Rant O' Teh Day: We Can Still Lose This Long Game

TPM points out that the Democratic National Committee was busy taping Republicans sitting on their hands while Obama made proposals that any sane conservative should applaud, somehow therefore not abiding by his admonition for both parties to stop playing gotcha politics.
Isn't that hypocritical? Is pointing out the other side's hypocrisy hypocritical? Can you entertain two conflicting ideas at once?
In my view, the president himself was calling out the Republicans with his very forceful reminder to Congress and to the American people of the multiple disasters they left him for him from the minute he walked in the door. In fact, that line was the first one I remember drawing not catcalls from the R's, but some very audible grumbling and complaining, raising of voices. They sounded like a muted British Parliament. They were there to do that. That is the game.
This is a long game, I remind myself, and Obama is leading a team while teaching them to play it. Democrats are not used to power. They were not ready on day one. When they do get used to it is when we need to shuffle the deck.
Obama is not above sudden and circumstantial pivots to catch the other team off guard. The Republicans have only a short game, the same old pivots again and again that you can mimic in your sleep. Reduce the size of government, cut taxes, reduce (or now, don't overdo) regulation.
Their health care reform proposals consist of three things — tort reform that saves an even smaller portion in health care costs than Obama's cosmetic spending freeze, allowing insurance to be sold across state lines so the companies can circumvent state regulators, and something else equally pathetic that I can't remember.
None of it leads to reduced cost of any significance, none of it covers the uninsured, and none of it covers the people now being denied. None of it is serious.
Also repeat, none of it leads to significant reduced cost, the real selling point that Democrats mistakenly failed to emphasize. I forgive them, though. They couldn't get the CBO analysis until the bills were in final form. (On the other hand, they dithered getting to that final form. I forgive them that, too. They are new to power.)
Some pollster should just ask these questions of people. Ask them to name some features of the Republican plan that they can remember and some features of the Democratic plan that they can remember. I suspect people can't remember either. But I bet if given time to think of it they'll say making insured health care available to a lot more people. And for the R's, keeping government out of it. And no matter how you spin it, people want the government to do something.
They could give a flying fuck about state lines and frivolous litigation. In fact, they greatly want to hold onto their right to sue. They've all heard botched care horror stories.
Even the badly named public option resonates better than the hodge-podge Republican proposals. They're not serious about any of it, they're only serious about screwing things up as much as possible in the hope that people will eventually tire of it all and let them back into power.
Primarily by being too tired to vote.
The Republican standard objections to health care reform are lies for the most part, and so are their accusations about Obama's performance so far in office. Guiliani was on TV again this morning — who invited him to the party, anyway? — making two blatantly false accusations about the speech. We have them all on tape now, they can't squirm free. Thank you, Internet.
I don't go so far as to claim Obama's playing 11th dimensional chess while they are playing checkers, nor do I feel totally comfortable with his economic team, especially its leaders like Summers, Geithner and Bernanke (nobody talks about Orzog, hardly anybody about Chris Rohmer although she's the one out there in front of the cameras a lot). Nor do I believe they haven't made mistakes, and will continue to make mistakes.
But I do believe he's playing a long game. All the Republicans have is a short game. It's all they have. They do not want to govern well. He challenged them last night to govern, since they hold the filibuster card and keep playing it. They won't do that, and he knows it.
He called them out time and again, even repeating his willingness to listen to ideas that will accomplish his goals. They've never had any, and they don't have any now.
Last night's speech was, in fact, a litany of gotchas, just more carefully aimed, more decorous than the Democrats quick-response gotcha ads. He didn't call out anybody but the Supreme Court by name, but every point he made had "Republican Bad" stamped on it. No need to utter the words George Bush. He made them own their accomplishments, two unpaid-for wars, an unpaid-for prescription drug plan (thanks, George) and a financial meltdown due primarily to their favorite Christmas present, deregulation.
As for hypocricy, yes, I can hold two contradictory thoughts in my head at the same time.
But make no mistake, the long game is still a game. My side can lose.