PrintAugust 3, 2009
The Obamacare Strategy: Rush, Muddle & Malign
Rush, Muddle & Malign isn't a law firm. It's a series of tactics the Democrat leadership is using to promote Obamacare.
Rush worked with TARP and the Porkulus bill. The sky was falling, we were told, and we had to support those bills or we were doomed! Bush fell asleep at the wheel and trusted his money wizards, along with the Democrat led Congress. Now we're still trying to figure out who and what TARP bailed out. It's become a slush fund for the Executive branch administered by Timmy Geithner. Billions remain unaccounted for.
But, hey, like Rahm said, we can't let a crisis - real or contrived - go to waste. Fear always stands ready to be exploited.
This summer, we just had to have healthcare reform. Obama hasn't used his campaign slogan borrowed from MLK, "the fierce urgency of now." But he had taken healthcare on with fierce urgency. Why? It's because, he says, he's getting letters from people urging him to do something. Hardly a compelling argument for Rush to mimic the explorer Herman Cortes and burn the boat that brings people here from all over the world when they're sick, and can get here.
Americans who pay attention, and more of them are daily, are wising up to the Rush con. The carnival hawkers of DC urgency conned them twice - with TARP and a Stimulus bill that isn't stimulating anything. Many are beyond leery this time. (Fool us once - shame on you. Fools us twice - shame on us. Fool us a third time - we've earned our fate.)
Muddle ought to be in the title: "America's Muddled Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009." It's only "affordable" if China agrees to indefinitely underwrite our deficit addiction, and they won't. The only "choice" offered is the federal government taking control of the nation's healthcare system. That is except for the ruling class, the members of Congress. They'll still choose their healthcare coverage from a menu of options. And why not. They've done such a world class job with the VA Hospital system, and the healthcare given to Indians on reservations.
Congress John Conyers (D. Mich) confessed that he hadn't read the healthcare bill because it can't be read in less than two days. (Longer for him.) And, he wouldn't understand it without the aid of two lawyers. (There's at least four more days.) So why bother reading it? He's only the legislator who chairs the House committee that deals with laws. That's like the Pope saying he just can't make sense of that resurrection thing in a week, so forgetaboutit.
The language of the bill is a labyrinth of gobbledygook, chock-full of cascading, mind-numbing cross references to the IRS Code and the Social Security Act. If a camel's a horse designed by a committee, this convoluted piece of Beltway-English is a "product" - as Sen. Harry Reid refers to it - drafted by a subcommittee made up of the Joker, Yogi Berra, and Professor Irwin Corey who said, "If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." Here are just two of their pranks:
"The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax imposed by this chapter for purposes of determining the amount of any credit under this chapter or for purposes of section 55." (p. 203)
And another:
"The term ‘non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual' means a Medicaid eligible individual who is not a traditional Medicaid eligible individual." (p. 106)
This is art.
Sometimes it's hard to remember in the midst of this hilarity that the verbiage is all about setting up a humongous federal bureaucracy, staffed by members of some federal workers' union, spending trillions of our dollars as they "save" money, pretend to give us "options," and keep us healthy.
Malign is a well-established tactic of the Democrat leadership and the President - AIG executives, Wall Street traders, over-paid CEO's...the list of villains goes on. The continuing litany of class warfare targets-of-opportunity slide by like metal ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.
Obama recently lashed out at Pediatricians who, he charged, remove our kids' tonsils just to make more money. Never mind that surgeons take out tonsils, and that Pediatricians compete with Psychiatrists as the lowest paid physician group. One of Hillary's mottos was "It takes a village." For Obama et al it takes a whipping boy.
Nancy Pelosi's latest whipping boys are the insurance companies. On July 30, 2009, speaking of the insurance companies, she said,
"It's almost immoral what they are doing. Of course they've been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure. They are the villains."
Gotta have villains. Nancy's all about standing between the evil insurance companies and the people with pitchforks. The only problem for her is that people are increasingly looking more toward Nancy and friends with pitchfork-in-hand than her whipping boys. Yet, "It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion." (Eric Hoffer)
Perhaps this time, though, the people will speak up and the ruling class in Congress will listen. And perhaps, only just perhaps, blue dog Democrats will not allow Intimidate (AKA Rahm Emanuel) to join the firm of Rush, Muddle & Malign and, instead, heed their constituents.
