As a deadline to pass a health care bill gets closer with no end in sight to the discord in Congress, some lawmakers want to scrap the proposals that are now on the table and try to pass a much smaller bill.
"People feel that it may be very hard to get such a large bill done this year," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., after a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats.
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President Obama's climate change address at the United Nations disappointed some for its lack of specifics or a firm timetable on U.S. carbon limits -- making environmentalists the latest discontented Democratic constituency.
Since taking office, Obama in quick succession has dashed the hopes of lesbians and gays, labor interests, anti-war Democrats, Hispanics and others, in part by keeping his own counsel and rejecting a path that pandered to his party's various factions.
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After an uproar over the projected costs and increased deficits from health care legislation, Democrats are considering taxing middle-class Americans who don't have health insurance and taxing some health coverage to pay for a plan.
But while more fiscally responsible, the ideas are proving no more popular.
The disagreement could come to a head this week, when the Senate Finance Committee begins drafting the bill under the leadership of it's author, panel Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
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In the 1992 film "Iron Eagle III," a retired U.S. Air Force fighter ace is asked by a buxom South American woman to defend her village against narco-terrorists led by a former Nazi. He does the only logical thing: He rounds up some vintage World War II-era propeller planes, updates them with laser-guided bombs and flies down to teach the bad guys a lesson. It is great to see those beautiful old planes in action, but all the nostalgia in the world cannot rescue a bad idea of a movie.
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President Obama, who saturated the airwaves to push his health care plan, found himself playing defense not only on his proposals to cut Medicare spending and make those without health insurance pay fines, but on the Afghan war, the community organizing group ACORN and a decision to prosecute CIA agents.
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President Obama’s Sunday media blitz of five networks deliberately left out Fox News, with the administration calling it an “ideological outlet.”
But by passing over “Fox News Sunday” with host Chris Wallace, Obama skipped over an audience of up to 3 million viewers who tune in regularly to watch the show and its reruns.
Some political strategists are calling the move a mistake.
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Instead of rallying behind a compromise health care bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., senators on both sides of the aisle were preparing significant changes for the bill.
“I’m sure there will be a lot of changes we’ll be making to this initial building block,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., after leaving a closed-door meeting about the bill with Senate Democrats.
That may be an understatement.
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Back in February, during the Democrats' frenzied rush to pass the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, Republican Sen. David Vitter offered a simple, 28-word amendment: "None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used directly or indirectly to fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now." Vitter's amendment was shot down, 51-45, with all the votes coming from the Democratic majority.
At about the same time, GOP lawmakers introduced similar measures in the House. Those, too, were defeated by Democratic majorities.
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President Obama told a packed arena at the University of Maryland that he needs young people to propel health care reform just as they propelled him to the presidency. So far they've been slackers.
"Just like the change that began in our campaign," he told them, "it starts with people -- especially young people."
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It's too bad that the first black president wasn't a conservative.
Not that there wouldn't have been charges of racism and some actual racism, too. But it would have finally dispelled the old myth about the racist Right and the tolerant Left.
As it is, many liberals who once complained about being labeled unpatriotic for their vituperative opposition to George W. Bush are suggesting that anyone who opposes the policies of President Obama is a racist.
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