Well, how many of you watched the Bret Baier interview of President Obama? If you did, you got a good dose of politician. Obama does what politicians do best, he talked without saying anything. He should give up basketball and take up dodgeball. I bet he would be very good at it as he did one hell of a job dodging questions.
First, Bret asked him if he favors the democrats using the Slaughter rule to pass the healthcare bill. If you don't know what that is, it's passing the bill without even voting on it by using some obscure procedural rule for something it was never intended for and may even be unconstitutional to use in this situation. Never in the history of the country has a bill with the importance and magnitude of this healthcare bill ever been passed into law by using any other method than the normal voting and getting at least a 60 member majority.
Obama totally dodged the question and launched into a speech about the merits of the bill. He basically just started talking about whatever he wanted and totally ignored the question. When Bret pressed him on the issue, he basically said he's turning his head the other way. He said he's not concerning himself with HOW they pass the bill as long as they pass it, he's leaving that to congress. The ends justify the means when it comes to their agenda.
Bret asked him about the democrats using reconciliation to pass the bill. That's using a different procedural rule that was designed to let simple budget items and other relatively inconsequential legislation be passed by a simple majority of just over half the senate, 51 votes instead of the normal 60 votes. The reason for that rule is that for the more inconsequential bills, you know, the boring stuff, it's hard to get enough senators to take time from their busy 3 day workweek to actually show up to vote so they could even GET a 60 member majority, they figure maybe they could get enough participation to get 51. Bret pointed out that Obama himself has stated in the past that he is against using it.
His reply to using reconciliation and the fact that he has stated his disapproval of it in the past? Again, he dodged the question and didn't want to give a direct answer. He basically stated again that he isn't concerning himself with it. If that's what it takes to get it rammed through, then that's what it takes. In other words, it's ok if HIS side uses it, but he disapproves of it when the republicans try to use it. The ends justify the means.
Bret asked him if the special provisions in the bill are in or out. You know, those bribes that they used to buy votes from their own party members, referred to as the Louisiana Purchase and Nebraska's Cornhusker Kickback and others. He tried to dodge that one as well and wouldn't answer the question. When pressed on each specific, he simply wouldn't answer it and started with the double talk. I don't know if it's that he didn't know the answers or he just didn't want to admit what the answers actually were.
Basically, the whole interview was Bret asking pointed questions and Obama being the consummate politician and not answering them. It was frustrating and maddening for the viewer like me who actually wanted to hear him answer the questions. It was really a disgusting display and a waste of time. All Obama wanted to do was repeat the same talking points and promise it's the answer to all of our problems and we should just trust them.
He was also asked about the claim that they are going to pay for the bill by saving money and eliminating waste in Medicare. He tried his best to sidestep that as well but when pressed on the issue, he couldn't say that it will actually work.
That's because it's smoke and mirrors. If a program is losing a billion dollars and you clean it up and fix it so it's only losing 500 million, that doesn't mean you have 500 million new dollars to spend. It just means you are only going in the hole half as fast. It's not money that can be spent but they are saying they are going to pay for healthcare with it. That's just taking deficit spending from one program and making it deficit spending on another program. Even the CBO says that won't work. If a businessman or corporation tried to cook the books like our federal government routinely does, they would be prosecuted and thrown in jail.
One thing that I found very interesting about this interview was the fact that he did it with Bret Baier on Fox News Channel. This is the channel that they hate, the one they said isn't a real news network, the one that they went out of their way to try and trivialize. Why would they do that? Well, by their own admission, they don't like Fox News but they will use it if it suits them, if they think it will serve their purpose. It was Obama's last stand, his last chance to try and sway the people, a majority of the American people by all the polls, who are against this abomination of a bill and they figured he could tap into the largest audience by going on Fox.
I don't think it worked. He came off as desperate and looked pitiful trying to speechify and say the same old things that we've heard about it and that a majority of Americans consider to be lies.
"It's going to be budget neutral." Right... Does anybody outside of Washington actually believe that bull? Give us a break.
I would have had more respect for him if he would have just answered the questions and told the real truth: It's the first step toward a single payer system, total government run healthcare and we're going to ram it down America's throat whether the people want it or not. We're going to do it because we're smart and everybody else is too dumb to realize what's good for them. We are going to expand the federal government as much as we possibly can and taking over 1/6th of the U.S. economy is the best way to get as much power and control in one fell swoop. Before the stupid public knows what's happening, we, the federal government will have so much control over their lives, they won't even realize that they are moving toward socialism and communism.
They always said they would take over this country from within...
No comments:
Post a Comment