Health Care "Debate" - Obama & Democrats - Boundless Hypocrisy

This irritates me to no end. Obama & his Democratic cronies have zero interest in an open and honest debate about health care. Their playbook is a) try to ram it through; b) when that fails; attack your opponents. Their methods are vile and disgusting, calling genuinely concerned Americans "un-American" while avoiding and trying to stifle debate, all the while dissembling.

I could go on and on about this, but I will post just a few tidbits that illustrate what's going on.

The irony is that the Dems could jam through anything they want to given their majorities in the House and Senate, but they know what they are proposing is so egregiously bad, they are afraid to face the political consequences of it all.

Congressman Green’s Hypocrisy [Hans Von Spakovsky]
The unabashed hypocrisy of liberals just never ends. As NewsBusters reports, Democratic congressman Gene Green of Texas is apparently perturbed about the hard time he has been getting at home over his support for a government takeover of health care. So he has issued an announcement on his website stating that “due to a coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings, we will be restricting further attendance to residents of the 29th Congressional District and verifying residency by requiring photo identification.”

Of course, this is the same Congressman Green who is against requiring photo ID for voting. He voted against the Federal Election Integrity Act in 2006, which would have required anyone voting in a federal election to produce a government-issued photo ID. Green wants to verify the identity of every individual who comes to one of his town-hall meetings — but he does not want election officials to verify the identity of everyone who votes in the elections that put him into office. Interesting contrast, isn’t it?

Re: Congressman Green’s Hypocrisy [Robert Alt]
It makes sense for Representative Green to oppose photo IDs for voting but require them for town-hall meetings. After all, it isn’t like there are any reasons to verify who someone is at a voting place. It’s not like there are restrictions on who can vote (or register to vote), such as citizenship or residency, or restrictions on how many times you can vote. It’s just a right, right? It’s not like that so-called “right” to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances — in that case, the government really needs to know who is talking to avoid, well, uppity constituents! And, of course, there is no risk that checking IDs would chill speech. It’s not like the government collects “fishy” information about people with whom they disagree.


On Dishing It Out . . . [Victor Davis Hanson]

What is weird about the liberal hysteria to the obstreperous (and occasionally rude) town meetings is the complete amnesia about what constitutes reckless public discourse.

At one time not so long ago, those on the Left, and mainstream Democrats as well, apparently believed inflammatory language, Hitler parallels, and perverse expressions of real hatred were acceptable means to the noble end of discrediting the Bush presidency.

During the bleak days of Iraq, demonstrators carried swastikas and Hitler portraits of Bush habitually. Nicholson Baker wrote a novel in which characters are contemplating killing Bush. Films were praised imagining the assassination of the president. Michael Moore, courted by the Democratic elite, lamented that bin Laden on 9/11 had hit a blue state — and once compared the killers of Americans in Iraq to Minutemen.

Al Gore customarily used excessive language like "brown shirts." Senators Durbin, Kennedy, and others compared our soldiers to Saddamites, Pol Pot’s killers, and Nazis. Ward Churchill compared the victims in the Twin Tower to “little Eichmanns.” Sen. Robert Byrd likened Pres. George W. Bush’s policies to what transpired in Nazi Germany. Linda Ronstadt, Harold Pinter, Scott Ritter, Ted Rall, and George Soros agreed with Fidel Castro, the Iranians, and North Koreans in comparing Bush to Hitler.

Jonathan Chait wrote in the New Republic on why “I hate George W. Bush.” Garrison Keillor likened Bush’s Republicans to “brown shirts in pinstripes.” Even old hero Sen. John Glenn said of the Bush agenda: “It’s the old Hitler business.” In 1984, the Guardian’s Charles Brooker declared:

On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?

Democrats were furious that Rush Limbaugh wanted Obama’s agenda to fail, but I think it was their National Chairman Howard Dean himself who went way beyond Limbaugh when he said publicly, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for,” and, “This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good.”

Didn’t NAACP chairman Julian Bond once declare of the Bush administration, “Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side?”

In comparison to all that, the outrage of a few private citizens — none of them in government, prominent in the arts, or political commentators — seems rather mild. In truth, the 2000s marked the liberal reversion to the hateful speech of the 1950s extreme Right, but with a twist. In the 1950s, there were liberal humanists who rose up to deplore the cheap slurs of Joe McCarthy & Co.; by 2001, there were none to object to the above sort of speech.


Leading Conservative Activists Speak Out on Town Halls [Robert Costa]
With Democrats complaining that disorder at recent town-hall meetings on health care is tied to organized opposition groups, NRO asked leaders of prominent conservative grass-roots organizations whether they condemn the disruptions.

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, told NRO that he has been “to a bunch of rallies and events” where “the vast majority, 99.9 percent, are civil and expressing their voices and defending their freedoms.” Booing and cheering, he said, is just “good, old American democracy . . . a very reasonable way to respond.”

“Whenever you have a movement numbering in the hundreds of thousands, you will have some people who will do something inappropriate,” said Phillips. “We don’t think inappropriate behavior is helpful.” Phillips cited effigies of members of Congress and physical altercations as examples of possible imprudence. However, Phillips noted that “it is difficult to give an iron-clad definition of what is disruptive and what is inappropriate — but you know it when you see it.”

Former hospital CEO Rick Scott, founder of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, told NRO that “one of the things both sides have to recognize is that everyone has to act properly here.”

“When a congressman is presenting something, he doesn’t have to talk down to the constituent. On the other side, there has to be order, with a process for asking questions and getting things answered. Everyone has to be civil,” said Scott. “We’ve all seen the things on YouTube where it appears people aren’t listening, but you’re only getting a glimpse of what’s happening,” he said. “I’ve presented at a lot of health-care town-hall meetings. My goal is to talk about bills and be direct as possible. What I’ve found is that people are sincerely interested in understanding this stuff. People are showing up with the right attitude. They want to be taken seriously and treated with respect.”

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, told NRO that town-hall attendees “obviously shouldn’t disrupt or push or shove.” Nonetheless, said Keene, attempts to “demonize” opponents to Obama’s health-care plan are “typical” of what he calls “Chávez Democrats” who “don’t argue issues, instead arguing that the people who disagree with them are enemies of the people. In this country, it doesn’t work. Americans don’t like to get pushed around.”

“This idea that anyone who disagrees with you is evil is crazy,” said Keene. “The fact is that democracy, open meetings, and free speech are not always as sedate as one might expect them to be on PBS. Nobody controls this type of thing.” He added that “the coalition that the Obama people put together has been organizing for a year now, and, despite their best efforts, they can’t get people to go to the meetings to argue in support of the president’s policy.”

Adam Brandon, vice president for communications at FreedomWorks, the conservative nonprofit chaired by Dick Armey, said: “If you look at what we put online, which is how we communicate with our members, there is absolutely zero advocation of violence or lewd behavior. We don’t do that, that’s not what we do. We assist activists in becoming educated on policy. We help activists find a location so that they can be the first ones to the microphone so that they’re in-person asking questions — no shouting, no name-calling.”

“The reality of the situation is that town halls are usually very scripted events,” said Brandon, mentioning presidential campaign town halls of all parties as an example. “The congressional town halls have become more and more scripted. A lot of our activists have found that there may be 200 seats, but 194 seats are pre-filled by AFSCME or the AFL-CIO,” he said. “We don’t advise shouting, but it’s understandable when our activists are not using inside voices when they feel they’re shut out of the picture. Even if they’re frustrated, however, there is no excuse for violence. Still, when I look at town halls, violence is not what I see. I’m a Cleveland Browns fan, and passions and voices are multiple times more edgy at Browns games than at town halls. In this country, we celebrate Andrew Jackson. Vocal democracy is vital.— Robert Costa is the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow in Political Journalism at the National Review Institute.


Camille Paglia, Dissident [Edward John Craig]
After expressing her continuing support for Barack Obama in her first Salon paragraph, Camillle Paglia (inter alia) goes on an ugly and un-American rant on Obamacare:

[I] must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.

Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises — or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.
Full story here.


McCaskill Wags Her Finger [NRO Staff]
Democratic senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri hosted a town-hall meeting on Tuesday that quickly became a lecture. The Kansas City Star reports:
About 1,500 people turned out for the sometimes boisterous meeting in Hillsboro, about 30 miles south of St. Louis. Shouts frequently disrupted the meeting, and one man was arrested after allegedly taking a sign brought in by another person and ripping it.
“I don’t understand this rudeness,” McCaskill told the crowd at one point. “I honestly don’t get it.”
Someone shouted out that they didn’t trust McCaskill, a Democrat who was among the earliest supporters of President Barack Obama when he began his run for the White House.

“Beg your pardon … you don’t trust me?” McCaskill said. “I don’t know what else I can do.”
Senator McCaskill asked the crowd to "give her a chance," before griping that she was "so disappointed."

Later on in the day on her Twitter account, the senator found time to issue a mea culpa of sorts:
I've watched some of todays public forum, and I think at times I sounded condescending. My apologies for that.