has to go in no small part to the Corporate owned/controlled M$M. Have you heard a M$M talking head mention the word 'filibuster' since Obama has been in the WH? I haven't.
The best article I have read on the Republican strategy of stopping (or delaying as long as possible) anything from being accomplished (while campaigning against Dems saying: "They can't make government work!"), is by Peter Beinart, in Time magazine:
Why Washington is Tied in KnotsIn 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80% of major legislation, even more than during the Clinton years. GOP leader Mitch McConnell led a filibuster of a deficit-reduction commission that he himself had demanded. The Obama White House spent months trying to lure the Finance Committee's ranking Republican, Chuck Grassley, into supporting a deal on health care reform and gave his staff a major role in crafting the bill. But GOP officials back home began threatening to run a primary challenger against the Iowa Senator. By late summer, Grassley wasn't just inching away from reform; he was implying that Obamacare would euthanize Grandma. By October, the process had dragged on for the better part of a year, and the public mood had grown bitter. According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the percentage of Americans who said Obama had done a "very good" job of "achieving his goals" was less than half the level of January 2009, and significantly fewer people believed he was successfully "changing business as usual in Washington."
The Republicans have used this rising disgust with government not just to cripple health care reform but also to derail other Obama initiatives. In a memo to clients on how to defeat new regulation of Wall Street, Republican pollster Frank Luntz urged them to attack "lobbyist loopholes" — items that were put into the financial-reform bill, as in the health care bill, largely to attract enough Democratic votes to break the GOP filibuster. Needing 60 votes has made the debate over every bill on Obama's agenda longer and uglier, which is exactly how the Republicans want it to be.
Last month, when the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed Americans' views on health care reform, it found that most people still back the individual components of Obama's effort. But enthusiasm for the bill itself — the contents of which remain hazy in the public mind — has faded, just as in 1993. And according to a new poll by CNN/ORC, public approval of Congress stands at its lowest level since — you guessed it — the Gingrich era. Once again, the Republicans have told Americans that they can't trust government with their health care, and once again, their own actions have helped convince Americans that what they say is true. The circle is complete.
<more>
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1966451,00.html#ixzz1fntkYrff
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