Saving the Obama Presidency

[dgriffin]

Wall Street Journal


Saving the Obama Presidency

Obama Needs to move to the right

(It worked for Clinton. Good article.)


"Back in 1994, Mr. Clinton faced pretty much the same problem. Though he too had won the White House promising to be a new kind of Democrat, his first two years had a distinctly liberal tenor: battling over gays in the military, promoting a new energy tax, turning a promised middle-class tax cut into a huge tax hike, and trying to push through universal health care. Though he continues to deny GOP contributions to his success, after his 1994 health-care defeat, Mr. Clinton did what all smart pols do: He appropriated the most appealing parts of his opponents' agenda."


ARTICLE AT:

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574370832806338544.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[clarencebunsen]

Maybe I was living in a different country.

My recollection is that Mr Clinton fought Mr. Gingrich's proposals as hard as he could, shutting down the federal government twice over budget cuts, vetoing welfare reform and only co-opted these after they proved successful.

[dgriffin]

Does Oneida County qualify as a different country?

I do seem to remember Clinton in his bid for a second term adopting much of the Republican platform, with finesse of course.

Wasn't it the Republicans who shut down the government? Or is the ghost of my father's Democratic party showing.

[snickers]

Save Obama's Presidency? No thanks. And you can keep the 'change', too.

[clarencebunsen]

Life was a lot easier when I could remember instead of looking stuff up. (At least I no longer have to walk to the library for reference material.)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_government_shutdown_of_1995

"When the previous fiscal year ended September 30, the president and the primarily Republican-controlled Congress hadn't passed a budget. Congress wanted additional cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, environmental controls, and the EITC, which Clinton thought were unnecessary to balance the budget. The difference in opinion resulted from differing estimates of economic growth, medical inflation, and anticipated revenues.[1]

To keep the government running in times of deficit, it is necessary to increase the limit of debt that the Treasury Department is authorized to accrue. In response to Clinton's unwillingness to make the budget cuts that the Republicans wanted, Newt Gingrich threatened to refuse to raise the debt limit, putting the country in default, which would presumably have had political consequences for Clinton. Since Gingrich expected Clinton to fold, the result was a game of Chicken between the two. Economically, the result would be a shaking investor confidence and higher interest rates, which would increase the cost of borrowing money."

"On November 13, major players on both sides, including Vice President Al Gore, Dick Armey, and Bob Dole, met once more to try resolving the budget. In response to a discussion on Medicare, Clinton writes:

“ Armey replied gruffly that if I didn't give in to them, they would shut the government down and my presidency would be over. I shot back, saying I would never allow their budget to become law, "even if I drop to 5 percent in the polls. If you want your budget, you'll have to get someone else to sit in this chair!" Not surprisingly, we didn't make a deal. ”

It would be possible for 2 reasonable people to disagree on who did the shutting down.

[dgriffin]

Well, either way, I remember being on Clinton's side, even though Gingrich is one of my patron saints. My perception was that the Republicans were being overly heavy handed, risking chaos and unmet payrolls.

[clarencebunsen]

I suppose we could wait for a reborn Gingrich who "feels our pain." It might require a life extension plan on our part.

[dgriffin]

Newt! Newt! Newt!

[kit]

newt  /nut, nyut/ Pronunciation [noot, nyoot] –noun

1. any of several brilliantly colored salamanders of the family Salamandridae, esp. those of the genera Triturus and Notophthalmus, of North America, Europe, and northern Asia.

2. any of various other small salamanders.

(Geico's gecko is a newt. I think his name is 'Newt')

[dgriffin]

I didn't know the gecko's name was Newt. He IS rather conservative.

[Ralph]

Save the Obama Persidency?

How? By replacing him with a cardboard cutout of Barry Goldwater?

[clarencebunsen]

Ralph you need to bring your thinking into the 21st century. Obviously the replacement would be a holographic projection of a computer graphic animation with the speach writing from the latest artificial intelligence attempt from IBM. The tricky part is a realistic real time projection of the crowd at televised town hall meetings.

The biological implementation of this construct is still years in the future.

[dgriffin]

Why bother with biological implementations? Then you need bathrooms, which are expensive. Biology falls in love with each other. It's messy. All it does is produce more voters.

[Ralph]

Clarence - You may have a point there, however, they don't call it "artificial intelligence" for nothing. But then the real thing is leaving us all wanting as of late.

Dave - Get a grip man!!!! More voters!?!?!? What you think got us in this mess to begin with???

[concerned]

Obama's Presidency can't be saved---Kennedy just died..................