First, all the major news morning shows will be talking about nothing other than Obama calling the police "stupid."

Next, Obama will apologize.  This will be followed by the cable news, all day Thursday, discussing the ramifications. Rush and the Republicans will be all over it, all day.

Friday, the news will be all about the reaction, and all about the Republican onslaught.

Sunday morning talk shows, nothing but Obama calling the police "stupid" and Democrats backing away from it.

What I found disturbing is that when you combine his idea to put together a new board, IMAC, that would be making decisions about Medicare which the president would approve and which Congress could only nix under conditions that are unlikely to happen, with some of the things he said tonight about whether old people really need all the health care they're currently getting, it's hard not to worry that he has his sights set on "reforming" Medicare and Medicaid in ways that might significantly reduce the support they provide for our older population.  

Not so much about specifically answering the questions, though she may have a point there (I'll need to go back and review the film), but in the lengthy professorial nature of his answers.  A non-soundbite, low-key and thoughtful style which may have won the applause of some perfessers out there -- e.g. Krugman -- but not all.  

Rbt Reich for instance felt, as I did, that Obama missed an opportunity tonight.  Not enough specifics, not enough passion, not enough talking about a robust public option.

From my initial reaction, I'd generously give him a B.  

Problem is, at this point in the process, he needs to be bringing his A game each time out.

I now have some skepticism about his health care plan I didn't have before.

All the gasbags can talk about is how Obama "handled" the Henry Louis Gates question, which is typical. I personally don't care if Gates was screaming at the top of his lungs, he was in his own house, presented no threat to anyone and had broken no law. The cop arrested him for failing to be properly deferential, which the last I heard, was not illegal. But let's face it ---- Gates was lucky they didn't taser him, wasn't he?

Hopefully now Obama can appoint Gates to the Supreme Court so we can have the Republicans create a media circus when the cop who arrested Gates testifies at Gates' confirmation hearings.

I wonder how long -- in Taser administration years -- it has been since a sitting president had any derogatory words for police in any form or fashion. Let's see. No chance during either Bush administration. The Badge equals definition of virtue for them (under the assumption the application of police authority was limited to lower socio-economic strata, a criterion quietly handled behind closed doors). Being the go-along-to-get-along type of Democrat he was, I suspect Willy Jeff never dared say anything remotely critical of law enforcement. In fact, this may qualify as an historic event. We may be looking at more than 25...maybe 30...years.

But I don't know that it is really a sign of reform so much as deflection and the typical trickery. The tendency to interpret any misbehavior involving an African American person as racially motivated appears to be operating. That is bad for real reform because, in case anyone hasn't noticed, abuse of police authority is not limited to African Americans. They'll kick or shock or whip the living snot out of anyone, anytime, for any reason -- and they will laugh and brag openly about it. They have enough statutory authority and case law behind them now that they can come out of the gates shooting and whipping *ss every morning just for fun.

For a sitting president to suggest, if only through omission, that the only police problem we have is race related doesn't bode well for real reform. Yes, the police abuse their authority with African Americans. But a large part of that is simply because they abuse their authority with everybody below about the 85th percentile in income. Some of those people are African Americans, but to hear our current reformers talk, you would think there are no Whites among the victims. Abuse of poor Whites by police appears to be being scripted by the faux reformers as a non-existent problem. That is, if the police beat you senseless for fun and then electrocute you into cardiac arrest, you only have a case if you are not straight and White. If you have been beaten or shocked senseless by the police for no reason, and you can't produce some kind of minority identity, then you might as well not complain. There is no public interest in your case unless the motive can be understood as bigotry (rather than just plain old authoritarianism and power drunkenness gone stark raving mad). Police abuse of Whites is therefore being completely ignored (and thus denied) by the reformers. It is therefore an invisible injustice - the same way abuse of minorities was invisible for so long. The message seems to be, if a person of color is not involved, then police brutality, excessive force, cutting probable cause corners, denial of Constitutional rights, etc., can simply be presumed justified in the manner it has been presumed justified for everybody for thirty years.

Sorry. I just don't like half truths and half measures. I am not interested in half reform. This approach looks like a recipe for failure to me. The wingnut approach to addressing ethnic disparity in abuse of any kind has traditionally been fairly consistent and predictable. Their solution is not to stop the abuse. Their solution is to apply the abuse to everyone equally. I think they may be setting us up for that. They are going to "correct" this by publicly abusing more Whites. Then we will have an equal opportunity police state. Everyone will be happy. Problem solved.

I thought the President made a good argument for the necessity of reform. And painted an attractive picture of what life would be life with these reforms.

But he was not clear enough on specifics.  And he did deflect on certain answers. He also seemed disengaged from the process, as if there weren't that interested in fighting for his positions on certain issues.  

I'm still concerned about the subsidies.  In the House plan they weren't subsidies, but rather a cap on prices based on income.  And the caps weren't good.

No one in the press asked about this.  None seemed to have read any of the plans.

Police officers are arrogant and intimidating, they have to be in order to have the upper hand in keeping peace and enforcing the law. They have a dangerous and important job and one of their most vital tools is psychological power.  It's essential.

I don't like having to shut up because a cop tells me to but I do it because if we want to have an orderly law abiding society we need police officers to have the power to control behavior in that way.

He avoided answering questions directly and even when he did answer questions he was sometimes disingenuous or misleading.

He was not being fully forthright when he talked about how he plans to reduce costs of Medicare or how this new plan will be paid for.

And he was being disingenuous by saying he's pushing this through so fast because Americans need this help immediately (although it's true we do). If Obama signs  health care reform this fall, the uninsured won't be covered until 2013 -- after the next presidential election, and up to 10 years for some elements to kick in. Why is that?  Eleven months after President Johnson signed the Medicare law in 1965, seniors were receiving coverage. If he could do that in less than a year in the 1960s before computers why will it take 3 1/2 years in the 21st Century?

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hiiWnivT__38YVG-emF9zy6xVW_AD99ICP600

But I found myself asking, during and after almost every sentence, "wha'd he say?"

He was like a sublime master of double talk.

The one thing that was perfectly clear to me was Obama's description of single-payer. This is the plan that would cover everybody. My eyes opened. My ears opened. Then he dismissed it. He said some nonsense about us having to pay for someone who was hit by a truck.

The dismissal of single-payer - the plan that everyone wants - was loud and clear. The rest was gobbledegook.

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Guess which story ran first on the morning news? (Ok, well, it was Michael Jackson's doctor). Certainly not about health care and the press conference - that story came after the first commercial break - and was led in with "Obama says Cambridge police acted stupidly."  

I agree. Nothing could make it clearer that we need reform when he asked '' if someone offered you a plan that is guaranteed to double in cost in ten years  and leave you less healthy, would you buy it? That is the plan you get if we do nothing..that is the status quo''

His responses to questions seemed to go on too long. He speaks so smoothly and grammatically (after the Idiot Prince who couldn't finish a sentence) that it's usually a pleasure for me to listen to him, even if I disagree with what he is saying.

However as the night wore on, his answers grew longer and more groping, as if he was trying to circle back to specific talking points.

And then at some point exhaustion seemed to kick in.

I've been in that position myself. Just so tired that automatic pilot begins to take over and you're not entirely in control of your message. I felt for him last night.

Health care/insurance reform is enormously complicated, with huge forces arrayed against change. As he went on about cost control and the deficit, I saw why he was putting such an emphasis on that aspect. But I also began to realize that single-payer is the only way to rein in expenses and provide universal care to all Americans. I've never been a big advocate of trying to enact single-payer (although I think they shouldn't have taken it off the table before starting the process). It seemed impossible to get through the gauntlet of congress, lobbyists, GOP crazies, etc.

But I finally begin to understand that the patched-together fixes that fall short of single-payer are going to be hopelessly complex.

After being bombarded with fear for the last eight years, too many American's are more than willing to give up their rights for a false sense of security. Laws have been passed, and things have been done, that I never would have thought possible in this country.