Bill Maher: “Why Is Obama Such A Bad Negotiator?”

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by Glenn Davis | 12:55 pm, February 19th, 2011

» 12 comments

President Barack Obama’s budget plan has its share of critics, including lawmakers on both sides of aisle who feel it insufficiently deals with rising costs of entitlement programs like Social Security. It’s safe to say the plan has another critic in Bill Maher, though as Maher explained on tonight’s Real Time, it’s for a different reason.

While a good number of Congressional Republicans would likely argue that Obama’s budget doesn’t come close to sufficiently addressing their greatest concerns (i.e. the rising costs mentioned above), Maher – not to mention guest Tavis Smiley – said Obama gave Republicans too much of what they wanted. Smiley slammed the president for “capitulat[ing]” on tax cuts, and Maher said, in a half-question, half-lament, “Why is he such a bad negotiator?” Smiley said Obama “gives [Republicans] everything up front” (fellow panelist Michelle Caruso-Cabrera disagreed with that one).

Maher continued that Obama’s budget reflects nothing more than “another desperate attempt to make Republicans like him,” and uses logic amounting to, “We have to tighten belts, so let’s do it with kids, poor people, and the planet.” Panelist John Heilemann disagreed with Maher in one key area, however – he didn’t think Obama’s budget showed a lack of negotiating skill so much as it showed that he agrees with Republicans more often than Maher does. (Maher wasn’t buying it.)

Neither was Smiley, who used Obama’s abandoning the public option during the health care debate as an example of Obama giving in on something he believed in, and used a pretty harsh phrase in describing Obama’s governing policy:

“We all know that campaigning and governing are two very different things, but that’s not what [Obama] told the people. That’s not what he said when he ran for office, that’s not [what] he sold this bill of goods – hope and change – about.”

It’s pretty clear that, even if Obama has the 2012 election as in the bag as Maher thinks he does, he’s got a long way to go to appease many of those who’ll likely vote for him – and in many cases, will probably never succeed. Video below.

Bill Maher, federal budget, President Obama, Real Time with Bill Maher

http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Mangan/100000213524770 David Mangan

Smiley is a half-wit, but Maher can have lapses of insight, interlarded with frequent sojourns into his own insane universe from which we are luckily excluded. Heilemann is by far the brightest of the three and I’ll take his version that Obama is a secret sharer when it comes to [some] Republican ideas and policies.

Maher’s ego would never permit him to believe he’s wrong & Heileman’s right, but I think Obama is really stumbling by supporting the Wisconsin Flight of the Fourteen Senatorial Demonrats to the People’s Republic of Illinois. Polling in WI shows that 73% of the Badger state citizens oppose the Dem senatorial emigration, especially to the hated home of the Bears.
sueNaustin

“Wisconsin Flight of the Fourteen Senatorial Demonrats to the People’s Republic of Illinois.”

It is easy to discount partisan flamethrowers. Try to right something without sounding like an AM radio call in.
sueNaustin

right=write
The Lantern of Truth

Bill Maher: “Why Is Obama Such A Bad Negotiator?”

Just what is he good at ?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ed-Lascar/100000889579338 Ed Lascar

The Lantern of Truth said:
Bill Maher: “Why Is Obama Such A Bad Negotiator?”

Just what is he good at ?

That I know, Lantern: He is good to throw up….ops! …to put his chin up and look presumibly to a future bright horizon above…..and say “CHANNNNGE”.
notsofast

MG, such racism from Bill.
valkyrie101

The Lantern of Truth said:
Bill Maher: “Why Is Obama Such A Bad Negotiator?” Just what is he good at ?

Scamming people into thinking that he is Christian American when in reality he is just Kenyan born son of a communist goat herder?
Dem4Ever

Bill, yur sooo sexxy!
CAconservative

Bad negotiator is just one more thing this inept president can’t do!
eingriff

Bill, wait until you see Barry negotiating with “Who Do You Think You Are?” producers for certified copies of his Hawai’ian vital records (the original birth certificate and the amended birth certificate) and DNA samples.

This episode will also feature Bill Clinton, who was also adopted but technically not born a bastard, and will be subtitled “The first Black President – Strike That”.

Their DNA analyses, which are presented in alpha-numeric fashion, should be made public, because their birth fathers probably broadcast their seed far and wide. Each might go for a Guinness Book of half-brothers and -sisters, and surprise nieces and nephews.
BruinAlum77

David Mangan said:
I think Obama is really stumbling by supporting the Wisconsin Flight of the Fourteen Senatorial Demonrats to the People’s Republic of Illinois. Polling in WI shows that 73% of the Badger state citizens oppose the Dem senatorial emigration, especially to the hated home of the Bears.

Where to being with these two statements?

1) Demonrats – shows your special attention to detail and ability to present an unbiased thoughtful comment

2) People’s Republic of Illinois – last I heard they elected a Republican senator. Does that mean if they’d gone a little farther they would have ended up in the Evangelical Republic of Indiana? This type of rhetoric is what makes it impossible for people to have an intelligent discussion. It’s like Fox News crying about Rep. Cohen’s comments comparing the Republican’s big lie on health care to Goebbel’s propaganda machine, when they call progressives Nazis all the time.

3) Polling in WI shows 71%… – According to a corporate sponsored poll of 1000 Americans, 64% said that government workers should not be unionized, of which roughly half the democrats polled disagreed. According to the comments by readers of the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, there is a slight majority of people who support the Democratic Senators and oppose Walker for trying to bust the unions. So where do your numbers come from?

4) Hated home of the Bears – does that mean the people polled would have been in massive agreement with the Democratic Senators if they had gone to Indiana, which has no pro football team, and whose college team gets crushed by UW?

A few facts:

5) The union said they are willing to make concessions on health care and pensions: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/191870/

6) Under Walker’s legislation, the police, firefighters and prison guards would retain their benefits package and right to organize – the only unions who endorsed Walker during his campaign. If the budget crisis is such a looming threat, why were these groups not asked to make concessions?

7) Wisconsin had a far worse budget crisis two years before which was resolved without attacking the collective bargaining power of unions. In fact, private sector and federal workers’ rights to unionize are protected by federal law. Why should a State be different?

The issue is not budget cuts – it’s just simple union busting and an unabashed power grab by a corporate owned Tea Party governor.

It’s okay if you’re anti-union. You’re entitled to your opinion. You might also support child labor, outsourcing jobs and tax breaks for corporations so they can avoid paying their fair share. You can support huge socialistic redistributions of wealth in the form of massive subsidies for agribusiness and tax breaks for oil companies, in spite of record profits. it’s okay, really.

But can’t we frame the discussion without the name calling and partisan rhetoric? Wouldn’t it be better to look up multiple sources of information instead of just going to your favorite blog? Maybe we can’t agree on our opinions, but can’t we at least agree on the few facts that we can learned from public records?
Dem4Ever

Bill Maher: “Why Is Obama Such A Bad Negotiator?”

Because Obama is a cheap con-man.