I'm shocked that gambling is going on!
Monday, May 6, 2013 at 4:47PM 
ObamaCare is a Cracker Jack Deal!The looming crisis on implementation of ObamaCare has begun to fill the news. Even his allies are using the term "train wreck." ObamaCare is not only the most slovenly written major law in modern American history, it is full of sneaked-in surprises people are just discovering. The Democrats of Washington took advantage of the country's now-habitual distractedness: The country, now seeing what's coming in terms of taxes and fees, will not be amused.
What damaged the Obama presidency more, looking back, was, ironically, the trash-talking some Republican leaders indulged in after the 2008 campaign. It entered their heads at the Obama White House and gave them a warped sense of the battlefield.
In a conference call with conservative activists in July 2009, then-Sen. Jim DeMint said of the president's health-care bill, "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Not long after, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was quoted as saying that the GOP's primary goal was to make Mr. Obama a one-term president.
The press hyped this as if it were something new, a unique and epic level of partisan animus. Members of the administration also thought it was something new. It made them assume no deals with Republicans were possible. It gave Obama a handy excuse they still use: "It's not us, they vowed from the beginning they wouldn't work with us!"
But none of it was new. The other side always vows to crush you. Anyone who'd been around for a while knew the Republicans were trying to sound tough, using hyperbole to buck up the troops. It's how they talk when they're on the ropes. But the president and his staffers hadn't been around for a while. They were young. They didn't understand what they were hearing was par for the course.
Bill Clinton's foes made fierce vows about him, the enemies of both Bushes did the same. The opposing party always gets on the phone or gathers in what used to be Georgetown dens to
President Reagan & Speaker Tip O'Neill - 1985 at White House denigrate the new guy and vow to fight him to the end. That's how blowhards blow. When Reagan came in they vowed to take him down, and it was personal. Speaker Tip O'Neill called him "ignorant" and a "disgrace" and said it was "sinful" that he was president. He called Reagan "a man who has no care and no concern for the
Political Pundit Chris Matthews working class of America" and said: "He's cold. He's mean. He's got ice water for blood." An O'Neill staffer, now a cable news pundit, Chris Matthews once greeted Reagan in the Capitol with the words: "Mr. President, welcome to the room where we plot against you."
They did. President Reagan knew it.
Yet he had no problem dealing successfully with O'Neill. He didn't moan, "Oh they hate me, it's no use!"
As Captain Renault raids Rick's Cafe Americain he shouts, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" - Note to the next White House: There's always gambling at Rick's Cafe Americain. It's never a shock and not an excuse. It's business as usual. And if you're a leader you can lead right past it.
"People do what they know how to do," meaning politicians use whatever talent they have, and when it no longer works they continue using it. Barack, however, has now resorted to pulling a "Bogart," by adopting Bogie's film persona, Rick's attitude of a world-weary resignation at how bad things are and what little he can do about it - "after all, it's the Republican's fault." - Obama is a Lame Duck!
CASABLANCA, the 1942 Best Picture Oscar winner - Paul Henreid, Ingrid Bergman & Humphrey Bogart.
In case you are not familiar with Casablanca, the 1942 Best Picture film classic:
Casablanca - In French-occupied Morocco, American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) runs a dive bar called Rick’s and makes money gambling. When his former lover Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) comes into his bar, all the old feelings of their past relationship in Paris come back to him. Unfortunately, Ilsa and her revolutionary husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) are trying to get out of the country and are meeting resistance from the Germans and the Prefect of Police Captain Renault (Claude Rains) in his service as a figure of authority of the Nazis. As Rick and Ilsa start to fall back in love, the two are torn at what to do in order to survive.
