Gergen on Larry King. He also believes too much, too soon. I prefer

to believe that the time to act is now!

Too much what too soon?

Gergen is one of the smartest people in DC. When he talks, I listen.

re: healthcare

He says fix the economy first. I disagree.

(how many times does Obama have to say that anyway!) :)

He's trying to do the best he can, and I support him 100%. Please pay attention. He really is.

I disagree with Gergen. Economy and healthcare must go hand in had IMO.

although I do disagree with him from time to time.

positive effects on our economy.

Fixing healthcare will end a lot of bankruptcies. That will help the credit markets.

Fixing healthcare will free up cash for people to spend on services and goods that employ people.

Fixing healthcare will bring excitement and optimism to Americans.

Fixing healthcare will end a lot of litigation over personal injuries.

Fixing healthcare will decrease the cost of Worker's Comp and therefore put money in employers' pockets.

Fixing healthcare will decrease the cost of healthcare to employers and increase the number of employees they can hire in addition to increasing their profits in the short term.

Fixing healthcare will improve the quality of life of most Americans -- especially if, as seemed clear from statements made in the forums on healthcare held by the President's Commission on healthcare reform, a big emphasis is on preventive measures -- like getting Americans to stop smoking and start exercising.

I believe I heard one of the experts say that something like 2/3 of cancers are preventable. He also said that obesity and smoking are two of the most frequent causes of cancer. Cancer is not just terribly painful. It is also terribly expensive. And it can destroy a person's life while that person is still in his or her prime of life. Diabetes is another disease that would be less frequent if we had decent national healthcare and preventative medicine including more education about diet and weight control.

He is always a cheerleader, but somehow always disappoints.

He may be right, but who's to say?

One thing that I'm watching with an almost compulsive fascination is how the old DC hands have become dinosaurs almost overnight. They don't realize - or they're unable to grasp the breadth of it - that the whole game has changed, how dramatically the world has changed, and that things need to be done differently now.

That's something the GOPigs in Congress better understand fast. Their obstructionism isn't winning them any friends out there in the electorate, and as Obama scores one victory after another, big and small, they are looking more and more insignificant, out of touch, and impotent.

Gergen may not understand how good Obama is. Or he may be right. Today, the day that Obama reverses the Federal position on stem cell research, I'm just celebrating OUR PRESIDENT OBAMA. This is so HUGH, I am sort of limp with joy.

As for Dems, those that are paying attention had better understand. Bayh annoyed me, but we'll talk!

Has Boner (yes, yes, that's a deliberate misspelling) grasped the reality concept yet? I don't think so. Eric Cantor is canny - not smart - and younger, so he might figure it out and slither in.

But the funniest thing I see is that the GOPigs have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a fresh idea among the lot of them. The resurrection and re-animation (so to speak) of Newt Gingrich as a "head" of the party is breaking me up almost daily. That old fuck isn't going to quit until the sharpened stake is drilled through the space where his heart should be.

I'm reading "Who Let The Dogs In?" and I am reminded - thankfully - of how Molly Ivins loathed, absolutely despised, Gingrich. Imagine what she'd make of his latest desperate lunge to take center stage and pretend to be relevant................................

and he was saying that he didn't think Obama should expire the Bush tax cuts in the recession environment. That was it for me. I agree with him a lot, but when I disagree with him, I disagree with him in a big way.

That's unfortunate. He gets a lot of stuff right, but, as I posted above, this changing world just might have left Gergen behind. It certainly has Batshit Crazy Buchanan choking on its dust.

wishy-washy person so revered instead of reviled?

Maybe because he's wishy-washy? No one knows where he's really coming from?

with the GOP. 50% spending and 50% tax cuts.

He would really be screaming now if we have done something that dumb. Because here he was tonight, saying the stimulus was not big enough because it needed more infrastructure spending.

Frankly even the best pundit is worth shit nowadays.

"People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed."

Things have changed, indeed.......................

Remember. (How soon we forget.) Was it last spring? Or the year before? that we all got checks in the mail that were called tax rebates. What a joke. We tried that. It did not work.

And there are a whole lot of them who vote all the time, and they usually make the difference in presidential elections, much to the chagrin of everyone here.

Maybe it's his soft voice? Lol. He also thought it was a huge mistake for Obama and his senate colleagues who he went abroad with last July to RELEASE A STATEMENT...yes, somehow releasing a statement was a huge way of undermining current foreign policy, in his eyes. He was also paranoid about the PUMAS, and started the "I really do think that Obama needs Hillary Clinton for VP now" train.

This bubble is due to policies that the Gingrich Congress pushed. Deregulation is absolutely to blame.

My own panic level is set at the Gergen-breaks-down-on-CNN level.

Week before last, he nearly did in a panel discussion on AC 360. I wrote a piece about it that I decided not post here.

I like everything that Obama wants to do except his Social Security musings.

However, there is nothing else in the average person's mind right now except the economy.

Nobody but wonks and DUers is thinking about global warming. Stem cells? Health care thoughts are immediate--like how do I keep mine when I get layed off. One hundred person discussion groups aren't cutting it.
It's like Obama and his administration think it's a year ago on the campaign trail, but the ground has completely shifted.

Gergen nearly broke down because he thinks that the Obama administration isn't fully focused on the economy based on information that he's getting from people he knows. And he knows everybody.

Twenty ten (2010) is coming sooner than anyone believes. Obama had better be organized on this yesterday, because if he looks scatter-shot and the economy isn't substantially better looking, we are going to be in serious trouble, both economic and political.

I wish that I could be a positive as you are about this, but I thought that the economy might fall apart at least as early as this time last year, and I saw economics as Obama's weakest policy area with too many Milton Friedmanites in his advisory circle.

I do not want Obama to fail, but this is not looking good. He needs to at least appear to focus on the economy, and the economy only. And he better get out ahead of any embarrassing disclosures of where all the bailout money is going, because disclosures late last week and this weekend are not looking good.

been doing?

Please have some faith. That's all he's been doing. At least the man is trying to save this economy, when it was going into the shitter because of the GOP and POS who supposedly ran it.

Be thankful for this man.

which the Obama team has not yet been able to link directly to the current emergency. He got caught in a street fight with Bobby Rush and Blago over Burris, which is a dumb Illinois thing that he and Reid got suckered into--who cares now. Then he tried to talk about Social Security--don't even mention the words in an economic downturn if you want to get some traction. Then he allowed the Pubbies to cut him off with the easy sound bites on the "pork" in the stimulus and the omnibus bills. Then Gibbs got distracted by responding personally to stupid personal attacks by known idiots. Then the dress, then the videos and the lack of a stand up for Brown, with no hint of an explanation. Now it's stem cells. The next thing you know, somebody's going to find out that the AIG money is going to French banks and Obama, the advocate of transparency, won't be the source of the information.

I work on a project basis, and my project ended a week early. For the last week, I've been recovering from the virus that won't go away, cruising the net, and watching some conglomeration of CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and C-Span. My family's in Michigan and everybody's struggling. It's not a good time.

From my sickbed, I can't tell know what is going on inside the Obama administration, but the message discipline is not there, and I'm not comforted by that fact in and of itself. Message discipline was a hallmark of the campaign, and it seems to have fallen apart.

The only explanation from the media that has made sense to me is the one coming from Gergen, and it was not a welcome explanation.

The only other thing I can think of is that the Obama team came in expecting to change the dialog, but they haven't figured out that the dialog changed underneath them back in October. The economy tanked, and, as usual, there was a mad rush to the Democrats. Obama was and is a good, fresh, calm face, but I don't think that the Dem victory, in the end, was all about him to the extent that he and his staff may have believed. There was a good dose of sheer terror in the electorate of having Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina in charge of the tanking economy. To me, emphasizing the Lincoln theme through the inaugural was a symptom of this. Lincoln was passe by mid-October and FDR was in. Similarly, hitting on all policy cylinders while the economy crashes and burns is out, and hiring James Carville to announce that "It's the economy, stupid" is in. And I'm no Clinton fanatic. Steadfastness is great, until it's time to be fast on your feet.

I came out of political retirement to phone bank for Obama, various injuries prevented door-to-door, but I'm not blind. I did not support him in the primaries (and I didn't support Hillary, either) because I thought that it would be the economy, stupid, by election time and I thought and continue to think that economics is Obama's weakest policy area by far. Unfortunately, it's the only area that really counts right now, and I think that he's being hammered--no surprise here. If he doesn't get a real grip on this in four to six weeks when the first quarter financials will come out, heads must roll, and that includes Milton Friedman's.

You tell me to be thankful. I'm thankful that he's not McCain. I'll be more thankful when it isn't same 'ol, same 'ol economics at the White House, and the campaign regains its footing.

Edit: too darned late, and it's still not right.

And fwiw, I think PRESIDENT Obama is doing his utmost to try to fix the economy. No, I won't wish for the worst or think that will happen. Because, I'm HAPPY! I love this president!

Again, very sad for you. Might be time to reprogram your brain. Or for me. But I don't think so. :)

I'm frequently accused of being a cynic or a "Debbie Downer," but I'm rarely criticized, in the end, for being wrong. And a have long track record and a lot of a apologies to back it up.

But I'm beginning to wonder about a lot of the people around here.

I'm dating myself, although I presume that you can guess my approximate age, but there was a book popular in the '70s entitled something like, "If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him."

Seriously. You should read it. It'll help you come down off your high before you crash completely and turn into a Republican.

Perhaps in my next life, but that won't be happening in this one, no matter what happens. Maybe you need to stay away from books like that.

If a book can make you so cynical, that's kind of scary.

But I'm no starry eyed type, which it sounds like you are.

good healthcare. Fact is that COBRA benefits are far too expensive for most people. I know. I've been there.

When you lose your job and all you are getting is unemployment (if you are lucky), you have to choose between buying food and paying your mortgage or the rent and COBRA. The choice is obvious: you are going to choose to eat and keep the roof over your head.

As more and more Americans lose their jobs, more and more of them will become uninsured or enroll in Medicaid. Healthcare will be nationalized by sheer default. Obama is getting ready for that eventuality. Obama did not cause or wish for the recession. It clearly started on Bush's watch. Obama has to be alert to complications and not overfocus.

Gergen thinks this economic crisis is just a bad dream and that everything will be back to normal as soon as he wakes up. Sorry, Gergen but this is reality. This economic crisis is the big one -- the Andreas fault of economic and social crises. Nothing is ever going to be the same. Obama knows that even if you don't.

And by the way, if we get another big natural disaster soon -- such as an earthquake somewhere in California or another bad hurricane, a strong tornado season, flooding -- anything, and such things happen every couple of years -- more frequently than we like to think -- Gergen's musings, his caution will look pretty silly.


Bush focused so much on terrorism that he missed Katrina. Obama cannot do that. He cannot focus too much. Obama has to keep a wide view and watch for signs of new, unexpected problems and complications. That's the secret of a good general. Stand back and watch out for the unexpected, for the ambushes from some unexpected angle.

I do not like Obama's economic team. They are far too conservative for me. But, Obama has to delegate a lot of the authority over economic decisions to them at this point. It's Obama's job to appoint good people and give them feedback -- not to focus on David Gergen's preoccupations of the moment. Obama is keeping a wide view and moving forward. He will make mistakes, but he will be quick to respond to whatever happens next. And something unexpected will happen. It always does.

I'm concerned about North Korea right now. Just for the record.

I've been there, too, but I don't think that it is the key to economic problems. I also think that Bush's reaction to Katrina was stupidity, not a preoccupation with terrorism, and I do not expect Obama's administration to be that stupid.

You and I disagree on Gergen, apparently. I don't always agree with him, but I think that he is genuinely concerned about the welfare of the country. I have not seen any evidence to the contrary, and I've seen him in action now for going on 30 years. I have only seen him as distraught as he was a couple of times, once involving some Iraq war.

However, there have been other major, paradigm changing crises in the world. Obama started his campaign with the theme of an earlier crisis for the United States, the Civil War Era. However, the current state of affairs will undoubtedly be compared to FDR's Great Depression tenure by future historians. Clearly, Obama has the chance to do great things. I think he'll be playing catch up, you don't.

Nonetheless, I, for one, have been looking and calling for a new FDR for at least two years now because I could see that we were approaching a crisis. I assume that you have the same record, but we have reached differing conclusions, at least at this time, concerning Obama's eventual historical record. I'm not ready to write it at this time, and it appears that you wrote it a long time ago.