OBAMA: "The good thing about being President is you get to write your own book."

[kpete]

https://twitter.com/arapaho415/status/697781803130580992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw


Q: I wanted to come back and ask you about the way forward (inaudible.) But I do want to ask — you mentioned a couple of things that came up in several conversations with these two guys about how we got to this point, and how you got to this place of this polarizing, divisive figure, if you pardon the phrase. Kirk thinks that Obamacare is a lightning rod for partisan fury because of the way it was passed. And I wonder what you think of that.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, this will be a long history that will be told. And the good thing about being President is you get to write your own book. (Laughter.)

But I have to tell you, Kirk, and I’m sure that’s how it seemed from the outside. If you were on the inside, we spent eight, nine months negotiating with the Republicans. The Affordable Care Act — or Obamacare — was not my first choice of design. It was the result of our conversations with Republicans who would not abide by a single-payer plan. And so we said, well, you know what, let’s take this plan that has worked really well in Massachusetts, negotiated by a Republican governor named Mitt Romney, and let’s work with the Republicans to see if we can move this forward.

And what happened over the course of three, four, five months is that the dynamic I just described, the sense that those in the Republican Party who ideologically were opposed to expansion of any social welfare program started to characterize this as big government and an effort to undermine individual choice and individual freedom. They poisoned the well within Republican constituencies so much that it became increasingly difficult for Republicans who had originally wanted to work with us on this to do anything.

And I remember the last conversation I had with a Republican whose name I won’t mention — we had been talking for months, and we had taken every idea that he had suggested and we had said if this doesn’t work, is there another way you want to do it — and he just finally turned to me — I was sitting in the Oval Office — and he said, you know what, Mr. President, I got to admit there’s no change that allows me to vote for this thing.


http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-interview-transcript-20160211-story.html

[earthshine]

1. I don't believe this

> It was the result of our conversations with Republicans who would not abide by a single-payer plan.

I voted for him twice.

In my opinion, Obama didn't try at all. He gave up on this the very first week in office.

Remember how hard he pushed for TPP? He was being so forceful, even his body language changed.

<Sigh>