What if Sarah Palin was a liberal?

They would to me. She would be fighting for things I agree with- but all for the wrong reasons.

She would still be mocked for being stupid

There are plenty of insincere lying liberals I feel free to mock. She’d be yet another one.

She would be loved by liberals,,but right now she scares the hell out of them.

None of those are the problem… The problem is how incredibly unintelligent she is. The ridiculous way of speaking and mannerisms are just gravy.

Absolutely. She would still be ignorant, proud of her ignorance, vicious, dishonest and anti-science. She might support the same views as me, but she would still be unable to justify and back them up with arguments of even remote substance. If she were on my side, she would be an embarassment to me.
For example, I think that there is a real possibility that earth is and has been visited by Extraterrestrials, I think there is sufficient evidence to support this hypotheses, and my view is shared by respectable scientists like Stanton Friedman and the late Dr. Allen Hynek, who both spent a considerable amount of time seriously researching the phenomenon. But then there are the nutcases, people who wear aluminium foil hats and jump at any story with aliens and buy them without question and people, like “Dr. Reed”, who lie about their credentials, film little clips with their rubber aliens and then try to fool people into believing their crap and paying them money for it. I hate these kind of people, they are an embarassment and a setback for our cause.
A liberal Sarah Palin would fall in just that category.

Well, just like there are knee-jerk conservatives who buy her us vs. them conservatism, there are knee-jerk liberals who would buy her us vs. them liberalism. She’d draw the out the fringe on the other side, and the people who love her now would hate her. But she would never win the Democratic nomination, whereas she could win the Republican nomination.

If she were stupid and liberal, she would still be stupid and opportunist. Not to mention a quitter. So I wouldn’t like her any more.

Any good liberal or anyone at all who has an ounce of intelligence would still call her on the ignorant B.S. she seems to thrive on.

She would still be whiny as well as stupid.

The whininess is what would drive me up a tree about her.

Hilary Clinton’s most unattractive moment was when complaining about the “vast right wing conspiracy”. Were Palin a liberal, I can just hear those very words pouring from her.

Remember the old SNL skit with Doug and Wendy Whiner? Annoyyyying.

I’m a lefty. The best thing the right can do is have her run in 2012. It will be a bloodbath.

@Mandomike As a liberal, I find the only thing scary about Palin is that there are some people out there who have both the ability to vote and respect for her.

If she was as stupid about her left wing leanings ans she is about her right wing leanings then she would still be stupid.

I still would NOT have given her the time of day .

She fired a State Tropper for giving her brother in law a speding ticket .

She couldn’t even run her own household….

Why would we even want her near the countries highest position ? I Wouldn’t !

More to the point: What if she wasn’t an idiot?

It doesn’t matter which side of the spectrum an idiot plays on. She would still be a goofus.

I think that a genuine opposition is important in a democratic society. I wish that Palin were a genuine threat to the left: a principled, intelligent, thoughtful opponent with a rational political agenda.

That would keep the Left on its toes, and make for fairer legislation. Think of people like Barry Goldwater and James Buckley. I disagreed with them, but I also found them admirable.

Too bad Palin is a fraud and a wannabe.

@CyanoticWasp I’m not sure that is more to the point… do you mean if she was intelligent and conservative or intelligent and liberal? Both would be better, I suppose, although I find intelligent and conservative to be terrifying (example: Dick Cheney) and if she was intelligent and liberal I’d still have a problem with all the corruption and impropriety.

What if the moon was made of pumpkin pie?

She’d still be hot!=D

She would still look like Sally Fields in the Flying Nun and it is impossible to lose that image. Especially when most everything she says is so frighteningly inane.

She would still suffer from an inability to formulate and express a clear train of thought.

Then more wolves will be alive.

She would still be dense and hot.

Can you say Arianna Huffington?

She’d still be a low-brow idiot.

My biggest problem with Sarah Palin when she was possibly going to be our VP was I had no confidence that she had a bit of interest in international politics previously. I doubt she ever had a deep discussion about the middle east or trade policy with anybody. I don’t feel like she seeks knowledge. So, if she was a liberal that would be great, I would not care about how she talks and I think 90% of the time she looks great, but she still would lack the depth of knowledge and curiousity I would like to see in a President, but I could see her in Congress.

@daloon, could you please explain your answer? Thx!

She would be this chick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janeane_Garofalo

I like the way you think @pdworkin, just saying…

@Likeradar: My point is if she didn’t scare them then you would never here about her again but that’s not the case, she is pounded and pounded from the left for a reason, if she were not a threat then why bother?

Did you see her and William Shatner reading each others books on the tonight show? Cracked me up!

@Mandomike I don’t know that she is pounded and pounded, but I do think that people find the prospect of such an ill informed and unprepared candidate being taken seriously quite alarming. One wants one’s leadership to be smarter and better informed than the general populace, not the other way around.

@Mandomike ; that pounding you hear is us pounding the table in hysteria that people are nuts enough to think she is seriously consdering running for president.

@Pdworkin: I just don’t buy into the notion that she is some blathering idiot you can’t be that stupid and be the Governor of a state, you missed my point,,Why do they keep on attacking her? I don’t really want some Harvard graduate as the President if their motives are suspect, I would rather have someone who could make decisions based on truth and not what’s in it for them.

We live in partisan times. Why do people keep attacking Obama? The country is polarized.

@proXXi Oh dear. Explaining a joke.

Do you have kids? Kids are always asking “what-if” questions. Most of them are utterly ridiculous scenarios. Speculation about them…. just isn’t worth the time. My response to such questions is to ask an equally ridiculous what-if scenario.

What if there was a man-eating venus fly trap?
What if there were a giant trumpet?
What if a dragon came out of the sky and wanted to play chess?

(My son just generated these (and a few others I didn’t give you) in a minute.)

So let me ask you this: what if fluther had zits?

@Mandomike I’m sorry I just can’t help myself. Do you even realize that Bush went to Harvard? So I guess I agree that a Harvard education does not qualify someone to be president. BUT, I think it ridiculous to imply that education, life experience, and political experience is not something to seek in a President. If I was going to get brain surgery I hope the surgeon has more education and knowledge than me in the realm of medcine, surgery, and specifically the brain. Why would a person not want a President who knows more about international politics, has travelled and met people from other countries, who has interacted with people from many parts of the US from various socio-economic levels. Before you get annoyed, I think Obama was lacking in some of these things, he was not my first choice, but at minimum I think he does seek knowledge, wants to understand, and has an open mind, which is my biggest gripe about Palin, and Bush suffered from some of this too.

Anyway, I am not trying to pick on you, Bush, or Palin for that matter, but I think you might be able to give me some insight to why I had friends excited about voting for Bush, because they felt the guy was someone they could have a beer with and relate to? Why do these people not value people who are more educated and more knowledgable than themselves? I am impressed by people who are smarter and more experienced than me; I don’t consider them snobs or “elitests”, I want to learn from them.

@Mandomike
“I would rather have someone who could make decisions based on truth and not what’s in it for them.”

Then why do you support Palin? Because, you know, she does not exactly meet these criteria.

@ragingloli, Please explain.

@daloon, thanks for the reply.

@Mandomike, A little help regarding Ragingloli:

Anti science = anyone holding any religious view.

Loli watches or reads science fiction (set in earths future) and believes that the hyperadvanced utopia it describes could be had here and now if those pesky political conservatives would just disappear.

IMO

@Mandomike
She was the one who started the “death panel” nonsense, which as we all know, is not based on truth.
She mocked fruit fly research as an example of wasting money, not knowing about the fact that the research does have real world benefits and applications.
She supports abstinence only education, despite the fact that her own daughter is testament to the failure of the concept.
She has prematurely abandoned her position as governor in her state to go on a tour of self promotion. The recent fuss about her book (which itself isn’t exactly free of lies either ) is just another symptom of that.

Thanks @proXXi,,,,,@ragingloli she didn’t start the death panel discussion she was the first to say it out loud, if this disaster of a health care bill goes through and the Government begins to ration health care you will be the first to cry foul, Abstinence is good for any teen, and leaving the Governorship was only because of the fixation of the democrats to destroy her which was causing a distraction.

Oh, my, @Mandomike. I’ve seen all those answers on Fox Noise. Have you really drunk that deeply of the Kool-Aide?

@pdworkin,If the truth hurts ware it.You wouldn’t believe the crap I have heard on MSNBC,,so are you for this country or against it?

[mod says] Careful, folks. Differences of opinions need not result in rancor. Personal attacks will be removed.

I love this country. Why on earth would you even go there? My dad fought in the Pacific and came home with recurring malaria so that you could come here and insult me. Shame on you.

@Mandomike
There will be no death panels, any rationing (which, because of limited ressources is unavoidable) will not be based on age or any rating of “usefulness to society”. Seniors are quite happy with their government run medicare. And if you are so afraid of rationing, why don’t you cry foul of the current situation of private insurance companies rationing care by denying coverage for necessary treatment, dropping and denying coverage because of “preexisting conditions” and requiring ridiclously high copays?

”if this disaster of a health care bill goes through and the Government begins to ration health care you will be the first to cry foul”
In case you are unaware, I do live in a country where more than 80 percent of the population are publicly insured. And there is no denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, there is no dropping of coverage because the insurer thinks a treatment is too expensive, there are no excessive copays for treatment in addition to the montly fee for the policy (in fact, there was outrage when they introduced a 10€ copay that has to be paid once every quarter year). This is in total contrast to the public insurers that do all these things.
As a public insuree, when I need a treatment, I will get it, timely, no questions asked and without any additional costs, no fear of going bankrupt because of astronomical costs, no fear of being denied coverage or treatment. If I were privately insured, I would not have these things.

”Abstinence is good for any teen” Except for those who get pregnant because they have not been taught about protection, or that you can get pregnant by having sex. Or those who get STD’s because they have not been taught about them. Or Palin’s own daughter. Abstinence only education is the single largest contributing factor for the US’s astronomical teen pregnancy rate.

”and leaving the Governorship was only because of the fixation of the democrats to destroy her which was causing a distraction.”
She left office because she was being investigated for abuse of power, a claim not only brought forward by the “evil liberals and democrats” but by a lot of conservatives as well. She abandoned and betrayed her state and the people that voted her into office, that placed their trust into her, because she did not want to answer for the things she did. “Distraction”? Yeah right.

I think the insult came from you first I believe you accused of me being a sheep,and my father fought in the war himself,,Look, I am a conservative and you are not so let’s leave it there.

ragingloli: tell that to all the Canadians coming here for medical treatment because they are on waiting lists,I have two friends that are in that predicament right now so don’t tell me about your so called truth, the truth is that the Government only has the money it takes from tax payers and once you say you are covering everyone funds become limited and benefits become limited so stop lying to people and tell them the truth or do you really know the truth.

I don’t know about the Canadian System. I live in Germany and what I have told you about the German system is true. When I needed surgery, and it wasn’t even an important one that would require immediate attention, (a wart on my head had to be removed), I got rid of that wart in less than a week. Without any additional costs. These are personal experiences, so please stop accusing me of lying just because it doesn’t fit into your ideology.

It’s not my ideology, it’s the truth, call it death panels or what ever you want to call it someone else will decide whether you get that surgery or you don’t and that’s the problem I think I would rather decide that.

@Mandomike
You don’t get to choose. Your insurance company does. The very organization that makes money based on the number and type of procedures that you have. A for-profit organization. An organization that can deny you coverage when you get sick. One of many organizations that have had record breaking profits in the bilions of dollars in the last few years.

@syz, I agree, changes need to be made but not social medicine, it’s only down hill from there.

I dunno, Medicare users seem pretty happy with the program.

”It’s not my ideology, it’s the truth,”
The truth is that the German system, which is ranked higher than the US’s system, provides top notch care that is up to par with what the US has to offer, offers it to everyone and at lower cost.
You call that “downhill”, I call that a better system.

Look, people have been talking about the US health care system being “broken” since the 1960’s, they’ve talked, and talked and talked. It’s ridiculously easy to come up with textbooks full of examples of how our current system sucks. And there has never been a serious, concerted effort to do anything about it.

Hillary Clinton tried to instruct congress on how to fix it, and they screamed about being directed to do something against their will (if you’ll pardon the gross oversimplification). Obama said “Ok, then you guys figure out how to fix it”, and they still scream about it. Guess what! If we leave it up to “consensus”, it’ll never happen.

Do I know that Obama’s plan will work? No. But you know what? He’s laid his reputation on the line and put himself out there to do something about it. I say it’s time to quit yapping about how bad the system is and then doing nothing about it – kudos to someone who has had the balls to try and fix it.

I apologize for continuing to be off-topic.

@Mandomike it is fine to be conservative, we just ask that you don’t follow the party line lock step. I consider myself a liberal, but I don’t agree with everythign Obama does or my party says. It depends on the subject at hand. I want socialized medicine, but I don’t the Canadian system. There are a whole bunch of systems we can look at and try to improve on. If we don’t move towards socialized medicine then I agree with some Republicans that we have to make the system more competitive. The way it is now is a farce. I hate that it is attached to employers, I hate discounts for groups, I hate pre-existing denial. I say let an emplower give ME the money and let me shop for the coverage I want. I hate my insurance coverage right now (there have been times when I have been happy) it SUCKS. They cover me 100% for preventative care, but not if I have something wrong with. That is when I need it the most.

About death panels. The bill in question was offering counseling for end of life care, offering to pay for the counseling. Most people would be happy to get that.

@JLeslie, I agree with most of what you are saying except that liberals dominate most of these sites right now and it is my right to fight back against Government take over of my rights, health care needs to be overhauled, I blame every Administration back twenty years for not doing anything about it but Socialized medicine will only make things worse, this health care take over isn’t about health care it is about retaining power by the Democrats.I don’t agree with everything Conservatives believe but that’s the way I lean and I have the right to do so, this country is being hijacked by Conservatives and Liberals alike,,We the people are the ones that matter and our voices are the ones that will make a difference.

@syz The problem isn’t so much with “users”. Most “users” of any welfare system will “be okay with it”, since the alternative is that they would have to provide something for themselves. The problem that people have is mostly “as providers”; that is, providers of the cash to make it go (the taxpayers) and “health care providers”, who don’t like the payment structure (and on that basis often discourage new Medicare patients, to the extent that they can do that legally).

@Mandomike Sure you have the right to lean conservative. I lean that way on fiscal matters generally. I grew up in socialized medicine, our military, and I liked it a lot better then how I am treated in the private sector. Just my experience. I understand some of the fears of the government being in control of health care, but the insurers are so big and powerful they are like mini-governments. They too decide what they will cover. In my mind the government would have the goal of taking care of my health (and of course it would not be a perfect system, and there would be some money badly spent or wasted) but the insurance companies main goal is to make money. Health care is just a business to the insrance companies like selling ketchup, and they make more money the less they help me. I would rather see the government throw some money out on the street and have the right intention, then put money in a CEO’s pocket because he effectively cut coverage. I am not trying to convince you, just telling you my perspective.

Sara would never be a Liberal. She is just to good a person and intelligent to be a liberal. They are the ones that are stupid as a bag of rocks.

@JLeslie ,My problem with the Government running health care is the fact that they are so inafisciant and wasteful that one of two things would have to happen or both either benefits would have to be rationed or taxes would have to be raised on a regular basis, to me either one is a disaster, if you have to ration care then someone just like the insurance companies are doing now would be deciding who gets what service and if taxes continually rise that kills business, so in my mind there needs to be put in place a set of rules that would regulate the insurance companies,,limit profits,,rules for denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions and so forth, I’m no expert on the matter but I think these kind of changes can be achieved through legislation,,just my thoughts.

@Mandomike The current health reform bill will limit profits and stop denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions. Other rules include that doctors can’t own stock in health care companies, and yearly or lifetime “caps” on insurance money will be eliminated. Not to mention that the public option (now potentially gone anyway) has been whittled down to the point where it would be more expensive than private health insurance and therefore useless (so, no – universal coverage of the American people will not be achieved with this bill, sadly). America will still be the land of the privately insured if the bill passes. Any nation with socialized medicine will tell you that this is far from what they have.

@Mandomike Ok, I am good with that. More regulation to keep the companies within a space of what most people see as obvious integrity. We agree. But, I would kind of like to have everyone paying into the system, which is more easily acheived through taxes. Not even Obama is in favor of this, which is one of the reasons I did not vote for him in the primaries. If everyone pays then the payment is spread across more people and should be less in the end. If someone becomes sick we don’t let them die, so even if they have never paid in they get some care, and may never pay their healthcare bills. We pay for those people in the end.

Also, along the lines of payment, I have heard many of my far right Republican friends who are against any government intervention in health care (I am not lumping you in with these people) respond to my comments about people not having health care coverage say, “I have never hear dof someone being denied treatment, everyone has access to healthcare in this country.” That is simply not true, and I wonder where the hell they aregetting this line? We don’t deny care to keep you alive in an emergency, but we deny other care all of the time. I went for an MRI last week and I had to pay my part of what insurance does not cover before they would take me back into the room.

We would either vote her off our island or we’d keep her away from microphones and television cameras.

Stupid is as stupid does…

@JLeslie ,The problem I have with everyone paying into the system is then it becomes an entitlement and once you go down that road there is no going back.Just imagine if you were trying to back away from Welfare right now, how far do you think anyone would get? No Government program will ever be undone, it would be political suicide. The fact is that the more we try to help people the more they become dependant on the benefits and the less they will do for themselves. I think we need to tweak the current system and make it work for us without calling the Government PAPA.

@Mandomike I am not sure it goes hand in hand, requiring everyone to pay and the feeling of entitlement. I too am very frustrated with welfare (remember I said I tend to be conservative fiscally) and I agree once a system is in place it is hard to change. The Dems are trying to change the healthcare system and now, Hillary tried too, and it is torture. It is not just that gov’t systems are hard to change, anything large is. Healthcare is not like welfare to me. In regards to welfare I cannot see just taken welfare away in one fell swoop, but I am all for giving people less money if they have a baby while on welfare (I would redirect the money to programs for the child, but I would not give the money to the mother), and giving a girl $1000 for graduating from high school without having a child.

”but I am all for giving people less money if they have a baby while on welfare”
Funny. I would do the exact opposite. A baby needs food, clothing and has extensive sanitary needs. And that does not exactly decrease the financial need of the unit, does it?

@ragingloli I want to take away any incentive for these people to have babies while on the Dole. Mostly because these children many times live in horrible circumstance, and the cycle repeats itself. I feel bad for that child. The teenage pregnancy rate here is outrageous, which does not help you get out of poverty or break the cycle. Like I said I am fine redirecting the money to help the children. Once born I am happy to spend money on improving their possibilities of a good education and healthy conditions. But, if a woman is stupid enough to have 4 children on welfare, I don’t trust her with money. Maybe I would amend it to anyone who has more then one child, since anyone can make a mistake (I hate to call a child a mistake, but you know what I mean).

Improved possibilities of education aren’t really useful if the child dies of hunger before that or is literally thrown into the garbage after a bloody homebirth (yes, that does happen).
And even if the child survives all these years, the chronic malnutrition will severely hamper the child’s physical and mental development, meaning it is bound to do badly at school, so all the educational improvements, all for nothing. And that is not all. A child needs clothing, sanitary equipment, when in school, books, tools, and paper blocks need to be bought, school trips need to be paid for. All of which the family can not pay for because the benefits have been stripped back so that they have to turn every penny twice or more, just to have enough food to get over the month. The result, in addition to bad grades (only a well nutritioned brain operates at peak efficiency) and hunger is constant mockery by classmates for being poor. Sure you can create a government department to provide all that (except for the nutrition and clothing part) but that would mean more administrative costs + the costs for the food, tools, trips, etc. themselves, so that would destroy any savings you might have gotten from slashing their benefits. Even worse. The resulting system would be more expensive than what you started with, or even a system where you increase the benefits to match the need of the child, because in that system, you wouldn’t have the additional administrative costs.
You want to discourage women on welfare getting children by cutting their benefits (which are barely enough to survive for a single person as it is) when they do, but all you are going to achieve by this is more suffering for the children themselves.
You might as well support mandatory sterilisation for women on welfare. Would be cheaper and more effective anyway.

@JLeslie ,Believe me when I say it does go hand in hand, everybody pays and some take is entitlement and it will produce the same effect that Welfare has, many many people living on it instead of using it as a crutch when they are ill,,sorry but facts are facts, that is a product of entitlement programs.

@Mandomike
Being on welfare and by that having a stable basis, makes it much more likely for them to get jobs. The alternative is more crime and many many many more homeless people, and once you are homeless, your chances of getting back up at all are pretty much none-existant.
And it is not like there are jobs for everyone, especially jobs within geographical reach for which people actually qualify, especially in an economic system that focuses on reducing costs, reducing the number of needed workers and making the rest more efficient, replacing workers by robots and other automated equipment and move as many jobs as possible over to china or korea to save wages.
Yes there are people who choose to abuse the system, but these people are a very small minority. But that is better than sending the majority and their children out on the streets to freeze and starve because of the minority. It is something that can easily be lived with.

I love how all these people who feel that not-for-profit government funded programs are all that’s evil and wrong in the world but have no problem when the fire department comes to their home to put out a fire, or a cop stops their house from being burgled. They have no problem driving on public roads or sending their kids to public school. Perhaps we should dismantle the armed forces and just contract Blackwater and others to protect our shores. Wouldn’t it be great to get billed everytime the privately-funded police come out to your rescue? 
God bless Pfizer and Blue Cross for selflessly looking out for our well-being. Thank heaven for Kaiser and GlaxoSmithKline.  Isn’t the American public lucky to have these stewards of our healthcare?

Anyone with an open mind on this issue has only to see that among developed nations the US comes in at number 37 for overall health care metrics (Infant Mortality, Life Expectancy, Excess Death, etc.) yet spend more than twice as much as the next most expensive system. We are the only developed country to allow for-profit health care, and it is literally killing us.

However, Big Health and Big Pharma own Congress, and we are not even debating the only real solution, which would be a Single Payer system like every other civilized country in the world.

There is a very sophisticated and skilled propaganda machine that has been operating since the time of Truman to persuade people to campaign against their own best interest, examples of which may be seen in this thread.

@pdworkin Respectfully, anyone who compares US “overall healthcare metrics” to the rest of the developed world and assumes that simply changing our mode of health insurance coverage is sadly misinformed—or a tool of the statists that want to control everything. (To paraphrase you back to yourself.) The fact is that “having health insurance” won’t change the way too many people in this country live on too many calories from too much junk food, exercise far too little, smoke too much, use too many drugs and live with too much stress. (We don’t even have to lump in how we shoot each other too often, too.) And in addition to all of that, many of them (even with insurance) simply choose not to seek, accept or follow sound medical advice.

@ragingloli Let me clarify a few things.

1. I am not talking about women and families who find themselves in a tough situation and need temporary help. I am all for this type of welfare, and giving families enough money to maintain their life while they get back on their feet. I don’t care if they have 10 children. I am only talking about getting pregnant and having babies while currently on the system.

2. I want everyone to have food. I am only talking about giving actual cash to these women. They can have food stamps, and get breakfast and lunch at school, and get free healthcare. I just have to wonder if we pay these women to not have babies if they would stop? Maybe that is the solution, not to take away money, but to give them a bonus for not having more children, it will cost us less and it is better for the children and society. I will pay for their birth control also.

You have to understand, I see women who literally have 3 children by the age of 20 who grew up in families on public assistance, who are uneducated and their children most likely won;t finish high school either. I am not saying this because I am pissed about where my tax money is going, I say this because I think these people are hurting themselves, their own families, their society and society as a whole. There needs to be a cultural shift, some way for us to help these people out of poverty, and what bothers me so is it seems in many American cities living in poverty means living unsafely. This drives me crazy. I find it beyond belief sad that many of our citizens grow up in practically war zones with gangs and guns and homocides.

@CyanoticWasp You respectfully think I am sadly misinformed, and I respectfully think you have bought the health care machine’s propaganda that has been aimed at you and people like you for the last 60 years to convince you to oppose what is in your own best interest.

@pdworkin That is what bothers me most, that single payer was/is not even on the table. Do you think if a bill passes now it will bring us closer to single payor one day? I worry that this huge fight we are going through right now won’t result in much real change in the end, even if it does pass.

There is no way we will ever get Single Payer, or even good competitive health care in this country. Follow the money. Big Health and Big Pharma have already won – they are just quibbling over some cosmetic details.

@pdworkin That is how I see it also.

@pdworkin @JLeslie , now that we have eliminated this monstrosity of a so called health care bill that 61% of the country didn’t want, why don’t we as a country come together and try to really fix health care, that means instead of locking Republicans out of the discussion, bring everyone in and get all the best ideas and the best minds together to find real solutions. Obama promised that the discussion would be transparent but not so much and it’s this kind of arrogance that killed this, I hope they try again with everyone on board.

@Mandomike I always had the impression Obama was open to ideas. Both sides use scare tactics to freak out their constituents so they will get votes. the more freaked out the better, and it causes hate on both sides, and less open communication. I do not think all politicians are doing this, but many are. And, non-politicians who just want the right to win will do anything to animate the right. Crap about death panels, and I saw one email where Republicans were up in arms that the bill covered marriage counseling saying, “now they are in your marriage.” I mean this is total bullshit. It is coverage, if you don’t want mental health coverage don’t utilize it. Flippin’ idiots who are upset about this probably have marriage counseling in their current policy. Sorry to call names, I just feel frustrated. Obama and the came out with something that was far less then what many liberals want, which is single payer, there was no appreciation for this. Obama has said from the beginning, during the debates when he was running, that he did not want to force people to sign up, something that I did not like about him. Hillary was the one saying everyone should be required to participate.

@JLeslie , I think you missed my point, Obama said that the health care debates would be carried on C-Span and would include all parties,,neither were true so I am just as pissed off as you, we need something done about health care and he blew it but I think if he was to try it again next year and be truthful in his approach we might get somewhere.

Why waste your time? The right have a visceral hatred of all things Obama, no matter what he does. He sends more troops to Afganistan just as they wanted and Fox News finds a way to bash him. He bends over for Leiberman and his republican friends and the neo-cons still find fault. You can never reason with these people who have minds built a million years ago.

@Mandomike I see. I did not know about the c-span, now that would have been interesting.

You know, one of the reasons, I wanted Hillary was because I like that she knew how Washington worked. Most new presidents have a learning curve, and Hillary had the inside scoop having been first lady. I saw Pres. Clinton after he had left office talking about don’t ask don’t tell in the military, and he was saying he settled on that because he had no idea the HATE he would encounter from the other side. He attributed it to his naivete being new in office. I have a feeling Obama did not account for some of the crap and backdeals that go on, although maybe he should have known better than Clinton being from the Senate, but I just wonder if he had good intentions and then everyone else shut him down. Not making excuses for him, just putting the idea out there.

I have a feeling if the bill dies the subject will die for a while, maybe until after the next presidential election.

Thanks for clarifying your point :)

If Palin was a liberal they would love her. A woman who started at local PTA raises to level of State Governor, and cleaned out corruption as well. And can draw a crowd comparible to Obama. Christ Matthrews would even be able to talk anymore he would have so many tingles going up and down each leg he would just have to retire.

@Pennythoughts , Yes Palin would rock except she has the wrong letter before her political affiliation.

@Pennythoughts: I have to disagree. Even if Palin was a liberal she would still continue to speak as she has in the past, without intelligence and without considering any of the facts, thus destroying any credibility she might have gained by switching sides.

@Mandomike “tell that to all the Canadians coming here for medical treatment because they are on waiting lists,I have two friends that are in that predicament right now so don’t tell me about your so called truth”

You and others continually rant about these poor, ill, uncared for Canadians that are invading us enmass for our wonderful American healthcare. I would really like to see some stats on this from a reputable source. Can you cite a source with numbers that we American taxpayers can peruse by any chance?

Canadians hear that crap and think it’s a joke. Not one would trade systems.

@Mandomike And while you’re working on that, try turning off Limbaugh, Beck and OReilly and turn on C-Span once in awhile.

Obama said that the health care debates would be carried on C-Span and would include all parties,,neither were true…

@JLeslie
The Health Care Debate has been televised daily on C-Span since it hit the House. Here’s the schedule for the on-going Senate debate:
http://www.c-span.org/Health-Care-Senate-Debate.aspx

@Espiritus_Corvus Thanks. I actually just heard on TV yesterday some talking head bitching that he had promised it would be on cspan and then did not deliver. Amazing.

You’re most welcome.