Dems’ And Dole’s Flaccid Healthcare Advocacy

Last week, former Senator and GOP Presidential candidate Bob Dole went public endorsing President Obama’s attempt to reform healthcare. Dole did so over already existing objections by Mitch McConnell and other Republicans. It spite of those objections, Dole publicly issued a joint statement with Tom Daschle saying:

The American people have waited decades, and if this moment passes us by, it may be decades more before there is another opportunity

Dole further personally reiterated a previous statement made to the Kansas City Star, to the effect

I don’t want the Republicans putting up a ‘no’ sign and saying, ‘We’re not open for business.

Well that was then; this is now. Now, as of yesterday, less than five days after Dole issued a joint ballyhooed statement to the press supporting Obama’s effort to reform healthcare, he suddenly does not want his words used in an advertisement supporting Obama’s effort to reform healthcare. The Sunday New York Times reports:

At the request of former Senator Bob Dole, Democrats are scrapping plans to broadcast a new commercial that touted Republicans like Mr. Dole speaking in support of overhauling the health-care system.

Mr. Dole lodged a complaint with the White House Saturday night, saying that the new commercial, set to run on national broadcast stations on Monday but available online on Saturday, was deceptive.

“He believes it is deceptive, it was not authorized, and he asked that it be pulled,” Michael Marshall, a spokesman for Mr. Dole, said Sunday morning. “He was told late last night by the White House that it would not run.”

The ad has now been pulled not just from broadcast and cable, but from the internet as well. Except the ad was shown on the Sunday news shows and FDL has it. Take a look, the entire Bob Dole part of the ad lasts less than five seconds and consists of a stock still of Dole and a voice over of his printed earlier statement to the Kansas City Star in the exact words

I want this to pass – we have got to do something.

It was a public statement, given to a newspaper of record, on the record, and Bob Dole has the unmitigated gall to demand that the ad be yanked as being “deceptive”??

And the White House leaped into action immediately and killed the ad??? Simply amazing.

This candy ass bufoonery from the same White House that routinely insults and demeans its own activist base that got it elected and is busting their rears to get meaningful healthcare reform passed.

With this type of consistently weak tea, not to mention the wholesale sell out to the healthcare lobby interests, it is little wonder the reform effort is floundering. If only those little blue pills Dole shills for would work on his, and the White House’s, spine.

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52 replies
  1. Teddy Partridge says:

    Most Obama voters remember Bob Dole as the guy in that creepy Pepsi ad with Brit during the 2002 Super Bowl. I’m not sure who a Dole endorsement of Obama’s health care plan was aimed at, but Americans who rejected Bob Dole’s presidential aspirations and North Carolinians who rejected his wife’s Senate re-election prospects were surely not among them.

    Americans don’t trust the GOP on healthcare. Getting endorsements of the Democrats’ health care plan from old GOPs seems entirely counterproductive to me. Who went on this fool’s errand? More worship at the false altar of “bipartisanship” aimed at Villagers and not real Americans.

    But I think it’s great that Bob Dole wouldn’t be herded into the Veal Pen! Dude’s still got some lead in his pencil after all!

    • Mary says:

      I agree with bmaz that the speed with which Obamaco tries to appease irrelevant old Republican men makes my head swim, but Teddy you have a great point, too, with:

      I’m not sure who a Dole endorsement of Obama’s health care plan was aimed at

      I’m thinking anyone old enought to remember Dole other than the creepy ads, remembers him as the presidential candidate who was so hot to support the tobacco industry that he pretty much shot his campaign in the foot. I remember (yes, I have had that partial Republican streak in me) kind of going along, thinking about Dole as a candidate, until he started making weird comments – I’m sure I misremember them now, but it basically struck me at the time that he was saying tobacco hasn’t been “proven” to be addictive or cause cancer, so quit picking on the tobacco industry and let’s keep marketing cigz to kidz.

      Add in his Viagara ties, and I feel kind of creeped out at the thought that I might be on the “same side” of the healthcare debate as Dole.

      • bmaz says:

        Yeah, I am less concerned about Dole himself than the idiotic pandering and capitulation of Obama and the White House. At about the same moment they were insulting and demeaning the group that actually went out in the streets and took to the nets to get the cluck elected. How the fuck does Dole say that ad is “deceptive”, and why would the WH do anything but laugh at the assertion? It is just the appearance and principle of what went down here that bugs me; totally lame. And it gave me an excuse to use the word flaccid in the title.

        • druidity36 says:

          I wouldn’t say deceptive as much as incomplete. They did chop out the middle part of the quote that said “I don’t agree with everything President Obama is proposing”, and made it appear as if Dole was supportive of Obama’s agenda in its entirety.

  2. Peterr says:

    Hate to break it to you, bmaz, but the KC Star is published in Missouri, not Kansas. The folks in Kansas want no part of the Star.

    That said, here’s a link to the article, and a bit more of it:

    Dole and Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate leader, have been collaborating for months on a set of health care principles they think can achieve bipartisan consensus. Their efforts have earned him a rebuke from Senate Republicans, Dole said.

    “We’re already hearing from some high-ranking Republicans that we shouldn’t do that (because) ‘That’s helping the president,’ ” he said.

    Later, Dole identified one critic as a “very prominent Republican, who happens to be the Republican leader of the Senate.”

    That would be Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

    Dole, to his credit, is tuning out the interference. “I don’t want the Republicans putting up a ‘no’ sign and saying, ‘we’re not open for business,’ ” he said.

    [snip]

    Today, Dole is promoting the bill up for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee as the most promising vehicle to achieve reform.

    “I want this to pass,” he told the Kansas City audience. “I don’t agree with everything President Obama is proposing, but we’ve got to do something.”

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Yup. I gather Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, are like mutton and beef: in the West, mutually unintelligible and opposing interests. I prefer Missouri. Can’t stand drinking from airline sized bottles of liquor, or paying for the fiction of “joining” a club in order to be served a drink, or the mindset that goes along with it.

    • BargainCountertenor says:

      Kansas is a weird place. I lived there for 11 years in grad school and after, and I can’t really say that I ever got Kansas. There isn’t truly a newspaper of record in Kansas: there are several.

      In Topeka, there is the Capitol Journal, in Wichita there is the Eagle-Beacon. Wichita’s too far from the capitol to be the real newspaper of record and doesn’t have much circulation in the northeast. The Capitol Journal is nominally the newspaper of record, because it’s where the state government publishes its stuff. But it doesn’t get much penetration outside Shawnee County (that’s Topeka to you non-Kansans). The Kansas City Star is published in KC, MO, but it used to get pretty wide circulation in Kansas. KC, KS doesn’t have a newpaper that I’m aware of. That’s in keeping with KC, KS as very much a suburb of KC, MO. On the other side of Mizzou, think about East St. Louis. The situation isn’t terribly different.

      I’ve been away from Kansas long enough that I don’t know what sort of political weight Dole tosses around the state now. Once upon a time, he was generally one of the two most important GOoP politicians in the state, but that preceded Liddy Dole by a lot. My impression is that Liddy cost him in Kansas.

      So, even though it’s published in Mizzou, one could make a decent argument that Dole’s comments were intended for that part of the center of the country running from central Missouri to central Kansas.

  3. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Mitch McConnell just squeezed the graphite out of Bob’s pencil. Not even a stub left to scribble with.

    • sadlyyes says:

      tee hee
      what miserablE excuses for men,let alone human beings
      just disgusting ……..my Tennessee stud horse Levi,has more gravitas and smarts,and integrity,than these sorry excuses for MENHOOD

  4. phred says:

    On the one hand the WH seems to be falling all over itself with one boneheaded display of incompetence after another. On the other hand, the last damn thing we need is anything cooked up by Daschle and Dole. If ever there were an argument against the travesty likely to be passed out of the SFC tomorrow it would have to be the support of guys like them. Ick.

    I do not understand why every Dem on the committee who has been improperly shut out of the process by Baucus doesn’t vote no tomorrow out of sheer indignation. How often do we get lectured by Harry Reid about how the traditions of the Senate must be adhered to? And how often do those traditions go right out the window when Republicans and now the WH want them to? The Dems on that committee have let Obama turn their existence into a farce. They should be ashamed of themselves. Although it would be more useful if they would simply get angry and fight back.

  5. Hmmm says:

    Wait a minute. Am I to understand they killed the entire spot, rather than produce a new edit w/o BobDole? Because that doesn’t stand to reason. It would be an hour’s work to change the spot if they really wanted to run a spot. There must have been other reasons why they decided to pull the ad, beyond BobDole.

    • bmaz says:

      It appears they canned the whole thing. I will take a flyer that Dole told them it was “unhelpful”, but all I can vouch for is what was in the NYT article on the ad getting yanked. Have not heard one word about Frist or others complaining….

  6. Valley Girl says:

    With this type of consistently weak tea, not to mention the wholesale sell out to the healthcare lobby interests, it is little wonder the reform effort is floundering.

    Not only is the effort floundering, it is foundering as well, at least in the “lame” sense.

  7. Teddy Partridge says:

    Why not take the opportunity to paint the entire GOP — past and present — as entirely dishonest on healthcare reform? Why not blow up the Dole demurral and run the damn ad? Why not prod Dole to deny it publicly — he said it, he meant it, doesn’t he stand by it?

    Who is this White House so eager to please, and why?

    • sadlyyes says:

      run the damn ad? Why not prod Dole to deny it publicly — he said it, he meant it, doesn’t he stand by it?
      —————-
      EXCUSE THE PUN
      a FUKKIN…men?

    • bmaz says:

      There you go, now THAT’S the attitude! Why give an inch to the pasty old jerk? and, again, what the hell was “deceptive”?? It is just bizarre all the way around; from Dole complaining of deception to Obama curling up in the fetal position. I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

  8. ThingsComeUndone says:

    So this is the result of months of trying to get the GOP on board they get Bob Dole in an ad then they have to pull it. Face it there will be no GOP votes on this or any other issue.

    • sadlyyes says:

      uhm…yea…on EVERY FRIGGIN ISSUE THE DEMS OR PBO bring up…….period
      they will obstruct him,and paint him as ILLEGITIMATE

  9. earlofhuntingdon says:

    One would think the story was at least as much about Dole’s backpedaling on a major social issue as on Rahma & Bahma’s appeasement of him and the GOP.

    Bob and Libby Dole have lifetime health care and pension plans, courtesy of the US Senate. If I recall correctly, Mr. Dole also has permanent partial disability benefits owing to war wounds, also paid for by the Gubmint. I suspect both are collecting their Social Security, too, even though I understand the couple are independently wealthy.

    I won’t ask again whether there’s a limit to the Village’s Gubmint for me, but not for thee hypocrisy, but is there?

  10. Larue says:

    “It was a public statement, given to a newspaper of record, on the record, and Bob Dole has the unmitigated gall to demand that the ad be yanked as being “deceptive”??”

    Gall hell, who are the limp wristed fucks who PULLED it?

    IT’S FUCKING PUBLIC DOMAIN!

    Someone caved on this one.
    Sissy ass putz.

    Nice hit, BMAZ, thanks for sharing, had not heard of this.

  11. joanneleon says:

    I don’t know why Dole insisted on this or why the WH complied, but it sounds like it really might be an interparty squabble that nobody really wants to stir up, given that there’s a possibility of some Republicans in the House voting for the bill. Or maybe Pres. Obama is just desperate to have one Republican, retired or not, standing behind him at the signing ceremony.

    What I do know is that Daschle and Dole have been working on this health care reform legislation for almost two years, along with Mitchell and Baker, in their lobbyist organization, The Bipartisan Policy Center. Dole was happy to stand beside Kathleen Sebelius literally and figuratively when she was nominated. Maybe he was supposed to deliver some Republican votes and there is now a riff between him and the WH because of the public plan?

    So the Daschle/Dole bill may have become the Baucus bill or at least they may have collaborated. I think they did, and this was the way that the Obama White House avoided having lobbyists in their administration but still were able to closely work with the different industries in crafting the deals and the bill.

    The weird thing about that is that Daschle and Baucus are supposedly sworn enemies.

    I think the public option is the thing that is messing up all the plans of the control freak West Wing and their many collaborators.

  12. bobschacht says:

    All these comments about Dole sound like so much trash talk.

    So in that vein, I’m sorry that I missed the Denver-New England game on Sunday. Despite bmaz’ skepticism, from the reports I’ve seen it turned into a whale of a game, with Denver emerging 5-0 after overtime, and New England down to 4-2. Tonight on the pre-game show, they had an interview with the Bronco’s new young coach– hey, he’s younger than my nephew, who’s an assistant football coach in the middle of Illinois. Apparently, the Denver defense(?!??) was a major factor in winning the game.

    And tonight, the Jets-Dolphs game is turning into an interesting game. My perspective, as a Michigan grad, is to focus on Chad Henne(20/26, 2 TD), QB for Miasma, and Braylon Edwards, new wide receiver for the Pets. Both had super games. Edwards had some spectacular catches, and the only one he missed was covered by a doubtful interference penalty. It was a fun game!

    Bob in AZ

  13. joanneleon says:

    P.P.S. Oops, didn’t realize that was you, bmaz. Now I’m in a spot. Let me try this again:

    EW and bmaz, your titles are the best!

  14. ezdidit says:

    The administration is on the hook for centrism. The plan to keep the health insurance model viable will fail in cost savings, thereby failing in job creation, thereby failing politically. The administration will be the last man standing in 2010 in a game of musical chairs it isn’t even playing. President Obama makes no sense, except for Rahm who’s “f**king stupid.” The country turned radical when we elected Obama, and we need radical solutions like the radical, but “f**king stupid,” Wall Street bailout. We need single payer and an end to insurance companies and their Wall Street greed. We need jobs and we need insurance. We certainly do not need to bolster an egregiously wealthy elite class of corporate assholes. Supporting them is just “f**king stupid.”

  15. freepatriot says:

    Barack Obama wants bloggers to get out of their pajamas

    and bloggers want Barack Obama to GROW A FUCKING BACKBONE

    I think we can negotiate with the guy

    and as an advocate of “Commando Blogging”, I won’t really mind losing teh pjs …

    hey, brainiac moderators-techies, why are quote marks screwing up the format in preview and in the edit window too ???

  16. freepatriot says:

    quote marks are showing three extra backslashes in preview, and edit wipes out hard returns

    jes in case yer wondering

    Mozilla on a PC -not vista, if it matters

    • Rayne says:

      The techies are aware of it, thanks. If you still see the same problem by the end of the week, drop a brief note in comments and we’ll check with them again.

      Any chance you’re using Chrome? [edit: by which I mean checking to see if you have the same problem with a different browser, sorry]

  17. freepatriot says:

    and about teh “Paper of Record” thing:

    in Cali, we have some requirements for public notices to be published in FOUR papers of record within the county (election nomination open and closing dates, death notice-probate stuff, fictitious business notices, things like that)

    this allows the local shopper newspaper, and the local gossip newspaper to collect a few bucks publishing the county’s business. with the profit trajectory of the mainstream newspaper industry in a nose dive, these local mail stuffers may soon be the only “Papers of Record” left in the county

    food for thought. I hadn’t thought about the newspaper industry’s demise having an effect on the People’s Business. What did we do before we had newspapers (oh yeah, we couldn’t read anyway …)

  18. Mary says:

    Within a week of each other, Obama gets Nobel Peace Prize and fast tracks super massive bunker buster bombs.
    http://news.aol.com/article/pentagon-wants-bunker-buster-bomb-sooner/714556

    The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete

    Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

    • BoxTurtle says:

      If we don’t want Israel to use nukes to take out the Iranian atomic program, we’d better provide them with a non-nuclear alternative. Right now, the only think that either Israel or America has that would bust the enrichment facility are nukes.

      Bush would have used nukes or been happy to let Israel do so, I think. Obama, not so much.

      And as for Dole, well, I’d pay good money for transcripts of the phone calls he received between the time of his statement and the time that ObamaCo pulled thew ad.

      Boxturtle (Do you suppose Rahm called him? :-) )

  19. cinnamonape says:

    Bob Dole: In a word “Viagra”. Hundreds of millions spent on a promotional campaign for a pharmaceutical that likely should have been never promoted to the public directly. Every limp Boehner with a carotene-tan wanted to think they could “party hearty” for hours. Medicinal stud-dom. And it made Pfizer billions.

    One of the major ways of cutting pharma costs would, of course, be to reduce the advertising aspects of promoting the drugs to individuals who don’t really need them…to reduce the degree of drug abuse in the society…and to promote, instead, healthier lifestyles.

    When Pharma suddenly realised that the bills were shifting the wrong way Dole jumped ship.

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