Here's his reasoning:
Obama won the presidency partly because he was the anti-Bush (or anti-Cheney). An impressive person on his own, Obama especially looked good compared to the fellows on the way out.Interesting take. In that case, Bring it on, old man XVP.
Now that Obama is a president rather than a candidate, he has lost the advantage of comparison. A commander in chief stands on his own before the public for judgment. His policies are evaluated by voters on absolute terms: Are they working? People no longer ask: Are they better than the other guy's? . . . And even his best efforts and decisions might not lead to good outcomes on these fronts. There actually may not be solutions to implement. Obama could well end up in deep political trouble because of such challenges.
But by interjecting himself into the discourse, Cheney sends up a flare: Hey, don't forget about me and Bush! And that reminder is great for the White House. If the issue is, can Obama succeed in Afghanistan, there's reason for Obama and his aides to worry. If the debate is Obama versus the Old Gang, the president is the big winner.
Ralph
David corn can be obnoxious and self serving. He can also be right [eg Hubris]. Let's hope this is the latter...
ReplyDeleteBring it on? Getting a little feisty there Ralph?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your premise, but I wasn't heartened by one congressman's response that we already had 28,000 more troops in Afghanistan than Bush ahd there - that scares me. I heard other stats the other day that compared it to Vietnam - where we had hundreds of thousands more troops in a country with half the population and size of Afghanistan and we all know what happened in Vietnam. Victory in Afghanistan is not an achievable goal - neither is the desire for a bipartisan healthcare option. Obama needs to clean off his glasses and take a good look at situations. He's creating his own quagmires. I used to think he was in danger of becoming the Black Jimmy Carter. Now I'm wondering if he's going to end up being the Black George Bush. I feel like he went terribly wrong quickly and am not confident he can right the Ship of Hope and find the course he claimed he was going to set.
richard krawiec
cheney will always have an audience, and they will amplify his rants. Some of them believe him; some of them are in the news business and need another good story to fill the 24/7 vacuum; and some of them are in Congress and will repeat any lie to get some attention and votes.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to keep my eye on the polls: "Who do you trust to make the right decisions?"
Republicans in Congress 19%
President Obama 49%
Richard -- I too would have preferred that Obama rode in like gang busters and rammed through all the progressive agendas we believe in and think are essential.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think maybe he could have done more than he has -- forget bipartisanship on health care, for example; insist on some real reform of the financial industry; not just half-way measures.
But we have to realize that most of this he cannot do by executive order; he has to get legislation passed in Congress.
As to Afghanistan, I'm waiting to see what he does. It's a tough call; there's the right thing to do -- and how do you know what that is? And then there's the fact that whatever he does, he's going to suffer politically for it; the Republicans will play either staying or getting out as the wrong thing to do.
Anna Quinlan put it this way in Newsweek:
ReplyDelete"It has less to do with him than with the Founding Fathers. This is a country that often does have transformational ambitions but is saddled with an incremental system, a nation built on revolution, then engineered so that the revolutionary can rarely take hold. . . . But what our system has meant during the poisonous partisan civil war that has paralyzed Washington in recent years is that very little of the big stuff gets done. It simply can't."
Now we get the news that Obama is not doing anything to push the public option, but letting Harry Reid take the lead. WHY???
ReplyDeleteSo, now I'm feeling more like Richard does: this is a mistake.
If all it would take is a little push from Obama, why not do it?
And I'm sure you saw the disheartening story in this morning's Huffington Post that Obama is working against the Public Option and wants the plan the insurance companies want, the one with the trigger(which will never be triggered)?
ReplyDeleteI did want to bring something to your attetion and since this is the latest post, here it is.
On Nov. 1 NC will begin their own Death Panels. They have contracted out to a private company to decide if Medicaid patients can receive basic tests - MRI, ultrasound CT Scan - ordered by their physicians.
And the company is paid for their work(intiial $230 million contract) by keeping the costs under the fees they receive in their contract. Which means, they have a clear incentive to deny tests to those too poor and sick to fight for their rights.
You can find the story by doing a search of the Raleigh News and Observer, State to Require OK for Tests. Or search 'medicaid'.
richard krawiec
This is a true medical ethics problem that needs serious consideration; but the heat of a partisan political fight does not lend itself to such mature problem solving.
ReplyDeleteThe problem: how to allocate scarce resources. Things like MRI and CTScans are expensive and over-used. There needs to be some judgment used in ordering them. Ideally it should not be a blanket limit but an individualized decision. It should start with a different system of paying doctors for their face-to-face service to patients, not for the tests they order.
When fees for Medicare and Medicaid are set so low that they barely, if at all, cover actual office overhead, then doctors are naturally going to order more test that do bring in revenue.
No, we should not deny necessary tests; but we should not overuse them just to generate income either. Unfortunately, any attempt to regulate the latter is going to be portrayed as the former.
An example of the above: Sure, someone with a persistent headache, blurred vision, and weakness on one side needs an MRI to rule out a brain tumor. But MRIs are now being ordered almost as routinely as chest x-ways to diagnose simple things like sinusitis.
ReplyDeleteMy grandson recently had a shoulder problem that his parents were afraid might be a torn rotator cuff; but the orthopedist was able to say just from examining him that it most likely was not and prescribed physical therapy.
Another doctor might just as likely have ordered an MRI to "prove" that it wasn't worn. This second doctor would have made more money for the visit, and the difference in the bill to my kids would have been at least $600 more.
If it cost nothing and has no side effects, OK. But doing something that's both unnecessary and costs $600? That's ridiculous. That's the kind of cost saving that is reasonable to find a way to promote.
Also, and here's where the "pulling the plug on grandma" rhetoric comes in: at what point do you decide not to pursue expensive tests and treatments that do not prolong the quality of life and perhaps prolong the fact of life only for a short time?
I personally do not want the modest estate that I hope to pass along to my children being used up on heroic measures to keep me alive on a ventilator for months after I have stroked out and am in a coma.
We're ok with individuals making those decisions for themselves or for their families. But if the government or insurance companies try to put similar limits, we get all paranoid and feel our lives are at risk to Big Brother's whims.
I also abhor the thought of "denial of care" to the elderly, but there are also some very practical and ethical questions that need to be addressed. Dismissing any attempts to do so by calling them Death Panels is not helpful.