President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress on health care reform in prime time on Wednesday, Sept. 9, a senior official tells POLITICO.
Obama will receive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the White House the day before for a previously scheduled sit-down.
To put this into perspective the last time a president addressed a joint session of Congress outside of a State of the Union was on September 20th, 2001. So, essentially, the president is saying this is as important as the attacks of 9/11. It had better be. If not, the public will really turn on him. This appears to be a move full of hubris and narcissism and so he had better come up with something outstanding. He's already held as many prime time press conferences in seven months as Bush did in two terms. Now, he's addressing the joint session of Congress, normally meant for extraordinary situations, to pitch health care reform. This smells of political desperation and narcissism. He'd better prove me wrong because if not, his presidency will be hit for a very long time.
The ratings show that the people are getting tired of seeing the president. His last press conference got worse ratings than the Philanthropist. That's not a good sign. So, if this speech doesn't say something markedly different than we have heard, the president is through for a long time.
The folks are getting tired and resentful of the president constantly demanding prime time air time. So far, he's said nothing of interest. If he says the same old same old, the public will have had enough. His ratings are cratering. Polling for the health care bill is cratering.
As such, we had all better hear something earth shattering next Wednesday. The folks had better hear exactly how this bill will save money, provide better coverage, and why we must do it now. If we don't, cable access will get better ratings than his next prime time outing.
I understand the president will try and link health care reform to Ted Kennedy's death. For his sake, let's hope not. If that's the tact he takes, he might be the first president to have 20% approval ratings in the first year.
I don't know what the president will do. If I gave him advice, I would tact to the middle. I would drop the public option. I would have a bill that focused on tort reform, health savings accounts, and moving people away from employer funded health insurance. Personally, I don't think he'll convince the public that his plan will save money and provide better service unless he does these things.
If he simply re frames the same arguments, his entire agenda is through. Republicans will control both houses of Congress after the next election, and he'll be forced to tack to the middle. The president is way low on chips and he's gone all in. For his sake, this speech had better be the speech of his life. If not, his presidency is effectively over until after November 2010.
4 comments:
At this point I hope he is the first to go Sub 30 in the first year.
His ideas are FAR more insidious than we as a nation are willing to bear. Already he has played his hand by loading up with czars, as unaccountable "policy writers" who have radical histories and agendas of their own.
He really never lied about change.. Can the country handle it for more than this first year though? ..I wonder.
"I don't know what the president will do. If I gave him advice, I would tact to the middle."
You suggest the President tact to the middle, and then you proceed to suggest he let the Republicans write the bill.
A far right conservative like yourself, one prone to support extremist groups like the tea parties, has no business laying claim to the center. Especially when George W. Bush is probably your idea of centrist.
And lastly, your offensive attempt at "perspective" on the President's addressing a joint session of Congress is laughable. Bush never addressed Congress in joint session after 9/11 because he never really had much to address. What was he going to do? Thank them for giving him everything he wanted without regard to "bipartisanship?" Apologize for sitting idly by while an American city was wiped off the face of the Earth?
most of those ideas are from the Bennet/Wyden bill which is one dem and one rep, so I am not sure what you mean.
Mike, I think you are confusing 'tact' with 'tack'; is it tactless of me to suggest you take another tack next time?
On the meat of your argument, I am inclined to agree: if President Obama tacks towards the middle and endorses a centrist bill (oh, say, HR 3400), then he has an opportunity to revive his presidency, albeit at the loss of the left wing; however, he seems real thin-skinned, and I don't think he has the stomach to face the same foul abuse he encouraged to be heaped upon his predecessor.
And, to address the previous Anonymous poster, President Obama will be the Boy Who Called Wolf -
he is attempting to perpetuate an air of crisis to ram thru an unpopular agenda with little or no review. He did it on stimulus, he did it on the budget, he tried it with health care, and he wants to do it with cap and trade and amnesty. Fool me once, shame on you...I don't believe a majority of the people believe 1/6 of the economy needs to be handed over to the government with no questions asked, in the same way I believe a majority of people dismiss the UN's outrageous assertion that we suspend our rights and destroy our national sovereignity in four months or doom the earth. Just sayin'
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