Friday, February 26, 2010

Arrogance

The President held his health care summit yesterday and, as is his wont, dominated the process ... grabbing most of the face time, continually interrupting many Republicans when they managed to squeeze in a few salient points, slipping Senator Paul Ryan the sly finger when he had questioned Obama's arithmetic, and reminding John McCain that it was he who had been elected President. (Oh, how I wish that McCain had said, "could I have a Mulligan on that?") Our President's hubris is becoming his signature characteristic ... just like Gerald Ford was defined by his clumsiness, Bill Clinton, by his mendacity, and George W. Bush, by his oratorical ineptitude. Why Obama is so arrogant is a subject for historians, but may I suggest that his disdain meter often reads all the way over to "hatred" ... hatred for conservatives, hatred for this country's exceptionalism, hatred for our middle and upper classes, hatred for many of our industries and companies, and maybe even hatred for capitalism itself. And this haughtiness, I suggest, may well be his undoing. I would not be that unhappy with this outcome

Now onto a sidebar brought out by yesterday's subject. Howie Carr, a talk-show host here in Boston was taking calls about health care. Someone phoned in from Bangor, Maine and said that the parking lot at the East Maine Health Center in Bangor told the story better than any of these Congressional debates. He said that his cruise through this parking lot showed that at least half the license plates were from Canada. (Also note that the Premiere of Canada also traveled to Florida to have heart surgery ... as opposed to subjecting himself to the vagaries of Canada's socialized health care.) What if Obama and the Congressional Democrats manage to clone the Canadian health-care system here in the United States? To where then are we going to travel to get better health care ... Mexico?

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