"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste"

October 28, 2009 | Filed under Barack Obama,Health Care | Posted by

That was Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s Chief of staff, last year shortly after the Presidential Election.  The full quote excerpted from this aged NewsBusters piece:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Which makes this current William Warren cartoon from GetLiberty.Org all the more poignant:

ForAllitsWorth.jpg

The question I have is how… how would Obama use the H1N1 flu as the means to get ObamaCare passed?

I’m just not smart enough to see it.

Who’ll enlighten me?

Crossposted(*).

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Posted by on October 28, 2009.
Filed under Barack Obama, Health Care.
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  • Steve Green

    “The question I have is how… how would Obama use the H1N1 flu as the means to get ObamaCare passed?”

    He can’t. It’s just more lies some people will tell to some people who want to believe the worst about Obama.

    It can’t be because he’s black, so it must be because he’s Muslim.

    Oh, wait – he’s Christian, not Muslim.

    Then it’s because he’s wasn’t born in the U.S.!

    Oh wait, he WAS born in the U.S.

    Then clearly it’s because his health care reform offers Death Panels…

    Uh oh. That was debunked as well.

    Gee – I can’t figure it out either. I’m sure others can – as soon as they finish sending out fundraising emails explaining that Obama seduces three year olds.

    Hey – that’s it – none of these things are real, but by sending out emails and solicitations the GOP hacks can raise millions scaring people into believing these things about Obama.

    It’s called lying. The reason they do it is to raise money, scaring the beejeebus out of people not smart enough to know the truth.

    Cue the gullible and liars in three… two…. one….

  • Wayne

    H1N1 is a health issue. If you can scare people on a health issues even if they are not related to the Health bill, your chance of passing it improves. No one except for a few Democrats behind close door has actually seen the bill knows and knows what in it. Most people hear it is a health bill and that we are having health crisis. Something needs to be done. The fact that one won’t help the other will be missed by many.

    It is much like using the economic crisis to rush though a Stimulus bill that very few had read and had little actual stimulus in it. Scare people enough where they can’t think rationally and you can sneak a great deal past them or get them to do things they typically wouldn’t.

  • Wayne

    “Cue the gullible and liars in three… two…. one”

    You beat the countdown.

  • Wanderlust

    A health “emergency” also gives HHS and possibly the Surgeon General much wider powers. A good analogy is how DOE and EPA are ramming the carbon fallacy down our throats via regulative authority outside the legislative.

    An H1N1 “emergency” will allow HHS to construct a regulatory framework that then allows Obamacare to slide in with little effort.

    Think of a greased pig let loose in a crowded building.

    Try catching it…

  • apb

    The funny thing is, the news is already out on the shortages and giveaways to foreign countries. Only Obamatards would believe in a frocked-up “crisis” like this – there IS no way for this to drive Jug-Eared Douche-care to the finish line.

  • Michael

    Little Stevie Green is like an extra from ZOMBIELAND.

  • GarandFan

    If there is one thing you can count on, Barry will always reuse what has worked in the past if there is an advantage to be had out of it. He flogged EMERGENCY! to get that farce of a stimulus bill passed. He screamed about global warming to get Tax and Crap through the House. He whines about people dying every day because of a lack of health care. If he see’s H1N1 as an aid to his cause, he’ll use it.

  • Victory is Ours

    Steve has it almost right.

    The H1N1 scare isn’t something Obama will capitalize on – but the right will blow up fears and capitalize on it, that’s for sure.

    They tell older Americans that — thanks to Obama — they are going to die from H1N1.

    Or they’ll tell all Americans that Obama is going to raid their savings accounts to pay for H1N1 prevention.

    Vic

  • DaveD

    Steve, Vic, read this again,

    “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

    Now this was said by Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff. It is not a fabrication. Rahm E. was quite open about it. Every major piece of legislation this administration wants passed has been fashioned to appear as an answer to a crisis.

    If you choose to ignore how someone plans to operate when he stands right in front of you and tells then both of you are more delusional than anyone else posting on this thread.

    If the swine flu becomes either a real or fabricated crisis it will be used for statist gains. Again, no one here is making this up. Rahm says so.

  • Victory is Ours

    DaveD – Now read this: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” and apply it to the fear mongering and money grubbing done by the right.

    Here’s Newsmax (just happens to be in my email box – check out the “capitalizing on H1N1 fear mongering sent to me by a friend (yes, I have one) — be sure to follow the link.

    Read This Before You Get a Swine Flu Shot!

    Beware Swine Flu Vaccination

    It Can Weaken Your Immune
    System and Damage Your Brain!

    See How Big Government and Big Pharma
    Conspire to Force Medicines on You!

    The right does it, and then lies and says the left does it.

    Feel free to show examples of left-leaners capitalizing on the H1N1 fear. Go on – dare ya.

    Double dare!

    Vic

  • GarandFan

    “The H1N1 scare isn’t something Obama will capitalize on – but the right will blow up fears and capitalize on it, that’s for sure.”

    So how does the party out of power, and with no majority “capitalize” on it? How do they “gain”?

    As for the nut with the vaccine scare, he’s in the same league as left wing truthers. In other words, someone to be ignored.

    But as Dave mentions, this is about your buddy Rahm and his ‘Don’t waste a crisis quote”. Barry has said H1N1 is a “crisis”. So using Rahm’s philosophy, what will Barry try to gain from the “crisis”?

    If your answer is that Mr Purity won’t attempt to anything, then say so. You can drop the other usual liberal bullshit distractions from the main question.

  • Adrian Browne

    Let’s play Is this Headline Real or Not:

    Obama’s Declaration Of Swine Flu Emergency Prompts Pro-Swine-Flu Republican Response

    o Yes I’m afraid it is.

    o No it can’t be! That has to be from the Onion, tell me that is from the Onion

    o Hard to tell isn’t it?

    VOTE NOW

  • JC Hammer

    A few years ago, the crisis was a possible mushroom cloud over one of the US cities. So Obama isn’t the first, and won’t be the last to use that line.

  • davidt

    “How would Obama use the H1N1 flu as the means to get ObamaCare passed?”

    Easy.

    “All of these innocent people who have died because of the terrible H1N1 flu pandemic would still be alive today if the Republicans had not willfully obstructed, and continue to shamelessly obstruct, the Democrats’ Heath Care Reform Plan!

    “How many more innocent lives must be lost before the Republicans put petty, divisive, partisian politics aside and join the Democrats in saving the suffering mainstream of the American people in their time of urgent, dire need?”

    Never mind the simple fact that the Democrats don’t need one single Republican vote to pass ANYTHING THEY WANT!

  • jp2

    Two kids died from H1N1 in my town this past week. Something parents really, really need to watch.

  • iwogisdead

    Victory is Ours wrote:

    Feel free to show examples of left-leaners capitalizing on the H1N1 fear. Go on – dare ya.

    Here are three sites inferring that, without healthcare reform, an H1N1 pandemic will rage out of control:

    http://americanaffairs.suite101.com/article.cfm/h1n1_swine_flu_and_health_care_reform

    http://jewnews.net/2009/08/19/an-actual-physicians-opinion-on-healthcare-reform/

    http://www.lulac.org/advocacy/issues/health/factsheet.html

    Here’s one that says H1N1 demonstrates how urgent reforms are needed in the agricultural industry:

    http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/05/weekly_immigration_wire_fighti.html

    There are probably more. I only had about four minutes this morning to find these.

  • JLawson

    The flu is something people always need to watch, but although this is something that’s a concern it’s nowhere NEAR a ‘national crisis’.

    But then, maybe I’ve got an odd definition of a national crisis when it comes to diseases. To me, something reaches crisis level when that directly affects the nation as a whole and causes a major change in how the country functions, and THAT occurs when there’s SIGNIFICANT numbers of people dying or being incapacitated. And by significant, I’m referring to hundreds of thousands if not millions.

    Polio was a disease that deserved crisis status. It affected children, it struck without warning, it killed a lot of people, and it left the survivors permanently disabled. The flu (at least the strains currently being vaccinated against, INCLUDING the H1N1) does not kill in wholesale lots, it doesn’t leave the victim permanently incapacitated, and we’ve got a vaccine that stops it. That doesn’t equal ‘crisis’.

    What worries me are strains that we don’t have vaccines against that are lethal, or that easily cross the animal-human boundary – and are easily infectious to boot. The Spanish Flu pandemic was an excellent example of this.

    Then there’s other infectious diseases – like ebola – that have a much higher mortality rate but aren’t terribly very infectious. And then there’s stuff like pneumonic plague – THAT one worries me a lot more than the flu does since it’s infectious AND has a horribly high mortality rate.

    Frankly, the response of the Obama administration on H1N1 doesn’t make me think they’ll be able to handle a real crisis. Distribution’s been kind of spotty, administration’s been worse, and they’re the folks who supposedly can ‘effictively’ run nationalized health care?

    If anything, the H1N1 virus shows just how far their abilities are from matching their aspirations.

  • Oyster

    “The H1N1 scare isn’t something Obama will capitalize on – but the right will blow up fears and capitalize on it, that’s for sure.”

    Give it time and we’ll see. If you think he won’t praise the government response regardless of how bad it gets and use it to allude to how great it will be when the goverment can respond to ALL our future health needs, then you’re not paying attention.

    I don’t usually respond to you. There’s really not much of a point in it. Personally, I think you’re a crass and hateful person. You can’t refrain from constant insult and snidery. In the meantime, feel free to ignore iwog’s links and keep harping on “the right” and generalizing to the point that you’ve declared everyone to the right of you (which covers most every one from the liberal left on over to the far right) is some crazed kook hell bent on destroying the world.

  • epador

    I am ignoring all the comments, this is only pointed at the original post and cartoon:

    Look who’s squealing like a pig now!

  • Hank

    “how would Obama use the H1N1 flu as the means to get ObamaCare passed?”

    He can’t.

    There’s a shortage of vaccine and what is available is being handled in typical govt ways. Here in Ma, inmates are getting the first doses.

    Oh, I expect Obama will put forth some alternate reality similar to how well the stimulus has saved our economy. Most people will see right through it.

    Bush got a lot of crap for the delay in Bird Flu vaccine. Obama deserves the same.

  • cf

    I don’t know about Obama, but Hillary did something like that.

    In 1993, in preparation for her health care bill, they had the feds take over most of the vaccine stuff, and advertised it as a way to prove the govt could run health care.

    They proceeded to totally screw it up, and the media aided in hiding it after the fact.

    So, I could see H1N1 vaccine being a way for him to push his health care agenda.