How long will it take for every last American to realize President Barack Obama is not about bipartisanship, reconciliation (other than as a process to cram his health care bill through Congress) and uniting Americans? As his latest gyrations on health care demonstrate, he will not be deterred in his quest to saddle Americans with socialized medicine, even if it greatly increases the likelihood he won't be re-elected.
Here we have Obama, frenetically busy with at least three of his hands, pushing different buttons and sending mixed signals. I guess being a self-perceived messiah means you don't have to worry about being flagrantly inconsistent, even on the same day or in the context of one speech.
He's invited Republicans to a bipartisan summit on health care, intending to create the illusion that he's interested in conservative ideas on the subject.
But at the same time -- he can't even pretend long enough to let this ruse play out -- he is threatening Republicans that if they filibuster current congressional health care proposals, he will urge Congress to pass Obamacare by bastardizing the reconciliation process.
But wait, just like a Ginsu knife infomercial, there's more. Obama has also unveiled the outlines of his own new health care proposal, but it is hardly a model of bipartisanship.
As for his "bipartisan" summit, why would anyone believe he is interested in the Republicans' ideas on health care? Has he given any indication he is through this nearly yearlong process? Has he not shut Republicans out of the entire process until tendering this counterfeit overture -- after wholesale repudiation of his plan by the American people?
Thinking people know that the Republicans' proposals involve market reform and that such ideas do not register with Obama's rigid statist mindset. He's not interested in their ideas, which he views as wholly incompatible with his own -- and he's right. There's no room for getting the government out of the way when he is determined to increase the government's role dramatically. It's like pulling your punches when you're going for a knockout.
How silly do we have to be to imagine he's even thinking about compromise? It's not just that the Republicans' ideas are incompatible with his own; it's that in his megalomaniacal mind, he's the boss. Indeed, let's not forget that this is the guy who scolded opponents of his nationally bankrupting agenda with: "I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking."
Is that the attitude of a uniter? Of one who has the slightest interest in working with the other side? His sole purpose for the summit is to entrap Republicans in a political trick bag, painting them as unreasonable and obstructionist. Thankfully, they finally appear to be onto him and preparing themselves accordingly.
Obama's cavalier attitude is also on display in his threat to invoke the reconciliation process to push his plan through Congress. His stated reason is that he "expects and believes the American people deserve an up-or-down vote on health reform." What? Surely he jests.
But sadly, he does not. This is the tone-deaf guy who has refused to hear the American people's repeated rejections of Obamacare for months running. They've already given him scores of down votes, but he thinks he can go back to the well, despite his evaporating charisma, and fool them one last time.
Folks, do you think that if anywhere close to the barest majority of American people slightly supported Obama's nationalized health care scheme, he and his supermajorities in Congress wouldn't have been able to pass it already? They couldn't even pass it after bribing -- with our money -- members of their own party in Congress. The American people have spoken, sir, and it is against socialism. Please quit insulting our intelligence with your smoke and mirrors to the contrary.
But no less insulting are some of the highlights of the president's new plan -- as set out on the White House's Web site. Obama actually claims he'll cover the 31 million uninsured while "reducing the deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years -- and about $1 trillion over the second decade -- by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse." Seriously, how gullible must he think we are?
Oh, yes, and he's going to impose controls on health insurance premiums, as if there exists an omniscient central government that can best determine prices -- and as if such command and control models have ever worked in the history of the world.
Now is not the time for Obama's opponents to get complacent. We face -- America's freedom faces -- a relentless adversary.
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