Lots of stuff going on. A president with over 200 days experience that has not pleased the left but certainly really pissed off the right and kind of left the middle saying, "what the hell is going on."
HEALTH CARE IS OTHER PEOPLE
Joint Session of Congress
8:02 Michelle Obama really looks good, she's a beautiful woman
8:03 Here comes Hillary, she's air kissing everyone, that's a damn red pantsuit
8:07 Hillary gets a little time on camera, better start talking about Bill
8:11 Switched over to Fox to watch the right wing scroll on the bottom
8:12 My 2 and a half year old daughter is yelling Obama and waving an American flag, unprompted by the way, she asked for the flag. Maybe the right wing is right, we are creating a nation of toddler Obamabots
8:13 Mitch McConnell apparently left his chin in another suit, the President whispers in Hillary's ear, hopefully saying "damn, sister I hope this goes better than Hillarycare in 1994"
8:15 Pelosi tells the President where to stand, I bet that woman can tell water to boil.
8:17 "E, you have to go to bed soon", "AFTER OBAMA!"
8:20 "He's talking about babies and medicine and doctors?" OK, my toddler has a better understanding of this than half of the general public.
8:21 Drops TR's mantle on the session and then old Johnny Dingell who I believe participated in the charge up San Juan Hill.
8:24 Yeah, dummies it's about the middle class. Now for the love of God talk about small business, talk about sole proprietors and family businesses who don't have access to health care, please. The people that drive this economy.
8:25 The President cannot pronounce "metastasized" so he avoided a Bushism and said grew larger in size. Whew, he brings up entrepreneurs....
8:26 Yes, the fact is this health care system is unsustainable fiscally, even if you are the most selfish bastard this side of Ayn Rand
8:28 My daughter has now changed sides and is calling the President a "pig", maybe she heard about the death panels. Wait she's clapping now. She seems pretty pleased with the lack of a cap
8:30 NO MONEY DOWN! OK, I'm a wonk I need details.
8:34 Gotta get old man McCain on board, he's the magic man, crazy mf'er but the magic man
8:36 Ah, the details need to be ironed out
8:38 Someone yelled out during the illegal immigrant thing, seriously Mr. President, just walk up, knock one of them out and it's smooth coasting for the next 3 and a half years.
8:40 BEAT ON WALL ST, BEAT ON WALL ST. Obama hates plutocrats.
8:44 The look on Eric Cantor's face says "f#ck you Barry and you're work together"
8:46 OK nothing to the deficit, now or in the future, interesting, must be magic
8:48 Medicare, yup untouched, it must be magic
8:53 900 Billion, "now that's a lot of meatballs!"
8:56 The Teddy Kennedy personal touch
9:00 F#ck you and your civility, it got lost somewhere around the corner of Gridlock and Partisanism
Republican Response: Agree on some stuff (the nice stuff everyone likes), too expensive, tort reform
Then Fair and Balanced FoxNews goes right into a right wing political commercial about health care without missing a beat
THE END OF AN ERALove is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely. Ted Kennedy eulogizes RFK
The Republicans loved to hate Ted Kennedy, at least when they were fundraising. The image of the heavy, non-repentant liberal with the tarnished past played great in the red meat districts in the west and south while at the same time using his political abilities to strike bipartisan bargains and get the job done. It was interesting to see the eulogizing for Teddy, Orrin Hatch's story, the unlikely pair who served for decades together in some of the most disagreeable settings putting judges on the bench.
Ted Kennedy was liberal in only the way really rich people could be liberal. He owed nobody anything. He never had to worry about ending up having to lobby for drug companies or chase K Street blackbag jobs. Sometimes I would find some of his largesse with the federal pocketbook to be somewhat over the top, a commitment to a welfare state that would give many of us who grew up working class a time for pause, without thinking of what it actually brought us and that was humanity. I could disagree with some of the proposals, but they actually were rooted deep in the Irish Catholic politics of Boston. The Kennedys were just a generation removed from the city wards and machines that built themselves on largesse and aid to immigrants and the impoverished.
I think about what Teddy brought to me. Student loans? An access to an education that may have not been able to a person of my means. As a kid when we had nothing, AFDC and food stamps? And those are just the selfish tangible things. I had a great sadness, like losing an uncle when Teddy died, we had come to take him for granted, we laughed at his families foibles and showed great disdain at their greater failures. He was a public being. I think of what he brought to the poor, the elderly and the disabled. A promise to protect social security, medicare, and medicaid to those that couldn't speak up for themselves. Teddy was always there for them.
It's a helluva seat to fill, as we speak the machinations in Massachusetts begin. How do you replace a giant? How does a future back bencher fill the hole in the Senate. Likely, Ted Kennedy will be the last real liberal every elected to the Senate. Certainly there will be Democrats with a progressive tilt but never of the intellect and drive for social change that Teddy brought with him.
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