and little things like that
“Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Plato got that right. But what about those entitled, rich, white (and let’s add straight in here too, just for good measure) men who act like they’ve already won the battle – like all those Republicans who are going to vote against health care reform, for example? Do we have to be kind to them too?
It must be frustrating to be a Republican trying to bring down a president who can not only think and talk at the same time, but who has the courage to call Sarah Palin a liar. And then, of all things, to have the news coverage dominated by one of your own having to apologize for his town-hall outburst. The best they could do was glue themselves to their seats, waving their papers. And they’ve gone back to calling him “The One.” That tells you something.
I’m very, very partisan, as I admitted the other day. I’m like the fat lady (except for the fat part) whose tears coursed down her face as she gazed adoringly at Bush during one of his staged rallies.
As I watched Obama’s Philadelphia speech on race, I knew right then that he’d turned the corner of his campaign; that he would win. Not just because he was “articulate,” but because of the level of his thinking. By framing the health care issue with Kennedy’s words:
what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.
he has done it again. We will get health care reform.
April is the cruelest month, but August is the craziest. Seems like it all began with poor John Kerry, whose boat swiftly sank in August of ’04, and then the next year Katrina took down Bush (and a lot of innocent collateral bystanders). In August of ’06 there was that plot to blow up 10 airplanes, Heathrow closed down, and the TSA inherited thousands of water bottles. Then the Minneapolis bridge fell down, and finally, last year . . . well, let’s just try to forget about Sarah Palin.
Now that we have a name for it (and a definition, courtesy of a reluctant Robert Gibbs), maybe we can all just chill along with Obama and wait for September (oh wait – last year, September was worse!). October, then. We’ll have health care reform by October, right?
So it turns out there are twice as many conservatives among the rich as among the poor, and of course they’re going to be against any plan that taxes them to pay for some health-care giveaway to people who haven’t pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, or shouldn’t be in this country anyway.
But what about the lower-income people who vote against their own interests? The people who, for example, ignored the charts that showed their taxes would be lower under Obama, and voted for McCain (and Palin, god help us)?
I know one of these people. She’s against health-care reform, even though she couldn’t afford health insurance if her small-business employer didn’t (out of the kindness of his heart) pay the premiums. Why?
Because she watches Fox News. She’s Catholic, and so she, along with 69% of other Fox News watchers, believes the plan will include government-financed abortions. And the government will make decisions about when to cut off elder-care (she’s with 75% here). And illegal immigrants will get health care (72%).
Rupert Murdoch, and Roger Ailes, and Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reilly (not to mention all the buxom look-alike long-legged blondes pretending to report the news): the rich people thank you, and you’re doing a great job conning everybody else.
Those poor stressed Portuguese rats: after their scientists put them in cages with more dominant rats, dunked them in water, and gave them electric shocks, they couldn’t learn new tricks – they just compulsively pressed their food bars over and over.
It makes you wonder what the great scientists in the sky will come up with for us, after the Republicans defeat health care reform.
It seems so long ago, when all we had to worry about was Bill Clinton sticking out his jaw on CNN and admitting that he lied.
Dear Monica, can’t you come back and share pizza and a thong with someone like Chuck Grassley, or, better still, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, so that they can lie about something other than health care?
