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Go Home The Cocky Right

THE PLANK SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

The Cocky Right

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

One striking thing to me is the extreme confidence conservatives have that health care reform will fail. The Weekly Standard has been at the forefront of this triumphalism. Fred Barnes, writing in the Weekly Standard, flatly declares reform won't even make it out of the House:

[U]nless Obama has suddenly transformed public opinion, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won't be able to find enough Democrats, even among the usually malleable Blue Dogs, willing to vote for ObamaCare. Defy the public to bail out a president in trouble? Only Democrats in safe seats are likely to do that.

If health care reform does pass, will Barnes concede that Obama actually did transform public opinion?

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It's easy enough to be a cocky conservative when the whole point of being one is to live down to the political expectations of a base weaned on Fox News [yes, they tune in on purpose] and fully capable of electing Sarah Palin as Commander in Chief of the whole fucking world. This reflects the mental, emotional and psychological depth of a cartoon character terminator. Even Arnold Schwaraenegger is appalled by these bozos. On the other hand, what cocky liberal pundits who pride themselves in lodging Barack Obama in their brains often neglect to acknowledge is how their own political expectations rarely rise above [or even venture off] the reservation that is our rhetorical blogosphere. Take away their keyboard and how much do they really have to contrtibute to the national dialogue? They monger with words what armies of war monger with high explosives. Fred Barnes? Fred Barnes and the mindless mutts at The Weekly Standard are True Believers. What would you expect from folks who are quite capable of reducing the entire universe down to a speech by Ronald Reagan? They embody the very, very dangerous mentality of The Whole Truth wherever they go. Alas, all too many liberal pundits seem ever intent as well on asking themselves this: Am I quite capable of reducing the entire universe down to a speech by Barack Obama? How about ObamaCare---did he nail it last night? Were his words the world? Is it now my world too? george walton d/a

- iambiguous

September 10, 2009 at 10:23am

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If health care reform does pass, will Barnes concede that Obama actually did transform public opinion?
Has Fred Barnes ever acknowledged the failure of a previous prediction? The man is quite simply wrong about pretty much everything pretty much all the time. If he had the slightest interest in the accuracy of his statements, he would have left the profession twenty years ago. The man is a sycophant and possibly the biggest hack at work in conservative Washington; it makes no sense even in jest to assume a concern for the truth on his part. Also, overnight polls show a 14-point swing in public opinion behind the president's health care plan, from a slim majority to a two-thirds landslide in favor. So in typical Barnesian fashion, his punditry was falsified before it was even published.

- rhubarbs

September 10, 2009 at 10:52am

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"[A]national consensus has formed around what the president calls 'comprehensive' immigration reform."--Fred Barnes, May, 2006. This guy is incapable of reading the tea leaves.

- Virginia Centrist

September 10, 2009 at 4:35pm

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