On the road again selling health care reform
According to the American Heritage Cultural Dictionary, déjà vu, is “the strange sensation that something one is now experiencing has happened before.”
The news of the hour is that Obama is on the campaign trail “selling” his “historic” health care “reform.”
Here’s the story from CNN:
President Obama hit the road . . . to sell the merits of the newly enacted health care law, telling an enthusiastic Iowa crowd that the measure will lead to greater economic security for most Americans.
‘This is your victory,’ Obama said at the University of Iowa. Health care reform "was about the future of our country. And today . . . that future looks stronger and more hopeful and brighter than it has in some time.’
The crowd, in turn, repeatedly chanted Obama's campaign theme: ‘Yes, we can.’
No, wait, that excerpt was from a March 25th story.
Here’s the story from the New York Times:
President Obama and his allies, concerned about deep skepticism over his landmark health care overhaul, are orchestrating an elaborate campaign to sell the public on the law, including a new tax-exempt group that will spend millions of dollars on advertising to beat back attacks on the measure and Democrats who voted for it.
No, wait, my apologies, that was from June 6.
Here’s the story from September 22:
Amid new polls showing a majority of Americans don't like his health care policy, President Obama is redoubling efforts to frame the measure as a campaign asset. But with time running out before November and the economy far outstripping health care as a top concern among voters, it's unlikely the president's push will get much traction.
Mr. Obama is actually at it again. Unbelievable, but true. And it couldn’t have come at a better time to benefit Republicans in the upcoming November midterm elections. As Congressional Democrats are running away from their “historic” achievement, Obama is reminding voters of the two-thousand page nightmare. Even though the public demanded that Congress “read the bill!” the legislation was nevertheless rushed through at the midnight hour via arm-twisting and bribery on purely partisan votes.
How dumb does Obama think the American people are? Just because he and the Democrats who voted for it haven’t read the law, the voters have. The voters know what’s in it and they don’t like it: They don’t like the mandates and penalties; the open-ended bureaucratic control; and the inevitable increases in the cost of insurance.
Never mind that the people soundly reject the “reform” and want to see it repealed. Mr. Obama nevertheless believes, in the face of reason, that if they just hear from him a little more, they will love it! What kind of personality disorder this reveals in the man is above my pay grade. Sufficient to say: Obama’s disconnect from reality is clearly disturbing.
A piece from David Limbaugh’s excellent book, “Crimes Against Liberty,” comes to mind:
But rather than adjusting his polices to these unpleasant realities [like the public’s rejection of heath care ‘reform’], he persisted—and still persists—in his maximalist course, convinced that his growing legion of critics simply don’t comprehend the beneficence of his actions. The notion that his detractors, and the American people overall, do understand what he’s doing, and that’s precisely why they are increasingly hostile to his agenda, is an unacceptable concept to our budding autocrat.
At the news of Obama’s latest health care campaign, the Republicans have got to be saying: “sell it baby, sell it.”