You know what they say - "when you're explaining you're losing". It's taken three long years of bitter and acrimonious insults by Republicans, and devastating House losses to the GOP in 2010, but President Obama and his signature legislation, the derisively dubbed "Obamacare" has painted Republicans into a corner.
As Brooklynbadboy's diary pointed out, President Obama in his press conference on Thursday has given Democrats a rallying point to gather around. But even better, it has put the GOP on defensive claiming they are NOT trying to deny people healthcare!
Rep. Louie Gohmert was challenged today by George Stephanopoulos to respond to the President's observation that the only thing unifying Republicans is their desire to deprive 30 million Americans of healthcare. This is the best he could do:
(The exchange starts at 5:09. I tried the trick to get it to start at a certain time but could not get that to work. I'm thankful just to be able to embed at this point).
He says that it is a 'blatant lie' that Republicans are trying to prevent people from getting health care. Whether or not people have insurance on healthcare exchanges makes no difference in your ability to get health care. This is such a laughable argument that the panel dismisses him, with Joaquin Castro pointing out the obvious- you can't get health care without health insurance. This is the weakest of weak semantic arguments and the GOP knows they have lost this one, after all their fearmongering, death panels, Medicare being taken away, etc., the time for implementation has come and the reality will supercede their ability to continue to lie. And they know they have been set up, and are obvioiusly scared if Gohmert is any indication of the pushback the party has sent forth through him. As Castro said 'it's all about ideology at this point'.
And good old George Will's contribution - "it's a bad idea to say Republicans want to deny Americans healthcare". Well sure it is, if you're a Republican!