A column by Ruben Navarrette at Pajamas Media called my attention to the interview President Obama did with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News right after Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts. Two comments in the interview were particularly interesting. First, this one:
"Obama: Well, look, I'm not going to get into the legislative strategy [of how to proceed on health care reform from here]. First of all, my job is to as president, is to send a message in terms of where we need to go. It's not to navigate how Congress"
Stephanopoulos: It’s to set direction.
Obama: It’s to set direction …"
So President Obama doesn’t think it is his job to help guide bills through Congress? It’s just to set broad goals and then let Congress do it?
Well, that interpretation actually fits fairly well with this excerpt from later in the interview:
"Stephanopoulos: We're just about out of time, I just want to wrap up a couple things. You're not advocating that the House pick up the Senate [health care reform] bill.
Obama: I think it is very important for the House to make its determinations. I think, right now, they're feeling obviously unsettled and there were a bunch of provisions in the Senate bill that they didn't like, and so I can't force them to do that. Now I will tell you, and I've said this before, that the House and the Senate bill overlap about 90 percent.
Stephanopoulos: Right.
Obama: And so, it does seem to me that there should be a way of, after all this work and all this pain, there should be a way of taking what's best in both bills and going ahead and getting that done."
Once again, the President is refusing to tell the House how they should get the health care reform bills passed. "I’m not going to get into the legislative strategy." "It’s not [my job] to navigate." "It is very important for the House to make its determinations."
And it continued in his State of the Union address last night. As The Washington Post said this morning: "He [President Obama] did not back away from his health-care drive, but neither did he offer a precise route to adopting legislation." Clive Crook at The Atlantic said much the same thing: "We have to get this [i.e., health care reform] done, he said, but he did not say what or how. Even now, his position seems to be: ‘Just give me something to sign.’"
Amazing.
I wonder how many people realized, when they voted for Barack Obama in 2008, that what they really voting for was Barack Obama to give the speeches and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and all of the Democratic committee chairs in Congress to write the laws and spend the money. It is certainly what happened with the stimulus bill. And what has happened with the health care bills, too. The real detail of the bills has not come from the President. It has come from people like Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic committee chairs, and the Harry Reid legislation and sausage factory. People voted for Barack Obama – and they got Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Talk about a bait and switch. No wonder they are unhappy.
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