On September 9, 2009, Barack Obama will address a Joint Session of Congress.
He wants to get the trains back on track for health care reform.
As Mike Allen notes, in 2001 President George W. Bush addressed a Joint Session of Congress as the first President to do so outside a State of the Union speech or a traditional first address.
The reason? International terrorism.
On September 9, Barack Obama will do it because of tea party activists. He set the stage and firmed up precedent by allowing his campaign arm, Organizing for America” refer to tea party activists as “right wing domestic terrorists.”
So great a threat are these tea party activists to his failing agenda, Obama will use the bully pulpit to strike back as he pushes for government control of American healthcare.
Neil Stevens
Steve Maley
Daniel Horowitz
Jake Walker
The Left is shamelessly trying to exploit Senator Ted Kennedy's death
izoneguy (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 4:51PM EST (link)William Shakespeare said: “The evil that men do lives after them….”
Ordinarily we wouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But Shakespeare’s words ring all too true because the Left is shamelessly trying to exploit Senator Ted Kennedy’s death in an attempt to ram Obamacare down the throats of the American people.
And as patriotic Americans, we cannot let that happen.
Remember one thing, all the sentimental tributes you’re hearing on radio and television – the blubbering eulogies, the syrupy clichés, the sickening lies – don’t alter the hard fact that Ted Kennedy probably did more than any political figure of his generation to weaken and corrupt America. Someone has to remind them who Edward Moore Kennedy really was. Otherwise, a bunch of blind Democratic ideologues and weak-minded, sentimental Republicans will pass a so-called healthcare bill that will transform our great nation into a sick, socialist country. Political commentator Don Feder agrees. Feder – who lives in Massachusetts – wrote that he wished for a barf bag while driving around the city, listening to the fulsome tributes on local radio. As Feder put it:
“Known as the ‘liberal lion of the Senate,’ Edward M. Kennedy was a fitting symbol for his creed – intellectually flabby, detached from reality, arrogant, self-righteous, hypocritical and, ultimately, useless.” Are we doomed to listen to these sick encomiums for the rest of the summer and then watch a spooked Congress pass Obamacare in the fall?
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
Correction
earthmover (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 5:35PM EST (link)A quick correction to your post, Erick. President Bush was the most recent President to speak before a joint session, not the first. I think there have been many instances, but probably the most famous (and the first one that comes to my mind) is FDR following Pearl Harbor, the “day which will live in infamy” speech.
That being said, it seems highly unusual to use a joint session for purely political purposes, and particularly galling considering the “right wing domestic terrorists” comment.
He didn't say that
I am a retread originally known as tbeauchamp. (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 6:48PM EST (link)While we’re making corrections, BO didn’t call anyone “right wing domestic terrorists”.
It was most likely some random volunteer on the campaign’s version of Facebook.
No axe to grind, I just don’t like to see someone attributed for something they didn’t say.
http://www.redstate.com/jrichardson/2009/04/28/2008-the-year-of-obama/#comment-718
“The right’s inability to listen to news like this and adjust your message will spell the doom of your party.”
Sins of omission are as odious as sins of commission
civil truth (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 7:06PM EST (link)President Obama, both during his candidacy and since then, has made a point of encouraging his supporters to escalate their rhetoric by refusing to condemn any excesses. He is the chief executive and is responsible for the speech of those who serve as his pleasure, and he hasn’t criticized or demanded retractions from them for their repellent attacks on those who oppose his policies.
Nor has he spoken out against or made efforts to rein in the excesses of his campaign supporter and other groups who ally themselves with him.
You can’t continually keep silent and gain the benefit of their attacks by claiming that Obama personally didn’t say this – especially when every isolated opponent who goes over the top is immediately draped like an albatross around the conservative movement as a whole, when there is not the slightest organizational connection.
There’s a clear pattern here of subcontracting our the dirty work and denying all responsibility.
You can’t play this game both ways, benefitting from out-of-line supporters, refusing to condemn them, claiming non-complicity through silence – and then raking your opponents over the coals for slight infraction by people you identifiy as their responsibility on your say so.
The greatest evil…is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern. -C.S. Lewis
http://www.gmsplace.com/
He needs to stop talking!
azaeroprof (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 5:49PM EST (link)All we get out of him is talk talk talk (actually read read read)! He needs to shut his stinking pie hole and start to listen listen listen. Do we really think that will happen, heck no! This is his attempt to save face and make it seem like whatever watered down drivel Congress passes as “health care reform” was his idea.
No, he needs to keep talking as much as possible.
suzieQ (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 6:36PM EST (link)As his numbers continue to plummet!
“Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, is the union leader who probably best understands the challenge of the world market and the need to make American union members productive in the face of world competition.” – Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich Co-Sponsored a Global Warming Bill Calling for ‘International Agreement on Population Growth’
“I would have signed the assault weapon ban that came to his desk. I said I would have supported that and signed a similar bill in our state.” – Mitt Romney 2008
Gun Owners Of America on Mitt Romney
Perhaps...
Duke Wednesday, September 2nd at 6:00PM EST (link)due in part to the mounting buyer’s remorse, the bully pulpit will be recognized for what it is – the bull***t pulpit.
I don’t think middle America is open to munching on excrement sandwiches any more!
It’s not about a purge. It’s about an insurrection.
I Hope It's a Vile Speech...
IJB Wednesday, September 2nd at 6:04PM EST (link)…In which he vehemently and repeated attacks anyone who opposes Obamacare.
As it is, I think the Republicans should just boycott it – go around before the speech giving interviews explaining that giving a political policy-only speech to a joint session of Congress is unprecedented and totally outside of American tradition and propriety and that’s why they’re boycotting it.
I would definitely agree with the boycott
suzieQ (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 6:35PM EST (link)It would send a strong signal to the dems, and an important message to the American people. Let him call a joint session for this speech and have not a single GOP head show. They could explain beforehand like you suggest, as well as use the same airtime to promote the conservative policy during his speech.
“Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, is the union leader who probably best understands the challenge of the world market and the need to make American union members productive in the face of world competition.” – Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich Co-Sponsored a Global Warming Bill Calling for ‘International Agreement on Population Growth’
“I would have signed the assault weapon ban that came to his desk. I said I would have supported that and signed a similar bill in our state.” – Mitt Romney 2008
Gun Owners Of America on Mitt Romney
And the ratings for the tv speech? Popcorn, please. nt
redneck_hippie (Diary) Wednesday, September 2nd at 7:38PM EST (link)