There’s something going on out there. First, Howard Fineman yesterday: ‘Mr. President, please get off of television.’ Today Richard Cohen in the Washington Post exhorting Obama to govern and act like a president and cool it with the TV. Now, I think these people all see what we do: The more Obama makes himself known to the public, the more the public rejects what he is selling. Now, you might say, ‘Well, why does this bother the media guys?’ Well, folks, the question answers itself. The media guys want Obama to succeed in destroying the United States as it was founded and as we know it, and he’s blowing it! He’s blowing it by showing up on television. His enablers — you got Howard Fineman now and Richard Cohen — his enablers are admitting they can’t help him if he’s undermining them out there and he’s undermining them out there every time he goes on television. They’re basically saying, ‘Look, Barack, shut up, we’ll handle it for you. We’ll handle the marketing; we’ll handle the PR; we’ll handle the sales. You just act like you’re governing.’
Too many people are starting to ask, ‘Does he ever work? Does he have a job? Or does he look at himself as a TV personality?’ So the enablers, the State-Controlled Media, are admitting they can’t help him if he undermines ’em. Here are just some excerpts from Cohen’s piece today: ‘Sooner or later it’s going to occur to Obama that he’s president of the United States.’ That’s the open. Now, Richard, listen to me on this, Obama knows full well he’s president of the United States, but it doesn’t stop there. Obama is president of the world. That’s why he’s on television all the time. Cohen says, ‘As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is. The election has been held, but the campaign goes on and on. The candidate has yet to become commander-in-chief. Take last week’s Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh. There, the candidate-in-full commandeered the television networks and the leaders of Britain and France to give the Iranians a dramatic warning. Yet another of their secret nuclear facilities had been revealed and Obama, as anyone could see, was determined to do something about it — just don’t ask what.’
This is Richard Cohen writing this stuff! This is a state-controlled columnist writing this stuff. It gets even better than that. ‘The trouble with Obama is that he gets into the moment and means what he says for that moment only. He meant what he said when he called Afghanistan a ‘war of necessity’ — and now is not necessarily so sure. He meant what he said about the public option in his health-care plan — and then again maybe not. He would not prosecute CIA agents for getting rough with detainees — and then again maybe he would. … Obama is our version of a Supreme Leader, not given to making idle threats, setting idle deadlines, reversing course on momentous issues, creating a TV crisis where none existed or, unbelievably, pitching Chicago for the 2016 Olympics. Obama’s the president. Time he understood that.’ Hey, Richard, he’s flying off to Copenhagen for this obviously because it’s in the bag. He wouldn’t go over there if Chicago is not going to get it.
Here, the New York Times headline: ‘Obama Will go to Copenhagen to Lobby the International Olympic Committee.’ Come on. He’s going to go lobby the IOC and then they’re going to award it to someplace in Brazil? That ain’t going to happen. He’s not going to set himself up to be embarrassed. He’s heading over there to take credit for it, to hell with health care. That can wait for now. Obama’s surge is to Copenhagen. Afghanistan, hell, we don’t even need to talk about that. Speaking of Afghanistan, The Politico today, a story by Martin Kady II: ”More Outcry for McChrystal Testimony’ — ‘While the president doesn’t want to hear from Gen. McChrystal, Congress does,’ said Missouri Senator Kit Bond. … But clearly, Republicans believe they have a lot to gain from a high-profile, nationally televised hearing in which the top general in Afghanistan testifies in favor of a 40,000-troop increase. It would put pressure on the White House to make a decision, and if there’s any delay, it would allow Republicans to continue to paint President Barack Obama as dithering on Afghanistan.’
So once again the Drive-Bys look at this as a horse race. To hell with the issue, to hell with the substance of it, to hell with winning or losing in Afghanistan. Oh, no, no, no, no, it’s how can the Republicans, those evil vast right-wing conspiracy members, how can they embarrass Obama? So the State-Run Media here portrays the Republican interest in this issue as political in nature, purely political. Let me tell you something, those of you at The Politico and the rest of you, let me tell you something. The audience of this show serves in Afghanistan. The audience of this show serves in Iraq. The audience of this show are parents and family members of those serving in Afghanistan and serving in Iraq. This is not political. It’s Obama making it political. It’s the Democrats who have always politicized war. It’s the media that always politicizes every issue such as health care and strips it down to the bare essentials of a horse race, ‘Is Obama going to get us health care? Is Obama going to get the public option?’ Never mind that it would destroy the health care system — oh, no, no, we can’t be bothered to tell you what’s actually going to happen here if he succeeds. Oh, no, no, no. ‘Is he going to win? Is our boy Obama going to — oh, no, is the vast right-wing conspiracy going to screw Obama? Oh, no, no, no, no.’ It’s always mattered here, substance of the issue.
Remember, the Democrats wanted Petraeus to testify so they could call him a liar. Remember Mrs. Clinton? (imitating Clinton) ‘You have to have a willing suspension of disbelieve to listen to this guy.’ Truth of the fact is that Obama’s commitment to Afghanistan was political. Ceci Connolly, it’s tough to say that I have never seen a more blatant case of being in the tank for an administration because you could probably say that accurately every day about some media story. Ceci Connolly: ‘In Delivering Care, More Isn’t Always Better, Experts Say.’ I kid you not. I’ll read the headline again: ‘In Delivering Care, More Isn’t Always Better, Experts Say.’ Ceci Connolly today in the Washington Post. ‘A dirty word in health-care reform is ‘rationing,’ a term that conjures up the image of faceless government bureaucrats denying lifesaving therapies in the name of cutting costs. But what if the real issue is not the specter of future rationing, but the haphazard, even illogical, way in which care is delivered today?’
Oh, it gets better. ‘Medical professionals say the fundamental problem in the nation’s health-care system is the widespread misuse and overuse of tests, treatments and drugs that drive up prices, have little value to patients, and can pose serious risks. The question, they say, is not whether there will be rationing, but rather what will be rationed, and when and how.’ You realize that all these tests and all this stuff they’re complaining about you can point a finger of pure accuracy at one group of people for it, and that’s the tort bar and the trial lawyers who put the fear of God into doctors, malpractice insurance sky-high. Bernard Rosof, chairman of the board of directors of New York’s Huntington Hospital and a board member of the independent National Quality Forum, says, ‘More is not necessarily better. In many cases, less is better.’
‘Democrats, feeling politically singed by this summer’s talk of ‘death panels,’ are struggling to explain how a bill that would take hundreds of billions of dollars out of the system would not affect care. Republicans, sensing a political opening –‘ See how this works? ‘– intend to highlight provisions they say could lead to the denial of medical services, or rationing. … Others, however, see problems of misalignment in the American system, fueled by industry advertising, physician fears about malpractice lawsuits and a culture that craves the latest, greatest everything. The situation here, they argue, is that there is not enough care for some, and too much for others.’
Now, as I say folks, when it comes to carrying the water of Obama, the Washington Post here — (interruption) well, you could Gunga Din. (laughing) You could say it makes Gunga Din look like a slacker. More is not necessarily better. Oh, yeah, the history of the world has surely taught us that less medical care is better. Look at the success of Africa, if you have any doubts. We don’t have much medical care in Africa. I guess Africa is the new model. I guess all of these poor countries where there’s less medical care is the answer. Not enough care for some, too much for others. You know, that sounds strangely like, let me do a reverse there, not enough health care for some and too much for others, from each according to his means, to each according to his needs, sort of like Karl Marx in reverse. She puts tort reform in the story but I don’t think we’ve seen any serious effort here at tort reform. (interruption) Do the Democrats want less health care delivery? This is to set up the case, this is to further the notion that we can go ahead and cut whatever we’re going to cut and still have more health care for more people, for less money. Because right now there’s too much out there, there’s too much medical care out there, and there’s not enough for others.
So once again we’re now going to have to redistribute health care and everything’s fine. This is going to improve the situation. So here you have Ceci Connolly in the Washington Post carrying the water for Obama. It’s no wonder all these people want to get him off TV. They’re doing such yeoman work, they’re working as hard as they can to sell this guy’s dangerously flawed policies and he’s screwing it up by going on television and talking about it all the time, all these town meetings he’s attending and so forth. They’re frankly getting frustrated. They want him to shut up. ‘Look, we can handle this.’ The problem is they can’t anymore. They don’t have a large enough monopoly. They don’t have a monopoly, period. The American people are too informed and too educated. They already know what the plan is, and the numbers for support of health care, as we mentioned yesterday, continue to plummet at an all-time low now. At Rasmussen: Forty-one percent are in favor — and it’s still too high for my comfort level — but 56% do oppose it, and the trend is more and more people opposing health care as more and more people learn about it.