The confab between Obama and Big Labor bosses didn’t exactly go swimmingly. It seems ObamaCare is not living up to Big Labor’s expectations:
The final bill will not include the House’s government-run insurance plan, or “public option”; it will probably include the Senate’s new tax on high-cost health plans that could affect many union members. …
Three hours earlier, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a hard-edged speech at the National Press Club that discontent with the final bill, when combined with a general perception that Obama and Congress have been insufficiently populist in responding to the recession and financial crisis, could demoralize his members. The risk, he said, was a replay of the Democratic blowout in the 1994 elections, when, after the passage of NAFTA and other disappointments to unions, “there was no way to persuade enough working Americans to go to the polls when they couldn’t tell the difference between the two parties.”
Big Labor’s distaste for the bill is not so strong as to warrant the union bosses’ outright opposition to the bill — though it’s hard to see why they wouldn’t oppose a measure that focuses taxes on many union members without any obvious benefit. Nevertheless, the warning of unenthusiasm in 2010 is not an empty or insignificant threat. Considering the millions poured into Democratic coffers and the get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of Obama and congressional candidates in 2008, it’s no small thing for Big Labor to threaten to sit on its collective hands. Democrats in virtually all polls show a lower level of enthusiasm than do Republicans, who are fired up and eager to throw the rascals out.
So once again we return to the colossal political inanity of ObamaCare. It’s the rare piece of legislation that has inflamed and energized the opposition, and depressed and divided its supporters. Republicans are fortunate indeed. Now we’ll see what, if anything, they can make of the opportunity presented by their opponents.
Obama Acts Like Obama
True to form, Barack Obama’s explanation yesterday of his reasons for leaving Trinity Church are a model of double-talk. (And the remarkably passive media pack doesn’t make it very hard for him to avoid further scrutiny.) He has, he explained
And he would have remained in a church for two decades where regularly people spoke out in ways which conflicted with his principles because . . . why, exactly? We don’t know. And no one in the press thought to ask.
But it gets worse. ABC reports:
Yes, remember Obama does not do denouncing. There is nothing a Wright or Pfleger or Ayers can do which deserve condemnation. Unless, of course they visit the National Press Club and critique his sincerity.
And Obama concedes that:
This one gets the trifecta for dishonesty, or perhaps cluelessness. First, it is, of course, not the case that his Christian faith is being questioned. I know of no commentator, critic, or political opponent who has done that. What is at issue is his propensity to hang out with hatemongers who suggest his current post-racial theme is a pose. Second, he apparently lacks any cultural or political compass if he really believed that Wright et al. would not become an issue. Was it self-delusion? Or is he so out of touch with average Americans that he was unable to predict what would be deeply offensive to millions of Americans? And finally, notice how he impugns the motives of those who raise concerns about his association with Trinity. They are on a footing, in his book, with those perpetrating the “He’s a Muslim” canard. But the former are not perpetrating a lie. They are discussing and probing the beliefs, sincerity, and character of the man who wants to be President.
The Trinity cast of characters and Obama’s reaction to them have been more revealing than more a dozen-plus debates, all the speeches, and just about anything that has happened in over a year of campaigning. It might be even more revealing if the media would take their role seriously and press Obama on some of these obvious points. But Obama, however inadvertently, has done a fairly good job of letting us know how he makes both political and moral judgments. And that is perhaps the most important thing to know about a potential President.