Commentary: Obama’s Obsession

by John LeBoutillier

March 5, 2010

The March 3 announcement from President Obama that he is making the final push for his signature health care bill has enormous political, economic and medical ramifications. 



1) It means that Obama will indeed use the Nuclear Option—a Senate Rules change that will be seen by the American people as “changing the rules in the middle of the game.”

2) This will drive down Obama’s poll ratings because he will be seen as even more manipulative and shifty than the politicians he ran against in 2008. Change? Yeah, the change is that Obama is actually even a dirtier dealer than Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove were perceived to be.

3) November 2010 will now become a blood bath for the Democrats. Contrary to an earlier prediction of mine on January 1, 2010, the GOP will now likely win back control of the House. The Senate is less likely, but not impossible. Indeed, the Democrats have committed political suicide throughout this health care process. Have you ever seen a President and congressional leadership push a bill that the majority of Americans oppose? And the more they push, the more the American people oppose the bill! Yet they keep on pushing! Crazy…crazy…crazy…



4) Obama is now on track to become one of the most unpopular presidents—ever. 



5) Medically, if this bill passes—and it might—it will throw the entire medical/insurance world into chaos. All our premiums will go up—contrary to what Obama promises. American-trained doctors will flee the system. In sum, it will be a total disaster.

6) The same for 17% of our national economy: if this bill passes, the markets will hate it. And then the more that is learned about it, the more it will hurt any chance of an economic recovery.

7) Obama seems to already have forgotten the lesson he was supposed to have learned from Scott Brown’s Massachusetts upset on January 19th. Jobs and economic recovery are the top priority of a majority of people. He said he “got” that message. But within two weeks he was back on his health care obsession. And it is an obsession.

8) LBJ was obsessed with “pinning the coonskin on the wall” in Vietnam. It sunk him. Richard Nixon was obsessed with secrecy and finding out his opponents’ secrets. That obsession sunk him. Bill Clinton was obsessed with seducing women. That ruined him. George W. Bush was obsessed with avenging Saddam Hussein’s attempted assassination of his father. That obsession will forever taint the Bushes.

9) Now we have a clear obsession of Barack Obama. And it will ruin his political career.

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John LeBoutillier is a former member of Congress from Long Island, and is the author of Harvard Hates America.