UNDERWHELMING ENDORSEMENT DEPT:
U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from northern Indiana, voted for the House version of the health care reform bill recently--but he doesn't want to sound too excited about it:
"Rep. Joe Donnelly on Monday defended his vote in favor of passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the House of Representatives' version of health care reform...."What my vote did was enable us to continue this discussion," Donnelly, D-Granger, said following an appearance at Sanctuary at St. Paul's, a retirement community on the city's south side."
Donnelly comes from a relatively conservative district; note that he defends the bills mainly as cost-reducers and deficit-cutters. And he expects and wants the final bill to be more conservative. This apparently is the only way conservative, Blue Dog Democrats can defend this stuff. It's a very defensive stance. They're on the run, folks. Stay on the attack, conservatives.
INTERESTING SIGNS OF THE TIMES DEPT:
Liberal NY Times columnist Roger Cohen has a couple of criticisms of President Obama--and I don't think he's the only Obama supporter who holds them. For example, in general concerning Obama, Cohen writes:
"As an Obama admirer, I’m worried. He feels over-managed, over-scripted to me, to the point where he’s not showing the guts that prevailed at various difficult moments in the campaign....De-teleprompt the president for a few seconds!"
This sounds a little bit like what some progressives used to say about Ronald Reagan. At least Cohen's being consistent. In the same piece, concerning Afghanistan, Cohen notes:
"On Afghanistan, where an announcement is at last imminent on the troops the United States will commit to “the necessary war,” Obama has mixed messages with unhappy results. The clarity of March yielded to the cloudiness of fall and the long think has, in the words here of John McCain, “sounded an uncertain trumpet.” Peter MacKay, the Canadian defense minister, said the hesitation was “not helpful” because “everyone has hit the pause button until the U.S. decision.” I worry now that Obama’s quest for perfect calibration will yield a less than resounding fudge where the tenacious message of a troop increase is undermined by talk of exit timing. That’s not how you break the will of an enemy."
Wow. Sounds like what many conservatives have been saying. Obama should beware; criticism mounts upon him from many fronts.
IS THE GOP DEAD? DEPT:
Two polls came out today on the 2010 generic congressional vote. Rasmussen has the GOP up 7. Democracy Corps--which one would expect would want to present good news for Democrats--has the Dems up only 2.
The GOP and conservatives continue to have a real shot in 2010, and the polls show it.
