Liberals are acting all righteous and offended that a member of the Republican opposition, Rep. "Joe" Wilson of South Carolina, would deign to besmirch the "dignity of the presidency" by calling out "You lie!" in the middle of President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening.
But what's wrong with that? Whatever the veracity of Obama's claim that his proposed health care "reform" would not pay for the health care of illegal immigrants residing in the US (and one can only hope that statement was fatuous, because at a minimum we would certainly want the government to pay for the care of an illegal immigrant in childbirth, or of an illegal immigrant who came down with a contagious disease), and even if Rep. Wilson is a racist bozo who wrongly thinks or wants to imply that Obama's plan would be out there enrolling undocumented workers in the millions at taxpayer expense, why shouldn't members of Congress call out a president if they think he's lying to them from the podium?
One of the big problems with American democracy is that the presidency has over the years been elevated to the level of a monarchy, with all the imperial trappings and pomposity formerly associated with royalty. Presidents surely should get no more respect than a prime minister, and look at the hoots and catcalls PMs have to endure when they address Parliament in the UK. That's a good thing.
Anyhow, it would have been far better if, instead of clapping wildly, liberal Democrats in Congress had hooted down some of the other whoppers and stretchers told by the president in his health care address.
Among them:
1. First and foremost, Obama's claim that he was "determined to be the last" president to have to deal with health care reform and that he didn't want to "kick the can" down the street for a future administration to deal with. In fact, that is just what he did with his proposal, which has left the basic untenable system of employee-financed health care in place, and which has left the private insurance industry in control of who gets treatment and how much they will have to pay for it. It's a sure bet that before very long -- perhaps in just four more years -- another president will face the same crisis. A boisterous cat-call of "Can Kicker!" here would have been in order.
2. Obama said that "nothing else even comes close" to health care expenditures in terms of causing the federal deficit. In fact, something does -- the military budget -- but that topic is off limits for both Republicans and Democrats. Why couldn't Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold have yelled out, "What about military spending!"
3. Perhaps one of the biggest lies of the night was the president's claim that while there are "arguments to be made" for single-payer systems like Canada's, switching to single-payer in the US would require building "an entirely new system from scratch." The truth: Medicare is already a successful single-payer system and in fact, it is bigger and older than Canada's own nation-wide system. Expanding it to cover every American would not be starting from scratch at all. It would be expanding something already time-tested. Where were the shouts of "What about Medicare!" from Rep. John Conyers (and his dozens of cosigners), whose bill, HR 676, to expand Medicare to all has been barred from getting even a hearing by the House leadership with encouragement from the White House?
4. The president insisted that insurance executives don't "cherry-pick" profitable customers and push out those who are sickest, because they are "bad people." He said they are just doing it because it's profitable. It would have been nice if at least someone in the assembled throng of lobbiest-enthralled House and Senate members had shouted out something like "Just like bank robbers and drug dealers!" because the truth is that health insurance executives are bad people. They know that they are killing people every day through their ruthless policies, and they go right ahead and do it. Pursuit of profit does not, or at least should not, constitute a license to kill. (Just imagine a hit man, at his sentencing hearing, telling the judge, "I'm not a bad person, Your Honor. I just knock people off because it's profitable.")
5. The president said he was "not trying to put the insurance industry out of business," and added, "They provide a legitimate service." This line, not surprisingly, given the amount of money that industry has lavished on members of Congress and on the president himself, got what was probably the loudest bi-partisan applause of the night. But it surely led to a lot of groans and of coffee, tea or beer being spewed out involuntarily across carpets and upholstery in homes across America. Legitimate service? Insurance firms are nothing but vampires, or better, leeches on the health care system. They provide no service. Ask doctors, who have to fight to get permission to treat patients, and then fight to get reimbursed. Ask patients, who spend hours on the phone arguing with faceless drones, some probably in Bangalor or Manila, who are denying them coverage for needed medicines or procedures that are supposed to be covered. Listen to the testimony of whistle-blowers who have confirmed that those drones actually get paid bonuses based upon the number of claims they manage to deny. How satisfying it would have been if someone in Congress had yelled out, "Legitimate service my ass!"
6. Turning to the pathetically circumscribed and downsized "public option" in his "reform" plan, Obama declared that "a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option." Well that may be true, but it's not the whole truth. It would have been a great moment for Kucinich or Conyers or some other progressive member of Congress to shout out: "A majority also favors a single-payer plan!"
7. And where the defenders of women's rights, when Obama vowed that under his plan, "no federal funds would be used to fund abortions?" Couldn't someone have shouted out, "Women have rights too!" Is the president really saying that if a woman is raped, or a child gets pregnant through incest, or if a woman's life is at risk because of a pregnancy, that his plan will not pay for her to obtain an abortion? Cries of "For shame!" should have been ringing through the hall!
8. Finally the president said that one reason the nation has such record deficits is that during the prior administration, so many initiatives, "including the Iraq War," were set in motion but "not paid for," and he vowed, "I will not make that same mistake with health care." But he is doing the same thing with supplemental war funding requests for his war in Afghanistan, and with the continued war and occupation in Iraq, and someone should have called him on that. Besides, there's no way that the program he is proposing will be paid for by current funding. It will add to the deficit and he should have the courage to admit it, or to call for more taxes on the wealthy to pay for it. A lusty "Tax the rich!" cry in unison from the progressive caucus would have been appreciated by viewers.
Whack-job or not, Rep. Wilson did the cause of democracy and honest discourse a favor when, faced with a statement he felt was clearly false, he found he couldn't repress the urge to call the president a "liar." In doing so, he put a much-needed ding in the wholly inappropriate and dangerous imperial aura of "respect" that has grown like lichens around the office of President. No more than anyone else in this nation, a president should have to earn the respect not just of the members of Congress, but of the broader public. He or she is another citizen, no more and no less, and when a president, like President Obama in this instance, dissembles, exaggerates or attempts to deceive or mislead, it is healthy for democracy if he is called out on it immediately and publicly.
We need more honesty in Washington, not more civility.
grandstanding for the rubes back home. As to civility if the country is to survive and get out of the current mess it needs more civility not attempts to prevent discussion and provoke the ignorant.
The President had the podium and the mike at that time. The man had the floor.
The matter is not merely of protocol, but of a more fundamental aspect of decency: honesty. Joe Wilson is on the wrong side of decency from every angle an honest person might take on his dishonest outburst.
quote:
Even Wallace doesn't seem to like this guy, who will return to being a footnote to history tomorrow. Wallace brings in Maureen Dowd to hit him, and at one point rolls his eyes so hard and so long it made me wonder if they might get stuck there. He's hiding behind his son's explanation that this was a "Town Hall Moment" when everyone in the world knows that the speech was widely available beforehand and there wasn't anything in the world against which he could spontaneously react.
/quote
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/13/tv-soundoff-sunday-talkin_n_284857.html
If it truly "...is healthy for democracy if he is called out on it immediately and publicly," surely democracy would respond better to treatment if your prescription were applied to our diseased corporate media rather than the likes of Joe Wilson.
Also, the wording of the third sentence from the end is troubling. I read: "No more than anyone else in this nation..." to limit the proposition following that clause, i.e. the President is NOT subject to a more stringent standard, though contextually you would appear to be making the opposite argument, evidenced by the unlikely task you have placed upon Obama--earning the respect of fundamentally dishonest persons who have forsworn to acknowledge no due of respect.
I would add: " ... surely democracy would respond better if your prescription were applied to our diseased" NEWS MEDIA in addition to the corporate media.
In fact, Dave ... why don't you make the rounds of the MSM (especially FOX Skews) and call out the liars and dissemblers who inhabit the "talking heads" while those sorry excuses for "journalists" just sit there with their tongues hanging out. The frequency of lies is exponentially greater from the MSM than from the liars themselves.
That said, you are spot on with every single one of your critiques. Thanks for giving such eloquent voice to many of my own thoughts, and some I wasn't clever enough to put together. We should all e-mail this column to the White House; perhaps if they see thousands of copies they'll figure out that there's a reason for them to read it and take heed.
shouting "liar" during the listening time is rude, unproductive and childish.
I'm on the fence as to whether tolerating heckling and shouting in Congress would not be opening a Pandora's box, but your criticism of the Obama speech was pitch-perfect.
Thank you.
The other way that Medicare gets by in its present form is to in effect raise medical costs for everybody else. The uninsured fare the worst in this mess.
Here's how it works: the doctors and hospitals are required to accept what Medicare says are reasonable charges. The providers compensate by inflating the charges for all. It makes no difference for Medicare, and not a lot of difference for big insurers as they have their own deals to cap the costs. However, the uninsured have no protection at all, and end up being charged $10,000/day for a routine hospital visit. They are paying for the "savings" of Medicare and those on other insurance plans.
I'm not saying a public option is a bad idea. On the contrary, if the public option is a coverage of last resort, there would be no uninsured to be gouged like they are now. However, the result would be a reshifting of the costs. Inevitably, out-of-pocket costs for Medicare patients would have to go up. Also, the wage earners would rebel against being taxed for both Medicare and the new public option.
But that's reality. And I find that reality a lot more tolerable than where we're heading right now.
Dems were always labeled the 'radicals'. The point that you are missing is that many Republicans crossed over and voted for Obama because they could not imagine what would happen if Palin became president. They see what could have happened while these haters are taking over their party. They may not say it publicly, but among friends and family they are appalled at what happened not just to their Conservative values when Republicans ran things for the 8 years, but now what is happening to their party. They will distance themselves come 2010 and after. So take your Ron Paul & Palin supporters, birthers, etc and form your own party. You might get skinheads involved politically to come out and vote for your candidate.
Proof that the presidency is not a monarchy is that Obama was elected. There are lots of people that are being quiet in this debate - whether out of fear or wanting to distance themselves from these noisemakers. Why do you think the landscape has been changing for the past 4 years in Congress? Especially after the redistricting that had been going on to strengthen the base -it's because Rove's 'base' is shrinking. There are many Republicans that don't participate in polls or go to public protests. But quietly in the privacy of the voting booth they started voting more for Dems without changing their party affiliation. The numbers prove it.
Other Writers have posted articles criticising Obama's speech but yours was the most thorough. Thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough job. Too bad that a lot of Americans want to believe every bit as much as those misguided Bush supporters that their President can do no wrong. Obama so far has been every bit as wrong as Bush was on those things that really matter!
A better analogy would be for a Member of Parliament heckling The Queen.