The bipartisan elephant in the room

[bc3000]

One thing that disappointed me in the President's address to Congress last night was his continued pledge to work with republicans on health care. Republicans have been making their intentions clear for months now: they will not vote in favor of health care reform. This simple fact seems to get ignored over and over again by the mainstream media. Republicans will not vote for health care reform regardless of the content of the bill. President Obama could hand the whole thing over to the republicans and let them write the entire bill with absolutely no democratic input at all and they would still vote against it. The republicans see health care reform as one thing: a chance to defeat Obama and the democrats and better position their party for upcoming elections.

And if health care reform does get passed over their objections, the republicans want the bill to be as ineffective as possible so they can complain about it for the next five to ten years before they change course and start accusing democrats of trying to take it away from us.

Why are we still pretending that there is any chance of common ground or compromise?

[DJ13]

1. The diehards wont reply, they'll just neg rec and move on

But you have a good question, one I cant answer.

[Mass]

2. delete.

[DJ13]

3. Of course, but they're actually Blue Dogs dressed in red

[Mass]

4. It disappointed me as well, I can only hope it was just rethoric.

Moderate like Collins and Snowe weakened the recovery bill and would do the same thing here.

[kenny blankenship]

5. The body language could not have been clearer.

This total non-cooperative attitude could have been predicted even before Obama's Inauguration: health care reform contradicts the Republican dismal, punitive view of human nature and society. If they go along with it it takes the force out of all their other positions.

They have never been seen more unhappy than they were last night. Which by itself made the weeks of contentious reform debate worth it as the price of admission to last night's show.