From last night’s Fox News All-Stars:
On the Obama administration backing off the public option:
It’s a full retreat. Look, Obama had wanted the public option a lot because it is the road to a government-run system, which is what, in his heart, he wants.
And he wanted to have planted it [the public option] in his presidency so –[even though] it wouldn’t become government-run until the very end, [even though] it wouldn’t have had its major effect until perhaps after his presidency — …he would have been known as the father of national health care. But he’s not going to get it and he knows it.
And he knew it early, but he hung on because it would be a bargaining chip when he goes for the minimal plan, which would be health insurance reform, where he slaps a lot of restrictions on the insurance companies where there are no preconditions, et cetera. And in return, he would offer to drop the public option. That’s why he wanted to hang on until the end.
The reason he had to drop it now is because of the town halls and the public rebellion. It’s because of the reaction, the angry, agitated, educated reaction of people against the public option — understanding that it’s a way to national health care — that it became a distraction and a liability.
And if you’re going to drop it anyway, he had to drop it now. But it takes away his leverage with negotiations in the end with insurance companies…
Look, as long as it [the health-care debate] was in Congress and behind closed doors and in negotiations, he could have hung on until the end. It’s when it became — when Congress adjourned and all of this exploded in the public and it became a national issue and a huge liability and a drag on his own popularity — that’s when he understood it had to go.
And yet he hung on for a couple of weeks longer than he should have, until he understood he had to cut his losses, because it was destroying the rest of the plan.
On Obama’s approach to the war in Afghanistan:
…if you watch and you listen to him in the speech he gave today to the VFW, if you listen carefully, he is already beginning a tactical retreat.
When we heard in that clip, he talked about defending us against Al Qaeda — he defines the war in Afghanistan entirely in terms of Al Qaeda, not Afghanistan.
And later in the speech, he talks about the reason that we’re in Afghanistan is to decrease the area of Taliban control, thus decreasing the area in which Al Qaeda has freedom of action.
If you look at the war that way, and your intention is to fight and defeat Al Qaeda — he used the words “dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda” — then what you’re arguing in favor of is a war in Afghanistan which is a war of containment against expansion of the Taliban, and that is a minimalist war which he could sustain.
Now, a year — in a year, the Democrats in Congress will be in revolt, and he will have to defend even that minimalist war. But he is not talking about remaking the country, establishing a democracy, or anything of that sort.