American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

Bubba publicly scolding Obama for the ACA rollout is pretty fucking rich

wait which one actually got a healthcare reform bill passed OH THAT'S RIGHT

One of the few things I admire about Obama without equivocation is his much-vaunted temperament, especially compared to this attention-seeking fucking child called Bill Clinton. God, we really have to endure him a few more years eh

"so peculiar, so unapproachable, so lacking in warmth"

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304644104579191371188576010

http://wapo.st/170mV2y

God, we really have to endure him a few more years eh

A little less than three I think. God laughs at presidential inevitability.

x-post to wsj item-- So European leaders, like inside the beltway DC types, wish Obama would be more touchy-feely and consult and talk. Still not sure Iran and Syria would be handled that differently (and the piece doesn't fully address that Germany doesn't necessarily see things the same way as other European countries)

And that Post article on the healthcare website is not good news for the White House either

wait which one actually got a healthcare reform bill passed OH THAT'S RIGHT

To be fair, the only way Obama got the ACA passed was with a ton of compromises that essentially contributed to its rocky roll out, which may in the end leave it even weaker. States had too much power to say no or at least get in the way, insurance companies benefitted while also free to further fuck things up. "Oh, sorry, you can't keep your old insurance because, silly me, it did not cover pregnancy, and the new law insists your insurance cover that, sorry guys, our hands are tied ... "

xposting Yeah, Obama's cold fish politics are preferable to unctuous Uncle Bill. I wonder how much more effective the former would be if he had a taste/tolerance for coddling rich donors and lobbyists?

hunhhhhh? You mean like appointing half of Goldman Sachs?

states rejecting medicaid was not something obama 'compromised' on

also did you notice our Commerce sec'y is the Hyatt heiress? xxp

also show me which part of the hillarycare bill would've guaranteed that their current coverage/rate would not be changed for perpetuity?

isn't our secretary of state the heinz heiress?

Posted this on the Obamacare thread, but might as well put it here too. Dem senators now acting on pure fear with little regard to the consequences: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/feinstein-cosponsors-landrieu-s-bill-to-unwind-obamacare-market-reforms

the scheiber pipedream ppl are talking about this week notes the catch 22 situation clinton's are in w/ wall st. lucky for them w/ obama's numbers and the bloodbath we might see in 2014 is making the centrist compromiser message that's there natural inclination more favorable. it's already tested well in va. for all the talk of the grown ups taking the gop back there hasn't been much attn paid to a similar movement afoot w/ the dems.

hunhhhhh? You mean like appointing half of Goldman Sachs?

Oh, no, he's great at that passive shit: appoint the rich dudes, be done with it. But I've read more than a few pieces that say how little he likes pretending to be friends with people, how his circle of close friends is tiny, and how hard it is for him to make appearances at fundraisers and the like, glad-handling donors.

yeah the dem panic over obamacare fiasco makes me wonder what happens if gop had just waited a couple of months to try cruz plan, could reid have maintained unity? this might've been truer than we thought - http://www.theonion.com/articles/republicans-give-in-right-before-obamacare-would-h,34246/

The blog talk with Dems has been re a possible fight between the Clinton approach and the E. Warren approach, with of course the Clinton approach described as the grown up one

states rejecting medicaid was not something obama 'compromised' on

Didn't he give them the option of doing their own state site or relying on the Feds to do it? Which gave the Fed gov more heavy lifting to do, carrying the weight of the states who decided not to participate, and making the effects of the crap operation of the federal site far more pervasive. Did I misread how this went down?

Didn't the Supreme Court give the states the choice to opt out

Did it? The whole thing is a muddle in my mind.

lol do you think more progressive options would've given more power to the states? where exactly in the hillarycare bill did they do that?

tbf the supreme ct decision didn't get much press coverage. i'm not sure anyone even posted on it much here.

Ha ha x-post-Supreme Court did allow for the opting out of the Medicaid expansion. Yes.

Holy shit I have trouble remembering what horrible thing happened last week, let alone months ago.

Arkansas, The State Where Obamacare Is Working

Take that, Billary.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/feinstein-cosponsors-landrieu-s-bill-to-unwind-obamacare-market-reforms

My two favorite senators!

pigs

Yep

I mean, what is Feinstein worried about? She lives in a state whose legislature boasts Democraic supermajorities. She faces no primary challenges from her right.

i'm trying to figure out how hillary clinton might benefit from this? bill clinton pushes it, presumably to try to help hillary somehow, and then people like feinstein with no other plausible motive support it in order to secure a nice position in the clinton mach II administration?

Hm yeah that sort of makes sense.

please no more talk about those vile people.

The law finagling seems dubious, but then, some hunk of the ACA support stemmed from the promise of keeping you current plan, if you liked it. If you have a plan you like that you get kicked off of because it does not meet ACA requirements, which in turn forces you to pay more for a plan you didn't want ... in the end it'll work itself out, but in the short term, I can see why some people would be pissed. Once again, single payer would have cut this mess off at the pass. But of course, same weak willed politicians caving to cries of constituents did not or would not support single payer, which brings us full circle.

Sorry, one more thing. Inside the beltway columnist Millbank is pouncing on polling that the poor rollout is hurting North Carolina Dem Hagan and others, while throwing in a token sentence that the Congressional election is still a year away

But Hagan’s reversal of fortune — and similar troubles for other vulnerable Senate Democrats such as Mary Landrieu (La.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.) — should make it clearer than ever to the White House that the administration must put everything it has into salvaging the health-care rollout before it undoes congressional Democrats and the Obama presidency. If the administration can get its top priority so wrong, Republicans will say that the president’s party doesn’t deserve to govern, and they will have a point.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-a-call-for-help-from-democrats-after-obamacare/2013/11/12/29083742-4be3-11e3-9890-a1e0997fb0c0_story.html?hpid=z2

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-keep-your-health-plan-act

Obama does not like to socialize. He seems nearly antisocial.

Five years into their tenure, the couple has a social reputation few would have envisioned when they came to town: more standoffish than the Bushes, and ruder than the Clintons.

...

Obama has no relationship with any foreign leader that is remotely akin to Ronald Reagan’s with Margaret Thatcher, or Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s with Tony Blair. The scandalous phone-tapping imbroglio—even if the fault of the Bush administration—now makes it unlikely that he ever will.

...

Obama told his 2008 campaign political director, Patrick Gaspard, now his ambassador to South Africa. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Such a statement suggests that Obama has least some level of self-awareness about this tendency. There is less evidence that he has done anything to really curb it.

...

He has quietly purged from his inner circle those most likely to stand up to him, and barely suffered the manful efforts of his latest chief of staff, McDonough, to encourage him to reach out to the remaining slivers of the Republican sanity caucus in Congress.

how ironic since he's a socialist.

"the manful efforts"? seriously?

Obama has no relationship with any foreign leader that is remotely akin to Ronald Reagan’s with Margaret Thatcher, or Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s with Tony Blair. The scandalous phone-tapping imbroglio—even if the fault of the Bush administration—now makes it unlikely that he ever will.

man Cokie Roberts sure is upset.

i think that aspect of his character was evident from the very beginning.

In 2009, in Obama’s first year in office, my wife and I found ourselves trapped in the Blue Room, next to one of the president’s most important early boosters and major fund-raisers, when Obama’s disembodied amplified voice suddenly rang out and the crowd rushed through a doorway to the mansion’s entry hall, blocking our view. The president had paused with his wife, Michelle, on the bottom steps of the Grand Staircase behind a velvet rope to make brief remarks and shake the few hands that could reach him, before retreating back upstairs. “Can you see him?” the graybeard asked as we craned our necks over the crowd. The answer was no.

see why would Obama waste time with a hackneyed reporter of received wisdom like Purdum and his wife?

he wrote that hatchet job of bill's post-presidency that people seemed to like at the time

trapped in the blue room

..."the time" being during the 08 primary campaign

re: obama tho, "the politician who doesn't like politics" was p much his brand all along

i'm not sticking up for him; insularity is a bad trait. the problem isn't not shmoozing but not listening

OTM goole. You will never find reporting saying how friendly Obama is. Purdum's reporting on Obama's personality is similar to everyone else's.

A good friend of mine went to a fundraising dinner last year ($35,000 per plate) and Obama was in the room for like 15 minutes.

To his credit, Obama hates Washington bullshit and Washington doesn't like him much for it.

But you're right, it's the listening thing.

Although it never seemed like W. Bush listened to anyone. Or if he did, he wasn't paying attention.