John Batchelor writes on his blog:
Unforced Error Gibbs
Chuck Todd, NBC, was very early in 2008 to spy that Senator Obama’s organization was moving past Mrs. Clinton’s in the early primaries, especially the caucuses, and Todd was right on time with his remark that Mrs. Clinton was slipping to the point that she would accept the VPOTUS job.
In sum, Todd is acutely accurate about the Obama team, and, in this brief exchange with Robert Gibbs at the White House on Monday 9, there is a large clue that all is not well at the White House with regard healthcare and the bill passed by the glamorously self-regarding Nancy Pelosi (right) and the Democratic mininimum (218) plus 1 (Bill Owen of NY 23rd) vote on Saturday 7. (The Joseph Cao Republican vote was tactically and strategically meaningless.)
I cannot tell what the problem is, but the Gibbs frustration is not hidden. The prank to give out Chuck Todd’s email on live news feed is unusually aimless. What Todd wants to confirm is that POTUS believes he is on schedule to sign a healthcare bill into law by year’s end.
Gibbs knows that his response is noise. Gibbs is said to be most critical to the White House message team. When Gibbs asks Todd, “Do you think my answer is ambiguous?” — a fair answer is, “Yes.” Better ambiguity, that is, smoke-blowing, than the zealous grimace of no comment.
Harry Reid and the Scaredy-Cat House
It isn’t just that Harry Reid cannot deliver 60 Senate votes to bring a healthcare bill to the Senate floor that contains a public option and the usual taboos of abortion funding and immigrant health insurance. It is also that of the 219 House Democrats who voted for the Saturday 7 version, there is no reason to believe there is any desire to vote again on such an exposed extravagance that cannot possibly be moved through the Senate.
There is no public option ever in the Senate. And the House liberals, it is declared by 41 of the House liberals, will not permit a bill that lacks a pubic option; nor will the liberals likely again swallow the Bart Stupak amendment that forbids abortion funding.
Behind all this noise and blame-shifting is the fact that polls show a small minority in favor of the healthcare reform and a majority opposed, with the strongly opposed faction in the 40s. Democratic House members who voted yes and who come from Republican or mixed districts are now exposed as never before to the anti-incumbent fever that started last week in the off-year Virginia and New Jersey elections.
How Many?
There are no good political death lists available, because the Republicans shrewdly will not give out their best stuff on the weakest seats and the Democrats are shrewdly trying to misdirect the coverage. Forty-one seats turn the House to John Boehner. The secret lists will continue to change as Mrs. Pelosi must come back to the House to vote again on the healthcare bill if and when it gets out of the Senate.
That is the heart of the Todd and Gibbs snappishness.
By year end? It is two weeks to Thanksgiving, and that begins the daffy holiday distraction on the Hill. Members must go home to their districts starting in two weeks to face the ire of the Tea Party and the just plain folks who see what has happened in Washington during a jobless recovery that may not be a recovery.
Spend spend must be followed by tax tax, unless and until the Congress changes stripes. How many? The wave builds.
Gold went to a solar system high as the dollar sank. There is no investor confidence in the US budget or tax code or regulation protocols. And that jobless number will hang around 10% through year end, just like Gibbs’s crankiness and Chuck Todd’s useful question, When is that bill-signing on healthcare?
Isn’t this lil’ incident telling of Gibb’s nastiness and “unspoken threats”? (If you push me I’ll reveal your email address to the entire nation!”)
And by doing so he also revealed the email addresses of all nbcuni.com employees, since company email addresses typically follow the same “formula”. Good going, Gibbsy!
They’ll pass something to be funded/amended/etc… later. Even though they call it ‘health care’, it’s not really about health care. It’s an arm wrestling contest to demonstrate who has the power and who doesn’t; who’s on the ins and who’s in the outs. Right now it’s Pelosi (3); the American people (0). But it’s still early in the game. I wouldn’t bet on a winner quite yet. For one thing, the ‘swing vote’ still needs to bat.
It’ll never make it out of the Senate. The health care takeover is DOA.
Another first-class job by the Bungler-in-Chief.
The best part is that Obama himself carefully stayed above the fray, refusing to make any substantive contribution to the legislation and making Pelosi and Reid carry the water. I’m sure he figured that would insulate him from blame if it failed.
I can hardly wait to see how that works out for him.
creeper – It’ll work out quite nicely for the Bungler-in-Chief because one of his goals is to neutralize congress by making it look ineffective and ridiculous. The military, by the way, is getting the same treatment. After everything has fallen and is lying in ruins, only Obama will be left standing. (At least that’s what he thinks.)
My sense is that the Administration lit and fanned too many flames and the fire is starting to burn out of control. Healthcare is the face of the administration that overpromises and underdelivers – no group will get what they’ve been promised. Overlay the wildfires with Barry’s lack of leadership, high unemployment, and the manmade disaster at Fort Hood and things are spinning out of control.
Read over at HotAir that Rahm may be looking to run for Barry’s Senate seat next year, hmmm. Is anyone watching what Tim Geitner has been up to? The unsubstantiated bloated bull market is rather remarkable, isn’t it?