Why must he play with my emotions so? The same day he supports offshore drilling, I also see this shirt. Mr. Presidente, do you suck or are you awesome? I can't decide.
I know! I got hopeful that we were back on the right track with the student loan reform, but then heard about opening up offshore drilling and returned to my state of disappointment.
The thing I don't understand about the offshore drilling is the strategy in announcing it now. I feel like with the health care debate we watched the Dems make a bunch of concessions before they came to the bargaining table, assuming that Repubs might be more supportive of a more moderate, watered-down bill. Instead, it was just a jumping-off point for negotiations, and Repubs were able to act like they never got any concessions whatsoever, because the public has an attention span of two seconds, and were able to chip away at any remaining truly progressive stuff in the health care bill. The lesson there seemed to be that you should NOT come to the table in good faith, but hold your cards until negotiations are under way, and start with a bill that is way better than you think you could really get and negotiate down from there.
I'm not happy with the offshore drilling AT ALL, but I understand that maybe this kind of getting your hands dirty is what it takes to pass a comprehensive energy bill (doesn't mean we shouldn't all cry bloody murder about it, because that's our job as liberal constituents, but I'm not surprised when I see federal politicians make devil's deals like that in order to get something, anything done). I just don't know why they're giving in so soon! Shouldn't they wait until the Repubs start howling and THEN grudgingly give in on something like offshore drilling?
I don't get it! But there's probably some kind of deep strategic magic going on here that is over my head.
4 comments:
I know! I got hopeful that we were back on the right track with the student loan reform, but then heard about opening up offshore drilling and returned to my state of disappointment.
The thing I don't understand about the offshore drilling is the strategy in announcing it now. I feel like with the health care debate we watched the Dems make a bunch of concessions before they came to the bargaining table, assuming that Repubs might be more supportive of a more moderate, watered-down bill. Instead, it was just a jumping-off point for negotiations, and Repubs were able to act like they never got any concessions whatsoever, because the public has an attention span of two seconds, and were able to chip away at any remaining truly progressive stuff in the health care bill. The lesson there seemed to be that you should NOT come to the table in good faith, but hold your cards until negotiations are under way, and start with a bill that is way better than you think you could really get and negotiate down from there.
I'm not happy with the offshore drilling AT ALL, but I understand that maybe this kind of getting your hands dirty is what it takes to pass a comprehensive energy bill (doesn't mean we shouldn't all cry bloody murder about it, because that's our job as liberal constituents, but I'm not surprised when I see federal politicians make devil's deals like that in order to get something, anything done). I just don't know why they're giving in so soon! Shouldn't they wait until the Repubs start howling and THEN grudgingly give in on something like offshore drilling?
I don't get it! But there's probably some kind of deep strategic magic going on here that is over my head.
They are who we thought they were!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04rich.html?src=me&ref=general
I don't even want to think about what it means if Obama is a Rorschach test. I think I must be either very confused, or very crazy.
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