Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 11:02:23 PM
Why is a party with a supermajority in Congress whining about protesters?
Imagine if President George W. Bush, in his effort to partially
privatize Social Security, had insisted that the "time for talking is
over." Picture, if you will, the Bush White House asking Americans to
turn in their e-mails, in the pursuit of "fishy" dissent. Conjure a
scenario under which then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.)
derided critics as "evil-mongers" the way Harry Reid (D-Nev.) recently
described town hall protesters. Or if then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert
(R-Ill.) and Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) had called vocal critics
"un-American" the way Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Steny Hoyer
(D-Md.) did last week, or if White House strategist Karl Rove had been
Sir Spam-a-lot instead of David Axelrod.
Some might say the real story is to be found in the eroding support
from independent voters and Blue Dog Democratic congressmen. Or in the
panic among seniors that Obama will raid Medicare. Or in his inability
to get progressive Democrats to agree to a bipartisan approach. Or
maybe the real story is Obama's manifest inability to sell a program
he's invested his presidency in.
But no. Obama wants the
debate to be about angry white men. And, as lame as that is, that's
what's happening. It won't make Obama-care a reality, but it will shift
the blame from where it rightly belongs.