on PBS NewsHour, Ms Ifill and Walters agree that the President is just posturing

It was an interesting bit of commentary and perhaps faux sophistication, on PBS's Newshour, Monday when Gwen Ifill resident skeptic of all things Democratic and Amy Walter, frequent "deviner of the truth" from 'safe source' NationalJournal agreed that President Obama's latest effort (in a long series of appeals) to gain a bit of active participation from the Party of "NO!" was really just political posturing on the part of the President.

Ms. IFill and Walters were discussing the President's latest offer to the Republicans to have a meeting where Republicans could offer up any ideas (hopefully constructive) they might have on Health Care Reform.





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Ifill asks: "are they really about fixing the problem, or are they about leaving the impression that they are at least talking to one another?"

and Walters, accomodatively asserts: "I think it is the latter. I think political posturing, as you put in your piece, is probably the better way to look at this.."

and continuing, Walters says: " Democrats hoping that voters are going to look at the ballot in 2010 and see not a Democratic Party that failed to deliver, but Republicans who stood in their way.

That is a very tough argument to make when you control everything in Washington, and by big margins."
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...REALLY, is that the take-away people should remember, Ms Walters. Well, perhaps that's what people will think when they are not fully informed of all facts.

Maybe Ms. Walters should go to Talking Points Memo (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/the-rise-of-cloture-how-gop-filibuster-threats-have-changed-the-senate.php">The Rise Of Cloture: How GOP Filibuster Threats Have Changed The Senate) and get informed herself about how the Republicans are using the threat of filibuster to grind progress in the Senate to a halt.



"While Republicans spent the last several months threatening to filibuster the Democrats' health care reform bill in the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrambled to secure 60 votes" ..he needed to get the bill passed.

But what ever happened to the rule of simple majority is required to pass a bill?

Here is another article on the rise of the use of the filibuster, Ms. Walters might find interesting:

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/the_filibuster_and_family_full.php">The filibuster: let's talk about it - James Fallows, The Atlantic


So the fact is that because of Republican's nearly constant use of the threat of filibuster, they have made it necessary to have super majority to pass a bill in the Senate.

Also, if Ms. Walters has forgotten, I must remind her of certain statements of Republicans, such as "We will be the party of 'NO'"..John Boehner, and "We'll make Health Care Reform Obama's Waterloo"... Demint. I would take these statements as pretty good indicators at how interested in bipartisanship the Republicans are.

So it is not Democratic campaign rhetoric to say that the Republicans have made it very difficult to get anything done in Congress.

But I wouldn't want to spoil Ms. Ifill's and Walters' efforts at disinformation in the interest of a little reality based tv journalism.


Here is a very good statement on how Republicans are using the threat of filibuster to keep anything from being accomplished in the Senate:

The Senate has had to cast more votes to break filibusters last year than in the entire 1950s and '60s combined. This has prevented an honest debate from taking place, which has made it impossible to find agreement on important legislation that would benefit working families in this country.

Sad to see this on PBS Newshour...

'HealthCare' -- this has always been insurance reform
and people Know which side dems should
fall out on.

Now Obama and the congress critters want to call
'foul' on a crew the public knew were crew but
don't want to reward dems either.

and they do it oh-so-well.

Amazing. When I was younger, I was so naive as to human nature (and more specifically the National Mind of our Empire) I thought that in order to achieve such Gleichschaltung (Google it) it would require Soviet-or-Nazi-style intimidations of journalists and their families.

It seems funny in retrospect, considering that our media is many times more deceptive, subtle and potent compared to ANYTHING the Soviets or Nazis did with their ham-fisted efforts.

I mean what else to politicians and TV talking heads do?