Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

No Michelle Obama thread? Let’s roll

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Let’s face it, Obamas face a higher burden just to prove the “normalcy” of their family.  

If they can do that, Bush’s -298% approval rating should do the rest.  

I agree with John Dickerson of Slate:

It was a beautiful family tableau with the daughters interrupting to tell their dad they loved him. The whole bunch seemed straight out of Central Casting. That’s a cliché, and for the first black family with a realistic chance of living in the White House, becoming a cliché is a big win.

Even Dennis & Callahan had to admit: stellar.  

It will be hard for the attackers to paint her as a black radical or spoiled brat or whatever.    

What did you think?  

P.S. When Craig Robinson was coach of Brown U, he spoke to the kids at our school.  Unassuming guy.  

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  1. “The way they planned it tonight was supposed to be sort of the personal – Michelle Obama will talk about Barack Obama personally, Ted Kennedy was a very personal, emotional speech,” Carville said. “But I guarantee on the first night of the Republican Convention, you’re going to hear talk about Barack Obama, commander-in-chief, tax cuts, et cetera, et cetera.”

    “You haven’t heard about Iraq or John McCain or George W. Bush – I haven’t heard any of this. We are a country that is in a borderline recession, we are an 80 percent wrong-track country. Health care, energy – I haven’t heard anything about gas prices,” Carville also says. “Maybe we are going to look better Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But right now, we’re playing hide the message.”

    • Remember in the ’04 Convention, when some smart shmuck came up with the No-Bush-Bashing order? And then the Republicans responded with 4 days of Kerry Bashing (Zell Miller’s keynote…)

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      p>Guiliani will keynote their convention this year. What will be the message of his speech? Pres. Barack Obama = another terrorist attack.

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      p>Mark Warner will be tame tonight.

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      p>More like bringing an ice cream cone to a gunfight.  

      • Aug ’04 Bush approval was about 50%.  

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        p>Now roughly 30%.  

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        p>Not sure that 4 days of bashing is needed.  Two, plus ads, will be fine.  

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        p>Mostly swing voters do not need to be convinced they want change.  Their starting point is they kind of trust McCain but want change.  

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        p>They need to be reassured that Obama is not the crazy guy the R’s will make him out to be.  That’s the job this time around.  

    • Weren’t there once a bunch of people acting like he actually said something worth listening to? Weren’t those people totally wrong? Of course they were.

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      p>Can he go back to selling used cars, or whatever it was he used to do before that bunch of people dug him up?

      • …James Carville ran the War Room which elected the first Democrat in several years.  He knows how to win and I’d much rather have him than Bob Shrum.

  2. the kids were cute but everything else was a bit too Lifetime-y for me.

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    p>I’m looking forward for tonight’s speakers: Deval, Warner, Clinton, and most especially, Brian Schweitzer.  

  3. she successfully made herself look nothing like what earlier portrayals would have her look like without submitting to a level of speech that was more or less saying how proud she was of America every five sentances.  

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    p>The only thing I didn’t like was this:

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    p>

    I left a job at a law firm for a career in public service, working to empower young people to volunteer in their communities.

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    p>She’s the VP of external affairs and community relations at the Hospital of the University of Chicago making 200-300k per year.  I think it would have been better to have omitted that part, because it seems to be a little dubious, but there may be facts I’m unaware of.

    • VP of external affairs and community relations at a university hospital sounds like public service to me.  Good for her that her education and experience netted her a good salary – aren’t you Republicans supposed to be all about hard work and its rewards?  She worked hard and earned her present job, why do you have a problem with that?

      • Does it seem dishonest at alllll to you that she would frame it as if she left some profitable job in lieu of some small-salary deal that was aimed at helping people?  No, of course you don’t, it’s the Obamas.  They aren’t capable of dishonestly no matter how small the scale.  

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        p>You want to tell me shes all about public service?  She helped design a program that dumps the uninsured poor folk who come in to the emergency room into other health care facilities, which frees up beds for far more profitable stuff like transplants and operations.  You want to tell me that she’s got skill at improving the bottom line and I’ll 6 that (and said skill is not a bad thing, it’s a compliment), but don’t tell me it’s some act of unselfish righteousness or you’re just another kool-aid pounding Obamamaniac.  Don’t be one of those.  

        • And where do you get your facts about programs she developed, from NewsBusters or WorldNetDaily?  Here’s a description from the Chicago Sun Times:

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          p>

          Medical center officials and Obama’s presidential campaign staff say the Urban Health Initiative — along with a three-year-old companion program called the South Side Health Collaborative — will dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents. They say that, rather than having to wait hours at U. of C.’s emergency room, those patients get seen sooner and at less expense at neighborhood clinics and other hospitals. U. of C. even offers them a ride on a shuttle bus to other centers and sometimes provides the doctors at those facilities.

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          p>Source:  http://www.suntimes.com/news/p…

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          p>Did it improve the hospital’s bottom line?  I don’t know – but it appears to have improved care for these folks…

          • Did it improve the hospital’s bottom line?  I don’t know – but it appears to have improved care for these folks…

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            p>You know, that link isn’t that complimentary.  It sounds like the program is designed to rid U of C emergency room of some of the riff-raff, so it can spend more time on people with insurance and/or money transplants and cancer patients.

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            p>Why, it even offers the po’ folk a ride on a shuttle bus to get the hell out of our nice hospital.

            • …more often than not end up using the ER for routine care that’s more easily handled at a clinic.  If the hospital buses those folks to a clinic where they won’t have to wait for hours to get care, and it staffs those clinics with its own doctors, then they are providing a good service to those people.  At the same time, they are freeing up valuable ER resources for true emergencies – seems like a win-win to me.  Perhaps you need to re-read that article, this time without the lens of your own bias in front of your eyes…

              • But the Urban Health Initiative has critics, including South Side residents and medical professionals.

                “I’ve heard complaints from a handful of constituents, but I’ve also had calls from people in the health care profession complaining,” said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, whose 4th Ward is just north of the hospital. “The medical professionals who have come to me are accusing the university of dumping patients on its neighboring institutions. … Whether it’s being implemented in the way that’s in the best interest of the patient, I can’t tell you.”

                • It seems he should do his homework before commenting on the program, eh?  What’s his party affiliation?

                • Who cares what his affiliation is.  You concluded that “Did it improve the hospital’s bottom line?  I don’t know – but it appears to have improved care for these folks…” when the article doesn’t say that.  It offers two perspectives, and doesnt’ draw a conclusion which is correct.

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                  p>Whose bias is showing?

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                  p>It does make perfect sense to me that someone who can rid their emergency of non-emergency people should be paid well.  Does it mean better care for those po’ folks who are shuttled away?  The article doesn’t say.  Maybe; maybe not.  As I said, the article doesn’t say, what you say it says.

                • Here’s the salient portion:

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                  p>

                  They say that, rather than having to wait hours at U. of C.’s emergency room, those patients get seen sooner and at less expense at neighborhood clinics and other hospitals.

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                  p>I’ll say it again – it appears to have improved care for these folks.  Being seen sooner and at a lower expense is an improvement, is it not?  A city alderman who says he doesn’t know if it improved the situation or not doesn’t invalidate what I said.

                • Here’s the salient portion:

                  They say that, rather than having to wait hours at U. of C.’s emergency room, those patients get seen sooner and at less expense at neighborhood clinics and other hospitals.
                  I’ll say it again – it appears to have improved care for these folks.

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                  p>As to the “salient” portion, it’s all in the title:  U. of C. shunning poor patients? Quick quiz, is “shunning poor patients” a) complementary for U. of C. b) not so much.

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                  p>Alternatively maybe, shunning = tough love = better care by Michelle. YMMV.

                • …and the article answers it.  Sorry if the answer doesn’t fit the narrative you’d like, but that’s the way it is.

                • Any poor or uninsured people can simply be bussed somewhere else.  This improves their care, and we don’t have to pay for it.  Viola!

                • …staffed by doctors from the same hospital, where they get faster care at a better price, that is an improvement.  Stick with the ignorant framing all you want, it doesn’t make it true.

                • It would be interesting to know how it all works.

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                  p>Think of it, a few dozen folks hit the ER with non-serious medical conditions.  ER folks triage them, round them up, stack them on a shuttle bus and drive them across town to a clinic and dump ’em out.

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                  p>Is that how it is?

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                  p>Or, is as case of redirecting non-critical emergency room visitors to neighborhood community clinics which in turn, frees up space for well-insured patients with conditions for which the Hospital is known to treat well. Columbia Journalism Review on the topic.

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                  p>But seriously JohnT, you’re going to spin yourself into an alternative energy category, imagining there’s faster care at a better price when–the last time–the article simply doesn’t conclude that: it doesn’t say what you says it says.

                • …that I copied and pasted?  That’s funny – when I read the article, everything I quoted is there.  I’m through trying to convince you – have a nice day!

                • CMD and Gary hear only what they want to hear.  You might as well turn on your TV and yell at whatever’s on Fox.  

                • Any poor or uninsured people can simply be bussed somewhere else.

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                  p>And they’re a healthy food source, Bio-fuel….

              • right next door to the emergency room?  There should be other clinics too, scattered around the neighborhoods, but the shuttle bus would be annoying, they should just have a less-than-emergency clinic setting at hospitals.  They don’t mind giving people with terrible sore throats a bed in the emergency room because they charge thousands of dollars for it, even though it hinders their ability to care for the real emergencies.

                • …so I have no idea what’s practical for solutions to this problem, and whether they have a clinic close by the hospital or not.  If they do, perhaps they need to bus people elsewhere when the clinic overflows?  I don’t know the answer to that, and I don’t think anyone on this blog knows the answer either.

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                  p>What I do know is that right wing liars are eager to paint this as some sort of evil program turning sick people out to die in the street.  From the article I linked, that does not appear to be the case, and the only critic of the program doesn’t know whether it was implemented with the best interests of the people at heart.

                • I’m from the right wing.  I want people to who are sick to be turned out to die on the street.  

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                  p>Wanna really know how I feel about people who are sick? Read my bio then stop with the spin.

                • to the hospital?  local clinics are better.  ever have to ride the bus when you have an urgent medical condition?  it sux.

                • Because they are worried they are very sick and need to go to the hospital.  They want to go where they will get the best care and will have the resources to recognize their illness and treat it right.  But that doesn’t mean they want to be put on a $1,000 bed in the emergency room if they don’t need to be.  I agree there should be local clinics, but when someone is doubled over in pain, maybe at 3AM, they want to go to the hospital.

                • for good reason, or bad reason, they made a decision to go to the Hospital, which in turn buses them elsewhere.

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                  p>Now contrary to JohnT who somehow thinks I’m trying to depict the situation as the evil Hospitals turning out the poor, I simply say, read his link.  

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                  p>It’s titled “Shunning the poor?”; it has a balanced report questioning the hospital’s point-of-view which is that the poor are best treated elsewhere.  Balance that with the view that the poor are being carted away.  

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                  p>The truth is probably somewhere in between, but you can bet the Hospital would much rather have fee paying patients in its ER than indigents.  Is it shunning the poor.  Sure.

                • It should be easy to tell if they load the buses with people that will be difficult to collect the bill from.  It should be based on what sort of case it is, right?  If it’s an emergency, they should not be busing anyone anywhere, if it’s not, they shouldn’t be putting them in the emergency room, even if they have insurance.

                • …in pain at 3 AM are turned away at the ER?  This porogram appears to be a way for non-emergency cases to be treated faster and at lower cost – it’s not turning chronic cases out into the street to die.  If it was designed that way, the designer would have been a Republican, not a Democrat…

                • I sure agree that there should be local clinics too, but my point is that there should be a clinic setting at hospitals, so that people don’t get charged $1000 because they happened to go to a hospital when they were in pain instead of going to their local clinic.

            • …to know that you would have attacked Michelle for omitting that, just as you attacked her for including it.

              • I bet you think that i suspect Obama of being a muslim too.  

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                p>Yes, because it was such an attack too.  I’m part of the smear machine, whatever that is, dontcha know.

                • you’re part of the smear machine?  hey, me too!  or so i’m told over at rmg.  i haven’t received my membership card or lapel pin yet though, have you?  i know how important it is to some to be able to accuse others of being “card-carrying”, and the vital importance of wearing a lapel pin goes without saying.  so i want all the paraphernalia in place asap to keep the world turning smoothly.  i’m glued to the mailbox…

    • You’re leaving out 9 years of work she did between the law firm and the hospital.

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      p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…

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      p>Following law school, she was an associate at the Chicago office of the law firm Sidley Austin where she first met her husband. At the firm, she worked on marketing and intellectual property.[3] Subsequently, she held public sector positions in the Chicago city government as an Assistant to the Mayor and Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development. In 1993, she became Executive Director for the Chicago office of Public Allies, a non-profit organization encouraging young people to work on social issues in nonprofit groups and government agencies.[8]

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      p>In 1996, Obama served as the Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago, where she developed the University’s Community Service Center.[22] In 2002, she began working for the University of Chicago Hospitals, first as executive director for community affairs and, beginning May, 2005, as Vice President for Community and External Affairs.[23] She still holds the position, though she is working part time in order to devote more time to being a mother.[24]

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      p>emphasis mine.

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      p>I think she’d be making a lot more than 200-300k if she had stuck with the law firm job or used it to springboard to higher stuff earlier.

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      p>The fact is she did take a step down to do community oriented stuff. That’s comendable. Just because she worked her way back to a good paying job doesn’t erase the years of work she did between the “big law firm” job and the “big hospital” job.

    • Hes salary doubled the day her husband was elected to the US Senate. Does this mean she was twice as productive—doubled her proficiency?  This is sooooo lame.

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      p>So what is the public service work that is worth over 300 K a year? I bet she is making more than the highest paid physician. For what? Saving lives—palliative medical intervention. The hypocrisy is palpable.

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      p>And McCain is two point ahead in the tracking polls—-Doesn’t look good folks.  

      • Got a link to a reputable source for that?  Hint:  NewsBusters and WorldNetDaily aren’t reputable…

        • I meant salary, but I think I may have invented a new word – maybe if there’s too much lettuce on your sandwich, you might complain that it’s salady…

    • she may have been making a lot later in her activist career, but she definitely took a hefty cut when she switched professions. She most certainly didn’t make anything near that when she worked at the Mayor’s office, before she worked for the U. of Chicago.

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      p>Either way, as others have indicated, what does it matter? She decided that it was more important to work for the people than a huge law firm. I doubt that a lot of people who have worked at a huge law firm, making vast sums of money, make such decisions, especially so quickly, at the cost of skipping the quest to become partner, or having to start an entire new career (which is never an easy thing to do).

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