NYC Letter: Reverse-O-Bama, Part IV

Day 193 of CHOPE

As Mr. Obama emerges from his cocoon of hype, even his adulators must be disappointed at what a conventional politician he is. Mr. Obama hasn't ushered in a promised new era of principled governance. From the get-go he has employed the conventional politics of promises, excuses, and blame. He has botched nominations (and this and this and this). He has minced inviolable promises. He has set his performance bar ridiculously low. He has overpromised and undelivered.

The only thing unconventional about Mr. Obama is the speed with which he stumbles along.

SPEED
Take Debate Out Of The Equation.

Then:

When you rush these budgets, that are a foot high and nobody has any idea what’s in them and nobody has read them –

Interviewer: Fourteen pounds, it was.

Yeah, it gets rushed through without any clear deliberations or debate, then these kinds of things happen. And I think that this is in some ways what happened to the Patriot Act. I mean, you remember there was no real debate about that. It was so quick after 9/11 that it was introduced that people felt very intimidated by the administration.

Mr. Obama,
advocating for deliberative thoughtful legislating
November 22, 2004 (Hot Air/Naked Emperor News)

Now:

This progress should make us hopeful, but it can't make us complacent. It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess.

Mr. Obama,
pushing for passage of a complicated, poorly conceived,
badly written health care entitlement before
the Congressional August recess
July 16, 2009 (The Hill)

(A) Well, here's what I've said. We cannot delay any longer. If people keep on saying "what's the rush? We've been debating this for fifty years. ... And I think the time for talk is through. It's time for us to go and act.

(B) Q: Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?

You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.

Mr. Obama,
(A) ending debate on 1,000+ page health care legislation
(B) clueless on a major provision of the bill
he wants rushed through Congress
July 20, 2009 (C&L/THF)

A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made … and the president says, "You’re going to destroy my presidency."

Charles Grassley (R-IA),
invoking disaster if the House doesn't pass
its ruinous deficit bloating health care bill
by the August recess
July 22, 2009 (nationaljournal.com)

It's more important to pass entitlement legislation -- regardless of its economic soundness or the benefit to the commonweal -- than to debate its merit or read its provisions in their entirety or even to be clued on the highlights. [Pause.] Had Mr. Obama read the 1,079-page $787B "stimulus" bill before signing it into law, he (and Mr. Biden) might today have a clear idea about just what it was meant to accomplish.

CHOPE.

Pass it. Spend it. Sort it out later.