More than a year after proposing to completely revamp the American health-care sector and watching voters erupt in anger over the takeover, Barack Obama finally admitted that it did him a lot of political damage that he hadn’t foreseen. After noting that he paid a political price for ObamaCare, Obama then admitted that he has discovered the difference between campaigning and governing:
“When you’re campaigning, I think you’re liberated to say things without thinking about, ‘Okay, how am I going to actually practically implement this,’ Obama told “60 Minutes.”
That’s not the OOTD, however, although telling a national audience that he really had no idea how to implement the ideas he was espousing during the campaign certainly qualifies as one. (It’s nothing new, though; he pushed a COIN strategy for Afghanistan during two years of campaigning, but nearly balked at implementing it as President when told what kind of resources it would take.) The real Obamateurism comes when Obama explains how important it will be to work with health insurers now:
“When it comes to health care, we need to be consulting with the insurance industry, make sure they know how things are going to work,” he said.
Maybe if Obama and his party had consulted with insurers rather than spending almost a year demonizing them — Nancy Pelosi called them “villains” — he would have gone in quite a different direction and paid much less of a political price as a result. Now he wants to get them on board after signing legislation that will spell their destruction, and apparently still can’t quite grasp why they would be somewhat hostile to his crowning achievement.
Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.
Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!
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