Here's video of Al Franken -- who only recently made the switch to being a politician since spending some 40 years as a comedian, author, and then radio host -- doing what we very rarely get to see our elected representatives doing: talking good, grownup sense to a crowd of confrontational, obviously talking-point-fed constituents.
If any of their constituents actually, seriously believes that the health-care reform bill is an effort to kill off people based on their political affiliation (?!?!), then the best thing the Republican Party could do for them is ship them a nice little tin-foil hat with maybe a trial-sized prescription for some Thorazine. But the worst thing you can do as a leader is to indulge (or, God forbid, incite!) their paranoia.
... or "outsourcing it to the comedians, part 2."
If you haven't yet had the pleasure of watching a Jon Stewart interview, you really should catch his latest one with health-care critic Betsy McCaughey (pronounced "McCoy").
Update: I've heard a lot of people complaining that those critical of the heath-care bill are being called "right-wingers". And I agree that this is unfair -- it is certainly not my intention to do make such a blanket statement. What I am saying here, though, is that right now the loudest segment of the bill's critics -- the ones who are, sadly, getting the most media attention -- are not disagreeing "in good faith", but are instead trying to shut down the entire discussion and/or pollute the debate with outrageous exaggerations and bogus claims. Those critics who do have legitimate objections are unfortunately, for the most part, also being shut out of the debate by these people. And the media are not brave enough to blow the whistle on this phenomenon -- which they are well aware of. - R.
I'd like to bring your attention to some very good reporting that was (once again) brought to my attention by one of my favorite blogs, the Mahablog. It's a link to an excellent op-ed from the LA Times about how unfortunate all the health-care coverage has been, and why journalists prefer reporting basically these two things:
... from the Mahablog, who just posted links to four great pieces on why we need to reform health care in the U.S.
... Or so Peggy Noonan would seem to believe.
In this week's Wall Street Journal opinion page, which is typically just political pornography for the super-rich (sorry to be graphic, but it is), her highness Ms. Peggy Noonan, a very famous syndicated conservative columnist who has never, ever had to go without health care, ... penned an editorial against health-care reform that couldn't sound more like Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake"-inanity if she'd tried.
Her central thesis (not making this up) is that health-care reform is hard to understand, and therefore will never be a good idea to enact -- pretty much in any form -- and that Barack Obama should just apologize for attempting to fix things and quietly let the Republicans take back the government.
Another "columnist" of sorts, actually a blogger at Wonkette who I happen to like a lot, read her column and had some choice words to say about how "hard to understand" health care reform is. Since he says it better than me, I'll include an excerpt here:
How about this: Basic health coverage for all, and protection for the already sick. There is plenty to criticize in Obama’s meandering inability to emphasize these simple goals, but if those two simple objectives mean nothing to you, or bore you — you, the political columnist whose job is to understand these concepts — then you are a sociopath. You are apathetic to the unnecessary and costly deaths of your fellow citizens under the current system, which even the most basic reform plans under consideration would do much to alleviate. If you care about lower- and middle-class people dying under a poorly regulated for-profit health insurance system, you can spend the 15 seconds it takes to learn what “single payer,” “public option,” “insurance marketplace exchange” (doesn’t she just mean “insurance exchange?”) mean. These are important terms, and not difficult at all, but you dismiss them as “gobbledygook” that no one should bother to learn on one’s own, because the president should explain it to everyone personally, with small words, in a children’s book. We know that this is how you and your fellow advisers were forced to explain every policy issue to Ronald Reagan, but he’s dead now, so grow up. And stop writing poison.
Finally, anyone who tries to argue that Obama would find political reward by abandoning health care reform now and “regrouping” for another year or two is either wrong or lying — usually both! — and does not have the country’s best interest at heart.
Not very constructive, admittedly, but then neither is the argument that millions of hardworking citizens of the richest nation on earth should just suck it up and go bankrupt just to keep their ailing relatives alive. All in the name of "keeping government out of business"--even though it's already there, providing subsidies to corporations that don't need it. But more on that later ...
If you want to read the whole thing, Peggy's column is here, and Ken Newell's response is here.
Have a nice day and please -- STAY WELL.
As a citizen who is often intimidated by the prospect of speaking logic and reason to low-information voters (i.e. the "concerned citizens" that are currently turning these health-care townhall meetings into kindergarten free-for-alls), ... I found this (much longer) chunk of Barney Frank's now-famous town-hall appearance very educational: