Obama's Old Tune: No Reconciliation

Friday, March 5, 2010

Barack Obama didn't always think ramming through health care "reform" with reconciliation was a good idea.

During a CBS-TV election night interview on Nov. 2, 2004, for example, Obama said, "My understanding of the Senate is, is that you need 60 votes to get something significant to happen, which means that Democrats and Republicans have to ask the question: Do we have the will to move an American agenda forward, not a Democratic or Republican agenda forward?"

At the Change to Win convention on Sept. 25, 2007, he declared, "The bottom line is that our health-care plans are similar. The question, once again, is: Who can get it done? Who can build a movement for change? This is an area where we're going to have to have a 60 percent majority in the Senate and the House in order to actually get a bill to my desk. We're going to have to have a majority, to get the bill to my desk, that is not just a 50-plus-1 majority."

He didn't stop there. On Oct. 9, 2007, in an interview with the Concord (NH) Monitor, Obama pontificated, "You've got to break out of what I call the sort of 50-plus-1 pattern of presidential politics. Maybe you eke out a victory of 50 plus 1, but you can't govern. You know, you get Air Force One -- I mean, there are a lot of nice perks, but you can't deliver on health care. We're not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-1 strategy."

At the Center for American Progress on July 12, 2006, he confided, "You know, one of the arguments that sometimes I get with my fellow progressives -- and some of these have flashed up in the blog communities on occasion -- is this notion that we should function sort of like Karl Rove, where we identify our core base, we throw them red meat, we get a 50-plus-1 victory. But see, Karl Rove doesn't need a broad consensus, because he doesn't believe in government. If we want to transform the country, though, that requires a sizable majority."

Obama was right then, though he was merely campaigning. He has always been motivated by radical ideology and narcissism. His present course of calling for a 50-plus-1 victory is just part of the game.