Drew Westen: Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator, by Drew Westen, Psychologist and neuroscientist; Emory University Professor, Posted: December 20, 2009 09:34 PM
Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn’t hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president’s leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress’s penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.
Somehow self-appointed political experts like yourself and Krugman, two men who’s profession is NOT political science, has managed to turn the public against the president with your constant bashing from the left. It is hard for the young folks to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who is elected because you keep pointing that out to them no matter if it is true or not! Just consider where health care reform would be if John McCain were President, and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were Senate Majority Leader. I’ll tell you where it would be. It would NOT be. There would be no reform at all. But are you egg headed-but-secretly-brain-dead experts thankful one iota for that? Hell no!
Do you think that Weston or Krugman could find one good thing to tell Generation X about the Democrats they helped elect in Congress? Do you think that Weston could tell the independents that President Obama has had many accomplishments in the short time he has been in office?
The angry sentiment that the people on the left feel is not reported on by you and the media, it is caused by you guys and the media trying to make a name for yourself as op-ed fashionistas. If your editorials would at least give a shred of benefit of the doubt toward a president who saw what happened in 1994 with Clinton pushing Congress at every turn to pass HIS version of health care reform and then decided by that lesson that he would use a hands-off approach in order to reach a compromise, then maybe those youngsters would appreciate what is happening now with the passing of this landmark legislation. Clinton fucked it up by making wonky nuanced demands that the bill be this way or that and the damned thing never made it our of committee. It died because of the lack of flexibility, and ingredient that Obama provided this time.
Why can’t you say that? I just did. You guys make me sick!
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Don’t Celebrate Yet, We Haven’t Seen The Final Version
Re: Senate Passes Health Care Bill, 60-39, Huffington Post, Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney, 12-24-09 07:05 AM | Updated: 12-24-09 11:50 AM
I’m not going to get all weepy until the news is out about what’s in the conference report. So I say cool your jets and sit back and wait a couple of weeks. This thing could stir up more dark clouds. Yogi Berra said that it ain’t over until it’s over.
I think that one thing is for sure. It will take all 60 Dems in the Senate to get the conference report passed, so the conference bill will be very close to the Senate bill, closer than to the House bill. That means no public option and no Medicare buy-in.
President Obama has stated that he will have a more “hands-on” role in crafting the report. Let’s all hope for the best.
Merry Yuletide!
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