“If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.”
– Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan’s White House Press Secretary.
It’s a Given: President Obama must strongly stick up for a public option in his health care speech tonight or the game’s over. The Dems will lose big in 2010, maybe even a majority in the Senate, while Obama himself will be marginalized by the right, abandoned by his progressive base, and become a one-term president, battered into a cartoonish wimp by right-wing lies and smears. We’re begging you BHO – bring out your inner FDR; boil the corporate moonshiners in some salty Truman oil. Even if you don’t manage to pass a health care reform bill, at least stand up for yourself and those who supported you!
Camp Whiggy-Watchee: Howsomever, knees are knocking at Republican HQ these days at the idea that the GOP will be heading into the 2010 election without a solid trusted leader of the party and dragging the chock-full-o-nuts baggage of the screwy-squirrel teabaggers with them. While the shouters and doubters are good public theater for astroturf airtime to dilute health care reform, independent and MOR voters – most of us, in other words – are put off by these nattering ninnies yelling ‘Nazi’ at anybody who dares disagree with them. The TV shots of men armed with rifles and handguns at the various ‘protests’ didn’t help improve the GOP image of maturity and stability either. (White Ex-Republican Soccer Mom: “How can you trust Republicans when they cater to people like that?”) Outside of Old Dixie, how do you get Congress-Creatures and other GOP detritus elected without the moderates tossing in some votes? The Repos, to their distress, are about to find out the answer – you can’t, at least not without the help of quivering Democrats.
(Speaking of Teabaggers, Here’s Some Free Advice: Dip yourselves in boiling water for ten minutes, then add sugar or lemon to taste.)
Bell Curve to Hell-Care Reform: The Dems will also feel the pain in 2010 if they don’t smarten up their act on health care reform. The unions, as well as many progressive groups, have already said ‘nada’ to putting the ‘GO’ in GOTV in the next election, if a public option isn’t in the final bill. Some (alleged) Dems central to the health care issue – Max Baucus, Harry Reid and their mealy-mouthed, corporate cash compadres – may also feel the heat from the left as real progressives challenge their nominations. Sure, they might still win, but it would cost them a bundle and leave a residue of ill-will, making them easy pickings for the GOP. If somebody like a Gov. Brian Schweitzer challenged Baucus for the Dem nomination, I think Montana primary voters would dump Max in a mixed-cliche New York heartbeat.
The Tattlesnake – Stossel Gets Foxed Up and ‘Lord’ Boustany Fizzles Edition
Plus: Obama’s Playing Health Care Reform Chess with the Death Party – and He’s Winning
It’s About Time: Pretend journalist and right-wing dipthong John Stossel and his gay-porn-star-mustache have joined Fox News, his ideological home for the past twenty years anyway. Actually, the AP article says he’ll have a regular show on the moribund Fox Business Channel – which has an audience of about 150 poor wretches employed by owner Rupert Murdoch – and pop up on Fox News occasionally. The story-behind-the-story? ABC News couldn’t wait to get rid of this strutting little pimple and they’ve been gently pushing him out the door for the better part of a decade. After years of bellowing the tiresome “Give me a break!” to the point where some of his viewers volunteered to administer one to his neck, Stossel is finally getting his – hee, hee — ‘big break’ on Fox. The spoiled Stossel’s lowest and most hilarious moment at ABC came when ‘Mr. Honest Libertarian’ admitted on-air that he had a luxury vacation beach house that had been flattened by a hurricane that he then had the evil government pay to rebuild through just the kind of program for rich idiots like himself that he railed against on a regular basis on ABC’s “20/20.” Hey, he didn’t like stealing the taxpayer’s money, but as long as the program was available, what the hell? And he’d do it again, too, he said, because he really loved that luxury beach house. Never occurred to his hypocritical ass to pay for it out of his own fat wallet. Give me a f*cking break indeed. Have a nice time working for Rupert and Roger Ailes, Johnny – maybe you they’ll let you trade quips with Glenn Beck and Orly Taitz about Obama’s birth certificate and do in-depth interviews with ‘morans’ at teabag rallies — you know, real news.
The GOP Sleep Doctor: Why did the GOP pick a potato-headed southern doctor in a bad suit who resembles a Hicksville undertaker to give the Republican response to Obama’s health care speech? Easy, they knew they didn’t have anyone with the firepower to outdo BHO, so they went the other way and dredged up this boring drone named Charles “Lord” Boustany who by some cosmic accident was elected to a Congressional seat from Louisiana. Well, at least the Republicans avoided the embarrassment of another humiliating pratfall by a Bobby “Big Checks!” Jindal, the lame Louisiana governor who is now running around the state taking credit for Obama’s stimulus money that he once indignantly said he would refuse. Most viewers probably ignored Boustany, the same way you’d turn away at a whiff of formaldehyde, but he was actually entertaining, in a demented GOP way – the Republican’s puny rant was obviously written before Obama addressed Congress, so Lord B. was getting pissy over things Obama had already clarified in his speech. Not that truth has ever been any hindrance to GOP BS, but seeing it in such stark contrast to what Obama had just said a quarter-hour before was hilarious.
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