Tag - teaming the Democrats, the GOP and M$M have their fun.

[JohnWxy]

The Democrats don't seem to be doing very well in dealing with the team of Corporate Lobbyist Party members and Corporate Media. The Democrats keep thinking the M$M are non combatants in the one sided war of the GOP against the Democrats. I say one-sided because while the Democrats are trying to right this ship almost sunk by Republican policies the Republicans spend their time biting and slashing at Democrats. The Dems are easy targets because they are so preoccupied with trying to save the country from the REPUBLICAN DYSTOPIA becoming a Second Great Depresssion, or dealing with the Health Care crisis (so recognized by all the experts who have been working on the growing problem for decades).

Then there is the usual tag-team interview with a Democrat on one side and the M$M talking head with the carping Republican on the other. While the GOP attacks the Dems for any efforts to solve problems, Democrats seem be at a loss as to how to answer their attacks (normal rules of rational discussion seem to be of no value when talking to someone who just keeps chanting slogans for tea-partiers.). While the Republican says meaningful stuff like: "The Democrats are trying to kill grandma!" or "They want to take over health care!" and never get asked by their M$M team-mate what solutions THEY are proposing to problems.

Instead the talking heads of M$M chime in with something like: "Yeah, why aren't you doing something about the lack of bipartisanship? I thought Obama said he was going to achieve bipartisan atmosphere? What about THAT, HUH?" (neatly forgetting John Boehner's "Party of 'NO!'." remark, or Demint's: "We'll make Health Care reform 'Obama's Waterloo'!" and not asking the Republicans why the Democrats have had to take more votes for cloture in Obama's first year as were taken thoughout the entire 1950's and 60s), or "Yeah, how come you don't have the economy fixed yet? It's been 11 months, what's your problem?" (they never ask the Republican why all of them voted against the stimulus bill or the jobs bill), or: "Yeah, why did you 'give away' all that money to the banks, Jeez, everybody hates you for giving the banks all that money!?" (when every economist in the known world has said there was no option to bailing out the banks if you wanted to prevent a second Great Depression), or "Jee, unemployment is at 10%, what's wrong with you?" (of course, never daring to ask the Republican why all of them voted against the jobs bill.)

Despite all this, I urge the Democrats to keep fighting for an active, responsible, problem solving Government. Keep reminding people that problems are not solved by just saying "NO" or wishing they would go away. Regarding health care reform, remind people that while insurance costs doubling over the last ten years required an annual increase of 7%, this year the insurance companies are increasing rates about 15%. At a 15% annual rate of increase your premiums will be 4 times larger in 10 years than they are today.

Obviously, at this rate, many people who now have insurance will NOT have it in 5 to 10 years. Either their employer won't be able to afford it or they won't. Go ahead and ask people, "Will you be one of those who will still have your insurance in ten years? .. or will you be one of those going to the emegency room for your health care? How lucky do you feel?" ... "What do you think, should we do nothing about Health Care in this country, as the Republicans want?"
("I think just about anyone in health care would say that, over five years, without some effort to reform the system, we could have another 10 million uninsured."_John Rother, AARP..that's a larger number of uninsured than the CBO has been forecasting for 2019)



When the Republican chants "Deficit, deficit, deficit!" just say that, as the President said months ago, one of the main reasons for the urgency of Health Care Reform is that Health Care costs will be one of the biggest drivers of the deficit in the future. Health Care costs are a problem that will not go away. Demogoguery will not solve the problem. It will only make fixing it take longer and end up making it more costly to our country.

[depakid]

1. The trouble with most Dems is that they're too nice, too conciliatory and non-assertive

Those who hand the smarmy pundits and the nutter Republicans their asses in their hands gain a lot of populist mileage. Those who go along to get along end up bullied and looking weak.

The worst part of course, is that they actually DO have facts and reason on their side- and yet continually allow lies and absurdity to gain prominence.

Very sad to watch.