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Posted: January 20, 2010 06:23 PM

Arianna On 'The Ed Show': Obama Must Offer More Than Words (VIDEO)

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President Obama must move beyond rhetoric and acknowledge yesterday's Democratic loss in Massachusetts by making substantive policy and personnel changes, Arianna told Ed Schultz.

During an appearance on The Ed Show Wednesday night, Arianna explained what President Obama must do to reconnect with not only his Democratic base, but also with Independent voters, and Republicans.

She called for Obama to demonstrate his support for Main Street, not Wall Street, by dismantling too-big-to-fail banks, dropping economic adviser Larry Summers, and by scrapping a health care bill that has become a giveaway to big Pharma and insurance companies.

Arianna believes that it's time for President Obama to be "ruthlessly honest" with himself. He's facing a "substance problem," not another communications problem.

WATCH:
 
President Obama must move beyond rhetoric and acknowledge yesterday's Democratic loss in Massachusetts by making substantive policy and personnel changes, Arianna told Ed Schultz. During an appeara...
President Obama must move beyond rhetoric and acknowledge yesterday's Democratic loss in Massachusetts by making substantive policy and personnel changes, Arianna told Ed Schultz. During an appeara...
 
 
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02:52 PM on 01/22/2010
Apparently
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dakotawoman
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill. . .old time Progressive
10:29 AM on 01/21/2010
Can someone PLEASE explain to me?

A majority of Americans (according to the polls) WANTED a public option health care reform bill.

The party proposing this reform occupies the presidency AND has a majority in both houses of Congress.

The WHAT the F***?!!!!!!

The Republican MINORITY and Big Business are clearly the real power brokers here. And have apparently ALWAYS been. The concept of America as a representative democratic republic is a farce.

Why try to change anything, when the best, most hopeful and altruistic of efforts smash like insects on a windshield of the juggernaut called "corporate special interest married to theocratic fundamentalist oppressors determined to control every individual's personal choices in the name of a desert nomad god'.

We are f*****.

A whole country held hostage by reactionary neanderthals determined to keep us mired in their fantasy vision of an America that never existed in the first place.

More years of deadlock.

More generations owned and kept chained up to minimum wage work without benefits as wage slaves to the corporations that very obviously and clearly are the REAL government.

I'm done.

Been fun talking with you all.

Goodby.

I'm going home now to bunker down and entrench for the new American Dark Ages.
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ibsteve2u
Someone who cares - to his unending regret
08:10 AM on 01/21/2010
Whatever policy changes are made, if Obama wants to keep the Independents then those changes should reflect an awareness that the well-being of the American people and the national interest (they are synonyms, you know) come first.

A "business" is NOT a "person", let alone a voter - regardless of what that misbegotten SCOTUS of long ago permitted to be inflicted upon the American people; their interests should NEVER be allowed to overrule the interests of the American people and thus the nation.

I am still infuriated when I think of all of the CEOs and politicians who spoke of free trade with the words "Some sectors will be hurt..." WTF? Policies that everybody acknowledges will HURT huge segments of the American people championed even by American Presidents?

And when I say "hurt", I don't mean it like the Republicans do, where they cry when their constituents might lose 10% or even 50% of 6 to 9-digit annual incomes, leaving them "only" 5 to 9-digit annual incomes.

I mean it like hurting Americans to the point where they are losing their pensions, their ability to educate their children, their health care, their savings, their jobs, their homes...their very lives,

The things that have been done to the American people in the name of "Business-with-a-capital-B" are criminal - and Indepencents, at least, have noticed.
08:04 PM on 01/23/2010
Can you please point a ONE business that is NOT a group of Americans trying to make a living?

If you can, I will vilify it.

If you cannot then try to say "We are the problem, and WE are the solution.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
WarriorLemming
An avalanche On Republican's B*llsh*t Mountain
06:31 AM on 01/21/2010
How many times must we ask President Obama to act boldly you know like he's actually got the majority vote and it's ok because he has a mandate. Bush got everything he wanted with a lot less even the preemptive war against Iraq thanks to some cojones-less Democrats. To think we have lost a golden chance for the public option makes me sick we will never have these numbers again! WTH
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Whinger
I'm Just Me!
05:10 AM on 01/21/2010
President Obama has buried himself under a long list of pledges, that and a seriously damaged economy and national debt. He is further disadvantaged by disloyal Dems and the party of No who actively work for vested interests to deny change regardless of it being for the national greater good.
President Obama himself needs to change his style of leadership, the open all embracing hand must become a ironclad clenched fist, become a leader, not a servant of big business!
04:57 AM on 01/21/2010
I agree Ariana, Especially ones like these.

"People are angry, they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years," Obama told ABC News on the anniversary of his first year in office.
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04:03 AM on 01/21/2010
Third parties disappear or lose force when the major parties adopt enough of their positions. But the time is ripe for a third party given that the major parties have merged into one, corporate party.
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03:45 AM on 01/21/2010
Obama is more concerned with the process than the product. Getting a few Republicans aboard is--in his eyes--worth gutting sound legislation.
What a pity. When will he learn that you have to stand up to playground bullies? They aren't interested in joining the Astronomy Society. The only stars they want to see are the ones spinning around their victims' heads after they've delivered a cowardly punch.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Zeta
03:30 AM on 01/21/2010
Ed Schultz conduced a great interview with Robert Gibbs before this segment. Finally, someone has notified this white house that they are losing their base. It seems that they are too much in the bubble to realize it. Gibbs seemed concerned about this fact and vowed to come back to the show tomorrow to address it. Thank you Ed Schultz.
02:55 AM on 01/21/2010
"President Obama must move beyond rhetoric and acknowledge yesterday's Democratic loss in Massachusetts by making substantive policy and personnel changes, Arianna told Ed Schultz."

Maybe some of personnel changes could include adding you-know-who to the Obama administration as a top advisor since she has everything figured out.
02:43 AM on 01/21/2010
She just said it, what I have been thinking and saying about Obama for couple of months..........what she didnt say that we need a third party who represents us..............long live Ariana
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
dourdinlives
better to have loved and lost than never to have l
02:40 AM on 01/21/2010
i caucased for obama. gave up sleep. i feel like the old indian chief dan joseph.


i am tired of fighting
our chiefs are dead
healthcare is dead
finance reform is dead
the left wing is all dead
it is the bluedogs
who say yes and no
he who led the liberals is dead
it is cold and we have no heating money
the little children are freezing to death
my people some of them have ran away to the independents
and have no self respect no class
no one knows where they are perhaps in a chowder cafe
i want to have time to look for left wingers
and see how many i can find
maybe i will find them among the greens
hear me my senators, i am tired
my heart is sick and sad
from where the sun now stands
i will vote no more forever.
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01:43 PM on 01/21/2010
Just Joseph, no dan. fyi
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
dourdinlives
better to have loved and lost than never to have l
12:08 AM on 01/22/2010
this is the new world we exist in. the end world.typos are more important than earth shattering news.it's just a typo.substance substance substance.substance is an iron wall that prevents the circular reasoning that allows bogus untruths to permeate the diaspora.imagine einstein s paper on relativity being questioned because he left out a letter in his name.take for instance this whole debacle about the racist ,just given a ticket to the US senate to foist his bankrupt ,disproven ,immoral racist mindset on the rest of us.the electorate in the massachusetts special election totaled 4, 271,178. curling iron brown got,(app) 1,168,107 or 51.94 %. coakley got 1, 058, 682. the margin was 109,425 votes.the population in massachusetts in dec 2009 was 6,497,967 souls.those that did not buy into this election totaled 4,271,178 or double the electorate.for all the hell it unloosed on uninsured americans..it proved nothing.the issue raised about the curling iron was also bogus. the guy coakley supposedly gave leniency to ,was a career police officer with no prior criminal record.
10:10 PM on 01/23/2010
Wow. You're equating genocide with the dropping of a provision in the senate health care bill. Perspective?
02:17 AM on 01/21/2010
Despite a most inept campaign by Martha Coakely, the absence of warranted and promised change by Obama, a long-standing feckless and unprincipled democratic party "leadership" Nader must somehow be involved in the Massachusetts debacle.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
MegWe
05:22 AM on 01/21/2010
The problem lies with LIEberman, Baucus, and Conrad. Not the Prez.
02:11 AM on 01/21/2010
He is caught in the headlights of bi-partnership count him out its a long three years ahead the rut is too deep to pull something out now from the man who don't recognize himself as a Democrat
01:50 AM on 01/21/2010
VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.
02:10 AM on 01/21/2010
Every election cycle? When will that plan stop making sense?
02:17 AM on 01/21/2010
Its that simple huh