Rope-a-Dope

[HughMoran]

Those of you who remember Muhammad Ali should be familiar with this strategy. Ali would put his guard up and dodge and weave while resting his back against the ropes while his opponent would wear himself out trying to get a clean punch in though his defensive maneuvering. An aggressive boxer all juiced up for a Title bout just could not resist attacking an opponent that refused do much more than defend and throw an occasional counter punch.



When the opponent was sufficiently exhausted, Ali would move in for the kill. Startled at his sudden aggressiveness, the tired opponent would be no match for the rested Ali who had been sizing up his opponents weaknesses throughout the previous rounds of 'Rope-a-Dope'. Not only did Obama successfully use the Ali Rope-a-Dope technique on the Republicans, in the process people on his side became vested in the outcome of the fight. I'm not sure that this was his intent, but his latest flurry of appearances pushing this Bill over the finish line tend to show that he has, at times, been holding back until the time was right...

[MUAD_DIB]

1. It's not over until it's over. let's just get the votes and pass it.

:)

[HughMoran]

3. I'm also making a prediction who will win the fight

;)

[MUAD_DIB]

14. Love your Avatar.

[HughMoran]

15. It stays until HCR passes

This is for Ted.

[Top Cat]

2. K&R

[Clio the Leo]

4. This thread needs ONE more pic...

[vaberella]

5. Nice. n/t

[HughMoran]

6. Nice one

I was tempted to post the Sonny Liston knockout, I like this one with Obama in it better :)

[Solomon]

7. Yup.

Indeed.

[discopants]

8. there's this one too ...

Here's hoping.

[gateley]

9. K&R -- So THAT'S where that saying came from! I never knew. nt

[Raine1967]

10. There are those that say he plays chess...

and I understand that thought process, but I have always seen him as a Rope-a-Dope kinda guy.

I love this president... and just like Ali -- I love him flaws and all.

[Lorien]

11. Too bad he did NOT employ that technique in a fight for a public option

something the public wanted that he CLEARLY did not.

[surfwaxamerica]

12. Yes indeed

Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a bee

[TheKentuckian]

13. More like rope-a-nope

The bill has been strip mined even from the perspective of a market based plan. If he wanted this to even have a remote chance of being an actual step forward then the anti-trust exemption would be in place and the largest plausible pools would be created by doing a national exchange rather than allow the risk to be so heavily fragmented as to never create significant savings.

This a sham. How many Americans will be in the exchanges even by 2030? Certainly under 10% by any reckoning which means we're really being incremental, heck we might have universal coverage by the end of the 22nd century at that rate or even by the start of the next century if things get on the fast track at some point.

Or it may be that since we seized our moment to double down on the root causes of or medical crisis-the employer based system, state regulation, and all the major profit centers such as the insurance industry, pharma, and for profit care facilities that we'll continue to piss our nation's wealth and our people's health down the rabbit hole until the whole house of cards falls down on us and/or our children.

If this is a "good bill" then I'd hate to see a mediocre or God forbid an actual bad one. Sure, it will do some good things but the actual root causes of our national misery are being entrenched rather than the beginnings of reversed.

One has to be careful about the ten ton boulder moving, even if backwards, to get momentum when the rock weighs ten tons and it must be pushed up a steep hill. If you aren't really careful, powerfully strong, and probably a little lucky then you may well end up flattened by that boulder your trying to get moving up the tall hill.

Of course no possible piece of legislation written by the hands of mere mortals will be perfect and there is always the possibility of unintended consequences of even the most stellar effort but that in no way mitigates the importance of at least dealing with obvious foreseeable flaws, especially those you freshly codify.

There is no definable thing as nothing. There will be a something no matter what is done or left undone, the idea is to select the something that gets as close to the desirable something as reasonably possible. Hell, you have to give your self as many tools and stack the odds as much as you can. We are already compromising not just on ideology but on what is most likely the best solution to the problems we face in our system so it becomes very crucial to at least make a strong effort within the context of what you are attempting and any honest observer would have to admit we failed pretty miserably there which means all we are really doing is chucking up a hail mary with a noodle armed quarterback, slow and short wideouts, a crappy O-Line, and into a prevent up top and a man on every one going deep.