There are several petitions going around encouraging people to show their support for having the public option included in the final bill. Why? That illustrates the same denial of reality that one sees on the right.
When you refuse to accept an unpleasant truth, that's a teabagging trait. I do not see why so many folks here (and elsewhere) want to shove the public option back into the bill when they know full well that it will then become a roadblock to passage. What is the logic of "standing on principle" if the evidence is clear that you are just going to get knocked on your arse for doing so? If the public option is put back into the final bill, it may not pass in the Senate AGAIN. Do you deny that? DO YOU? Why can't you accept the need for incremental change in an era of fiscal uncertainty?
Why can't the far left recognize that the time is just not right, as our President has? Do you DENY that the far right caught us flatfooted and leaped ahead in the publicity game with its death-panel lying? Are you so willfully blind to the game being played with the public's mind and pereptions? Have you chosen to ignore the media's behavior in reinforcing public fear by covering lies as though they are news and refusing to give airtime or ink to balancing lies with facts? Are your brains incapable of recognizing that, OF COURSE Obama has had to backtrack on his support for the public option: Has the world stood still since he was elected (heck, since BEFORE he was elected)? Yes, he started out strongly supporting the PO, but then the economy crashed and people started running around scared out of their wits about the country's economic future. DO YOU REALLY THINK HIS POSTURE SHOULD BE THE SAME NOW AS IT WAS WHEN HE WAS RUNNING FOR OFFICE?
If you do, then, yes, Virginia, you are a teabagger.
I used to trek over to the Huffington Post quite often, but that's like leftea bagging central now. Arianna's appearances on TV drive me nuts because she's so stridently anti-administration this and that with not one word about the conditions under which decisions are being made TODAY. And I'm soon to abandon KOS, too, if it continues to be taken over by leftea baggers. I used to come here for a dose of reality, but it's just getting too silly now. To believe that Obama is "not the man we elected," as though a popular family man, father of two, and gentle scholar can suddenly just up and change (or could "fool you" during his campaign) IS silly. He didn't change: he adjusted to the conditions he discovered upon taking up the office (and encountering, as president instead of candidate, the personalities in the Congress he'd have to work with).
Take, for example, transparency. Do you think Congress or the President can just up and say, "OK, from now on all meetings about legislation must be open to CSPAN?" Have you ever sat in on a committee meeting anywhere? Do you have any clue at all about the interpersonal issues that put cramps in ANY public meeting (vs. private ones)? Are you so clueless, again a la the right teabaggers, that you cannot comprehend how likely it is that some of the powerful folks in those meetings WOULD NOT EVEN SHOW UP if the meetings were open/transparent? How do you know whether Obama has simply ignored his promise of more transparency or whether he ran into such insurmountable ROADBLOCKS that he daren't try it YET?
Unlike the lock-step ageement in the closed-door Bush administration, Obama's governing style is not characterized by a threatening approach to other people's opinions and preferences. He is a compromiser, right? We know that. So he gets into office and finds that a lot of people talk the talk, but are not yet willing to walk the walk. Is Barack Obama the kind of person who would just pull a Cheney and say "screw them," or a simple "So?" and press on regardless? Of course not, you leftea bagging idiots. And what about the Republicans incredible willingness to use outrageous lies and refuse to denounce the fearmongering on the far right? Do you think Obama anticipated that when he was running for office--that elected officials would act with no more honor than "he's a muslim" idiot tea baggers? I myself still can't believe grown men (and the occasional women) can stand up in front of the public and say the idiotic, dishonorable things the Republicans have said.
So I have a message for you, and a very Cheneyesque one at that: Grow up or Shut up. Your stubbornness in refusing to accept reality is as scary as what is seen on the far right. Indeed, your attitude is LOSING support from those of us who do not ignore the big picture in favor of screaming about the little pieces. In fact, I'm thinking of changing my political affiliation from D to I, because I don't want to be associated with teabagging on EITHER side of these issues.