Those demon astroturfers at the town hall meetings
I’ve got a piece up at Pajamas Media today on the Democrat demonizing of the health care reform opponents at the town hall meetings. Please take a look and have a read.
[ADDENDUM: I moved this to keep it at the top of the page.]
I often wonder when I hear these kind of mischaracterizations and lies if the people spreading them know they are lying or really believe what they are saying. The only reason I entertain the notion that they might believe it is because they are projecting a page from the playbook that has long been their modus operandi. The idea of packing town hall meetings with specially organized dissidents that someone paid to bus in is believable to them because it’s something they would do and have done. Like the old Carly Simon song “The Times When My Head Was Together About You”, once you betray a trust yourself, you lose your peace of mind about the trustworthiness of others. If you are capable of such behavior you become suspicious that others will do the same to you.
Surely the minions of King George who returned from the American Colonies told the King that the original tea party was just a mob of malcontents that should be ignored. Ha!
People who have no strong affiliation with any political party, and who have never participated in any demonstration before, appear to make up the majority of attendees at the town hall meetings and other demonstrations. “Silent no more” is an appropriate slogan for the angry, yet civil taxpayers that I have met when I attended two such gatherings.
I often wonder when I hear these kind of mischaracterizations and lies if the people spreading them know they are lying or really believe what they are saying.
Adrian, I think that the hard-left cadres – the type who changed tack on a dime, first after the Nazi-Soviet Pact and then again after Operation Barbarossa – know perfectly well that the whole thing is a crock.
Well-meaning, none-too-bright, earnest liberals, on the other hand, really do believe the agitprop, having failed to recognize it for what it is.
“The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore… they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation.”
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“…unless [civilised societies] invent and enforce adequate measures for regulating human reproduction, for controlling the quantity of population, and at least preventing the deterioration of quality of racial stock, they are doomed to decay…”
—
basically they realize that if they short the system and redistribute wealth the unfit (as they see it) will breed like crazy. so it is imperitive to them that they replace natural selection with unnatural selection. that is, to replace random acts of god, with a directed motor to guide evolution. they now use soft methods in which they get the people to do it to themselves so they have no one to get angry at. after all, do you get angry at yourself for the abortion, or do you get angry at the administration for being so nice to provide and pay for it with money they steal from people who are against it?
the idea is to open the borders, and let them breed till they vote in the state that will then remove them. that is, they will facilitate their own end.
its pragmatic. no?
After the Second World War he was instrumental in producing the UNESCO statement The Race Question,[72] which asserted that:
“A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens”… “Now what has the scientist to say about the groups of mankind which may be recognized at the present time? Human races can be and have been differently classified by different anthropologists, but at the present time most anthropologists agree on classifying the greater part of present-day mankind into three major divisions, as follows: The Mongoloid Division; The Negroid Division; The Caucasoid Division.”… “Catholics, Protestants, Moslems and Jews are not races…”
—
The Race Question is a UNESCO statement issued on 18 July 1950 following World War II. Signed by some of the leading researchers of the time, in the field of psychology, biology, cultural anthropology and ethnology, it questioned the foundations of scientific racist theories which had become very popular at the turn of the 20th century, alongside eugenics. These racist theories had been a main influence of the Nazi racial policies and eugenics programme. The original statement was drafted by Ernest Beaglehole, Juan Comas, L. A. Costa Pinto, Franklin Frazier, sociologist specialised in race relations studies, Morris Ginsberg, founding chairperson of the British Sociological Association, Humayun Kabir, writer, philosopher and Education Minister of India twice, Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the founders of ethnology and leading theorist of cultural relativism, and Ashley Montagu, anthropologist and author of The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity, who was the rapporteur. The text was then revised by Ashley Montagu following criticisms submitted by Hadley Cantril, E. G. Conklin, Gunnar Dahlberg, Theodosius Dobzhansky, author of Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937), L. C. Dunn, Donald Hager, Julian Huxley, first director of UNESCO and one of the many key contributors to neo-Darwinian synthesis, Otto Klineberg, Wilbert Moore, H. J. Muller, Gunnar Myrdal, author of An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), Joseph Needham, a biochemist specialist of Chinese science, and geneticist Curt Stern. The statement included both a scientific debunking of race theories and a moral condemnation of racism. It suggested in particular to “drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of “ethnic groups.”
so dont be fooled as to the reasons for such things.
if you restrict care, then those who dont need care will end up dominating. the genetically fit survice rationing better than everyone else.
no?
Unesco was started by aldous huxleys brother, who also started the UN, so all thsi birth control and such around the world has a very nepharious history… all open and available if one were just to take a chance and look.
they are remarkably unchanged… the difference is that we ahve changed… we have been acclimatized to the kinds of things they think.
we have all forgotten the arguments that were used to justify the things we did to experiment on people.
why experiment on animals, experimenting on people is more pragmatic, no?
well if you have different beuracracies have different policies on treatment, and then you add up the results to see which is better, you have just used the population at large to test out your medical ideas en masse.
if i wanted to do that to you as a individual person, i would ahve to get IRB approval, forms and such.
but as a socailsit, i get to change the circumstances aroudn your life and see waht actually happens to people.
Social Engineering is nthing of the sort.
an engineer is a person who knows the principals by which what he is doing works. they have no such knowlege, they only pretend they do. which is why they cause so much pain, even when they dont intend it.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
Neo, you and VDH have posted two very fine columns. One measure of that is the amount of troll spittle in the comments. Keep up the good work.
The Reds have definitely stepped in the dog’s business this time. Only now are they realizing that, and they’re panicked. They thought they’d ram their whole agenda through before Americans woke up to it, but thank God, that didn’t happen.
They’re going to face some tough sledding from here on out, now that the population at large is sensitized to their agenda.
All they are doing is preventing the counter revolution… the people that supported them find out they are lying, and so change sides, and when they do, they are then enemies… but they are reformed enemies, and converts are dangerous.
stalin with lenin removed the latvians who created the bolshevik revolution and consolidated it. why? because any force that can make you can remove you.
its been like that since roman times and their games, its just that we dont teach the canon and stuff so peple would know.
the people who facilitated this are not only goig to convert, they are going to then change sides. they are in positions already that makes them effective and dangerous, so purges become necessary.
for some reason, people believe the propaganda bout things even as they dsicuss it. the genocides are part of the ideology, the dysgenic are to be removed in some way… the purges are necessary in a system where people are used up, when they discover the betrayal, they are too dangerous, and removing them causes a cascade down the line of knowing. inconvenient, but a natural outcome of such a system.
i am constantly trying to explain what and how things work… and usually i am met with the propaganda that was created after the fact that was used to obfuscate that the ideology requires this and then prevent ideological acceptance.
right now, everyone thinks that socialism, and commnism and fascism are completely different things. they also think progressivism, neo liberalism, pragmatism, and others are also something different.
no one realizes that saul alinsky just took the operations book of the kgb and other groups textbooks on destabilization… if you had read these other texts before, you would know what and where he copied from.
its one of the greatest inventions of the soviet era.
the unitest states has a nuclear weapon, causes great destruction and the potential end of states and capitulation.
well, like the monty python skit that reveals it as a comedy, no one gets it. spam is statism/commnism. you can have anything you want as lnog as there is a statist in it.
and their joke about the two part binary joke weapon… reveals that literature of certain kinds are weapons too, and can be constructed for such purposes, and only work in open societies who protect free speech and forbid the removal and defusion of such bombs.
alinskies book is such a bomb.
it puts the tools of despots into any ones hands in a free society… and then it waits till they erect a weak and crippled dysfunctional world that cant defend itself and is no longer defensible.
the pen is mightier than the sword…
everyone that reads it doesnt get the dedication.
saul alinsky dedicated the book to lucifer.
lucifer was the prettiest, and the smartest and the most loved of all angels, the one closest to the heart of god.
lucifer was smart enouhg to convince angels that heaven was not heaven enough using neurolinguistic language (read how the devil talks in the bible).
heaven was not heaven enough to those that listened to such… and saul alinsky, is telling them what they will create, and they dont realize it.
They thought they’d ram their whole agenda through before Americans woke up to it, but thank God, that didn’t happen.
how many times do i have to say that they are not scared and such… that this reaction is critical to teh success of their project.
when people start marching and yelling, they have already set the ground work to label them, and so be able to act in unconstititional ways on them, the way we let them do that to the druggies.
if you know judo, would you be happy at your enemies blind anger, or upset?
this is chess.. it took them decades of moving pieces aroudn and such till they converged.
unless you haev chess in 3 moves to their 10 moves, you lose. (see robert redfords movie).
I don’t know, Artfldr, they look pretty panicky to me. They’re flailing wildly against those protesting at town hall meetings, just as they did against the Tea Parties.
If they’re not panicked, they’re doing a very convincing impression of people who are.
Artfldgr Says:
“this is chess.. it took them decades of moving pieces aroudn and such till they converged.”
I hear you… the shouting down the congress critters was fun but the protesters need to get more under control…. save the shouting for rigged events where they’re not being given a fair chance to speak. When they are, they need to ask cutting questions.
Good job Neo,
It seems the democrats have manufactured some of the rage they are projecting about the Republican “astroturfing” .
If you have not seen it check this out.
The left’s “Manufactured Outrage”.
Mary Katherine Ham has a piece looking at the “shocking, secret memo” that Think Progress “unearthed” and the DNC prominently displayed in their ad attacking those who are protesting at townhall meetings as “right-wing extremists” put up to the task by high-profile Republican groups.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/think_progress_msnbc_manufactu.asp
Jake Tapper has a report by Steven Portnoy about a townhall meeting in Mardela Springs, MD:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/a-first-hand-view-of-a-raucous-town-hall-meeting.html
This week I think Saul Alinsky would be so proud of the democrats.
Thomass,
I liked the guy who asked why he should have to decide on the health care package in three weeks when it took Obama six months to choose a dog.
Seriously, you are right. If the questions show the questioners to be more informed than the reps and senators, people will take note. Maybe even the local press.
expat Says:
“Seriously, you are right. If the questions show the questioners to be more informed than the reps and senators, people will take note. Maybe even the local press.”
Naa, if they don’t think they can use it against us it will not be reported.
I take the astroturfing charges as further signs of weakness and desperation.
Obamacare is in trouble. Obama can’t speechify his way past the facts and contradictions. He tried playing the race card to regain the moral high ground and that blew up in his face. The Democratic leadership can’t answer the hard questions about the bill or why they can’t be bothered to read it. They’ve already attacked Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. What’s left?
Attack Americans who object to Obamacare. Never mind that it’s based on lies and hypocrisy.
Obama is basically left with two choices: go to the center or go to the bunker.
It appears that he is choosing the bunker. Not that I’m surprised.
I don’t know, Artfldr, they look pretty panicky to me. They’re flailing wildly against those protesting at town hall meetings, just as they did against the Tea Parties.
they are heavily concerned. dont confuse jitters like stage fright that in two minutes its curtain call, and they have no more time to prepare.
thats what they are afraid of…
they dont understand the net and the new media to be afraid that the people dont respond to their bs. thats why they are saying its astroturf… they didnt think moriarty was that strong to give them a thorn, and no one has come forward to collect their power button and call the dogs off.
as i said before here, as my uncle said, just cause i dont call you on your bs doesnt mean i dont see it, or know it.
here is the last part i never put up before.
but given enough time, left to such conditions and belief, you will not have any ability to argue around things.
he found that doing this was much easier than dealing with them the first stunt they pulled cause almost anyone can wriggle out of first stunts.
they wont panick till they realize that the flash bomb went off too early. they dont realize that or else health care would not have been on the table and hate speech and other key things for later.
their chess pieces are not fully in place, and so they may be concerned that they will have to come out and such before they have secured things.
a lot of their stuff was and is delayed to hit us, so that we dont remember that they did it. its also removed from the event that gave them permission, and so people wont notice them directly when they hit.
these protests and such, as long as its the suits and peaceful will be ok.
but soon, the leftards with their funky clothes and no tuition for college and no job to pay it off, will start. they are the ones that will make it dangerous and not so good more than the well dressed ones.
do remember that these people make history, not react to it. so they are always upset when someone writes themselves into their narrative for us. do not be surprised that their statements today are serving the purpose for priming the pump in a short while when some contrived incident happens and no one comes forward and they can then direct that curiosity to these groups.
prop last post but more pertinent to things.
http://www.breitbart.tv/aarp-reps-cancel-listening-session-after-participants-refuse-to-keep-their-comments-quiet/
i think aarp the group taking advantage of the elderly to wield their power for them (collectively) just exposed their real natures. will the oldsters realize that they never should have supported them and embued them with such power?
tune in in the near future and see…
gnight to all the ships at sea
and a gnight to mrs calabash, wherever you are!
I think it’s more than stage fright. I think it’s more like they see the situation spinning out of their control. By pushing too hard, too fast, they galvanized resistance that’s going to last the rest of Obama’s term, and they know it.
Consequently, they’re trying frantically to “Palin” the anti-Obamacare protesters, to discredit and marginalize them. Unfortunately for them, they can’t smear millions of Americans as easily as they could Sarah Palin. Accusing protesters of being paid agents, the natural reaction in millions of homes is, “Nonsense. I don’t like it, and no one has paid me.”
Tough perspective to argue with: contrary personal experience.
Ellen Sauerbrey — the courageous lady who many feel won the governorship of Maryland in 1994, only to have it snatched away by a post-election recount — recently wrote: “I have never seen people so upset and scared. The rebellion today is a true grassroots uprising of citizens that don’t believe either party in Washington represents them, hears them or cares what they think. More and more I hear, ‘A plague on both their houses. Throw all the bums out’.”
Accusing protesters of being paid agents, the natural reaction in millions of homes is, “Nonsense. I don’t like it, and no one has paid me.”
It’s hard to see how this tactic works long-term. True, it buys Team Obama time, but only days, and the Obamacare vote has been delayed for weeks, if not months.
In the meantime the current American cold civil war heats up another few degrees and Obama’s rep as the Miracle Healer fades even farther over the horizon, as his poll numbers continue to drop across the board except for blacks who maintain their OJ-like 95% approval of Obama.
Good article, Neo, but that troll-infested comments section was disgusting.
I once saw a video of an interview with a KGB defector. I can’t find it now, but here is a transcript:
Yuri Bezmenov on demoralization
Among other things, he says that the useful idiots who are the early supporters of Marxism will be the first ones to be liquidated once they consolidate their power. Maybe I ought to go back over there and point this out to the trolls.
Huxley, it doesn’t work long-term. That’s why I think they’re desperate. Presumably they went with the best argument they had, and this was it? It’s a Hail Mary pass into the endzone. (Perhaps I should say “Hail Gaia.”)
Accusing protesters of being paid agents, the natural reaction in millions of homes is, “Nonsense. I don’t like it, and no one has paid me.”
Yes, Occam’s Beard, exactly. They have made a big tactical error with this one that has outraged many not-so-easily-outraged Americans who are capable of thinking for themselves and who are genuinely worried, based on their own observations, about the direction their country is taking. The DNC is going to be sorry.
they are accusing the protesters of being paid because they pay protesters and no one accused them so they think they can grab the high ground by this action.
Huxley, it doesn’t work long-term. That’s why I think they’re desperate.
Occam: As I said earlier, “I take the astroturfing charges as further signs of weakness and desperation.”
Great minds and all that.
and before someons says that thery are not paid remember the free concerts, then later it was the fact that they could be present in and of itself (like the vip room).
the septemberists opened up for obama playing the communist international.
(hey! maybe thats a clue too?)
Hey, who is paying who here?
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/npo/1309621128.html
These ads are all over the country…..
Let’s put the brain trust to work on this one. Your signature legislation is going down in flames. Your supporters are getting pummeled back in their districts. Blue Dogs are worried about keeping their seats and wondering what’s in it for them if they go down to defeat for supporting Obama. Unemployment is rising, and your stimulus has done squat. You tried playing the race card, and you scored an own goal. You are sinking in the polls, and you aren’t magic any more. You are losing control of the narrative, if you haven’t lost it already, and your erstwhile acolytes in the media are rumbling about their dissatisfaction. Your well-heeled supporters in New York, San Francisco and Hollywood have just figured out that their marginal tax rate is going to 65%.
You are holed up on Martha’s Vineyard in your $50,000 a week house with your advisers.
What do you do? What is your next move?
Oblio Says:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Create the situation for a violent incident, and when it happens blame it on “right wing extremists”.
OK, that’s one strategy, but very risky; the violence could get out of hand. Is there another with a better risk/reward?
Would you like to know what true Astroturfing is?
Would you like to know what Astroturfing looks like?
Would you like to know who is really engaging in Astroturfing?
Check out this piece at Huffpo:
Unions To Take On Conservative Groups Health Care Town Halls
First Posted: 08- 6-09 09:53 AM | Updated: 08- 6-09 12:26 PM
The nation’s largest federation of labor organizations has promised to directly engage with boisterous conservative protesters at Democratic town halls during the August recess.
In a memo sent out on Thursday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney outlined the blueprint for how the union conglomerate would step up recess activities on health care reform and other topics pertinent to the labor community. The document makes clear that Obama allies view the town hall forums as ground zero of the health care debate. It also uses the specter of the infamous 2000 recount “Brooks Brothers” protest to rally its members to the administration’s side. (What could go wrong with this scenario? This is about union members going to an event expressly to confront those who are voicing a dissenting opinion and quelling that.)
“The principal battleground in the campaign will be town hall meetings and other gatherings with members of Congress in their home districts,” reads the memo. “We want your help to organize major union participation to counter the right-wing “Tea-Party Patriots” who will try to disrupt those meetings, as they’ve been trying to do to meetings for the last month. … (Yeah, nothing could go wrong here.)
(Remember the hooligans – many of them Republican Congressional staff – who harassed Florida vote counters in 2000? We can’t let that happen again!).”
A showdown between unions and grassroots conservative organizations could make for an August full of fireworks, with even more dysfunctional town hall meetings. The AFL-CIO is planning to target 50 “high priority districts,” in addition to organizing telephone town hall gatherings.
(But, of course, since this is true astroturfing, there’s a political payback being demanded:)
But while the union conglomerate seems poised to flex its political muscle on Obama’s behalf, it may find some friction on the policy front. Detailed in Sweeney’s memo are certain legislative priorities that are clearly at odds with what seems likely to be produced in the Senate Finance Committee’s compromise bill.
Sweeney describes it as a “requirement that ALL employers ‘pay or play,'” that the final bill have “a robust public health insurance plan to compete with private insurers and drive down health costs,” and that the legislation contain “relief for company/union funds providing pre-Medicare retiree coverage, and no taxation of health benefits!” (Oh yeah, these protesters will truly be paid protesters. If they help intimidate the citizenry at the townhall meetings, then they expect to see their legislative desires fulfilled.)
The AFL-CIO also promises to “Redouble our efforts on Capitol Hill against taxation of benefits OF ANY KIND, for including ALL businesses in the requirement to provide coverage, and for a robust public health insurance plan option.”
According to reports on Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee is considering compromise legislation that will contain no public option for insurance and would tax health-care benefits of the most generous plans.
UPDATE: AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka sends out a scathing statement about the town halls, hitting on Sweeney’s themes and calling the events corporate funded.
(As the AFL-CIO spools itself up to confront the “mobs”, its secretary issues the battle cry of the astroturfer:)
Every American has the inalienable right to participate in our democratic process. Our politics is passionate, heartfelt and often loud — as was the founding of our nation. But that is not what the corporate-funded mobs are engaging in when they show up to disrupt town halls held by members of Congress.
Major health care reform is closer than ever to passage and it is no secret that special interests want to weaken or block it. These mobs are not there to participate. As their own strategy memo states, they have been sent by their corporate and lobbyist bankrollers to disrupt, heckle and block meaningful debate. This is a desperation move, meant to slow the momentum for change.
Mob rule is not democracy. People have a democratic right to express themselves and our elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents — not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation and attempt to scare our leaders into inaction
We call on the insurance companies, the lobbyists and the Republican leaders who are cheering them on to halt these ‘Brooks Brothers Riot’ tactics. Health care is a crucial issue and everyone – on all sides of the issue – deserves to be heard.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/unions-to-take-on-conserv_n_252720.html
I wonder what tactics they’ll use to ensure Republican’s are “heard”?
Sorry, meant to post the title:
Campaign for Healthcare REFORM! Long-term jobs! $400-$600/wk (Hillcrest)
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/npo/1309621128.html
These ads are all over the country, these people will be the ones at the town halls that are being paid to be there. Staggering hypocrisy.
To provide context to Darrell’s post, Hillcrest is a notoriously homosexual (i.e., Democrat) part of San Diego.
Oblio Says:
“OK, that’s one strategy, but very risky; the violence could get out of hand. Is there another with a better risk/reward?”
Ummm, pull a Bill Clinton and go moderate… He won’t (being a leftists) but the insurance industry is scared and will give in on things like preexisting conditions and a such. We consumers will pay the bill… but we’d get something we want (keeping the private system). We could have ‘universal coverage’ just without the ‘public option’ / ownership.
Occam, thanks, I saw this on another blog to check your local craigslist and so I did and there it was, its running in all the major cities and not surprisingly, in hillcrest in San Diego…
PS
(the reward)
he could then claim victory and move on being the good guy who got everyone covered for healthcare.
If I might make bold to address your excellent question, Oblio, I’d say that other, safer possibilities for Obama & Co. would be to:
1. Create a meme of violence having been committed, which the complicit MSM will promulgate.
2. Claim to have uncovered a plot to instigate violence, and use it as a pretext to crack down on opponents
3. Generate a galvanizing external threat (the Galtieri dipsy-doodle). Too Third World and obvious, unless the threat is, say, SARS or something of that ilk.
4. Create a TV blitzkrieg in an effort to recreate the old magic. Probably too late for that, and beyond a critical cusp, further exposure only debilitates the message.
5. Say to hell with the whole thing, and have an intern give you BJs for the rest of your term. Might as well enjoy yourself.
Let’s hope Obama springs for the sensible alternative, #5.
It might be too late, but I think Obama still has a shot of going to the center and recovering some of his post-partisan glitz. In fact I suspect he could be quite dangerous in that respect.
By doing so he could chop the Republicans’ “Just say No” strategy off at the knees and game the voters some more about whether is a pragmatic centrist and that malarkey. He could settle for half his cake on healthcare, immigration, and defense, while continuing to undermine the courts with his radical appointments, probably get a second term and put the Dems in the catbird seat for an extended domination of Congress and maybe the White House.
However, I don’t think Obama is constitutionally able to go to the center. I’m not as pessimistic as some on this blog about Obama, but I have concluded that at heart he is an ambitious New Left radical and such halfway measures are bitter compromises. While he has majorities in Congress and good polls, he will continue to go for the gusto.
I’m thinking Obama can’t make a move to the middle. The far left is already grumbling about the so called concessions. They want this pushed through in it’s entirety as written. Obama doesn’t want them mad at him as well as the “mobs on the right”.
Let’s hope Obama springs for the sensible alternative, #5.
Occam, you have a way with words.
I’m thinking Obama can’t make a move to the middle. The far left is already grumbling about the so called concessions.
John: You’ve got a point, but in American politics the penalties for a sitting president disappointing the base are not large. IMO Obama can take the far left as seriously as he takes the gay marriage folks, i.e. not seriously at all.
Obama’s problem is that he can’t disappoint the far leftist in himself.
You know at this point it doesn’t matter if Obama stays on the left or moves to the center. His policies along with the Democratic majority will make this economy much worse in the coming years which no one will be able to hide it from the public.
The economy is going to take a hit when the Bush tax cuts expire and people lose that extra money they had and subsequent cap/trade, healthcare, etc…reforms/higher taxes will keep it on its back after that. And that’s not even taking into account what happens the dollar implodes or interest rates skyrocket.
These guys have no idea what it takes to get the economy back on track and no ACORN or union thug is going to be able to hide that from the American public.
Oblio, I thought of another possible tack Obama could take, but I very much doubt he will.
He could engage in a mea culpa, go on TV, say he realized Americans had significant concerns about healthcare reform, and that he heard their concerns. As a consequence, he was now urging Congress to slow down to give Americans time to consider and discuss the proposals.
Doing this would guarantee healthcare was derailed, but at this point it’s probably DOA anyway. On the other hand, it would rebuild his popularity with those in the middle, which is probably the most he can hope for at thsi point.
Yep, Obama can go to the center or go to the bunker.
From reading around the web, I have the impression that a fair number of Americans feel confused by the differences between Obama the Candidate and Obama the President. It feels like a bad dream. They want to wake up and discover that Obama really is that pragmatic, post-partisan, post-racial centrist healer that they thought they voted for. Or that Obama at least is trying to be that guy.
At this point Obama is not going to recover his messiah credentials, but he could stanch the bleeding of support from moderates and independents.
There was supposedly a women involved, along with the SEIU goons arrested, in the attack on the vendor outside the St. Louis town hall meeting last night, and she apparently ran away before the cops could question or arrest her.
Unfortunately for her, someone caught he face on her camera, and for her trouble the camerawoman got that camera shoved back in her face by the mystery woman (http://tinyurl.com/l53nub ).
I think his best strategy is to cool down, accept any compromise on health care as long as he gets something passed. He declares it historic. He calms down on taxes and regulation, sits back and lets liquidity lift the market and begin the recovery, after which he declares an historic episode of effective economic management. If I’m him, I ask for a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, with the expectation that it will split my opponents and rally my base, while at the same time instituting a national commission to examine institutional racism. I proclaim that everything I do is historic and that I am The Uniter. I sit back and let the memory Hole do its work.