Vol. 09 No. 29
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THE FOUNDATION
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
President Says 'Stars Are Aligned' for Health Care 'Reform'
Health care is still hogging the center stage as President Barack Obama took his trusted teleprompters on prime-time TV Wednesday to tell the American people, "This isn't about me." We have a hunch that Obama's fourth prime-time press conference was due to his plummeting poll numbers, so, yes, it is about him.
Of his plan, Obama empathized, "Now, I understand that people are feeling uncertain about this, they feel anxious, partly because we've just become so cynical about what government can accomplish." (After all, didn't the Founding Fathers have great faith in what "government can accomplish"? Where oh where did we lose that vision?) "So folks are skeptical," Obama added, "and that is entirely legitimate because they haven't seen a lot of laws coming out of Washington lately that help them." That's an understatement.
Obama again voiced his support for redistribution of wealth to pay for health care, saying that a surtax on families earning $1 million a year "meets my principle" that the cost of a government takeover is "not being shouldered by families who are already having a tough time." Translation: The cost will not be shouldered by those who benefit from the program, not to mention that Obama gets to decide who is "having a tough time."
We're definitely not in Kansas anymore
Speaking of tough times, the debate isn't going as well for the president as he had hoped. Republicans are fairly unified against the plan, many Democrats are openly skeptical and the Senate is delaying a vote until after the August recess. It remains to be seen if that's just a ploy to show that Congress isn't rubber-stamping the Obama plan.
The president absurdly claimed that nationalizing health care "will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it." Even the Associated Press couldn't swallow that whopper: "In [the] House legislation, a commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn't covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government. The bill also holds out the possibility that, over time, those standards could be imposed on all private insurance plans, not just the ones in the pool."
Furthermore, according to The Wall Street Journal, "[W]hen Mr. Obama says that 'If you like your health-care plan, you'll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,' he's wrong. Period. What he's not telling the American people is that the government will so dramatically change the rules of the insurance market that employers will find it impossible to maintain their current coverage, and many will drop it altogether." But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain -- Obama "will keep government out of health care decisions."
Perhaps columnist Ann Coulter put it best when she quipped, "All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink."
The BIG Lie
"[H]ealth insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it. ... I am very worried about federal spending." --Barack Obama
Oh, well, in that case...
On Cross-Examination
"The last time the president made grand promises and demanded passage of a bill before it could be reviewed, we ended up with the colossal stimulus failure and unemployment near 10 percent. Now the president wants Americans to trust him again, but he can't back up the utopian promises he's making about a government takeover of health care. He insists his health care plan won't add to our nation's deficit despite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office saying exactly the opposite." --Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"I'm rushed because I get letters every day from people that are being clobbered by health care costs, and they ask, 'Can you help?' ... If you don't set deadlines in this town, things don't happen. The default position is inertia. ...[T]he stars are aligned and we need to take advantage of that." --Barack ObamaRx on the rush to pass his health care monstrosity by August
Gaffe of the Week
"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system." --Barack Obama
News From the Swamp: Deceitful Deficit
In the midst of the push for spending $1.5 trillion to nationalize health care, the Obama administration has delayed releasing its summer budget update. Usually released in mid July, the update was pushed back into August. Ah, transparency. There are numerous problems with the budget, not the least of which the rosy outlook on future years' GDP. "Obama's current forecast anticipates 3.2 percent growth next year, then 4 percent or higher growth from 2011 to 2013," reports the Associated Press. "Private forecasts are less optimistic, especially for next year." Needless to say, downward revisions in growth and revenue projections would mean much higher budget deficits than previously stated. Obama has promised to "cut" the deficit in half over his first term. But dropping from $1.8 trillion to $900 billion is hardly something to celebrate. And why admit the bad news before he has the votes for health care?
New & Notable Legislation
On Wednesday, the House passed H.R. 2920, the so-called "Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act," which was approved on a 265-166 tally. The bill ostensibly will "reestablish a statutory procedure to enforce a rule of budget neutrality on new revenue and direct spending legislation." But this is about even more faked-up posturing for spendthrift Democrats, who can use this bill as camouflage to excuse raising taxes on already hard-pressed middle class families in order to pay for yet more wasteful Washington spending. The bill contains several loopholes, should the Democrats wish to evade its restraints, and it wouldn't apply to the "stimulus," the pork-larded omnibus, or the proposed government takeover of medical treatment.
Walter Cronkite and the Death of Objective Journalism
The passing of legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite last weekend at the age of 92 has brought a wealth of commentary about his six-decade career in journalism and a lot of reflection about the man once referred to as the "most trusted man in America." He reported on some of the most important events of the post-war era -- the assassinations of iconic leaders, the highlights of America's space program and the Vietnam War.
Indeed, it was his comments on the Tet Offensive in 1968 that most glaringly deviated from the calm objective manner that made him a mainstay of American news programming. Having returned from Vietnam, revolted by the carnage after reporting on the battle of Hue, Cronkite boldly told the American public that Vietnam was a "stalemate" that was no longer winnable. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Despite Cronkite's lofty oratory, Tet was an unequivocal failure for North Vietnam. The Americans and the South Vietnamese beat back the multi-pronged invasion on every front and inflicted losses that amounted to almost the entire North Vietnamese invasion force. Yet, the public believed Cronkite. He certainly believed himself. He would say years later that his assessment helped speed the end of the war, even though America's military involvement would continue for five more years, ending only when Congress refused to fund the defense of South Vietnam, eventually allowing it to fall to the Communists in 1975.
Cronkite essentially used his power with the public to inject his own views on the situation, and in turn he altered the course of public opinion, which was not as sour on America's involvement in Vietnam as the rioting college students would have us believe. In his later years at CBS and into his retirement, Cronkite would let slip his true liberal views about America. "We have to find some marvelous middle ground between capitalism and communism," he said in 1996. And like fellow traveler Sen. Harry Reid, Cronkite refused to believe that victory in Iraq was possible, even while it was happening. In 2007, he said, "[V]ictory no longer seems to be a remote possibility."
The real legacy Cronkite leaves behind in American journalism is not likely to be discussed or even admitted to by his acolytes. It is the legacy of a journalist who abandoned his obligation to report the facts and instead injected himself and his opinions into every story. He editorialized the news, and created a sad standard that is now emulated by network news anchors, cable news reporters, and newspapers across the country. The truth is now subjective. As Walter would say, "And that's the way it is." But that's not the way it should be.
Justice: Investigations of Thee, but Not of Me
The Justice Department has summarily dumped charges of voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members related to their acts of voter intimidation on Election Day 2008 in Philadelphia. The Bush Justice Department filed a civil complaint against the three men, one of whom was brandishing a nightstick, while they stood in front of a polling station spouting racist remarks and threatening people who were trying to go inside. Witnesses, including civil rights lawyer Bartle Bull, called it blatant voter intimidation. But Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have allowed the case to disappear. All that came of it was a measure that bars the nightstick wielding Malik Zulu Shabazz, a virulent racist Nation of Islam lieutenant, from being within 100 feet of a polling place for three years -- meaning he can be back, nightstick in hand, for Obama's re-election bid in 2012.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, has called for an inquiry into the actions of Justice. He sent three letters to AG Holder inquiring as to why the Justice Department dropped the charges, but he has received no reply. Undeterred, Wolf turned his attention to Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), requesting that the Judiciary Committee look into the matter.
Conyers was more than eager to investigate the Justice Department during the Bush administration, holding dozens of hearings to get the bottom of the firings of several U.S. attorneys for example. With no political points to be scored this time around, though, Conyers doesn't seem so interested. Similarly, Holder's grandstanding about holding the Justice Department to account apparently applies only when a Republican is in charge.
While Conyers and Holder ignore the matter and hope it goes away, Wolf is looking to get Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine to look into the matter. We doubt anything will come of it.
40 Years That Reshaped America
We occasionally place a tagline in stories referring to Sen. Edward Kennedy reminding the reader, "Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment." Well, 40 years ago last Saturday, on July 18, 1969, Ted Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile, with Mary Jo in the passenger seat, off a bridge at Chappaquiddick Island and neglected trying to help her or even calling for help until the following morning. The accident and subsequent cover-up would have finished the political career of most men, but Kennedy survived both personally and politically.
Perhaps his tragic family legacy saved the youngest Kennedy brother from electoral defeat and enabled him to continue a long Senate career. Nor did it hurt that less than 48 hours later the story of one of mankind's greatest successes to date wiped most mention of one man's personal failing off the newspaper headlines -- the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969.
Perhaps one good thing did arise from the death of 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. Eleven years later, we had a presidential election -- one in which Teddy Kennedy figured prominently. A question worth pondering is, had Chappaquiddick not happened, would Jimmy Carter have whipped Ted Kennedy in 1980? With Carter's mishandling of the economy gone as a campaign issue and the Kennedy mystique brought up afresh by the media, could Ronald Reagan have just been another failed presidential aspirant? Instead, we got eight years of Reagan's conservatism. And Kennedy is cashing in on his career in the Senate, selling leather-bound, electronically signed copies of his upcoming autobiography for $1,000 a pop. How it's worth the $8 million advance Kennedy reportedly netted we'll never know.
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