I guess I was also tricked into thinking that the republicans were sincere about actual health care reform. Obama's heart might be in the right place to change washington, but no one wants to play that game. They are so pissed off they lost the election in the worst way that the only recourse they think they have is to bring Obama down.

I'm done with trying to think that anyone that is from the right even cares about any of the issues we face. Nothing matters other than "winning" back power and they'll do whatever they can to do so.

I say they work with democrats only and if the GOP wants to play, they come to the table with ideas other than talking points and rhetoric.

However, Obama needs to get this message too. I think the left pundits gave him a bit of a sting the past few days I'm hopeful he feels it. Time to get serious and put the public option back in, add in end of life counseling and run that baby through congress. If the GOP doesn't like it, let them filibuster it as Carville suggested. If we keep this "negotiating" up with the GOP, we'll get nothing and they won't vote for it anyway.

..and I usually do. I think I see what you are trying to get at but I'm not so sure you got much to go on.

I don't see the huge similarity people keep talking about.

It's sad when someone is so blinded by partisanship that they can't agree on something so simple to reduce costs of health care coverage.

Not to mention it's entirely voluntary.

Palin and the GOP should be trumpeting this idea as a no brainer cost cutting mechanism but they are more concerned in winning political points in hopes of coming back in some way. The fact that Grassly cut it out because it's causing issues or too much debate shows how much of a spineless person he is.

I honestly don't think the GOP actually thinks there is anything wrong with what we have now and that really is the issue here. It doesn't have to do with campaign contributions or any other thing other than...why fix something when you don't think it's broke?

It's because only 7 months into his job, there are still swaths of people that don't seem to respect his position. Many of them are on Fox News. What do you say to people when they question your legitimacy based on your birth certificate?

Democrats may have not liked Bush and many (like my self) couldn't stand him, but I and many of us always respected the fact he was President. There is something to that that I think many of the right wingers in this country can't accept. Why do some people think he's not born in the US? Because they don't still can't accept he is President. They are mad that the election was a referendum on everything they believe in. When democrats lost, we looked around at the country and thought...how in the hell could you support this idiot?...but we also thought...how the hell did we lose to him?

As far as him "failing", I think many of you are either GOP plants or you don't realize how messed up crap is right now. We were essentially on auto-pilot with the Bush administration if it wasn't related to the War on Terrorism. He really did little of anything domestically (just look at his list of accomplishments in 8 years compared to Obama in 7 months). I'm honestly surprised when people think that he's somehow doing "nothing right". He has a big mess to clean up and yes, as Paul said - it ALL boils down to the economy.

I liked your analysis.

The only thing I'd point out, which you somewhat alluded to, was that Bill Clinton won in 1992 because of Ross Perot. If he wasn't running, I doubt "read my lips" would have mattered. My parents were a perfect example of this. No way would they vote for that liberal Clinton (called him slick willy all the time) and Bush was the same ol lying politician. So after 20 years of voting straight republican while not being a party member, they both voted for Perot.

I doubt Obama would have to worry about a dem doing anything like Perot, but I think many people give Clinton too much credit for his first win. The second wasn't really much of a challenge either.

I would love for that to be true but the problem is that people are listening to her.

I've had to correct several people on the "death panel" assertion and it doesn't seem to matter. I even had one person say, even though you have a point, I think she's correct.

Add to this and now Newt is using his "slippery slope" phrase to basically back up the point while not actually stating it outright.

I'm starting to wonder if the problem isn't that people aren't listening, it's that they only choose to listen to what they want to. How do you remedy that? Putting out more and more information won't have any effect. Should Dems infiltrate Fox News as Conservatives?

Nothing else to summarize from Politico?

You don't negotiate to "win" or to come out with the best possible outcome for your side. You do it when the best possible outcome for your side is to make certain concessions.

I think this is a major misunderstanding by a large majority of people in the country. When we go into negotiations it doesn't mean we are going to get everything we want and if we don't, it doesn't mean we failed.