Do I see a pattern here? Just when Obama is trying to attack the health care crisis

[tj2001]

which is a REAL problem facing working families and the unemployed:

Poll: Less faith in Obama's economic abilities
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-20-obama-poll-economy_N.htm

Poll shows President Obama's approval numbers are slipping
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/07/20/2009-07-20_poll_shows_president_obamas_approval_numbers_are_slipping.html

Poll: Public support for Obama on healthcare dips to 49%
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-health-poll21-2009jul21,0,2452461.story

Obama's Shrinking Approval on Health Care
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2009/07/obamas_shrinking_approval_on_h.html?hpid=topnews

Post Politics: Obama Losing Support on Key Issues, Poll Shows
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/07/20/DI2009072000862.html

Obama under fire on healthcare
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/07/obama_under_fir.html

[bluescribbler]

1. I think

I thinkn it may have to do with, "the devil you know". And, of course, the Corporatist propaganda about "socialized medicine".

[Kdillard]

2. No surprise just the " liberal media" at work. They have twisted

polls, allowed Republicans to attack without questioning them at all about their own proposals.
It was the same with Bill Clinton. All they want is his poll numbers to go down and hamstring the President so that he can get nothing done. I am not saying that Obama is perfect and that there should never be a negative article posted about him or his policies but the pattern has been very clear about the media's agenda and it has nothing to do with either educating the American people but firmly serving their corporate masters.

[immoderate]

3. Obama is working hard to maintain the status quo.

Maybe the chess player analogy is in play and his strategy is more subtle than I can see, but it seems that Obama is doing what he can to maintain the stranglehold that the banks, investment firms, insurance companies, and the military and prison industrial complexes have over us. Maybe that's beyond what he promised, but it's not why I voted (and worked) for him.

It's apparent that we won't get what we want until we get into the streets and demand it.

--imm

[uponit7771]

5. I don't think he wants what we already have

[immoderate]

7. That is a statment of faith.

His actions so far are to mitigate some of the effects of policy, without really changing anything. Where has he proposed any radical changes?

--imm

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. And you really think the criticisms in the media are intended to

push him to the LEFT?

Really?

EDIT: because I thing I mistyped think

[immoderate]

17. No. The media are also status quo.

That's why we will ultimately have to hit the streets to obtain any meaningful change.

Sorry if I gave any other impression.

--imm

[Lorax7844]

18. exactly RaleighNCDUer, sabotage pure and simple

as someone who really needs healthcare, shut it and support the president for once.

[johnaries]

32. ???????

What reality are you living in? :shrug:

[uponit7771]

4. YEAP!!! I thought the same damn thing this morning!!

[salguine]

6. You think maybe he's losing support because he keeps putting

Goldamn Sachs and Monsanto executives in charge of everything? Could that be it?

[immoderate]

9. Bingo!

Not a sign that he wants things to change.

--imm

[Drunken Irishman]

25. Oh please. How many people actually know that?

I'm guessing outside of this little community, not much.

And others probably just roll their eyes at the news.

You can do better than that.

[Occam Bandage]

12. Given that his approval ratings among liberals are consistently above 90, no,

I don't think that's really it, except inasmuch as liberals are so goddamn fickle that nobody's willing to fight alongside him on healthcare, because we're too busy bickering over whether potential plan X is pure enough, or whining that the chief adviser to the vice-undersecretary of whatever once spent a few years working in an impure company.

[Thrill]

8. He's out there fighting it my himself. With no Democrats fighting hard with him

So no surprise with these polls

[Occam Bandage]

11. Yeah. The pattern is that nobody has his back in this fight, so his numbers are dropping.

Conservative Democratic leaders are allying with the Republicans. Moderate Democratic leaders are silently watching this play out. Liberal Democratic leaders are attacking Obama for not being liberal enough. He can't fight this one by himself, and he's got zero allies right now. We can blame the conservadems for fighting us, but we also have to blame ourselves for not fighting with him.

[BlooInBloo]

13. Yep.

[Beetwasher]

19. Damn, You're Right, That's Fucking Sad

I hadn't thought of it that way. He's getting attacked from every direction.

[immoderate]

20. What if Obama announced a single payer system...

like he talked about when he was running for office, and then announced a national day of citizen demonstration to push for its implementation. Do you think the people would be apathetic?

I for one am not gong to support a health care plan that supports insurance companies, whose CEOs make hundreds of millions of dollars off the misery of human beings.

--imm

[Occam Bandage]

21. "like he talked about when he was running for office"

When he was running for office he was firmly opposed to a single-payer system. The fact that you have no fucking clue what Obama was even for kind of makes it hard to take your political opinion seriously, since it leads one to believe you simply grab onto whatever you read on blogs.

And yeah, I think people would be apathetic. Right now he's getting hammered from the right on healthcare; polling shows far more people are concerned about cost and government overinvolvement than are concerned about "supporting insurance companies." Shifting his position even further leftwards wouldn't help matters; what he needs is for allies (i.e., us) to move the public back leftwards by backing his plan.

[immoderate]

23. Sorry. Let me amend my statement...

When Obama was a State Senator in Illinois, he said:

"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That's what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we've got to take back the White House, we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House."

White House? Check. Senate? Check. House? Check.

It's this statement I was erroneously referencing when I talked about candidate Obama. Sorry. Subsequently, he has said that "it would be too disruptive" to switch abruptly. (Note: Any change will be disruptive.) So he flipped. Bi-partisanship? Sell out? Who's to know? :shrug: He wasn't "firmly opposed to a single payer system," he was opposed to spending the political capital to get it done. He still knows it's the right way to go.

What he is proposing now is, to my mind, a boondoggle. He is mixing some bad ideas in with the good. (Like he did with the stimulus package.) The CBO says it will be more expensive. It will take years to implement. And then we will have to do it over. I think this is an area where he could push hard, and it's the softness of this plan which is costing him the enthusiastic support of the base.

(Considering your 'tude, your opinion of my opinion is kind of moot.)

--imm

[Mimosa]

30. The Obama I voted for is different from the President?

Immoderate, I agree with you.

Taking to the streets seems a good strategy.

I don't know if I pointed it out before, but in an interview about two weeks after his Inauguration, Obama had a stunned expression as if he had learned something very hard to handle. My friend watching with me also saw it. Could he have been told what he will be 'allowed' to do? Yes I know it sounds crazy. I wasn't at all pleased by many of Obama's business as usual appointments.

[leftstreet]

14. Stop saying 'working families.' I'm a citizen not a social unit

God I hate that term.

Carry on.

[Occam Bandage]

15. What a strange complaint.

"Stop saying 'young voters.' I'm a citizen not a demographic."

[leftstreet]

16. These are strange times

:shrug:

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. This is what you do with political capital. n/t

[Puzzler]

24. Think about it...

... in reality how can actual public support for health care really change that much in such a short time? Nothing has changed... yet.

[Phx_Dem]

26. No different that what we've seen on DU every day since the election.

Can't blame the media when progressives have been bitching about Obama nonstop since he was elected. Shit, they started bitching before he was even inaugurated, in anticipation what he would or wouldn't do and who he would or wouldn't choose for his cabinet.

The progressives should be happy that the media is parroting their "concerns."

[Uncle Joe]

28. There is a major difference, when progressives criticize President Obama it's because they want him

to succeed, when the corporate media does it, they're itching for his administration to fail; so the Republicans can return to power.

The corporate media's; moist dreams are made of Republican Administrations, with moderate to conservative Democratic Administrations being a temporary inconvenience to them.

The corporate media; is trying to pull this or any administration away from actually representing the best interests of the American People and toward the corporate supremacists because corporations are their clients aka; who's your daddy? To the corporate media; the American People are only customers or consumers; to be sold a product or down the river.

[Uncle Joe]

27. That's the traditional corporate media modus operandi.

Their tactic is to personalize the issue, instead of actually debating the pros and cons of the issue itself, informing and enlightening the American People with any decent degree of integrity, the corporate media does their best to misinform, distort, and report half truths.

Sort of like a memory stack, the corporate media personalizes the issue because if they can bring President Obama's approval rating down, they figure it will be easier to erode support for serious health care reform, and thus the corporate media will have faithfully served their corporate clients at the expense of the American People.

They've used the same tactic in regards to informing the nation about the looming catastrophe of global warming climate change, personalizing it to Al Gore instead of reporting on the overwhelming peer reviewed science supporting that reality.

In short it's easier for them to ignore or circumvent the message; no matter how vital by trashing the messenger; and this can be done by a thousand cuts.

[Arkana]

29. WaPo and the NY Daily News have never been big fans of Obama's anyway.

[southernyankeebelle]

31. Don't believe polls - they spin them the way they want.