We could rightly entitle this show "Fox News concern-trolls Democrats to distract from Republican obstructionism."
I might have let this segment pass, but it's much too evil to allow it to stand unchallenged.
Watch Chris Wallace take Republican obstruction and turn it into Obama's fault.
WALLACE: All right. Meanwhile, President Obama, as a result of all of this, has now passed his prime domestic accomplishment, Obamacare, without a single Republican vote, and will have in effect passed his Iran nuclear deal, his prime foreign policy accomplishment, without a single Republican vote. Juan, whatever happened to the man, the president, who was going to bring us together?
WILLIAMS: I don't think you can blame him. Clearly, the politics that you have just seen between Brit and George is there is a huge anger on the right and about the failure of Congress to confront this president, display anger at the president. We saw some of it this week, Chris, when you had Ted Cruz and Donald Trump out there militating against the Iran deal, and you have Republicans who want to punish Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McConnell for being squishes and RINOs.
WALLACE: You honestly don't think that President Obama deserves any responsibility? I was about to say blame, for the fact that his two major accomplishments, he couldn't bring a single Republican over?
No mention there of the confirmed vow on the part of Republicans to block every single initiative of this President, right down to the economic stimulus bill that was chock-full of Republican wishes. Not even one would vote for it. Not one. Because that was the agreed-upon strategy to defeat the young, popular African-American president.
Juan Williams is just as useless in his response. Talking about the individual mandate as a Republican idea is crap. Everyone knew the mandate had to exist in order for the entire plan to work out. Even Hillary Clinton knew it when she ran against Obama in 2008.
WILLIAMS: Well, let's look at Obamacare. Individual mandate was a Republican idea, but Republicans unified, as you pointed out, they were given control of the House because of anger over Obamacare. They could not afford to antagonize the base by saying, oh, yeah, there are some elements, let's work with this president.
WALLACE: Obamacare was passed before 2010.
WILLIAMS: No, no, no, I'm saying they had the opportunity to work with this president. They didn't do it. He then, I will say this, he then responds with, well, if you have disdain for me, I will show disdain for you, so that is the kumbaya definitely went out the door. But that's been a long time ago.
WALLACE: Brit, it's all the Republicans' fault, they did it first?
HUME: Of course not. I mean, speaking of Obamacare, just to give one example. In substantive terms, in the construction of that bill, the Republicans were given nothing. Now, you may say that the individual mandate was a Republican idea, was actually an idea that came out of a conservative think tank, but apart from Mitt Romney, was not embraced by the Republican Party in any broad way. And the things that the Republicans might have wanted in the bill that might have enticed, indeed almost forced some of them to vote for it -- tort reform, sale across state lines, and so on - were never included in the bill. He gave them no reason to come along, which is how you do it. You offer something to the other side, and you get them to come along. It never happened. So their unanimous opposition is no surprise. And he basically made it come out that way.
WILLIAMS: I think it is really sad that he doesn't have any support. I think it tells you about the polarization of American politics at this moment. But I do think that it was a conservative idea.
Are you finished laughing at Brit Hume's BS yet? Does anyone remember the summer of 2009, when town halls were full of hate, Fox News was pimping the Tea Party, and Max Baucus was sucking up to every damned Republican in the Senate while Obama was holding High Tea for Olympia Snowe in an effort to get her to sign on?
Memory, it's a wonderful thing.
So here's the answer Chris Wallace couldn't seem to get from the so-called Democratic person in the discussion: YES. The reason there were no Republican votes was because they chose that as their strategy. Block and obstruct, slow everything down, screw Americans suffering from the economy or from lack of health insurance, because their goal was to make Obama a one-term President. When they failed, they decided to screw us all anyway in order to win back the Senate.
One part obstruction, one part Billionaire Bucks, and one part lying media narratives like this one have us all in a rut.
The only thing that could actually break the stalemate was the choice between war and possible peace. Thank God enough Democrats decided to give peace a chance, even if it causes Chris Wallace to squirm like a whiny little baby over it.
