Although I continue to read this blog religiously, I haven't posted here since the primary in 2008. This is more a rant than a diary perhaps and I apologize for that....but my jaw just about hit the floor and I almost knocked myself out when I saw this:
"President Obama warned Democrats in Congress today not to "jam" a health care reform bill through now that they've lost their commanding majority in the Senate, and said they must wait for newly elected Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to be sworn into office"
http://abcnews.go.com/...
First of all, in what way is 59 Democrats to 41 Republicans NOT a commanding majority????? The MSM is completely out of control.
Back to my original rant, maybe there are some out there that say the voters of Massachusetts have spoken and this is the right thing to do. However, Huffingtonpost has an interesting article up results from a poll commissioned by three progressive groups. Here's part of the article
"The poll also upends the conventional understanding of health care's role in the election. A plurality of people who switched -- 48 -- or didn't vote -- 43 -- said that they opposed the Senate health care bill. But the poll dug deeper and asked people why they opposed it. Among those Brown voters, 23 percent thought it went "too far" -- but 36 percent thought it didn't go far enough and 41 percent said they weren't sure why they opposed it.
Among voters who stayed home and opposed health care, a full 53 percent said they opposed the Senate bill because it didn't go far enough; 39 percent weren't sure and only eight percent thought it went too far."
and the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
A significant number of people polled protested the election because they didn't think health care reform went far enough. So let's wait until the man who campaigned AGAINST health care reform gets seated before we move forward on this. Yes, good idea. Because that will CERTAINLY lead to health care reform that goes further than the bills that currently exist.
Who the hell is advising our President?
Update: A few commenters made good points about the process of having the house pass the Senate bill, then improve it through reconciliation. I'd want the promise to fix in blood if I was in the House leadership. In any case, I didn't view his comment that way but that is a reasonable interpretation. I suppose I am sick of the courtesy Democrats give Republicans (i.e. no delays in seating Brown, don't do anything until he's seater, etc) when the Republicans held the country hostage for six months while the mess in MN was being sorted out. Coleman knew he had no chance of winning -- and they prolonged the process anyway -- voters in MN be damned.