An exercise in transparency

Thursday was the Health Care Summit at Blair House, a supposed meeting of minds of the Reps and dems and the Comrade, all in hopes of finding points of agreement on socialized medicine. Well, it was interesting, but I don't see too many points of agreement, and for what it's worth, the Reps won.

Must admit, this thing started a little too early in the morning for me, so I slept through chunks of the first part of it. I'm pretty sure the news replayed anything of any significance, so I don't think I missed much. What struck me was the sincerity and open-mindedness of the Republicans and a few of the dems. However, the Comrade and Reid, especially, came off as rather peevish and impatient with all this open debate business. Why doesn't this minority just obey?

The Comrade was bizarre. He really doesn't like to be challenged. John McCain noted that many citizens were a bit put off by the Louisiana Purchase and similar deals. The Comrade snapped back -- completely inappropriately -- "The campaign is over, John!"

Similarly, Eric Cantor (R-VA) had the whole 2400-page bill on the desk in front of him. The Comrade said that that was a "prop." Kyl (R-not sure which state, but the west) said that one of the central questions was whether Washington would be making health care decisions instead of citizens making their own decisions. The Comrade told Kyl that the comment was "talking points."

Overall, the Comrade was rather surly and defensive.

Reid was an idiot. Asked if he'd take reconciliation off the table, he puffed up indignantly and said something like he'd never heard of reconciliation being mentioned in relation to the socialized medicine bill. Making me wonder if he maybe he hadn't taken one too many sinus pills or something. Or maybe Reid's so afraid for his safety he sent in some kind of body-double to attend the conference for him. Anyway, he's an idiot. That's transparent.

Nancy Pelosi was unintelligible. We don't call her Pazzo for nothing.

Some guy named Becerra (D-FL) got on Paul Ryan's case about Ryan claiming the CBO numbers didn't tell an accurate story. Ryan's point -- when he finally got the opportunity to make it -- was that the CBO can only "score" a bill based on the information offered. Ryan said so many costs are hidden in the bill -- and are even outside the bill -- that it's all "smoke and mirrors." But Becerra went on and on and on and on and on and on and on for about five minutes about nothing much, as though if he kept on talking, Paul Ryan would vanish into thin air.

Dick Durbin offered a sentimental pitch defending suing the pants off care givers. I think Durbin is not very bright, or else he just disregards intelligence in favor of slobbery sympathy.

I watched this on Fox, of course. In the early afternoon part of the show, anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed Linda Douglass. Douglass had been a news reporter in Chicago. Now she's a flak catcher for the White House. Douglass talked about a Newsweek poll that apparently asked citizens what they thought about various elements of the bill, like "Do you like the idea of the insurance companies not being able to refuse you based on pre-existing conditions?" Or, "Do you like the idea of insurance portability?"

Douglass noted that the results of this poll indicate that people are overwhelmingly in favor of these measures. I mean like 75% or 80% of those polled thought those were terrific ideas. And that seems to be all Douglass is capable of. Like an wind-up toy. Pull her string and she spouts the party line.

But what I'd like to see is a poll that asks: "Do you like the idea of insurance portability if it means your grandchildren will be slaves of the state and/or hunted down and torn apart by packs of wolves let loose by the IRS?"

I suspect the response might be a little less positive.

The way the Comrade is -- and always has been -- trying to sell socialized medicine is by divorcing the possible benefits from its certain costs and quite predictable negative consequences. The certain costs and the quite predictable negative consequences include: a whopping and never-ending tax burden on all able-bodied citizens; fewer and fewer able-bodied citizens, as soon as citizens figure out all you need to do is develop some mysterious-but-debilitating illness that puts them on the receiving end of the gravy train rather than on the paying end; health care rationing; declining quality in care; much less medical research and fewer innovations; etc.

In other words, the Comrade's rant goes something like: Pay no attention to the Pandora's Box behind the curtain.

And the Comrade himself really, really doesn't like to be criticized or challenged. It reminds me of an episode of "Law & Order," or maybe it was "Columbo." The suspect in a murder was a hotshot symphony conductor who was quite arrogant and impatient with the police. He explained how difficult his job was by saying something like, "You don't know how hard it is to get these musicians to work together. Every one of them was a 'wunderkint' in their home towns. Then they come to the Big City, where they're just a face in the crowd."

And no, the Comrade is not the symphony conductor in this scenario. He's one of the faces in the crowd. I suspect that he's used to being with a bunch of phony-ass liberals who petted him and fawned all over him as being a truly intelligent and cultivated "Negro" (as Harry Reid would say. And Barbara Boxer would just compare him to African-Americans she's met at the NAACP.) I'm sure these assinine liberals always wondered if such a creature was even possible in nature, and they picked up the Comrade and held him up as a living example of "See, black people are trainable." Hypocrites that they are. And the poor Comrade, believing all the b.s. they've fed him. Believing he really is some kind of divinely-inspired genius. I really do feel sorry for him.

Now he's up against minds that are just as clear and sharp as his own -- and not all of them in congress -- and people who actually have much better and longer political experience. I found most of the Republicans to be more impressive, at least as intelligent, and much better equipped emotionally than the Comrade to participate in open debate. When the Comrade insulted McCain -- inappropriately -- McCain just laughed and made a joke. I don't think John McCain feels compelled to prove his worth. That is to say, I think McCain has been up against tougher opponents and he survived, and he knows he will survive.

So the Comrade wants to take a few weeks and possibly jam this crappy bill through on reconciliation. But you know what? I also think he's beginning to doubt all the marxist rhetoric. Not that that will change anything; he might regard it even more humiliating to change than to continue to be regarded as a knee-jerk idealogue. He offered some kind of rambling conclusion that ended with a kind of soft threat about an election.

Yeah. There is a congressional election later this year. And afterward, the Comrade will be able to whine about not being able to get anything past a Republican majority. And finally we'll stop hearing about it's all George Bush's fault.

Meanwhile, Lamar Alexander was excellent, Tom Coburn -- a bona fide physician -- scored some excellent points, and I love John Boehner. If I was 30 years younger, I'd probably be stalking Paul Ryan.