OK, Barry, er, Mr. President – you wanted honest debate – let’s start with you as president. Name a president in my lifetime that has threatened and belittled the people as you did in your teleprompter speech before a joint session of Congress?
How dare you look down on the American people and their representatives (and I use that term loosely) from your elitist perch? How dare you berate the people of America? How dare you call us names and use words like “demagoguery” to define our challenges to your unwanted universal health-care scam, which is nothing more than the latest in a successive line of actions taken by you that are more representative of your mentors Saul “the red” Alinsky and William Ayers than of free-market capitalism? Your faux veneer of Americanism fails to reconcile your Leninist, Alinskyite actions.
What right do you have to threaten and malign critics of your health-care plans by telling them “I’m going to call you out”? You aren’t back on the streets of Chicago – you are the president, and it’s about time you acted like it. You are sworn to protect our constitutional rights, and that includes our right to disagree with you.
Pursuant to your comment, “Instead of making wild claims about a government takeover of health care, we should work together to address any legitimate concerns you may have.” My question to you is, who defines “any legitimate concerns”? We have been voicing our “legitimate concerns” at town hall meetings, only to have you, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and company call us mobs and un-American.
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You claim we are “making wild claims about a government takeover of health care,” to which I respond, “Oh, really?” What do you call your actions with the banking and automobile industries? What do you call your renegotiating the agreed upon contracts of those in the private sector? What do you call the setting of salary caps of those whose salaries were set by stockholders? With your track record, why indeed should we believe that it is anything but a power grab?
People don’t trust you, and it has nothing to do with your skin color – as Maureen Dowd, Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., and Gov. David Paterson, D-N.Y., want us to believe. And to that point, I share one of the many comments I’ve received: “Did you watch Obama tonight? I thought he came across as extremely partisan and also very confrontational, especially toward the end. There were a few things he talked about I thought were good ideas, but I do not believe him when he says this won’t cost any more. I’m not an imbecile, and I suppose he hoped we wouldn’t remember he said he’d cut $500 billion from Medicare (what crap). Then I find out later, after the speech, that the figure is actually $620 billion, and if all the fraud and waste savings would pay for the program, then why hasn’t it been done already?
“Then the Republican [who is a] doctor that gave the rebuttal told how there would be 53 new bureaucracies created if this program passes, and I about fainted. I don’t mind telling you I’m getting very fearful of this president. Right now, I have zero confidence in his abilities, and I’m really disturbed, to say the least, over all the czars he’s appointed and will be appointing. Notwithstanding Van Jones – Mychal, I’m afraid we have a ‘shadow government’ operating already – I found a lot of fault with President Bush at times, but I never once doubted his good intentions. But with Obama I’m having a hard time believing his sincerity about anything. I’m seeing too many parallels with some unsavory world leaders and it’s making me very nervous. My impression almost from the beginning is that he’s on a power trip. [It] seems like everyone connected with him puts the racist label on anyone who’s not enthralled with Obama and his policies.” (Name withheld by request)
In a speech intended to win us over, you disparaged those who dare disagree with you as partisan spectacle – you accused us of bickering, games, misinformation, bogus claims, demagoguery, distortions, scary tactics and “tall tales,” and threatened you “will call [us] out.”
Bill Lowery, editor of National Review, put it best when he told Fox News: “[Obama] is an able performer when you get him in front of a teleprompter. It’s like Yo Yo Ma with the cello – it’s just his natural instrument – but I think the problem with the speech is that the White House and Obama think they have a ‘lies’ problem. [They say] everyone is lying about [his] plan – when [what] they really have [is] a ‘facts’ problem. The facts just don’t line up with what he says serially about these Democrat plans in Congress.”
