Sense and stupidity on the left

Bob Herbert, NY TIMES:

Many sane and intelligent people who voted for Mr. Obama and sincerely want him to succeed have legitimate concerns about the timing of this health reform initiative and the way it is unfolding.

The president has not made it clear to the general public why health care reform is his top domestic priority when the biggest issue on the minds of most Americans is the economy. Men and women who once felt themselves to be securely rooted in the middle or upper middle classes are now struggling with pay cuts, job losses and home foreclosures -- and they don't feel, despite the rhetoric about the recession winding down, that their prospects are good.

Ironically, he has tipped the hat to those on the right who, to the left, paranoically question why, as well.

Mr. Herbert doesn't get into the plan, Ezekiel Emanuel, QALYs or anything else, but using the view of Obama's actions from an orbital viewpoint brings home the problem which triggered the town hall reactions nationwide .. and make no mistake, no amount of astroturfing can create the a faux town hall which matches what we hear and see every day from co workers and acquaintances (our professorial friends excepted)

Eleanor Clift of Newsweek in the midst of a paean over Obama's need to double down without Repubs:

The White House needs to find ways to leverage the huge tactical and strategic advantages Democrats had coming out of the 2008 election to advance legislation in Congress. Instead, Obama has played the same old inside game of currying favor with power brokers on Capitol Hill who for the most part, like Senate Finance chair Max Baucus of Montana, represent sparsely populated rural states and respond more to their corporate benefactors than to White House pressure.

So Repubs are not the only problem ... it's also these meddlesome elected shills from the rural areas where foolish voters (i.e. shit kicking fools) actually KNOW THEM, who can't possibly represent their own people (i.e. since 'knowledgeable' people know better) and therefore must be replaced with more reliable people form the coasts and urban areas (Ms. Clift is from, all the way back, Queens and Long Island).

She also amuses herself by plopping this photo as an example of evil nuts at town halls...

the problem for Ms Clift and those whose emotional needs are to denigrate the aggravated and agrieved, is that if you put a wig on this fella, he look s a lot like Sam Adams.

Of course I am sure this distinction would merely trigger the reactions of CNN's anchor Lemon and Tim Wise.