At least some people actually get it

[impik]

That spirit of small but important steps followed by the need for more work to achieve even bigger results is the heart of Obama’s vision of politics: slow, steady work laced with compromises as the process works its way through. Any victory, even if it is less than originally hoped for, is important because any defeat grinds the process to a halt...
...
As he was preparing to leave Copenhagen on Friday, an obviously weary Obama spoke with reporters and gave one of his best summations of his vision and of the optimism on which his politics is based.
“And one of the things that I’ve felt very strongly about during the course of this year is that hard stuff requires not paralysis, but it requires going ahead and making the best of the situation that you’re in at this point, and then continually trying to improve and make progress from there,” he said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2009/12/obamas-politics-of-hope-inform-healthcare-climate-change.html

[lapfog_1]

1. Yup, that long bumpy road of progress

but all those bumps were really just your supporters as you threw them under the bus,

[CreekDog]

5. is that better than throwing everyone under the bus?

you guys present it as if we have one choice here, to be perfect or to pass this bill.

which is laughable because we have this bill or we have the current horrible situation with health care that won't change one tiny bit (except for the worse) without needed reforms, many of which are included in this bill.

my liberal voice will work against any senator who says no to incremental progress on this issue now.

[ima_sinnic]

11. it would have helped if he'd been advocating loudly for some specifics

He threw out the nebulous idea of "reform," "promised" that "everybody would have a seat at the table," then threw it at Max Baucus and didn't say shit when people were arrested in Congress for trying to speak out for single-payer.

He was NOT leading this summer, when the teabaggers took over and distorted everything to hell, which just confused the average voter. Obama did not give the people anything definite to work for, and the weak crappy initial offerings of bills just got watered down to nothing except an assurance that all Americans are now forced to contribute to the insurance co CEO's welfare fund.

[lunatica]

2. I truly hope you're right

But there's that word 'hope' again. It's getting a little worn out.

[mrcheerful]

3. After watching * rubber stamp congress ram every * whim through both houses

and being made into BS law's, I think a lot of folks expected the Dem's to do the same thing. They forget 2 things, we are not rethuglicans that ignore every law written nor do we do the lock step thing well. Sure we hold a small majority in both house's but we are fighting on 3 fronts, the repukes, the wing nuts and the media whores who pander to the right at the bidding of their corporate masters. Sure the polls say that more want HCR, but reality is polls are fickle at best and only reflect what answers the pollsters want to reflected.

[Teaser]

9. besides tax cuts, Bush passed almost no significant legislation

certainly none as significant as this.

[eridani]

4. All of the small but important steps have been to fuck us over completely

No single payer. Then from there a small step to a comprehensive public option, then another small step to a highly restricted public option, then another small step to getting rid of it and replacing it with a restricted Medicare buy-in, then another small step to getting rid of that, then another small step to tax union health care benefits, and another small step to fuck over reproductive rights. God save us from any more of them.

[truedelphi]

8. But that pony has gotta be down here somewhere!?!

We gotta keep shoveling the shit because he really did promise us something or other and once we are at the bottom of the shit, we will find it!

[ima_sinnic]

12. +++1 spot-on summary of the grand screwing-over (nt)

[alsame]

14. I agree. I realize that progress in this country is slow and I didn't expect

to have a universal single payer system with the passage of one bill.

However, I think this bill is moving us in precisely the wrong direction. Instead of small steps away from employer based private insurance, we're being mandated into the hands of the for-profit insurance companies.

[shadesofgray]

19. +1

[MercutioATC]

6. "Small but important steps".....how audacious!

Hey, I'm a skeptic and even I was taken in.

This administration's great audacious gift to us is the understanding that politics are politics. Period.


Buckle up, folks.

[tblue]

7. Sounds like he's trying to calm down the base by lowering expectations.

Mission accomplished. I no longer expect much of our Dem Administration and Congress. Not anymore.

[quaker bill]

10. The question then becomes

why expectations grew to such measure in the first place. Surely, you understood that the majority was gained by electing blue dogs, and that government is run, curiously enough, by politicians.

[Kind of Blue]

15. Well said, Quaker Bill.

And a reasonable question I wish I could fully answer. Looking back, I think it is because we believed the 60 Senate Dems meant a super majority. But what I kept hearing from the administration even before election day, was the lowering of expectations. But I guess the ego must be satisfied and hence indulgence in unrealistic expectations, IMO.

[rug]

13. Why does he do this for health care but not for corporate bailouts?

[Kind of Blue]

16. KnR, Impik. Thanks for posting.

Still good to read of "an obviously weary" Obama unflappable coolness in the maelstrom.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. There comes the fork in the road...

one path will take you toward your goal, one deceptively circles back in the wrong direction. You take the right fork and make slow tedious progress down that road. If you chose the wrong fork the net result of any progress down that road will take you further from your goal, no matter how persistent your efforts may be.

[skepticscott]

18. And how is it incremental progress

To capitulate to Big Pharma by completely and forever giving away the taxpayer's right to bargain for lower drug prices? I won't even dignify this by calling it a "deal", since we, the American people, who Obama is supposed to be working for, got nothing out of it. Not to mention that this was done in secret, not out in the open, as Obama guaranteed things would be done on his watch.