Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, And Really Lousy ‘Change’

I didn’t link Tiger Woods and Barack Obama together.  Golf Digest did that for me:

In any event, another similarity between these two is that both promised “change” – and neither seem to be very good at keeping their promises.

An article about Tiger Wood’s repeated vulgar outbursts – in diametric contrast to his promises of “change”:

Jim Nantz criticizes Tiger Woods’ vocal tantrums
By Shane Bacon

Before the Masters started, Tiger Woods told us that he had changed. His outbursts would be quieted, his club tossing would be softened and he was going to be a different guy on the golf course.

No matter if you bought that or not, it’s true that the weekend brought out some of the old Tiger. He screamed “Tiger, you suck!,” only to follow that up with a profanity unlike any other in the third round. On Sunday on the 13th hole, Woods screamed “Jesus Christ!” after a tee shot and he wasn’t complimenting the man upstairs.

It wasn’t something new with Tiger, but it is something he told us would be avoiding in the future. Jim Nantz, the voice of CBS at the Masters, had a chance to talk with Mike Francesa of WFAN on Monday, and let it be known that he wasn’t happy with the way Woods acted.

“If I said what he said on the air, I would be fired. I read in the USA Today and it was called “mild language.” Someone on my broadcast dismissed it as him having a camera in his face. Well, guess what? Phil Mickelson had a camera in his face all week and did you even hear him come close to approaching that? He didn’t hit every shot the way he wanted. Have you ever heard Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus use that kind of language? What are the parameters between what’s right or wrong?”

Nantz then admitted that this isn’t something that has disturbed him in the past, but the fact that Tiger promised us a change is why it rubbed him the wrong way. He mentioned that he doesn’t speak perfectly, but when the red light is on, he has things he cannot say.

[Video: See spoof of Phil’s feud with Tiger, featuring Elin.]

He also said that there are people watching the telecast that shouldn’t be subjected to such profanities.

“How about the father and son who are standing right there by the tee? How about the hundreds of people who are around that tee who hear that? How about the hundreds of letters I’ve gotten through the years from people who have been outraged at the language they’ve heard there and have written me and said, ‘Why don’t you guys ever say something about that?’ “

Nantz obviously has some great points here. If you’re going to cuss when the cameras are rolling over a live broadcast, that is one thing, but when you tell us you won’t and still do it, it sure makes you look bad. Especially for a guy trying to bulldoze his past image.

I’m reminded of someone else who promised us “change.”

Barack Obama has told many lies that simply fundamentally put to the lie Obama’s entire case for his presidency.  But here is his very worst lie of all, as summarized by the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — At the core of Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is a promise that he can transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars and build a new governing majority.

To achieve the change the country wants, he says, “we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things done.”

But this promise leads, inevitably, to a question: Can such a majority be built and led by Mr. Obama, whose voting record was, by one ranking, the most liberal in the Senate last year?

I’ve got to say it: if Tiger’s wife, Elin Nordegren, actually believes Woods’ promises that “I’ve changed,” she will single-handedly do more to harm the image of blond women as intelligent than every single blond joke ever told.

I pointed out what a total lie Barack Obama’s core promise to the American people truly was.  Obama began to fearmonger, demagogue, and demonize from day one of his administration.  And a Pew Research poll underscored that fact: we find that Barack Obama is the most polarizing president in history.

There are many other major, massive lies from Obama.  His promise of game-changing transparency, for example, couldn’t have been a more dishonest lie.  Only yesterday, Obama offered yet another massive proof of just what a lie his claim about “transparency” is when he totally shut the press out of what was supposed to be a major global political event in a way that left much of the world’s press stunned.  Even the Chinese president was more open with the press than Obama.

Another fundamentally dishonest lie on the part of Barack Obama was his push for the use of the cynical and partisan political tactic of reconciliation to shove through his ObamaCare bill when he had specifically promised he would NOT do that.

Neither one of these men is credible.  Neither one of them deserve a scintilla of our respect.

The thing is that as bad as Tiger Woods was, as dishonest, and as cynical and manipulative as he proved himself to be, he doesn’t even hold a candle to the dishonesty of Barack Obama.

New Gallup Poll Shows Obama At Lowest Approval Ever

This goes along with the CBS and Fox News polls which came out last week, both of which reveal that Obama’s poll numbers plunged to an all-time low AFTER he and the Demagogues I mean Democrats rammed through their ObamaCare in a hard-core partisan ideologue process.

The Gallup chart on their site has the poll numbers pop up at every data point.  It’s worth clicking on so you can see Obama’s plunge in a new dimension.

Riddle me this, Democrats.  If the American people really want your ObamaCrap, as you keep deceitfully claiming, then why have Obama’s poll numbers reached new lows???

Obama’s down to 45% approval, with 48% disapproving.  Obama doesn’t represent America anymore.

We’ve gone from Democrat-to-Republican or Republican-to-Democrat administrations before.  Many times before, in fact.  But we’ve never seen anything like the radical hijacking of our very way of life like what is going on now.

Obama and the Democrats have become tyrants, bent on usurping the will of the American people and imposing their radical partisan agenda on the backs of our children who will never be able to repay the skyrocketing costs.

Vote them out.  Get rid of them.  Make them an abject lesson of history as to what will happen should progressivism ever be allowed to rear its ugly head again.  Or they will literally vote out America and the American way of life.

Al Sharpton: ‘The American Public Overwhelmingly Voted For Socialism When They Elected President Obama’

This is an article about raving moral idiocy.

What follows will be Al Sharpton’s version of what Adolf Hitler basically told his people: “Look, you voted for me in 1933.  You made me your Chancellor, and then you made me your Fuhrer.  So the fact that I wrote about killing all the Jews in my Mein Kampf while on the campaign trail to absolute power means that YOU voted to kill all the Jews.  And therefore you are now duty bound to round up as many Jews as you can find.”

You may not like my analogy regarding Hitler and Jews, but it is exactly the same as what Al Sharpton is essentially saying about Obama and ObamaCare.

There’s not a single major polling organization that has found that the people want ObamaCare.  And most polls have support for ObamaCare in the 30s, with basically 2-1 margins against it.  Here’s an example from CNN’s poll out yesterday:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that 59 percent of those surveyed opposed the bill, and 39 percent favored it. All of the interviews were conducted before the House voted Sunday night, but the contents of the bill were widely known.

In addition, 56 percent said the bill gives the government too much involvement in health care; 28 percent said it gives the government the proper role and 16 percent said it leaves Washington with an inadequate role.

On the question of costs, 62 percent said the bill increases the amount of money they personally spend on health care; 21 percent said their costs would remain the same and 16 percent said they would decrease.

That matches the 20-point margin from the Fox News poll, which had the margin at 55% against versus only 35% for ObamaCare.

We’ve had three statewide elections during the ObamaCare debate.  All three states had voted heavily for Obama; and all three states elected Republicans over Democrats.  Even Camelot voted Republican, as Massachusetts voters elected a man who campaigned to be the 41st vote against ObamaCare to replace Ted Kennedy as their senator.

But none of that matters for Al Sharpton.  We voted for our Fuhrer on November 2008.  And the will of the Fuhrer is therefore ergo sum the will of the people.

Here’s Al Sharpton’s moral “logic”:

“I think that the president and Nancy Pelosi get credit,” Sharpton said. “I think this began the transforming of the country the way the president had promised. This is what he ran on.”

And if that transformation is socialism, then so be it, he explained. That is what the American public “overwhelmingly” voted for.

“First of all, then we have to say the American public overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected President Obama,” Sharpton said. “Let’s not act as though the president didn’t tell the American people – the president offered the American people health reform when he ran. He was overwhelmingly elected running on that and he has delivered what he promised.”

Despite polling showing otherwise leading up to the momentous occasion of the vote on health care reform, the claim this goes against the wishes of the American people is false based on the 2008 presidential election.

“I don’t understand Republicans saying this is against the will of the American people,” Sharpton said. “They voted for President Obama who said this was going to be one of the first things he would do and he has done the first hurdle of that tonight. So I think the American people was very loud and clear. This was not some concept the president introduced after he won. He ran on this and the American people won tonight because they got finally something from a president they voted for.”

Let me go back to my Hitler analogy.  It is my contention that, even if I had been fool enough to vote for Hitler in 1933, I had absolutely  no duty whatsoever to support his policy of killing Jews, even though I should have known all about his promise to do so when I voted for him.  Quite the contrary: I argue that I would have had a moral duty to oppose Hitler from carrying out his “final solution” policy, whether I had voted for him or not.

It is not only a bogus argument that Sharpton is making; it is a fundamentally immoral argument.

In one way, and one way only, I can’t disagree with Sharpton.  Barack Obama is a socialist – that’s what conservatives have been pointing out all along.  Sharpton now acknowledges that, but Democrats were falling all over themsleves to not only deny but denounce the charge during the campaign.

Now, Obama’s socialism is obvious to all, and Sharpton is saying, “You bought it, now you have to drive it and like it.”

The thing is, Al Sharpton fundamentally misunderstands a democratic republic.  In Marxist countries, you vote for your leader, and then that leader uses that vote to remain in power forever.  But in direct contradiction to those type of states, in America you have the right to change your mind.  You have the right to say, “I didn’t sign up for this.”  You have the right to say, “This isn’t what I voted for.”  You have the right to turn against the ideology, the policies, and even the person you voted for.

Al Sharpton’s “America” really looks more like Venezuela.  And Barack Obama should be president for life.  After all, didn’t we vote for him once?

Al Sharpton’s “America” is also a very hypocritical place.  Remember Iraq?  Americans – who voted for George Bush and even re-elected him – were once highly favorable of him, and supported the war in Iraq to numbers that dwarfed any support Obama ever had for ObamaCare.  But that didn’t stop Al Sharpton from railing against it, did it?

Suddenly, under Sharpton’s incredibly hypocritical vision, Republicans have utterly forfeited the right to oppose that Sharpton himself never seemed to feel he had forfeited when Bush was in power.

Now, I’m glad that Al Sharpton has finally openly affirmed that Barack Obama is a socialist.  I knew that was the case since March 2008, when I discovered that Obama had for 23 years been going to a “church” that spewed Marxist theology.  Sharpton is right about Obama’s socialism; but he’s wrong about America, he’s wrong about our political process, and he’s wrong about the American people.

Sharpton is right: Obama DID openly reveal his socialism.  But you had to read between the lines, because Obama would say one thing, and then say something else that was clearly in direct contradiction with the first thing he said.  And he did that over, and over, and over again.

Obama appeared to an audience in San Francisco and said of Pennsylvanians, “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”  It was hard-core Marxism, right out of Karl Marx’s “religion is the opiate of the masses”, except with a specifically anti-American twist.

He told another San Francisco audience that he planned to destroy America’s most plentiful source of energy (coal) with the power of government, bankrupt private coal producing businesses, and force the price of energy to “necessarily skyrocket.”

Nothing socialist about that one, eh?

He told Joe the plumber that he wanted to “spread the wealth around.”  Obama said, “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” And you just can’t get away from that “socialism” word.  It comes right out of Karl Marx’s “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” playbook.

Al Sharpton is right.  It was socialism.  And Americans should have recognized that.

But many Americans didn’t.  Because Obama was saying all kinds of other stuff.  Because the Obama campaign and the mainstream media that was just spewing propaganda kept saying, “It’s not socialism!  Socialism, you say?  That’s outrageous!!!”

And too many Americans said, “Okay.  The New York Times says he’s wonderful.  He wouldn’t lie.”

But he DID lie.  And it was the New York Times that provided the core promise that Obama broke into a thousand cynical, disingenuous pieces.

I write about Obama’s biggest and most cynical lie in an article entitled, “Obama Promise to Transcend Political Divide His Signature Failure And Lie.”  I provide a New York Times article that begins:

WASHINGTON — At the core of Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is a promise that he can transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars and build a new governing majority.

To achieve the change the country wants, he says, “we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things done.”

But he never even came close to healing anything.  He pushed a radical agenda, and demonized his opposition, right from the get-go.  Instead of reaching out to Republicans who were opposed to the slant of what turned out to be the gigantic stimulus boondoggle, Obama didn’t reach out: instead he said, “I won.”  Was THAT moving beyond the divisive politics of Washington???  Did that bring Democrats, independents, and Republicans together???

Not even close.

Do you call ramming a bill that will fundamentally transform our health care system, our society, and our very way of life on a narrow hard-core partisan vote by a nasty reconciliation process “moving beyond divisive politics”?

When John McCain spoke out about the incredibly corrupt process the Democrats had used to buy Democrat votes for ObamaCare behind closed doors, Obama told McCain, “We’re not campaigning anymore.  The election’s over.”

Excuse me?  Obama’s CALLING THAT DAMN SUMMIT IN THE FIRST PLACE WAS AN ACT OF CAMPAIGNING.  And John McCain was not talking about the election; he was talking about the incredibly cynical process that was crafting a terrible health care bill.

But you see in Obama the same arrogance of power that Al Sharpton is trying to describe, that, “I am your elected Fuhrer and you WILL bow down and obey.”

Neither Obama or Sharpton ever gave Bush or HIS election (or re-election) one iota of the fealty they now demand Republicans and opponents must give to Obama.  It’s just an amazing act of hypocrisy.

In point of fact, the man who violated his CORE PROMISE – according to the New York Times – is now THE MOST POLARIZING PRESIDENT IN HISTORY.

Allow me to wrap up: Is Obama a socialist?  yes, Al Sharpton is quite correct that Barack Obama told us all about his socialism.  Does that mean that we now must bow down before the Obama agenda?  No, nothing could be further from the truth – and the very fact that Sharpton thinks so should mark him as an anathema to the American political process.  Did Obama fundamentally lie and misrepresent himself to the American people?  Absolutely.  And do the American people now have a right to turn against Obama and his socialist policies?

To quote Sarah Palin, “You betcha we do!”

Obama’s Lies And Hypocrisy In Calling For Reconciliation

Barack Obama is a liar and a hypocrite who is fundamentally not to be trusted.  And I can prove that charge with his very own words.

From March 3 via UPI:

Obama outlined his proposal that included several Republican-generated ideas and called on Congress to pass healthcare reform within the next several weeks. By calling for an up-or-down vote, Obama noted that several major bills passed by a simple majority — otherwise known as reconciliation, a parliamentary procedure — during several previous administrations, including that of George W. Bush.

Do you want to know how extreme reconciliation is?  Just ask Barry Hussein:

Obama’s Discarded Wisdom
Breitbart.tv has a terrific two-minute video featuring clips of Barack Obama commenting on the need to build consensus before attempting to enact major social legislation. (If the above link doesn’t work, try this one.) As a public service, we’ve transcribed the Obama comments:

• “My understanding of the Senate is, is that you need 60 votes to get something significant to happen, which means that Democrats and Republicans have to ask the question: Do we have the will to move an American agenda forward, not a Democratic or Republican agenda forward?“–CBS-TV election night interview, Nov. 2, 2004

• “The bottom line is that our health-care plans are similar. The question, once again, is: Who can get it done? Who can build a movement for change? This is an area where we’re going to have to have a 60% majority in the Senate and the House in order to actually get a bill to my desk. We’re going to have to have a majority, to get the bill to my desk, that is not just a 50-plus-1 majority.”–Change to Win convention, Sept. 25, 2007

• “You’ve got to break out of what I call the sort of 50-plus-1 pattern of presidential politics. Maybe you eke out a victory of 50 plus 1, but you can’t govern. You know, you get Air Force One–I mean, there are a lot of nice perks, but you can’t deliver on health care. We’re not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-1 strategy.”–interview with the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, Oct. 9, 2007

• “You know, one of the arguments that sometimes I get with my fellow progressives–and some of these have flashed up in the blog communities on occasion–is this notion that we should function sort of like Karl Rove, where we identify our core base, we throw them red meat, we get a 50-plus-1 victory. But see, Karl Rove doesn’t need a broad consensus, because he doesn’t believe in government. If we want to transform the country, though, that requires a sizable majority.”–Center for American Progress, July 12, 2006

Although the site that originated the video seems to be anti-Obama in orientation (it’s called Naked Emperor News, presumably meant to compare the president to the character in the fable), we must say that most of what Obama said back then is eminently sensible. He explained almost as well as we can why what he is doing now–pushing Congress to “transform the country” precisely via a “50-plus-1” strategy, is so foolish and dangerous.

Observers will disagree over what combination of ideological radicalism, egomania and sheer cynicism is motivating him, but what is clear is that President Obama is quite different from what Candidate Obama advertised.

Which is a polite way of saying he’s a galling hypocrite who deceitfully said one thing, and then actually did the very opposite thing.

Is Obama worse than Karl Rove, on his very own criterion???  If so, than Democrats should despise him more than they do Karl Rove, unless they too are the same sort of hypocrites.  Further, can we now take this to mean that Barack Obama does not believe in government in the same way he demonized Rove???

Is Obama now proving that he is a “government atheist”?

Barack Obama deserves to be reviled based on his very own standard of judgment.

This is a more substantial citation of one of the Obama quotes above:

You’ve got to break out of what I call the sort of 50 plus one pattern of presidential politics which is you have nasty primaries where everybody’s disheartened and beaten up. Then you divide the country 45 percent on one side, and 45 percent on the other, and 10 percent in the middle and (unintelligible) and Florida behind. And battle it out and then maybe you eke out a victory of 50 plus one. Then you can’t govern. You know, you get Air Force One, I mean there are a lot of nice perks for being president. But you can’t, you can’t deliver on healthcare. We are not going to pass universal healthcare with a 50 plus one strategy. We’re not going to have a serious, bold energy policy of the sort I proposed yesterday unless you build a working majority.

Obama specifically said he would disavow the very strategy that he is now embracing.

Barack Obama is at the very top of a list of vehemently reconciliation-damning quotes from Democrats compiled by Human Events:

Barack Obama 4/25/05: “The President hasn’t gotten his way. And that is now prompting a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate forever…what I worry about would be that you essentially still have two chambers the House and the Senate but you have simply majoritarian absolute power on either side, and that’s just not what the founders intended.”

Would you like to know why Obama said the founding fathers never intended the thing that he is despicably now trying to do?  Here’s how the founding fathers described the US Senate:

Writing to Thomas Jefferson, who had been out of the country during the Constitutional Convention, James Madison explained that the Constitution’s framers considered the Senate to be the great “anchor” of the government. To the framers themselves, Madison explained that the Senate would be a “necessary fence” against the “fickleness and passion” that tended to influence the attitudes of the general public and members of the House of Representatives. George Washington is said to have told Jefferson that the framers had created the Senate to “cool” House legislation just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea.

Obama is now calling for that which he has already publicly recognized as being something that would “change the character of the Senate forever” in a way he acknowledged was “not what the founders intended.”

Can we all just agree that Obama is unAmerican now???

The Republicans were different back in 2005 from the Democrats today when this argument last took place.  And as usual, they were better.  They didn’t follow through using a procedure that was designed to pass a budget (which is what reconciliation was intended to resolve) for a frankly unconstitutional use.   They certainly didn’t use it to place nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy under the thrall of their party, as Democrats are trying to do now.

Have the Republicans ever been hypocrites on the issue of reconciliation?  I’m sure they have.  But that’s besides the point in the sense that the Democrats – if they use the procedure now – stand utterly condemned as liars and hypocrites by their very own words:

Hillary Clinton 5/23/2005: “So this president has come to the majority here in the Senate and basically said ‘change the rules.’ ‘Do it the way I want it done.’ And I guess there just weren’t very many voices on the other side of the isle that acted the way previous generations of senators have acted and said ‘Mr. President we are with you, we support you, but that’s a bridge too far we can’t go there.’ You have to restrain yourself Mr. President.

Charles Schumer 5/18/2005: “We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say that if you get 51% of the vote you don’t get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing it’s almost a temper tantrum.

Harry Reid 5/18/2005: “Mr. President the right to extended debate is never more important than the one party who controls congress and the white house. In these cases the filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.”

Dianne Feinstein 5/18/2005: The nuclear option if successful will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority. It begins with judicial nominations. Next will be executive appointments and then legislation.

Joe Biden 5/23/2005: This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab.

Harry Reid 5/18/2005: “But no we are not going to follow the Senate rules. No, because of the arrogance of power of this Republican administration.”

Chris Dodd 5/18/2005: “I’ve never passed a single bill worth talking about that didn’t have a lead co sponsor that was a Republican. And I don’t know of a single piece of legislation that’s ever been adopted here that didn’t have a Republican and Democrat in the lead. That’s because we need to sit down and work with each other. The rules of this institution have required that. That’s why we exist. Why have a bicameral legislative body? Why have two chambers? What were the framers thinking about 218 years ago? They understood Mr. President that there is a tyranny of the majority.

Dianne Feinstein 5/18/2005: “If the Republican leadership insists on forcing the nuclear option the senate becomes ipso facto the House of Representatives where the majority rules supreme and the party of power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power.”

Hillary Clinton 5/23/2005: “You’ve got majority rule and then you have the senate over here where people can slow things down where they can debate where they have something called the filibuster. You know it seems like it’s a little less than efficient — well that’s right it is. And deliberately designed to be so.”

Joe Biden 5/23/05: “I say to my friends on the Republican side you may own the field right now buy you won’t own it forever I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”

Charles Schumer 5/23/2005: “They want their way every single time. And they will change the rules, break the rules, and misread the constitution so that they will get their way.”

Hillary Clinton 5/23/2005: “The Senate is being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore the precedent to ignore the way our system has work, the delicate balance that we have obtain that has kept this constitution system going, for immediate gratification of the present President.”

Max Baucus 5/19/2005: “This is the way Democracy ends. Not with a bomb but with a gavel.”

This is a procedure that should simply not be used to pass major legislation which essentially transform nearly a fifth of the economy, and which literally puts our lives and our freedoms on the line.

Major polls such as Rasmussen (44% favoring versus 52% oppose) and Gallup (42% favoring versus 49% opposed) across the board demonstrate that the American people do not want this 2,700 page monstrosity.  The American people not only oppose ObamaCare, but they oppose it by greater margins than that which propelled Obama into the White House.

Just how is it, given that the people clearly do not want this, that the Democrats have any right whatsoever to use a procedure which they themselves demonized to ram it through.

What To Look For In Defeating The Democrats’ Nuclear Option

I most certainly hope Carole is correct in her article below.  In any event, hers is a good article describing the key hurdles Democrats intent to force their ObamaCare boondoggle through will have to overcome.

Obama’s House Is Leaking Votes
By Carole on Feb 28, 2010

There’s been much speculation lately on the fate of Obamacare in the US Senate. The ins and outs of reconciliation, once a little known technicality in the rules of that legislative body, are now common knowledge to political junkies of all ideologies. But the actual death bed of the president’s unpopular and obscenely expensive plan will most likely be the US House of Representatives.

Even if Democrats have the 51 votes they need in the Senate and the Republicans decide against proposing a flood of amendments that could indefinitely stall the reconciliation bill, Mr. Obama and his accomplices would still have to get the votes needed to pass Obamacare in the House.

In November, the House passed its version of health care reform with just two votes to spare; prevailing 220-215 with the help of Representative Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-Louisiana) who has said he will not back it again. (source) And Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) won’t be able to count on all of her fellow Democrats this time around either.

Two major changes that will affect this round of voting:

The first is the radical change in the political climate since November of 2009. While some Democrats who claim to be fiscally conservative and who represent traditionally Republican districts were somehow able to ignore the messages sent by voters in New Jersey and Virginia, they cannot ignore the one sent from Massachusetts just last month. The election of Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) clearly demonstrated what is likely to happen to the careers of elected officials who support Obamacare despite the wishes of their constituents.

The second major difference between November’s vote on health care reform and the next one in the House is that the bill passed last year included the Stupak Amendment. Of the 219 Democrats who voted ‘yes’ last time, 40 did so only because the bill contained that amendment preventing taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions. Those 40 representatives will almost certainly switch their ‘yes’ votes to ‘no’ since the new version of the bill being pushed by President Obama would strip out the abortion restrictions in favor of Senate language that many consider unacceptable. (source)

Republican House Whip Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) recently outlined the House changes since that first health care bill passed and said he now believes there’s no way to pass health care in the House with only Democratic votes. According to Mr. Cantor’s count, Speaker Pelosi doesn’t have more than maybe 202 votes; well short of the 217 needed to pass the second (and hopefully final) Obamacare bill. (source)

The last time President Obama and his cronies came up short on votes for his signature domestic issue, they started bribing Senators with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to get the votes they needed. The public now wise to this tactic and Senators Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas) and Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) have become examples to their legislative brethren of what happens to the political prospects of anyone who chooses Team Obama’s arm twisting and bribes over the expressed wishes of their constituents.

I personally believe that the Senate Republicans would be wise to first inform/threaten to use their option to shut down the Senate with endless amendments, and then follow through if the Democrats actually try to use reconciliation (aka the ‘nuclear option’).

Why?  Because I think the public would turn further against the nuclear option if they understand how extreme this tactic is, and just what the consequences of pursuing it would be.

Here’s what Senator Robert Byrd, who not only wrote the reconciliation procedure but is a Democrat to boot, said of the Democrats’ attempt:

Americans have an inalienable right to a careful examination of proposals that dramatically affect their lives. I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget “reconciliation” process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform and climate change legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted.

Using the reconciliation process to enact major legislation prevents an open debate about critical issues in full view of the public. Health reform and climate change are issues that, in one way or another, touch every American family. Their resolution carries serious economic and emotional consequences.

The misuse of the arcane process of reconciliation — a process intended for deficit reduction — to enact substantive policy changes is an undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate’s institutional role. Reconciliation, with its tight time limits, excludes debate and shuts down amendments. Essentially it says “take it or leave it” to the citizens who sent us here to solve problems, and it prevents members from representing their constituents’ interests. Everyone likes to win, and the Obama administration, of course, wants victories. But tactics that ignore the means in pursuit of the ends are wrong when the outcome affects Americans’ health and economic security. Let us inform the people, get their feedback, allow amendments to be considered and hear opposing views. That’s the American way and the right way.

If the public says it wants an end to the partisan bickering, they need to realize that the nuclear option would create nothing short of a full-blown war that could poison our political system for years, even decades, to come.

If the Democrats who deceitfully keep talking about “bipartisanship,” they should bloody well get one.  And the American people should be told in advance what that total war the Democrats will be starting would look like.

Second, I think it is vital that the American people be informed of just what the Democrats themselves said about the use of the nuclear option just a few years ago.

The following is a very short summary of the statements (fully cited here) made by key Democrats about how vile the use of reconciliation would be:

• It is “a change in the Senate rules” that “would change the  character of the Senate forever.”

• It is “majoritarian absolute power” which is “just not what the founders intended.”

• It is “the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis.”

• It evaporates “the checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic.”

• It is “almost a temper tantrum.”

• It is the abandonment of the concept of “a check on power” and an     abandonment of that which “preserves our limited government.”

• It is something that “will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority.”

• It “is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.”

• It “is a fundamental power grab.”

• It “is a tyranny of the majority.”

• It is “where the majority rules supreme and the party of power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power.”

• It is a “naked power grab.”

• It is to “change the rules, break the rules, and misread the Constitution so that they will get their way.”

• It is “The Senate … being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore the   precedent to ignore the way our system has worked, the delicate balance   that we have obtain that has kept this Constitution system going, for immediate gratification of the present President.”

• It is “the way Democracy ends. Not with a bomb but with a gavel.”

How can it possibly be that – when the Republicans merely CONSIDERED using it in a way that nevertheless didn’t come anywhere NEAR the Democrats’ takeover of our entire medical system representing one-sixth of our national economy – it was so terrible, but now it is somehow justified???

The fact of the matter is that the Democrats condemn their present course as genuinely evil in their very own words.

We need to defeat health care.  It is amazing that fully 60% of the health care system is now already controlled by the government, which is running it a mind-boggling deficit of unfunded liability.  On what planet is it sane to say we need to save a failing system that has been taken over by the government by giving the government even more total control?

An analogous example would be for me to hit your car engine with a sledge hammer.  And when it starts running really crappy I tell you that all I need to do to fix the problems is give it another couple of good hard whacks.

I end by citing an article that every American should read which reveals what our health care system will one day look like if the Democrats’ sledgehammer attack is allowed to proceed.

‘Jeopardized the country’? Pelosi And Rangel Jeopardizing Democrats

Following Nancy Pelosi’s vow that her Congress would be the most ethical in history, she has tolerated some of the biggest scumbags in history, such as William Jefferson, who was caught red-handed with $90,000 of bribe money in his freezer, and his fellow House Ways and Means committee member (and chairman) Charles Rangel, who was caught equally red-handed massively cheating on his taxes.

It should be pointed out that the House Ways and Means Committee writes the nation’s tax laws.

It’s almost as egregious a violation as, say, the Secretary of the Treasury being a documented tax cheat.  Oh yeah.  Never mind.

It is worth pointing out that if these guys had been Republicans, they would have been long, long gone.

A private citizen was attempting to confront Charles Rangel a full year ago.  And, of course, it was a well-known fact even as the Democrats were taking total power through a mainstream media campaign that falsely demonized the Republicans and falsely hyped the Democrats’ “change.”  It’s a shame that the mainstream media and the Speaker of the House were indifferent to this kind of corruption from the guy who writes everybody else’s tax laws.

Everybody should pay their “fair share” of taxes – unless they’re Democrats, that is.  Particularly Democrats who write or enforce the nation’s tax laws and selectively punish whomever they want to punish for doing the same damn thing they do.

Democrats are showing their true character.

I saw a “Kerry-Edwards” window sticker on a car from Minnesota in my church’s parking lot.  And I was utterly disgusted that somebody who actually thinks of himself or herself as a Christian supported such a putrefying pile of moral slime as John Edwards.

And of course, as a backdrop to all this, New York is having an impossible time finding a Democrat who isn’t lower than whale turds to govern the state.  Do you want the guy who rents prostitutes by the thousands, or do you want the guy who threatens beaten women to keep their mouths shut and not appear in court?  Patterson says he won’t run for reelection, and presumably New York Democrats are going to “hope” for the “change” that the third time’s the charm.

But let’s get back to Rangel.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – rather than make her claim to run the most ethical Congress in history anything other than the total depraved mockery that it always was – instead invented a “new threshold” which justifies keeping tax cheat Rangel in charge of writing tax laws.  From The Hill:

Rep. Charlie Rangel’s admonishment for violating House gift rules “is not good,” but his actions did not put the nation at risk in any material way, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday.

Pelosi said it is not her place to interfere in any investigations of the matter and said she would not get involved politically.

“But the fact is, is that what Mr. Rangel has been admonished for is not good,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It was a violation of the rules of the House. It was not a–something that jeopardized our country in any way.”

I remember playing games with my kids.  They understood the concept of winning, but they did not understand the concept of fair play.  So they invariably kept changing the rules to benefit themselves at that particular moment of the game.

Which is exactly what Nancy Pelosi, the complete moral idiot and chief Democrat ethicist, is doing now.  With Charles Rangel, with reconciliation, with health care, with pretty much everything.

Well, it must be fine then.  It’s easy to be “the most ethical Congress in history” when you have such a personally vile sense of ethics.

It’s this kind of moral reasoning that leads to the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback.  What is right and wrong is however we wish to define it at the moment; and we’ll change the rules again later when it fits our agenda to do so.

The Daily Beast, which runs decidedly to the political left, is running the following picture as “The Photo That Could Doom the Democrats“:

Of course, what the photograph depicts is Rangel on a foreign beach, enjoying the fruits of his tax fraud.

And the first words of the article are these:

Nancy Pelosi is protecting Rep. Charles Rangel, who failed to pay taxes on his Caribbean villa, among other miscues. But the ethically challenged congressional baron is endangering the Democrats’ control of Congress.

When we think about the “ethically challenged congressional baron,” we should immediately connect him to the ethically challenged congressional queen.

Throw the both out.  Throw the whole lot of them out.

The Nuclear Option Defined: Just What IS ‘Reconciliation’?

We keep hearing about the term “reconciliation.”  What is it?  What effect would it have on the nation if it were employed?

Let’s see how it has been defined:

• It is “a change in the Senate rules” that “would change the  character of the Senate forever.”

• It is “majoritarian absolute power” which is “just not what the founders intended.”

• It is “the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis.”

• It evaporates “the checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic.”

• It is “almost a temper tantrum.”

• It is the abandonment of the concept of “a check on power” and an     abandonment of that which “preserves our limited government.”

• It is something that “will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority.”

• It “is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.”

• It “is a fundamental power grab.”

• It “is a tyranny of the majority.”

• It is “where the majority rules supreme and the party of power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power.”

• It is a “naked power grab.”

• It is to “change the rules, break the rules, and misread the Constitution so that they will get their way.”

• It is “The Senate … being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore the   precedent to ignore the way our system has worked, the delicate balance   that we have obtain that has kept this Constitution system going, for immediate gratification of the present President.”

• It is “the way Democracy ends. Not with a bomb but with a gavel.”

If reconciliation is what these statements say it is, it is truly a fascist tactic that would only be employed by the most fundamentally unAmerican of totalitarians.

Only a genuinely evil and depraved political party would use such a despicable tactic.

Who said this about reconciliation?

Every single statement comes from Democrats as a result of Republicans merely discussing using the tactic to overcome a filibuster of a Bush judicial nomination.  Every single one.

This is how the Democrats themselves have defined what they are about to do in the coming weeks to ram health care down the throats of the American people.

Interestingly, Dianne Feinstein describes a progression which would start from a bad thing to an incredibly bad thing:

Dianne Feinstein 5/18/2005: The nuclear option if successful will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority. It begins with judicial nominations. Next will be executive appointments and then legislation.

The current batch of Democrats skipped the executive appointments and went straight for the legislation where they could most directly impose their will upon the American people.

That’s what reconciliation is.

When you think about absolute power; when you think about the arrogance of power; when you think about a naked power grab; when you think about the tyranny of the majority; when you think about a Constitutional crisis; when you think about the way democracy ends: when you think about these things, you think about the Democrat Party.

Harry Reid And The Big Reconciliation Lie

It’s just hard to imagine how such bald-faced liars continue to get “respect” from the mainstream propaganda machine.  I mean, even propagandists should be disgusted with a turd like Harry Reid.

At the health care summit – itself a big fat giant lie – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the following when Republican Senator Lamar Alexander pleaded with Reid not to destroy the American political system with reconciliation:

“Again, Lamar, you’re entitled to your opinion but not your own facts.  No one has said — I read what the president has online — no one has talked about reconciliation, but that’s what you folks have talked about, ever since that came out, as if it’s something that has never been done before.

Now, here’s the thing that makes Harry Reid such a disgusting little cockroach.  He’s calling Lamar Alexander out as a liar when Lamar is the one who is telling the truth and Harry Reid is the one who is knowingly lying.

I mean, damn, Harry, how about this from just five days before your “No one has talked about reconciliation” spewage?

Reid said that congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper chamber to make final changes to its healthcare bill with only a simple majority of senators, instead of the 60 it takes to normally end a filibuster. [Hint for the ignorant: Reid is talking about reconciliation – you know, the thing that Reid says “no one has talked about”]

“I’ve had many conversations this week with the president, his chief of staff, and Speaker Pelosi,” Reid said during an appearance Friday evening on “Face to Face with Jon Ralston” in Nevada. “And we’re really trying to move forward on this.”

The majority leader said that while Democrats have a number of options, they would likely use the budget reconciliation process to pass a series of fixes to the first healthcare bill passed by the Senate in November. These changes are needed to secure votes for passage of that original Senate bill in the House.

Here’s a nice short Youtube video that demonstrates that the top Democrat in the United States Senate is a pathological liar with neither shame nor conscience:

“Where’s Joe Wilson when you need him?” HotAir asks.

And, great oh-my-gosh, it turns out that the thing that Harry Reid says Democrats aren’t talking about is the very thing that Democrats are all over themselves talking about.  From Politico:

After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.

A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to “give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.”

Democrats plan to begin rhetorical, and perhaps legislative, steps toward the Democrats-only, or reconciliation, process early next week, the strategists said.

And reconciliation is depicted as being at the very core of the Democrats’ strategy going forward according to a major Associated Press article.

You can understand why Harry Reid would lie about the Democrats’ next move on health care.  It is so vile, so extreme, so extreme – according to the Democrats’ own words about it – that it even makes the pile of stinking garbage that the Democrats have already accumulated (you know, like the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback) look tame in comparison.

I still remember Mary Landrieu shamelessly telling the public that she wasn’t a $100 million whore, but a $300 million whore.

If I were a drug dealing crime boss or a terrorist, I would want Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson on my jury.  I would love to have the type of people who will happily prostitute their votes for the right price.

If I was going to do something so despicable like Harry Reid is scheming to do, I’d lie about it, too.

Let’s see, how was it that Harry Reid put it when Republicans considered (but didn’t) using reconciliation?  That’s right.  He called it “the arrogance of power.” The arrogant, hypocrite turd.

And of course, if I was Harry Reid, I would scurry under the nearest crack the moment somebody turned the kitchen lights on.

It Aint Just The Tea Party: CNN Poll Shows 56% Say Obama Government A Threat To Citizens’ Rights

Barack Obama and the Democrat Party, demagogues that they are, have tried to marginalize and demonize the Tea Party demonstrations from the very outset.

Well, the Tea Party is now 56% of the country on the issue of the threat that the Obama administration poses to freedom and liberty.

CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens’ rights
Posted: February 26th, 2010 09:00 AM ET

From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser

Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken – though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what’s broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

Sean Curnyn makes an excellent point about the issue of Democrats and independents and a “partisan divide”:

“While it says, “only 37 percent percent of Democrats” believe this, I would rephrase that as “even 37 percent of Democrats” feel this way. When you’re losing independents to the tune of 63 percent on this issue, you sure can’t afford to also be losing over a third of Democrats.”

This view that an overwhelming majority of the people – even Democrats – now feel that the government under Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is out to trample their rights dovetails with an article I wrote last August entitled, “Health Care Debate: As Charges of Nazism Abound, Which Side Is Right?”

In that article, I begin with the following:

Nancy Pelosi upped the ante in the health care debate when she responded to a media question in the following manner:

Interviewer: Do you think there’s legitimate grassroot opposition going on here?

Pelosi: “I think they’re Astroturf… You be the judge. “They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare.”

That being in addition to her reference to town hall protesters as “simply un-American.”

And now 56% of Americans are “simply un-American” on Nancy Pelosi’s view.

I’ve always got to point out the fact that “Nazi” stood for “National Socialist German Workers Party.”  And when the aforementioned National Socialist German Workers Party attacked the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during World War II, it was a war of the left fighting against the left.

How do such leftists think?  They think in Marxist or fascist, totalitarian terms.  It’s just who they are.

You should think about that when you have uber-liberal Bill Maher articulating what essentially amounts to the Democrat reconciliation strategy for health care in an August 24 interview on NBC’s Conan O’Brien program:

“You know, they’re talking about 60 votes they need,” Maher said. “Forget this stuff. You can’t get Americans to agree on anything. Sixty-percent? Sixty-percent of people don’t believe in evolution in this country. He just needs to drag them to it.  Like I just said, they’re stupid. Just drag them to this.”

You stupid morons who believe that you have rights.  Screw you.  You should be FORCED to comply with the liberal elitist intelligentsia.

Only 11 days ago Maher was at it again on CNN’s ‘Larry King Live’:

“But what the Democrats never understand is that Americans don’t really care what position you take, just stick with one,” Maher said. “Just be strong. They’re not bright enough to really understand the issues. But like an animal, they can sort of sense strength or weakness. They can smell it on you.”

Maher isn’t an elected politician – which is precisely why he can say what he’s saying.  But he is attempting to articulate the rationale behind forcing the American people to accept an ObamaCare boondoggle that they absolutely do not want.

It’s not just the polls that prove the American people don’t want the Democrats’ health care agenda; it’s the incredible victory of Scott Brown turning Camelot Republican by promising to be the 41st vote stopping it.  In voting for Scott Brown, the citizens of even one of the most liberal states in the country were effectively telling the Democrats, “We don’t want what you’re trying to impose; we’re taking away your filibuster-proof majority to stop this from happening.”

But the Democrats don’t CARE that you don’t want it.  They believe you are simply too stupid to be allowed to make such a choice for yourselves.  They are going to exercise raw, totalitarian power over you for your own good.

Let’s see what reconciliation is:

• It is “a change in the Senate rules” that “would change the  character of the Senate forever.”

• It is “majoritarian absolute power” which is “just not what the founders intended.”

• It is “the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis.”

• It evaporates “the checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic.”

• It is “almost a temper tantrum.”

• It is the abandonment of the concept of “a check on power” and an     abandonment of that which “preserves our limited government.”

• It is something that “will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority.”

• It “is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.”

• It “is a fundamental power grab.”

• It “is a tyranny of the majority.”

• It is “where the majority rules supreme and the party of power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power.”

• It is a “naked power grab.”

• It is to “change the rules, break the rules, and misread the Constitution so that they will get their way.”

• It is “The Senate … being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore the   precedent to ignore the way our system has worked, the delicate balance   that we have obtain that has kept this Constitution system going, for immediate gratification of the present President.”

• It is “the way Democracy ends. Not with a bomb but with a gavel.”

If reconciliation is what these statements say it is, it is truly a fascist tactic that would only be employed by the most fundamentally unAmerican of totalitarians.

Only a genuinely evil and depraved political party would use such a despicable tactic.

Who said this about reconciliation?

Every single statement comes from Democrats as a result of Republicans merely discussing using the tactic to overcome a filibuster of a Bush judicial nomination.  Every single one.

Interestingly, Dianne Feinstein describes a progression which would start from a bad thing to an incredibly bad thing:

Dianne Feinstein 5/18/2005: The nuclear option if successful will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority. It begins with judicial nominations. Next will be executive appointments and then legislation.

The current batch of Democrats skipped the executive appointments and went straight for the legislation where they could most directly impose their will upon the American people.

Americans are stupid, you see.  And the rules shouldn’t matter when it comes to overcoming the objections of hundreds of millions of dumb animals, as Bill Maher calls us.

Cows are herded.  Whether they are milked or slaughtered, it isn’t their choice.  They don’t get to choose.

And don’t think this isn’t the pervasive Democrat attitude toward the American people.

At one point during the health care summit Barack Obama said the following to cut down a Republican:

“Point number two, when we do props like this — stack it up and you repeat 2,400 pages, et cetera — you know, the truth of the matter is that health care is very complicated. And we can try to pretend that it’s not, but it is.”

This referring to Rep. Eric Cantor, who had and was reading and referring to the very Democrat Senate bill that ostensibly was the very subject of discussion.

It’s not a “prop,” Obama.  It’s the bill representing the boondoggle you are trying to cram down our throats.  And while you might think of us as a bunch of stupid animals – just like Bill Maher does – who can’t possibly understand health care, we understand it just fine.  You don’t like Rep. Cantor reading it because you don’t want the American people to be able to actually know what you are trying to impose on us.

But it’s too late, Mr. Elitist-in-Chief.

A solid majority of the American people now understand that you, your administration, and everyone who thinks like you in government represents a clear and present danger to our rights and our freedoms.

The Democrats now want to use “the nuclear option” in a way that no Congress has ever even TRIED to use it before.

They think we’re dumb like animals.  But even the dumbest of animals can bite back after they’ve suffered enough abuse.

The scent of blood is in the air.

Catch you in November.

Democrats With TWICE The Time Still Managed To Lose Health Care Summit

The breakdown as to the time spent talking at the health care summit:

Democrats: 114 minutes
Republicans: 110 minutes
Barack Obama (uber Democrat): 119 minutes

Which means that for every one minute Republicans were allowed to speak, Democrats allowed themselves more than 2 minutes to speak.

How bipartisan of them.

Obama by himself spent nine more minutes talking than he allowed the 17 Republicans combined to have:

“President Obama pledged to “listen” at the outset of his much-ballyhooed bipartisan health care summit on Thursday. Turns out he meant he’d be listening to his own voice.”

Obama acknowledged the massive disparity and the massive unfairness of the meeting this way:

“You’re right, there was an imbalance on the opening statements because – I’m the president.” Half the room laughed. “I didn’t count my time in terms of dividing it evenly.”

But that’s not the whole story.  Oh, no.  Obama not only gave himself more time to talk than all the Republicans combined, but he also gave himself more time to talk than all the other Democrats combined.

And Obama spent most of his time attacking the points made by Republicans, who were rarely ever allowed to respond and defend themselves as Obama dictated the event.

Throughout the event, Obama – ever the ideological moderator – remarked while Republicans were getting one of their rare chances to speak that they were behind the time schedule.  At one point while Republican Senator Dr. Tom Coburn was speaking Harry Reid said, “Mr. President, if I could just say, I’m not an expert on much but I am filibusters and we’ve got 40 members of Congress here.”  But the problem CLEARLY wasn’t Dr. Coburn and it clearly wasn’t the Republicans.  Rather, the problem was Obama and his “Help! I’m talking and I can’t shut up!” problem.

Still, as unfair and partisan as it was, it was still the closest by far and away that Democrats have been “bipartisan.”

The Democrats took unfair partisan advantage and cheated.  But the Republicans still kicked their asses today.

From Don Surber’s Daily Mail:

Rave reviews for Republicans

Their sampling of quotes:

CNN’s WOLF BLITZER: “It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

CNN’s GLORIA BORGER: “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

BORGER: “They took on the substance of a very complex issue. … But they really stuck to the substance of this issue and tried to get to the heart of it and I think did a very good job.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

BORGER: “They came in with a plan. They mapped it out.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

CNN’s DAVID GERGEN: “The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

GERGEN: “He doesn’t have a strong Democratic team behind him.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

THE HILL’S A.B. STODDARD: “I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.” (Fox News’ “Live,” 2/25/10)

THE WEEKLY STANDARD’S STEVE HAYES: “I think to me the most important thing to come out of the morning so far is that Republicans have spent a great deal of time talking with great passion, and I think eagerness about their plans, detailing the plans that until this morning them Democrats had been saying didn’t exist. Well, you now see, I think, in great detail that Republicans do have plans, that they care about the same issues and that they feel passionately about it.” (Fox News’ “Live,” 2/25/10)

My take is this is health insurance is a boring topic that has shown just how boring and dull this president is. He is hopelessly lost in the Land of Actuarial Tables, where co-payments and deductibles reign.

I’m beginning to see why he keeps flogging this dead horse: He has nothing closer to a unicorn than this; it is all he knows.

There’s a lot more than that.  TPM provides another slew of liberals who basically give the Republicans the win including this one:

“I think it was a draw, which was a Republican win,” said Democratic political consultant Dan Gerstein. “The Republican tone was just right: a respectful, substantive disagreement, very disciplined and consistent in their message.”

If Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein says it was a draw, it was a Republican ass-kicking.

There were several moments that were illustrative of the sham of Obama’s faux-bipartisan summit (e.g., Obama’s personal attack against John McCain by telling him, “We’re not campaigning any more.  The election’s over” – which was a personally harsh and incredibly hypocritical charge given the fact that even Democrats acknowledge that Obama has done little BUT constantly campaign); but one moment stood out to me as summing up Obama’s strategy to forcibly twist the Republicans to either bow to his agenda or demonize them as “obstructionists”:

THE PRESIDENT: “Dave, I don’t mean to interrupt. But the — we’re going to have the whole section talking about deficits. And we can talk about the changes in Medicare. We were trying to focus on costs related to lowering families’. And the only concern I’ve got is — look, if every speaker at least on one side is going through every provision and saying what they don’t like, it’s going to be hard for us to see if we can arrive at some agreements on things that we all agree on.”

Let’s recap: The Republicans had asked/begged/demanded that Obama take the current 2,700 page Democrat bill off the table.  Obama refused.  And then Obama offered his own even worse and more expensive version of that 2,700 page Senate Democrat bill.

Obama and the Democrats used the word “agree” so many times that it was simply unreal.  Clearly, the idea was to represent the Republicans as being in substantial agreement with the Democrats’ bill, and then demand why they weren’t supporting a bill which they basically agreed with.

Only the Republicans DIDN’T agree with the Democrats’ 2,700 page monstrosity.  And they wanted to explain why.

This was unacceptable to Obama.  He wanted to make the Republicans appear to agree with him, so he could later demonize them as the obstructionist party of no.

If Obama had really wanted to seek agreement with the Republicans, he would have withdrawn the 2,700 page howitzer he was aiming at them.  And he would have taken off the table a second howitzer of using reconciliation (aka “the nuclear option”) to fundamentally change the Senate rules to shove that 2,700 page howitzer down the Republicans’ throats.

But he refused to do that.  He refused to allow the Republicans to talk about what they could agree on, and instead forced them to confront the 2,700 page ObamaCare boondoggle which they – and the overwhelming majority of the American people – had already completely rejected.

This was never about Obama seeking agreement from Republicans; this was all about attempting to use a “bipartisan summit” to make them look bad so he could demagogue them.

Only – too bad, so sad for Barry Hussein – the Republicans didn’t look bad.  In fact, they looked pretty dang good.

Judging from the polling, Americans overwhelmingly came away from the summit believing that it was nothing more than political theater.  Which was exactly what it was.