PrintMarch 28, 2010
A Plane Ride, a Water Bribe, a GOP Hug, En Route to T-Day
Passing Obamacare opened the road that leads to the mid-term elections on November 2, 2010. The legacy media's main storyline, one of support for the historic President's historic healthcare reform, will now shift.
The new lede will focus on the Democrats' spirited defense of a reformed healthcare system that, we'll be told, puts us in the company of other industrialized societies. We have, they'll say, joined the family of civilized nations. The MSM will call on loyal Americans to unite behind the reformation of healthcare that's now the law of the land. The battle's over, they'll say.
The short-lived Republican push-back in the Senate against House passage along with possible court challenges from states' Attorneys General are sidebars. The first faded fast. The second will linger in the background, largely ignored. Healthcare proponents have little to fear from a Supreme Court divided along ideological lines.
Meanwhile, for awhile, Conservatives among us ponder the battle lost, and brace for the long war ahead. We'll recall the defining images that brought about the federalizing of medical care in America, with a government takeover of the student loan business thrown in as a Progressive bonus.
In the wake of what's been a year-long Beltway Reality Show, ending with an overwhelming percentage of the bodi politik's sentiment ejected from the island, the old media will aim to calm us, saying politics has always been this ugly. The only difference this time, they'll tell us, it that the sausage was made out in the open... the process was transparent. Never mind that the lead sausage maker campaigned on a theme of not mixing in all the ugly pork parts as was done in the past. That will all be forgotten by those who still purport to report the news, but haven't for a very long time.
For our part, we the people, a majority of us, know that it's not transparency but bloodless tyranny we've witnessed. And we'll scan across the complete political spectrum for moments and persons worth remembering.
We'll remember Congressman Dennis Kucinich's forty-five minute ride on Air Force One where he experienced an epiphany that changed his pretend "No" vote to "Yes." It likely happened when the President said, "Look, Dennis, you want a single payer system and so do I. This is the first step. Once taken, that end is inevitable. Join us." Dennis is a small man who needs approval from a big man. What could he say but okay?
We'll remember the Water Bribe aimed at Democrat House members Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa whose continuants live in California's San Joaquin Valley. Obama's Department of the Interior turned off the irrigation water there to save a small fish. Now, suddenly, some of the water has been turned back on, washing away their opposition to Obama's healthcare bill it seems. Water control as a means of extortion was a familiar theme in the old Western movies.
We'll remember Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Colburn's propensity to hug President Obama in public, just as he did on the occasion of the State of Union Speech last January.
They're friends, you see. Good friends. Obama is, Coburn said in this short video, "a wonderful man," although they "disagree 180 degrees" on some issues, presumably including healthcare reform. Yet, when it comes to his feelings about Democrat legislators bribed to vote for Obama's healthcare bill in the House, Coburn takes on a threatening tone.
So let's see if we follow the Coburn's Logic: President Obama is a wonderful man, but the House legislators who yield to his efforts to buy their votes are less than wonderful. That may compute inside the Beltway where morality is relative to status, but it's not how we the people act when others repeatedly lie to us and ours. Tom, we don't hug those we don't trust to tell us the truth, or act in ways we believe are not in our best interests, or, in your case, the best interests of the people of Oklahoma. That's not OK.
These images, and many others, we'll remember as we start down the road to the mid-term elections, for we have watched all this while fully awake, and our memories are acute. Progressives have been relentless in striving for their social objectives. It's now the turn of Conservatives to become relentless and not accept either their "No" or "Yes" for a final answer.
Big government now has our full attention. And it's mostly, but not totally, Democrats toward whom we look askance as T-Day approaches on November 2, 2010.
