Crush Liberalism

Thoughts from the health care “summit”

Just in case you were naive enough to think this was an actual solicitation of input from the opposition, this should kill your naiveté:

After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.

This story was put out while the “summit” was still going on, well before it ended. In other words, the Dems had their plans already lined up, and nothing that occurred in the “summit” was going to change that.

The Vice-Plagiarist feared that inviting the Republicans to the “summit” could “could end up being not good”.  Boy, how right he was!  It turned out to be a disaster…for the Democrat Party.

Opinions are coming in from around the punditry, but, to coin a phrase overutilized by the global “warming” cultists, the science is settled: the GOP scored a massive body blow to Obama and the Dems.  Jay Nordlinger:

This health-care summit was a bad idea for the Democrats for this reason: They have long benefited from a perception — a perception greatly abetted by the media: The Republicans don’t care about health care, they don’t know about health care, they are the Party of No. All the ideas and caring are on the Democratic side.

It is not so, and it has never been so. And now everybody knows it.

Indeed, everybody does now know it. David Gergen:

The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer…yeah, that Wolf Blitzer:

It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.

The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard:

I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.

Yuval Levin:

…The Republicans seem genuinely well-prepared, seem to have thought through the question of who should speak about what rather carefully, and several of them have done quite a good job making their case against the Democrats’ approach. If we were to judge by debating points, Republicans certainly won the morning handily.

Jim Geraghty:

The Democrats are offering a lot of anecdotes about Baby Jesus, Steny Hoyer’s answering machine, and the teeth of the dead. Obama is at his least persuasive; he keeps ruling GOP arguments out of bounds for one reason or another – don’t hold up a copy of the bill, don’t cite Washington because people are angry at Washington right now, don’t ask for equal time, don’t focus on where we disagree, don’t remind me of what I said as candidate. I don’t think that transforms the skeptics into supporters.

That is my biggest takeaway of the whole thing: Republicans used charts, graphs, stats, analyses, quotes…in other words, facts. Democrats used no facts, but opted instead to use anecdotes, sob stories, and tearjerkers…the things on which you do not base good public policy!

Check out the tag line under my blog title: Why think when you can feel? The Democrats have proved me right time and time again, and this time, they do so in a way that leaves no doubt. The science is settled (how’s that tasting now, lefties?): Liberals govern on feeling, not on thinking. Thinking just isn’t their forté.

Also, McCain did a great job making B.O. look like the thin-skinned, petulant brat that he is. When McCain pointed out the shadiness of the backroom deals (e.g. FL getting exempted from ObamaCare in three huge Democrat counties) and asked why they get to keep using Medicare Advantage when the rest of the country wouldn’t be able to, B.O. looked uneasy and tried throwing him a bone: “That’s a legitimate question.” A question he wasn’t going to answer, mind you, but a legitimate question nonetheless. Other points McCain made about promises that B.O. made on the campaign trail prompted B.O. to get snippy: We’re not campaigning anymore, I won, etc. In other words, to paraphrase Miles from Risky Business when asked by Joel if everything he had said was “just bull$h!t”: That was just bull$h!t, John, I’m surprised you and America listened to me!

Anywho, let’s close with some ludicrous, and laughably so, comments:

Pelosi: This isn’t a health care reform bill, as much as it is a jobs bill. ‘Cuz the bill will create four million jobs, 400k of them nearly overnight. Or something.

Tom Harkin (D-IA): Having different insurance risk pools is akin to Jim Crow laws. Or something.

Reid: No one’s talking about reconciliation. Obama: Um, I am.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY): Here’s a sob story about a woman who was “forced” to wear her dead sister’s dentures due to lack of health insurance. Or something.

Another nugget from Slaughter: “Not nitpick, but think about all the people out there every day, the number of people that have excess deaths because they have no health insurance.” I wasn’t aware a person could have more than one death. The stuff I learn from Washington. But hey, you can’t spell “Slaughter” without “laughter”, right?

American people: Hey, 59% of us want Washington to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch. Dems to American people: Screw you, Mr. and Mrs. Normal America, but we’re going to cater to the whackjob 34% who want our partisan socialist bill.

February 26, 2010 Posted by crushliberalism | health care, McCain, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, shameful, socialism | 7 Comments