Charlie Cook: Health Care is to Obama as Iraq War is to Boosh.

[jefferson_dem]

:wtf:

"I sort of reject the notion that there is a communications problem with President Obama. I think it's just fundamental, total miscalculations from the very, very beginning. Of proportions comparable to President George W. Bush's decision to go into Iraq."

-- Charlie Cook, in an interview with the National Journal.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/02/19/bonus_quote_of_the_day.html#ixzz0g0g6kZxK

[Jennicut]

1. Say what? Mistakes or not, Obama was right to even try.

[Cosmocat]

11. G E T I T P A S S E D !!!

The right wing is capable of turning ANYTHING to snot ...

They and the MSM have pegged the Dems on it, and it has LONG passed the point of no return ...

They get it PASSED, and while he won't recoup all of his "capital" he gets a good dose of it back ... There is still time to have it become a PLUS for Ds in the fall, but if they drag it out much longer they can still stank it going into November ...

[grantcart]

2. Charlie Cook is to punditry as Karl Rove is to Political Ethics

[tridim]

3. Pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

Cook is a RW hack.

[jaxx]

4. They've all got to have their say, don't they?

Keeps the paychecks coming in.

[DrToast]

5. Sorry, Bush's approval rating was 25%. Obama's is still around 50% and much higher than HCR

[karynnj]

6. Dos he remember that Bush won on the Republican equation that it was treason to criticise a

President in a time of war. Here's an eassay on that:

Since the 2004 election largely turned on who would be the best protector, the Bush campaign sought to make Americans view criticism of the president as if it were a weapon of mass destruction. Zell Miller, a Democratic senator and the keynote speaker for the Republican National Convention, delivered the angriest prime-time speech at a modern political convention. Watched by a national television audience of millions, Miller revealed that political opposition is treason: “Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats’ manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.”
<snip>
The Zell Miller “criticism-as-treason” theme permeated the campaign. New York City’s former police commissioner, Bernie Kerik, stumping around the nation for Bush, told audiences, “Political criticism is our enemy’s best friend.” The Washington Post noted on September 24, 2004, “President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq – a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.” When the United States’s handpicked leader of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, visited the White House, Bush declaimed that Kerry’s criticisms of his Iraq policy “can embolden an enemy.”

<snip>

Each time Kerry talked of Bush’s failures in Iraq, Bush claimed that Kerry was attacking U.S. troops, and many citizens believed him. Each Kerry criticism of a specific debacle became further proof of his lack of patriotism. Following media reports about the looting of an Iraqi ammo dump after its capture by American forces, Kerry criticized the Bush administration for neglecting to secure the explosives, some of which may have later been used to attack U.S. troops. Bush erupted: “Senator Kerry is again attacking the actions of our military in Iraq, with complete disregard for the facts. Senator Kerry will say anything to get elected.” Bush spokesmen condemned Kerry for criticizing before all the facts were out – at the same time the administration continued withholding facts. The Bush team wanted Americans to believe that anyone who criticized the Iraq war was opposed to defending America.
<snip>
The expanding concept of treason plugged the president’s growing credibility gap. It was as if the Democrats were not allowed to say anything critical about Iraq, and the Bush campaign was not obliged to say anything honest about it. Thus, Bush needed only to perpetuate his wars to perpetually silence his critics.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bovard/bovard73.1.html

[BeyondGeography]

7. Beltway Bozo

:silly:

[Cha]

8. Not even, stupid.

[DefenseLawyer]

9. Cause I was at a cocktail party in Georgetown last night and everyone agreed.

There's nothing wrong with heathcare and besides, I think something like 90% of people out there in flyover country are teabaggers.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. WRONG!! He's equating lying us into war with health care reform? n/t

WTF?!?!?!?!?!

[zbdent]

12. Health care, charlie, is not a huge f*cking mistake ...

at least Obama is trying to target the right target ...

[Hansel]

13. If you want to be a pollster rule one should be to stay the hell out of the beltway.

There is no objectivity when you hang out with the group think folks and villagers.

[vegiegals]

14. HC "reform" was indeed mishandled!! It was and is NOT a communication

problem as the WH insists. Charlie is right.

[ohiodemocratic]

15. Cook didn't say that. The headline chosen by the right-wing National Journal is inaccurate

Although I challenge anyone here to show me where Cook likens Obama's decisions regarding health care to Obama's Iraq war.

[JTFrog]

16. Obama's Iraq war?

:wtf:

There is http://insiderinterviews.nationaljournal.com/2010/02/cook-health-care-is-obamas-ira.php">video of him saying exactly what is quoted in the OP. And apparently he further clarified here:

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0210/cook_triggers_blowback_0a36fa7d-18a9-4f50-a9a1-96d38cfb8aba.html

Cook was unrepentant. "Yes, I think choosing to take a Captain Ahab-like approach to health care — ”I’m going to push for this even in the worst downturn since the Great Depression — is roughly comparable to Bush’s decision to go to war,” he told me. “It basically destroyed the first year of a presidency.”

[ohiodemocratic]

17. The whole transcript is in the link (the video doesn't work)

He does not compare Obama's decisions on health care to Bush's decisions on the Iraq war.

He did not respond to a question about health care specifically:

Question:
If Obama has a communications problem as you suggest, then what should he do to reach out to the American people? Should he try to appear more populist?

answer:
Cook: I sort of reject the notion that there is a communications problem with President Obama. I think it's just fundamental, total miscalculations from the very, very beginning. Of proportions comparable to President George W. Bush's decision to go into Iraq. While Bush went, "We're going to go after Afghanistan as a reaction to 9/11," and then just pretty soon got distracted and obsessed with going into Iraq with varying rationalizations that sort of evolved over time.

[JTFrog]

18. Whoosh...

Straight over your head? Or intentionally being obtuse?

Cook was unrepentant.“Yes, I think choosing to take a Captain Ahab-like approach to health care — I’m going to push for this even in the worst downturn since the Great Depression — is roughly comparable to Bush’s decision to go to war,” he told me. “It basically destroyed the first year of a presidency.”

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0210/cook_triggers_blowback_0a36fa7d-18a9-4f50-a9a1-96d38cfb8aba.html

And the video works fine for me.

And again.... :wtf: @ Obama's Iraq war. Care to explain that ridiculous statement?