MORE OF THE SAME BLAME AND SHAME: ANOTHER SPEECH FROM OUR CZAR-IN-CHIEF

For the past week I've been sidetracked by some nasty virus attacks on my computers (I can't help but suspect that "fishy" White House website of targeting me), and I am behind in my work, this blog included.

So I want to give credit where credit is due and acknowledge the one good thing that came out of President Obama's speech last night: It was so much a retread of the hundred other speeches he's made on health care that my work on this post has been made almost as effortless as the ease with which Obama dodges substance on the issues.

In fact, I could (and will) just refer readers back to my last posting which posed a litany of questions on health care that apparently Obama is never going to answer. (See "Obama Discusses 'Wee Wee,' But No Teachable Moments," linked at the sidebar on the right, posted 8-23-09.)

The only excitement during the speech came from Representative Joe Wilson who blurted out "You lie!" in a spontaneous retort to Obama's lie that the dems' plan does not cover illegal aliens (aka, "undocumented persons," as is now the politically correct designation, so I hear.)

Representative Wilson was right, of course, even if his venue was wrong. We all know that doctors and hospitals aren't going to start asking for citizenship papers upon admitting a sick or injured patient. And in fact, the current Bill requires all to be treated, regardless of background.

Given the refusal of the democrats in Congress to allow an amendment to the Bill clarifying that no illegals may be covered, and given the fact that there is no enforcement mechanism in the Bill, Obama simply cannot truthfully make that claim.

The only funny thing in the speech was a serious comment Obama made that "there remain some significant details to iron out." No kidding, Sherlock. Like about 1,018 pages of details. Understandably, this remark was received with a good deal of muted snickering by our representatives.

The lowlight of the speech came at the end with the President's shameless attempt to shame the country into going along with his plan. It made me think how much Obama treats us all like a bad parent might treat his little children: never explain your real reasons for doing something, lie to them when asked, call them names and threaten if they offer resistance, and, finally, if all else fails, shame them into submission.

I refer of course to the "do it for Teddy" ploy where we are urged to sign up for this plan out of respect for the memory of the late Ted Kennedy. Sorry, Mr. President, but I refused to be moralized to by the likes of Ted Kennedy when he was alive:

• The Ted Kennedy who drove a girl off a bridge at Chappaquiddick and left her to drown while he rested at a hotel and called his family's lawyers to try to save his, and their, precious reputations and political fortunes;
  
• The Ted Kennedy who followed up that infamy with a lifetime of notorious womanizing and bawdy behavior that rose to the level of local, if not national, legend.
  

No. In my book, Ted Kennedy didn't have the moral authority to lecture anybody about anything, and especially about doing the right thing. And I see no reason to subject myself to moralizing in his name now that he's dead.

As far as substance on the issues, sadly, but not unexpectedly, Obama gave us nothing new Wednesday night. It was striking how much this was just the same old speechifying, with the mainstream media straining to find gems to admire and failing utterly to hold him accountable on a host of things, such as:

• his wiggling around the "public option" issue in an obvious attempt to clear the defense on both the left and the right before sprinting the health care bill to the end zone:
  
  • He was for a single payer before he was for the public option,
    
  • before the public option became only a "sliver" of his plan,
    
  • before he resurrected it,
    
  • before he abandoned it, and
    
  • before he (finally?) rehabilitated it as desirable but negotiable;
    
• his asserting half-truths, in which he flaunts the pretty side of the argument while keeping its ugly twin in the closet:
  
  • He says the pretty things like, "You can keep your insurance if you like it," and "there is no coverage for illegal aliens,"
    
  • but he hides the "ugly" sides of his half-truths: that people can easily lose private coverage and be dumped into the public plan, and there's no enforcement mechanism to prevent illegals from being covered;
    
• his failing to address how his plan will effect rationing of health care:
  
  • His own comments and those of his advisors on rationing of care for the elderly and the very ill, in large part spurred the controversy, but he won't address the issue seriously, preferring to ridicule the concerns.
    
  • And he won't say how, if 30 million extra people are given coverage, you will not end up with a high level of rationing, way beyond that which is currently done by private insurers.
    
  • (By the way, did you notice that Obama now says it's only 30 million without insurance, down from 47 million uninsured? Where did those 17 million people go? Maybe by his next speech there will be even fewer!)
    
• his deprecating the import of the August townhall opposition:
  
  • accusing Americans of being a bunch of "bickering" reactionaries using "partisan scare tactics,"
    
  • accusing Republicans of making "wild, false claims,"
    
  • castigating (again and forever) any opposition as being merely "anti-reform";
    
• his bickering about others' bickering:
  
  • especially that evil cabal of right-wing politicians (he as good as called Sarah Palin out by name),
    
  • cable news (meaning Fox),
    
  • talk radio, and
    
  • presumably, the blue-haired ladies and veterans at townhall meetings);
    
• his scolding that the rest of us should use a civil tone, while he accuses us of bad intent, essentially calling opponents liars;
  
• his feeble offering on tort reform, to "look" at demonstration projects in various states.
  
  • If you want to know the democrats' real intent on tort reform and the trial lawyers, one of their biggest contributors and constituent groups,
    
  • watch Howard Dean at a townhall meeting and hear him admit that democrats are unwilling to take on the trial lawyers. (Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/ls74ye);
    
• and, perhaps most important of all,
  
• his avoiding explanation of how we can pay for his $900 billion plan that involves 53 new bureaucracies:
  
  • (now downgraded from $1.3 trillion-Gee! Look how much he's saved us already!!)
    
  • without hurting seniors' Medicare which will be cut by $500 billion,
    
  • without adding one penny to the deficit, as he claims,
    
  • and without raising even more taxes than the $600 billion already on the table.
    

And, for my liberal friends, you should note that it is not just us "partisan scare tactic Republican operatives," who have judged Obama as not addressing the real issues.

Consider this morning's editorial from, of all places, the very liberal Los Angeles Times, which had this to say on the subject of Obama's speech and payment for the Administration's plan:

"…The hard part, in terms of both policy and politics, is finding a way to pay for the expansion in coverage. And on that most contentious issue, unfortunately, Obama argued that Congress could cover most of the cost by attacking waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid-a pain-free path that's as unrealistic as it is alluring…

…the president's comments about the savings available in Medicare were disingenuous, as was his assertion that a new tax on insurers would lead them to 'provide greater value for the money,' instead of simply passing the cost on to policyholders. Obama will have to come up with a more complete approach to paying for reform as the legislation moves forward. He claimed the plan as his own with this speech, but he left some of the hardest questions unanswered." (The Los Angeles Times, Thursday, September 10, 2009, Editorial Page, A28, Column 1, Emphasis added.)

Speaking of shame, what I think shameful is the President and his Congressional allies continuing to give us half-truths, distortions and manipulations about their health plan. They are in denial about the voice of the people expressed in townhalls across the country this past month.

It's enraging for the people to ask the hard questions and never get an answer other than accusations of evil mongering. But I don't think the deception and stonewalling are going to work, at least not as they had planned it.

A "sleeping giant" (as one townhaller called it), a fed-up American public, has been awakened, and citizens are not looking at the President with the same level of trust that they bestowed upon him at the beginning of his term.

The polls show this conclusively, and the ranks of Americans with voters' remorse keep growing, including democrats as well as independents, and (you know who you are) those Republican Obama-voters.

Our Czar in Chief can bicker and lie, blame and shame, and dodge the tough questions. But his emperor's cloak has slipped away, and we all see what is there.