She's going to need a good seamstress, able to sew in several panels, if she's ever going to hope to fit into our castoffs, but what's the nation need?
How about some reality and you really can't get that too much on television.
On The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric last week, Katie offered an embarrassing and uninformed "that's the way I see it" piece of nonsense about the conversation on health care. (We know Katie and like her, that doesn't mean she gets a pass.) In her judgmental ramblings, the 'bad guys' in the current health insurance reform debate are the ones objecting. Shame, shame on them, Katie scolded.
Did you notice that? We're not talking health care. We're talking about health insurance reform.
Quite a come down.
But there was Katie blaming some people who object to ObamaCare. Hint to CBS, blaming angry people is not generally how you succeed in driving the ratings up. Hint to CBS, when over half the respondents in polls have a problem with ObamaCare, attacking that group doesn't mean happy Nielsens in the near future.
With the exception of the coverage from MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, we didn't see much worth praising.
Largely what we saw were a bunch of trained dogs dancing in frilly freedom as they got to play 'lefty' while their owners didn't object. The owners didn't object because ObamaCare is not left. It is a prescription for Big Pharma to make millions and a mandate that all Americans have coverage would certainly be a windfall for the insurance companies.
As if to demonstrate just how far he'll go, Barack tossed out his dead grandmother yesterday in Colorado in an attempt to sell his insurance reform. (See "THIS JUST IN! NATURAL BORN LIAR!" and "Barack's distant relationship with the truth.") He really does love using his maternal grandmother whenever he's in trouble. He never enjoyed visiting her and largely avoided her after he finished college. But when in doubt, when needing to sell himself or his policies, he suddenly trots her out. And we're all supposed to ooh and ahh and feel sorry for the selfish ass who made no time for the woman when she was alive but now wants to squeeze her dead bones to advance his own agenda. The term for that behavior is "shameless."
But "shameless" also describes what the networks gave us on ObamaCare. Whether it was ABC, CBS or NBC, it was apparently too much effort for the reporters and anchors to state the obvious: Congress and the White House had hit the road to discuss a plan that still doesn't exist. The House version is different than the Senate version and neither include the things that the White House wants (including penalties on those with 'unhealthy' 'habits').
On Friday, we marveled at NPR's The Diane Rehm Show when, during the first hour, Diane insisted that people who currently had health care and were happy with it would be able to keep it. Uh, no, Diane. David Gregory pinned the HHS Secretary down on that misleading claim July 19th on Meet The Press.
What Diane didn't know, David Brooks grasped. Friday on The NewsHour, PBS featured their popular Shields and Brooks segment which is rivaled only by Shields and Yarnell for popular duos with Shields in the billing.
David offered this on Barack, "The other thing is, he just tells a lot of whoppers now. Now, believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are saying some things that are extremely off the charts untrue about the plan, but I just wrote down some of the things Obama said today which are whoppers. He said everyone can keep their health care plan. Well, the CBO doesn't say that. Six million people are going to lose their plan. Preventive care saves money. That's not true. It's going to cost $90 billion a year. That's not true. It's probably going to cost twice as much when it's fully implemented. Government will be out of health care decisions. He tells one thing after another, making it seem so easy. Well, believe me: This is not easy. It's going to take some sacrifices and some really painful cuts for people to get this system under control."
A stark contrast between Bill Moyers Friday on his Journal, "So you can see, perhaps, why it's hard even to describe as protests what's happening today -- the raucous disruption of town meetings that deny others their right to free speech. The cries of tyranny, the analogies to Hitler on the signs and in postings on the internet. That's not conscience at work; it's the product of colicky, cranky unconscionable anger, fueled by lies." Colicky and cranky? Bill, were we you, we wouldn't go there.
And it hurts to watch Bill Moyers become such a damn liar. Bill damn well knows what bioethics is -- he's certainly spoken to enough bioethicists. "Death panels"? Hmm. It's not as if people need to reach to some bad movie for those issues. They can look at a president's council for example. They could, after all, just click here.
These are issue that are largely debated away from the public. They're not pie in the sky musings. They will effect our lives and they already do in that insurance companies already have their own "death panels" which determine what you will get covered and what won't. The bean counters, you understand, are always with us -- forever trying to turn a profit.
And that's why it was so laughable to watch Bill and his goons defend something of so little merit. As long as health care is a for-profit and not a right, we'll never see any change. We'll never see universal coverage, to be sure.
But there was Bill and his guests whoring like they were tossing out half-and-halfs for a buck-fifty. And maybe they would, who knows?
Dr. Kathy (Hall Jamieson) would declare that, "People who are angry and frustrated and not necessarily well informed in part driving by people who are on the other side of the reform effort." No, that's not really a sentence but when you're lying and whoring, grammar flies out the window.
Dr. Kathy is the one who's not "well informed" because it's so very hard to be informed of any legislation . . . before it exists.
What the public has is a bunch of talk often presented as a plan. And for the left, it's nothing to be excited about. Drew Altman at least noted that fact, "It's part of our democracy, but I think it's actually kind of sad because the left, doesn't like this legislation a lot. They're not really enthusiastic about it. They would prefer a single-payer approach with more government."
Barack's hugely unpopular 'plan' is one that doesn't exist.
But he's out selling it to the people.
The conservatives are rallying people against it and it's a great deal more than cries of "socialized medicine" that has them objecting though people pretend otherwise. We went through 40 conservative e-mailings and found HR3200 popped up in half of them -- specifically objecting on the issue of abortion. To pretend that abortion is suddenly not a lightening rod issue is to attempt to fudge your reporting. Ourselves, we believe in and support abortion on demand. But we're not going to be Bill Moyers and lie about the other side just because it's easier than actually doing the work.
Something very ugly is taking place in the country. But it's not the right-wing using their freedom of speech. The real offense is a left that will lie for several proposals that promise nothing to the poor or the working poor just because the proposals are coming from Democrats in Congress and a Democrat in the White House.
It's really ugly to see just how far some will go to whore themselves.
And it's really interesting to note that consumer advocate Ralph Nader is not invited to sit at the table with Bill. Ralph observed Friday, "We have now learned that one Obama promise was to continue the prohibition on Uncle Sam from bargaining for volume discounts on drugs that you the taxpayer have been paying for in the drug benefit program enacted in 2003. Unknown is whether the health insurance companies were also promised continuation of Medicare Advantage with its 14% added taxpayer subsidy to induce the elderly to make the move out of public Medicare. Also unknown is whether the Medicare public option that Mr. Obama formerly espoused but since has wavered on has been put on the concession table." Ralph offered apparently too much reality and too little spin for Bill Moyers' taste. Remember when Bill used to present as "voice of the people"? Now he just whores it for Big Money. What a difference a political party makes.
The left should be demanding not only single-payer but that Congress and the White House stop this circus and takes their lazy butts back to DC and work out a proposal they can then present to the American people. Instead, they've assigned their hopes and dreams to a "death panel" because worshiping Barack is more important to them than fighting for the needs of the people.
Barack's taken to the road (illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Telemarketer in Chief") and we're all supposed to just believe some more of his airy promises. Remember his promise to filibuster any retroactive immunity for telecoms who broke the law in illegally spying on the American people? Airy promises. Remember his promise to withdraw one brigade a month from Iraq upon being sworn in? Airy promises.
And now he's back with more. Put it in writing, if you mean it, Barack. Until then you're just a Flim Flam Man.
Hands off the man, the flim flam man.
His mind is up his sleeve and his talk is make believe.
Oh lord, the man's a fraud, he's flim flam man.
He's so cagey, he's a flim flam man.
Hands off the man, flim flam man.
He's the one in the Trojan horse making out like he's Santa Claus.
Oh lord, the man's a fraud, he's a flim flam man.
He's a fox, he's a flim flam man.
-- "Flim Flam Man," words and music by Laura Nyro, originally appears on her The First Songs