I think the combination of Republicans questioning and forcing Obama to defend his position, and Obama's willingness to include them in the discussion is healthy....and will likely bring about a real change in the way Washington operates in the long run.
What do you think?
In Washington today, the House of Representatives is expected to take up the president's economic stimulus package. It will pass....but probably not with enough Republican votes for any claim of bipartisan actio, although I do think President Obama deserves some credit for the steps he's taken to reach out a hand to Republicans. Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership in the House isn't quite as out-reaching.
It's expected the real compromise will come out of the Senate.
George Will, the Washington Post columnists, a few weeks ago on one of the Sunday morning TV shows made the comment that what made Lincoln a great president was in some small part possible because of Stephen Douglas. It was Douglas who challenged Lincoln, forcing him to defend his ideas. Will went on to say, what Obama needs for his presidency is a "Douglas."
I think what we're seeing with the Republicans in Washington is the "Douglas" that Will was referring to. I think the combination of Republicans questioning and forcing Obama to defend his position, and Obama's willingness to include them in the discussion is healthy....and will likely bring about a real change in the way Washington operates in the long run.
What do you think?
posted by Ray Hackett at 9:07 AM
8 Comments:
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THE CHARM OFFENSIVE FAILED!
Give the Congressional Republicans some credit for having a backbone for once. Not even a lonely solitary Republican vote for this atrocity Obama is pushing as a panacea. Even the RINOs stood firm on this one.
What is it with this guy anyway? Why does your man need token Republican support so he can call this bailout bipartisan? Don’t give me that fool nonsense about reaching out. There is a very cynical reason why your president wants Republican votes.
Nobody does anything in politics just to be nice.
Well to answer my own question: your president is smart enought to know it is going to fail. Obama fears the 2010 elections and with good reason. “Obamanomics is not working” is going to be the Republican rally cry.
He knows it, Republicans know it and now you you know it.
Your boy Courtney is going to need his honorary re-election chairman’s help if Rob Simmons runs. Your paper can’t even call a foul on that one because in 1982 you endorsed liberal Democrats ticket telling your readership “Reaganomics was not working”. Look it up. I'm not gong to let you forget that.
Of course we know now that Reaganomics WAS working. It was simply not a short term fix. Obama’s plan unlike Reagan's has no light at the end of the tunnel.
Obama has to rely on luck.
He might get lucky; who knows? Any improvement will be credited to him but what if things get worse?
Will is wrong. Obama doesn’t need a Douglas. Obama needs a plan that is defensible. Obama is repeating the same mistake as Hover and Roosevelt did in the Great Depression. Spend Spend Send. The next step is jacking up taxes on people who have money to invest.
A plan that would be defensible and that would earn Republican support is making the Bush Tax Cuts permanent.
Ah, but that would require genuine leadership. Not something your president has much of.
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Explain, please, since the Republican Party's economic plan appears to have been at least partially responsible for where we are now and how we got here, why would or should anyone support an encore performance of it?
As for bi-partisanship, what exactly is your argument against it?
Because as a nation we've spent decades engaged in a blame game of chicken that has worked out oh so well for all of us???
Attempting to work together might just be crazy enough to work and maybe, but only just maybe, as a country we're willing to try that.
Cheer up! If it fails, and you seem very sure that it will, we can always go back to hating one another's ideology and politics.
It's not like we'll all forget how to do that, I'm sorry to say.
As Obama pointed out "He won".
That means it is his turn to lead but instead he wants to hide behind the skirts of the Republican Party. That’s not leadership.
Why are we discussing at all where Republican votes should go at all? We are not relevant. We lost! Who cares what we think!
Go ahead and blame us for the Credit Crisis. It happened on our watch. But as far as who is really to blame, there is plenty of blame to go around. I am not an economist. I only know a thing or two about human nature. The most cited reason is the Clinton Administration wanted everyone who wanted a home to have one irrespective of whether they had the bread and set the rules accordingly. Latter Senate Majority Republicans, while concerned, did not apparently realize the scope of the problem. They just blew it off because they didn’t have the 60 votes necessary to change things. I am not certain that factor alone is to blame however.
The thing that baffles me is the planet-wide nature of the problem. Why is the whole world going through this? You would think as in the weather that there would be some bright spots among the storms but no.
I will not be cheered up by lingering recession. I think, unlike a lot of would-be politicians on both sides, winning elections is not an end on to its self. That is putting the cart before the horse. A lot of Republicans friends I know make that fatal mistake. Its a good thing not to have to much pride when you are in politics.
The real objective is to win elections only to get the policy you want only to achieve the results you want. It’s the results that really matter. Everything else is ego. I want a bustling economy where my friends all have jobs and upward mobility. I want my friends to have security. I want them to have options galore. I want them comfortable in their retirements.
I have been poor and being poor sucks. The Democrats make being poor a virtue but that is crap. Being poor is no virtue. The path to success is hard work but Uncle Sam has to have the policies in place that make the payoff of hard work and investment worth while.
The liberal Democrats in their tunnel-visioned ideal for equity punish success to the point of smothering it.
I very much enjoy the idea of claiming not to be playing the blame game and then doing so anyway.
Both sides pretend there are only two sides, theirs and 'the wrong one.'
This is how we keep falling into the 'gotcha' hole in the first place.
I doubt that Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison all went shoe shopping together (or wig shopping, I guess, is more accurate) but they seem to know something we've forgotten or overlooked: we are all we have so we may as well learn to solve our problems together or perish.
Franklin purports to have noted 'if we do not hang together we shall be hanged separately' which sounds a little more homefry than even I am willing to believe, at least right now.
Sorry I just don't buy that. We have elections for a reason. Your side won so the ball is in your court.
We Republicans have ideas and values that just don't mesh well with yours. This stimulus is just a collection of spending proposals liberals have wanted for a long time. Why should Republicans vote for that?
Why does Obama need Republican support? Clinton never bothered with the Republicans until they became the majority.
Obama should turn off the Charm Offensive and start leading. That's what we elected him to do.
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