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Michelle Malkin: Oba-Kabuki Health Care a Box Office Bomb
The Oba-Kabuki health-care show at Blair House kicked off with a big lie Thursday morning — and it all went downhill from there. The taxpayer-funded infomercial backfired by exposing President Barack Obama’s thin skin, the Democrats’ naked disingenuousness and the ruling majority’s allergies to political and policy realities.
Responding to the opening call by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., for Democrats to renounce parliamentary tactics designed to limit debate, circumvent filibusters and lower the threshold for passage of health-care reform to a simple 51-vote majority, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sputtered indignantly: “No one’s talking about reconciliation!” Everybody and their mother has been invoking the “R” word on Capitol Hill, starting with Reid.
In a Feb. 16 letter, four Democratic senators pushed Reid to adopt the procedure, normally reserved for budget matters. A few days later, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs discussed the option. Then Reid himself talked up reconciliation on a Nevada public affairs show as an option to ram the government health-care takeover through in the next 60 days.
According to The Hill, Reid said “congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper chamber to make final changes to its health-care bill with only a simple majority of senators, instead of the 60 it takes to normally end a filibuster.”
A few days after that, Reid snapped that Republicans “should stop crying” about the abrogation of Senate minority rights, since Republicans had used the reconciliation process in the past.
So, the cleanest, most ethical holier-than-thou Congress ever is now defending the unprecedented adoption of ram-down rules for a radical, multitrillion-dollar program to usurp one-seventh of the economy on the grounds of “two wrongs make it right”? Hope and change, baby.
For his part, Obama responded with one part pique and two parts diffidence. After the summit lunch break, Republicans pushed the reconciliation issue again in the face of the Democrats’ refusal to disavow the short-circuiting of the deliberative process.
“The American people,” an annoyed Obama asserted, “are not all that interested in procedures inside the Senate.” Oh, really? A new USA Today/Gallup poll reports that 52 percent of Americans oppose using the procedural maneuver to pass the health-care bill in the Senate.
The survey also showed that Americans oppose Demcare-style health-care “reform” by 49 percent to 42 percent — with those “strongly” opposed outnumbering those “strongly” in favor by 23 percent to 11 percent. Obama’s best and brightest team of Chicago strategists, new-media gurus and communications specialists still hasn’t figured it out: Voters are as fed up with the corrupt process in Washington as they are with the White House’s overreaching policies. It’s both, stupid.
When he wasn’t cutting off Republicans who stuck to budget specifics and cited legislative page numbers and language instead of treacly, sob-story anecdotes involving dentures and gallstones, Obama was filibustering the talk-a-thon away by invoking his daughters, rambling on about auto insurance and sniping at his former Republican presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. “We’re not campaigning anymore, John” lectured the perpetual campaigner-in-chief.
After ostentatiously disputing the Republicans’ claims that health-care premiums would rise under his plan, Obama walked it back. Confronted with more Republican pushback on the failure of Demcare to control costs, Obama told Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that he’d rather not “get bogged down in numbers.” Not numbers that he couldn’t cook on the spot without staff consultation, anyway.
Obama and the Democrats labored mightily to create the illusion of almost-there bipartisanship by repeatedly telling disagreeing Republicans that “we don’t disagree” and “there’s not a lot of difference” between us. But the dogs weren’t riding the ponies in this show.
This was a setup from the start. The “we’re so close” mantra is the rhetorical wedge the White House will use to blame Republicans for fatal obstructionism, while whitewashing festering opposition from both pro-life Democrats who oppose the government funding of abortion services still in the plan and left-wing progressives in the House of Representatives who are clinging to a full, unadulterated public option.
While Republicans came off well, the six-hour blowhard-fest was a monumental waste of time. Obamacare Theater tied up Republican energy and resources as the White House readies its “Plan B” (expanding government health-care coverage, just at a slower pace) and Democratic leaders prep their reconciliation ram-down for early next week.
This Washington box-office bomb is a prelude to much bigger legislative horrors still to come. Don’t you love farce?
— Michelle Malkin is author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies. Click here for more information. She can be contacted at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
» wrote on 03.01.10 @ 01:18 AM
Wolf!
» wrote on 03.01.10 @ 07:09 AM
Oh Michelle, you’re so at strong regurgitating classic punditry like referring to the health summit as “Kabuki Theater”….so thoughtful. You give us the Gallop poll figure of 52% of Americans opposing the budget reconciliation procedure but here is the figure I am more interested in: of the 52%, how many actually know what the budget reconciliation procedure is? Not many I suppose but then again ignorance is cherished these days is it not? I encourage your other readers to read about the issue carefully and then make an informed decision based on facts rather than opinions.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124009985
» wrote on 03.02.10 @ 09:20 PM
Has there ever been a more shrill, one-note, uninteresting political commentator than Ms. Malkin? Just by reading the headlines of her columns you can practically guess the GOP and Libertarian talking points that she’ll gleefully rhyme off to match the “fill in the blank” subject matter she’s chosen. Like a dutiful schoolgirl in a Mussolini-era brown tunic she stands at the front of the class denouncing Democrats, Socialists and other enemies of the corporate-controlled state. “Very good, Michelle. You have earned a tour of the Fiat factory”.
Yes, we get it Michelle - anyone who even remotely thinks government can do the work of the people and that taxpayers ought to see some tangible benefits of their hard earned dollars spent here at home on trifles such as health care, education, mass transit and infrastructure surely must be a communist or worse. Now, how can we convince your corporate masters at Creators Syndicate to plaster your face on massive posters across the nation like a modern day Big Sister so the obedient workers can salute you in lock step? Il Duce indeed!
» wrote on 03.03.10 @ 04:14 PM
EmptySuit, your hatred of anything not liberal is stunning. Your intellectual narcissism is in rare form. So what was it about Michelle’s article you find untrue? What do you refute? “Oh, nothing, she’s just a rightwinger and that’s enough.” Gimmy a break fool. You and your big fat nanny government can have all the fun stuff you want when you earn it. “Oops, you mean pay for it, don’t you, mean ole AN50”. Nope, earn it. The government uses a big fat credit card to PAY for it. You have to expand your economic pie using your extraction, manufacturing and agriculture sectors to add the wealth. A growing pie means more wealth to spread around. Even a diehard commie like you can appreciate that. But you don’t. You think that European socialists who are sucking off our tax dollars for their defense have all the answers and are so enlightened. Well boy kick that rock over and look at all the nasty stuff crawling out. It ain’t so pretty. The Europeans now have a birthrate that is lower than their death rate, a direct result of their adult adolescent attitude of live for today. I mean really why be bothered with procreation? As a result of that and their industrial base not keeping up with their immigrant population they have amassed an enormous unfunded mandate problem on their entitlements (whoa, sounds familiar, huh?). They tried the ole import more people to make up for it gambit but found that the immigrants they picked from former colonies were mostly young Arab Muslims. Oops, these guys hate their former states and don’t much like the European attitude of classes based on birth. Hence, violence, riots and of course effete governments that want like hell to ask America for help but find the embarrassment of doing so more unpalatable than becoming another Muslim islamo- fascist state. It gets better. The Europeans are not, in fact, that stupid. Their people are swinging the pendulum back to the right and their governments are wondering why you idiot left wingers here in the US are not paying attention to their plight and doing the same, it’s like you are 20 to 30 years behind them. Well what a sad state for you. So much for the “enlightenment” of the left here. Talk to your comrades in Europe, Empty, They are actually following the right here in this country. Kinda leaves you guys out there all on yer own, huh?
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