This afternoon, reports surfaced of a petition to ask Senators to block the health care bill—not from the right, but from a source none other than the liberal campaign organization MoveOn.org. In an e-mail to supporters, MoveOn.org said:
But there’s enormous pressure from all sides to pass a bill quickly, no matter how weak it is…Let’s show Bernie and other progressives that we’re counting on them to block this version of the bill–and we’ll get their backs if they do.
Earlier this week, Howard Dean said, “The best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill and go back to the House. …The vast majority of Americans want choices, they want real choices. They don’t have them in this bill. This is not health care reform and it’s not close to health care reform.”
Seemingly, the only thing the left and the right entirely agree upon right now is that that a Christmas deadline for a health care vote is arbitrary and political, and that the Senate bill is a disaster and should be abandoned, regardless of what everyone’s specific reasons seem to be. If it is hated equally by both sides, why is there a steam engine rush toward a final vote, especially when not one senator other than Harry Reid himself even knows the details of the bill to begin with?
Even today, the Daily Kos started down the road toward blaming Majority Leader Harry Reid and moderate Democrats for the death of this bill, which is yet uncertain, saying: “If health reform dies, it will be at the hands of the Joe Liebermans and Ben Nelsons of the world — and the people who negotiated with them.”
It leaves one to ask why, if both the left and the right have sounded a death knell for this bill, are the President and Sen. Reid so set on going against the whole of America? Could a checked box in a State of the Union speech really be worth plunging our country so deep in debt, alienating their base, and hardening their opposition?
We have regularly reported on President Obama’s perpetual campaign organization, Organizing for America (OFA), and the need for him to abandon this campaign and move on to leading the nation. OFA is an off shoot of the Democratic National Committee, operating under the website www.BarackObama.com, and it is explicitly designed to maintain the President’s 2008 campaign into 2012. It is headed by some of the President’s closest political advisors, including David Plouffe and Mitch Stewart. In August, the Heritage Foundation uncovered an invitation to an OFA event which likened conservatives to “domestic terrorists” and the “heirs to Bin Laden.” Later, in September, OFA Maryland State Director, Jason Waskey, invited OFA members to a rally with the President himself, in which he referred to all conservatives as “swiftboaters” who are “spreading lies and stirring fear.” Not a very classy track record so far, for an organization directly tied to the President of the United States.
Today, Politico reports that one of the twenty finalists in a health care video contest run by Organizing for America is film of an American flag being spray painted onto a building and then desecrated with graffiti before being “ultimately obliterate[d].” The video is produced by Daniel Lahoda and Saber, and is to be ultimately judged by Plouffe, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA), singer will.i.am and Hollywood stars Rosario Dawson and Dule Hill. The idea that the desecration of the American Flag is either entertaining or helps sell liberal health care reform should be universally admonished.
In fact, an anonymous liberal entrant to the contest even told Politico that “a video ‘defacing the flag’ won’t do much to help President Barack Obama or the Democrats sell health care reform.” A truer statement could not be found. President Obama had come under previous ‘flag scrutiny’ for refusing to wear an American flag on his lapel which he explained by saying it “became a substitute for I think true patriotism.” He later began wearing a pin.
We take the President at his word when he says, “I don’t want to pit Red America against Blue America. I want to be President of the United States of America.” The President’s campaign should immediately denounce this video, and remove it from its list of finalists. Then, President Obama should again heed the call to reconsider this perpetual OFA campaign his organization is running. The President has too often been attached to hateful language and rhetoric emoting from Organizing for America and it’s time for him to lead the nation, not a campaign.
(In fairness, we have included the video below so you may judge for yourself.)
Click here to view the embedded video.