Posted by
Patrick Henry on Saturday, October 17, 2009 6:39:20 PM
In a recent televised discussion a commentator pointed out how many broken promises, misstatements
of fact, egregious embellishments and downright prevarications the president had been caught in by the
media and his critics. The response from a well-known Democratic political strategist was, "Oh, come
on. You know how politicians are. They say whatever they need to say to get elected." I could not help
but think what a deplorable situation it is when Americans must assume that their elected officials have
lied to them, and that those same officials expect Americans to think nothing of it.
Political mendacity comes in many forms. The most popular is making outlandish promises to achieve
things beyond the candidate's control, or that defy the known laws of probability. Take for example the
promise to provide affordable healthcare to 47 million uninsured Americans, the centerpiece of the
Obama campaign, The promise was to insure the uninsured without raising taxes on the middle class,
increasing the deficit or subtracting coverage from those who have it. Now this was a promise that could
never be kept. Even today, after months and months of debate and numerous studies, no one has
the slightest idea how much healthcare reform as proposed by the Democrats will really cost. all of
the ways in which they have proposed to pay for it vastly increase taxes on everyone, deprive
tem million seniors of the policies they now have and may well drive up (not down) the cost of all health
insurance. If you tell a real whopper, what are a few more little white lies to prop it up?
Another form of political lying is egreguious embellishment. Take for example the story Obama told in
his address to congress about the man in Illinois who lost his insurance after he became ill and was left to
die. But those darned fact checkers discovered that the man did, in fact, get his coverage back, and though
he died (much later) it was from another disease. So what was portrayed as a gross miscarriage of justice
perpetrated by an evil insurance company resulting in an individual's death really turned out to be something
entirely different. It was a good story to hammer home Obama's point. The problem is that iy just wasn't
true.
Many other Obama promises and others by congressional leaders and senators are of the same ilk, They
are bogus, pie-in-the-sky, unsubstantiated fabrications. But the real problem is that when Americans
become hopeless, cynical and disenfranchised, they also become gullible. The believe not because promises
pass the smell test, not because of facts or historical precedent or common sense, but because the lies are
glibly told and because we so desperately and idealistically want to believe that we forget ourselves and
hope that wishing will mae it so.
The two sides of the coin of deception are that yes, politicians lie in order to get elected and/or stay in
power. But we choose to believe those lies, all evidence to the contrary, because that's how we wish things
were. Then come the consequences! We are now staring down the barrel of a multi=trillion dollar healthcare
entitlement that will (a) not lower healthcare costs (at least not so far as the congressional budget office
can prove) (b) raise taxes on everybody (and anyone who says otherwise is a liar) (c) eliminate the options
and ultinmately marginalize all healthcare for seniors, (d) lead to a single-payer system where the
government makes our healthcare decision because they have to in order to keep their socialized system
afloat and (e) lead to long-term deficits that will break America financially. Democrats claim otherwise,
but they still don't have a shred of hard proof to back up their bogus promises.
The president and Democratic leades are insisting that a bill be passed this year. Why? If the ten
million Americans (a real number) who want health insurance and can't get it are the problem, then let's
addresds that.If avaricious profits in the healthcare industry are a culprit, then let's tax or regulate those.
If drug companies are pillaging us then let's deal with them like we did with Wall Street swindlers. The point
is that one need not burn down the entire healthcare system and start over with the government in
control in order to meet the most pressing needs. By now Barack Obama has clearly demonstrated
that, far from being divine, he's not even a very strong human being. Believing his promise that this
enormous new entitlement can be achieved without raising taxes, increasing the deficit or penalizing
senior citizens is like believing the moon is made of green cheese. Shame on him for lying to us! And
shame on us for believing him!