Say It Ain't So, Joe

And, we're back! After a nice summer off, it's time to get back into the blogosphere with a new heading and renewed energy. As they say on the cereal boxes, New packaging, same great product! Here we go...

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I'm still playing catch-up from a month of total disconnect from the world in a very big way--I was surprised to find out that Justice Sotomayor was being confirmed the other day. My backpacking buddies and I debated her plenty on the trail, but I completely missed the confirmation hearings. By the same token, I don't know the ins and outs of the latest incarnation of Obamacare, so I can't offer a very detailed look at that. For the record, my gut feeling is that something's gotta give because we simply can't keep on the way we've been doing. I'm reasonably confident that reform would be beneficial--it's a health-care bill for crying out loud, not a proposal to thin the herds of the AARP or turn the U.S. into some sort of giant Doctors Without Borders camp dishing out free health care to all and sundry who run, jump, or swim over our borders. No, the idea here, at its most basic, is that it's high time the U.S. quit being the only rich country that still rations health care solely on the basis of income. That's not such an unreasonable proposition, especially because, as Obama pointed out, he's not the first President to bring it up. That honor would go to a Republican, namely Teddy Roosevelt, proponent of other such radical ideas as national parks, a new Navy, and the Panama Canal.

Traditionally, Republican administrations hang Teddy Roosevelt's portrait in the place of honor over the fireplace in the Roosevelt Room in the White House (Dems, of course bestow that distinction on FDR's portrait), but I have no idea if they can keep that up, given that TR is now viewed as a socialist by the far-right wingnuts currently holding the GOP ideologically hostage. And it's those very same wingnuts who are the real subject of today's writing, especially the honorable Joe Wilson, Republican Representative from the great state of South Carolina--the same South Carolina that brought you John C. Calhoun and the Fire Eaters, Strom Thurmond, and Preston Brooks, among other political luminaries. (For those of you unfamiliar with Preston Brooks, he was the representative who beat Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner almost to death in the Senate chamber in 1856. To see him in action, click here.) The now-infamous Mr. Wilson, of course, is the man who shouted "You lie!" and "Not true!" at various times during President Obama's address to Congress the other night. Wilson's outburst was hardly the only breach from decorum, as a Texas representative waved handmade signs at Obama ("What plan?" "What bill?"), minority whip Eric Cantor (VA) Blackberry'd the night away, and a general chorus of boos, hisses, and jeers greeted Obama at every lofty turn of phrase.

Micheal Gerson wrote a smart column in today's Post imploring at least one of the country's two major parties to take up the mantle of "the party of ideas." Currently, we've got the bumbling socialists versus the heckling reactionaries, and they have yielded the predictable results. Making one's disapproval/disinterest (the frostily glaring Hilary Clinton or the snoozing John McCain of the Bush years come to mind) is hardly a new phenomenon during a presidential address to Congress. What sets the events of Wednesday night apart, though, is their brazenness and the outright lack of respect they show for the office of the President. Catnapping through a Bushism-laced State of the Union cum Jeremiad against the evildoers is one thing. Hollering mid-speech on national television is quite another. I've been known to editorialize via whisper or scribbled note in the bulletin during church, but I sure as hell don't wave my comments at the pastor mid-sermon or yell at the priest during his homily. You just don't do that--especially when you're as factually off-base as Wilson was.

What prompted the "You lie!" outburst was Obama's clarification (again) that "his" bill wouldn't cover illegal aliens. The fact that there is even a question about that is a little discomforting, but it's been trumped up by the loonies of the right in their town hall hate-ins and television advertisements. Coverage of illegal immigrants, like federally-subsidized abortions and "death panels"--is an outright falsehood and has been impugned as such by every professional fact-checker worth his or her salt that has read the draft of the bill. Thus, Wilson was in fact the one lying, and he had the cojones to do so in the ultimate wrong place/wrong time manner and then to equivocate on issuing an apology afterward. If you're going to accuse someone of lying, at least have your own facts straight, but even more to the point, what the hell's happened to our democracy when all such buffoonery as was on display Wednesday night is the level to which discourse has sunk? Not even Nancy Pelosi threw such verbal spitballs at Bush while he was expounding on the clear and present dangers posed by all those Iraqi WMD. (Bueller? Bueller?) Congratulations, Mr. Wilson--you've gone from anonymity to overnight Twitter celebrity. Maybe you and Chad Ochocinco can hang out and bask in the adulation of 150,000 of your very closest mutual digital friends sometime. Wilson may have gotten his 15 minutes of fame, but the way he went about it is a pretty sickening commentary on the current state of American politics and culture.

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One more point about heckling and healthcare. Despite his rather juvenile delivery, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)--he of the handmade signs--actually had a point, unlike the gentleman from South Carolina. Gohmert took Obamacare to task on a much more fundamental level than who exactly it aims to cover and who it aims to kill off by scrawling "What plan?" and "What bill?" on the back of a couple of pieces of office paper and waving them at the podium during the speech. Not a brilliant or especially helpful contribution to the evolution of political thought and discourse in the Western world, to be sure, but unfortunately valid questions nonetheless. If the sign-waving didn't speak too highly of the representative, the questions didn't speak too highly of the President. What on Earth could convince a man with Obama's political acumen to leave the drafting of the defining piece of his domestic agenda to a body such as the 111th Congress of these here United States, I can't pretend to know. I'm sure he wanted to ride the Flying Horses and help Sasha and Malia catch the brass ring or go swimming with Splash at South Beach, but to leave Obamacare in the hands of Pelosi and the Minions has left the bill adrift and the man way down in the polls. Simply by examining the long and winding road this thing has taken on the Hill with no end in sight, change has in no way come to America. Childish things (signs and hecklers, anyone?) have not been put away. Post-partisanship is a pipe dream. If he's really got all the political mojo that 80% of the known world voted for last November, whether they cast a ballot or not, why in the hell wouldn't he have one of his vaunted brain trust/team of rivals formulate the ideas, draft the bill, spice it up with a little Corinthians, deliver it sealed with a kiss to the desks of Pelosi and Reid, and then kick ass and take names amongst his filibuster-proof liberal majorities until they passed it? Not terribly post-partisan, but neither is the show being put on by 534 (miss you, Ted) eight-year-olds in suits as they engage in some of the most partisan bickering ever seen, not to mention the outright lying, cantankerousness, and competing for the bully pulpit by out-hating and out-shocking their colleagues. It's working, too--all that ever makes the news is the most hateful and/or shocking comment made to date by a member of that distinguished body. It's like a houseful of JV shock-jocks all competing to make the jump from the floor of the House to replace Don "nappy-headed ho" Imus on hate radio. Obama himself has put away such childish things as the Epistles and post-partisanship to take a page from the Reagan playbook and imploring congress to get one, just one for the Gipper (here's looking at you, Ted). The implication, of course, is that if he doesn't get that one, just one bill passed posthaste, it's going to be a long slog for the next three years, minimum. For crying out loud, if he's so determined to be "the last" president to raise the healthcare issue, then why not make damn sure it's done right from co-pays to Corinthians? I'd actually be more inclined to trust the Oval Office to keep the apocryphal "death panels" out of it than I would the Speaker's office. So, Mr. President, what bill, exactly, would you like to present this country with, and what plan, precisely, do you have to get that sucker on the books? A little oomph to go with your Ephesians would be greatly appreciated.