Published: August 14, 2009
Updated 17 minutes ago
Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) says President Barack Obama is so focused on health care reform that he’s willing to stake his presidency on it.
After a town hall meeting yesterday in Iowa, the Democratic lawmaker quoted Obama to reporters (audio clip at bottom):
The president (said), ‘I’m not going to kick the can down the road.’ And he said that and I said, ‘Well, that’s something I’m kind of used to from southern Iowa, you know. I know about kicking the can down the road.’ And he said, ‘No, if it makes me a one-term president, I’m going to, we’re going to take it on because the country is in need of us taking this on.’ I respected that very much.”
Boswell said the president made his remarks during a recent meeting with the centrist “Blue Dog” Democrats, of which Boswell is a member.
The moderate Blue Dogs have found (some would argue, placed) themselves at the center of the battle over health care reform, as proponents and opponents duke it out on Capitol Hill.
Meanwhile, town hall meetings across the country continue to be the scene of raucous, vocal disenchantment, particularly when hosted by Democratic lawmakers speaking to their constituencies.
Critics on the left maintain that many of the seemingly improptu protests, fodder of late for national news, have been orchestrated by Republican groups, with heated rhetoric that to some borders on hate speech.
Conservatives, meanwhile, charge that Democrats are attempting to force through an expensive, unwieldy health care reform plan that amounts to little, if any, change.
The following audio is from Radio Iowa, broadcast on Aug. 13, 2009.
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