In a debate with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, President Obama said, "If only we had had the Public Option in our health overhaul, Wolfgang Mozart would be alive today."
"With all due respect, Mr. President," Maddow responded, "How do you figure that?"
"Reuters just announced that Mozart died of strep throat," answered the President, "and if he had had my proposed Public Option, he would've had health coverage, and would have lived to write more masterpieces."
"But, Mr. President, Mozart wasn't an American, and he wouldn't have been eligible to receive treatment for an alleged strep throat, if indeed strep throat was the cause of his suffering and subsequent death."
"Yes, he would have had coverage under my Universal Health Care Program, which covered the universe and included a Public Health Option. We know that Mozart was without funds at the time he died so Number 1: the government would have picked up the tab for Mozart, and Number 2: for him, even a doctor would make house calls."
"Mr. President, I appreciate your noble ideals, I really do, and I share them, but I talked with John McCain, who knew Mozart personally and well enough to call him Wolfie. He said that Mozart tried to get your universal health coverage but was turned down."
"On what basis?"
"Your universal health care plan, including public option, was thwarted as being unEuropean by American lobbyists who had infested Vienna and other First World Countries with their rallying cry of 'Obama wants to kill geniuses, your grandparents, and all your babies.'" [shows clip of Michele Bachmann, passionately clutching a Hitler blow-up doll, and shrieking "He's not dead! He's not dead! I had sex with him last night!!!"]
"It seems I had not been prepared for such violent and unusual challenges from the opposing party, and could not stop them in time."
"Mr. President, I have to ask you this: Are you prepared to stop them here and now in the United States?"
President Obama's response will air in Part 2 of this interview, scheduled at a later date.
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They say nothing is original. In that light, I actually wrote Hamlet without knowing someone else had done it first. I heard you actually wrote Catcher in the Rye first, but, unfortunately, entitled it Pitcher in the Pumpernickel.
Part 2 promises to be reflective of the current "debate."