ObamaCare - well articulated, critical opinion pieces today

Rich Lowry: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/dandy_speech_if_truth_doesn_matter_cGBDsDBdVH3RZ3nqnTNK6K

Charles Hurt:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/outsider_turns_to_dc_snake_oil_salesman_2bVTuygXdgN5d9GIjNgB4H

Michael Tanner:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/all_sizzle_no_substance_YCmYbWLLsBfaMNaXgSs0UP


Excerpt:

Charles Hurt (usually pro-Dem and Obama):

Outsider turns to DC snake-oil salesman

WASHINGTON -- Mark last night's address to Congress as the moment President Obama officially went completely Washington on us.

With universal health care, the centerpiece of his historic campaign, unraveling before him, Obama returned to those familiar waters of his greatest strength: that of an orator giving a great address that moves mountains.

The speech was said to be the most important speech of his young presidency.

Although Democrats run every game in town, their dreams of government health care -- and the massive infusion of new tax money that would flow with it into their hands -- looked to be dying.

This was the canvas for Obama's speech last night:

He needed to scrap the dumbest Democratic ideas and include new approaches that will actually lower health-care costs.

And, of course, he needed to sell this whole new program to an increasingly skeptical public.
But instead of offering anything new, Obama made a desperate stab at bipartisanship by offering tort reform.

We just lived through a month of angry protests against a rogue federal government and palpable rage against a Congress that blindly approves unread legislation.

While it may have pleased some Republicans who cheered tort reform last night, it is safe to say that not a single American will suddenly drop his or her opposition to government medicine just because Obama acknowledges that needless lawsuits drive up medical costs.

Only in Washington would tort reform serve as the grease with which to ram through death panels and government medicine.

That's because Washington is a phony stage where lobbyists are the only real actors. And in the biggest showdown between these sellouts, you have lobbyists for doctors and insurance companies on one side and lobbyists for trial lawyers on the other. In this sick world, if you make the lawyers bleed, you get the others on board.

And that's the cynical ploy Obama offered last night.

The man who won as a Washington outsider has officially become the ultimate insider.

No wonder people have quit buying what he's selling.