No other actress could deliver a song or a rant like Dixie Carter
Actress and singer Dixie Carter died the morning of Saturday, April 10, at the age of 70. She is survived by her husband of 26 years, Hal Holbrook, and her daughters from her first marriage to businessman Arthur Carter (no relation), Mary Dixie and Ginna.
When I checked Ms. Carter’s biography on Wikipedia, I was surprised to learn that she was a libertarian and described herself as “the only Republican in Hollywood.” Her most famous role was Julia Sugarbaker on the TV comedy series “Designing Women,” which ran from 1986 to 1993. Julia was a liberal and famous for her scathing rants. Ms. Carter made a deal with the show’s producers that for every liberal rant she had to deliver, she would get to sing in a future show.
I’m so glad that YouTube has a clip from “Designing Women” of Ms. Carter singing the inspiring old hymn, “How Great Thou Art.” As I recall the plot of that episode, Jean Smart’s character, Charlene, has a crisis of faith when she learns that her religion does not allow women to become ministers. In a scene before the clip, Charlene tells her minister that she must leave his church and her religion because their policy does not match her experience of God. When Charlene enters Julia’s church while Julia is singing “How Great Thou Art,” it symbolizes her affirmation of her faith in God as she joins Julia’s church — this is why Julia seems sad and tentative as she begins singing and her voice becomes strong and soaring when she sees Charlene:
The next clip is from a “Designing Women” reunion show and I’m including it because the actresses mention Julia’s most famous and beloved rant of the entire series, which is known as, “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” They report it is a favorite monologue for drag queens to perform in gay bars. And I’m also including it for their expression of love to the gay members of their audience and pledge of support for gay marriage:
OK, now here it is, Dixie Carter’s most famous rant as Julia Sugarbaker, “The night the lights went out in Georgia”:
I will miss Ms. Carter and I send my condolences to her family and my prayers for her soul to be blessed always in every way.
'Poland Is Not Yet Lost'
“Poland Is Not Yet Lost” is the title of the Polish national anthem — and today, this sad day that Poland’s president, his wife and dozens of Poland’s foremost civilian and military leaders died in an airplane crash in Russia that killed all 132 96 people on board, we grieve with the Polish people and pray that they are consoled in their grief, filled with faith in themselves and their future, and rich with great leaders who will come forward and brilliantly take up the posts of service that are now so suddenly and tragically vacant.
The Polish national anthem has been on my mind because I play bassoon in the Bel Air Community Band in Bel Air, Maryland, and on May 2 we will play a work by Patrick Burns entitled, “Anthem,” which is based on Poland’s national anthem. We commissioned it as a tribute to Raymond J. Dombrowski, who was the band director at Bel Air High School from 1953 to 1985 and my band director from 1967 to 1971 — I hope you will click that link to read what I wrote last year about Mr. D and the honors he received for his work on behalf of other U.S. military veterans and in the Polish-American community, which is strong and loved in Maryland because of the service of Casimir Pulaski during the American Revolution and for their devotion to the founding ideals of America.
Here is a video of one of the proudest moments in the life of Raymond J. Dombrowski, when he conducted the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra of Harford County and the Choir of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, The Paderewski Festival Chorus and the St. Patrick’s Cathedral Choir in a performance of “Poland Is Not Yet Lost,” the Polish national anthem, and the “Star Spangled Banner,” America’s national anthem — which, I will remind you, also has a Maryland connection since it is based on the poem Francis Scott Key wrote after watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore:
Wikipedia has the lyrics and stories of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Poland Is Not Yet Lost” — both are inspiring and worth reading.
Hot Air has a tribute to the late president of Poland, Lech Kacynski, with an explanation of what his loss means for the United States.
Prof. William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection discusses the loss of Poland’s leaders and the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers by the Soviets during World War II — they were on their way to an event marking its anniversary.
Michelle Malkin, who is a woman of far more compassion and great-heartedness than she ever gets credit for, has prayers for Poland.
Gateway Pundit has a round-up of the news coverage of the crash, including photos.
The Anchoress, bless her, has a list of all the passengers on board the plane, and other useful links.
My pal, Jimmy Bise, at The Sundries Shack, explains how America has lost a great friend.
Update, 4/13/2010, Tues.: Tammy Bruce points out the crucial role the Polish people played when the fate of Western civilization hung in the balance:
The world owes a debt of gratitude to Poland. Not only have they always been a remarkable people, but in the Battle of Vienna in 1683 it was Poland’s King Sobieski who pushed back the marauding Islamic hoards who were besieging Vienna. The Polish success at Vienna stopped the Islamists who otherwise would have likely taken the whole of Europe, ending civilization as we know it.
Wikipedia has the list of the names of everyone on board the fatal flight.
How the dream of going to the prom transformed a teen girl's life
Two themes came together for me in a post I just read by Afrocity celebrating the first birthday of her blog yesterday, April 8. One is the power of a dream to transform one’s life — the dream of going to the prom, the dream of marriage. I’ve been too emotional about the story of the lesbian teen who sued to attend her prom with her date to write about it, yet, but this post illustrates WHY THE PROM IS SUCH A BIG DEAL and worth going to court over.
The other theme Afrocity brings up was featured in a reply I wrote to a comment this morning asking how many black entrepreneurs, millionaires and billionaires never came to be because of the Great Society welfare system’s vision of blacks as helpless victims — and the viciousness with which it punished getting a job and working one’s way out of poverty.
Well, Afrocity wrote the most moving story of how the dream of going to the prom in a beautiful dress gave her the motivation she needed to get out of the welfare system that destroyed her mother’s life:
One of the reasons I am against government assistance is because I grew up on it. And yes, it fed me, kept me adequately healthy, but did it advance me or my mother? No. Did it pay for my prom dress? No. Prom was a big deal to a 17-year-old girl. How would the $250 government check pay for my prom gown, my hair appointment, my #352 pink-dyed shoes to match my dress and my jewelry? The answer was, it would not. Mother went looking for dresses at the Salvation Army store, meanwhile Afrocity began looking for a job. This image of one of us actually working was a bit much for my mother to handle, “you know they will cut us off,” she warned.
I did not care, I had a date with a Victor Costa gown at Nieman Marcus. School by day, working until 1am as a hostess at a Mexican restaurant was tough. In retrospect, it was dangerous to take the bus home so late at night. My school work was neglected B’s morphed into C’s. One night I was so tired, I fell asleep with the curling iron still rolled in my hair. When you are young, you can put up with a lot and my first paycheck made all of the trouble worth it. My first paycheck — that I earned for my work. Money not for nothing but for something I did besides being black and poor. I came to a particular understanding that my mother had yet to achieve. Welfare may let you survive but it doesn’t let you live. Maybe I got the job out of necessity. I had a need that a welfare check could not fulfill. I had a dream about a dress but what about my life beyond the dress? What happens when welfare will not pay for your dreams?
What happened to Afrocity is wonderful and you will feel blessed to meet her — go read the rest of the story and wish her every blessing always.
It's time for an openly gay or lesbian justice on the Supreme Court — gay rights activists, get on that, please
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced this morning that he will retire from the Supreme Court at the end of its current term in June or June. Justice Stevens began his service on the Supreme Court on Dec. 17, 1975. He will turn 90 on April 20.
Gay rights activists have been passive about the treacheries to their legislative objectives for equality by Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress. They should have been screaming their heads off, pointing out that blacks and women got equality during the Viet Nam war and assorted economic crises so there’s no time like the present for gay equality, and then stopping all work for and donations to any Democrat until they spent the half hour it would take to pass the required legislation and sign it into law.
Well, while I understand Mark Steyn’s objections to the stamp collection paradigm of diversity, IT IS TIME FOR AN OPENLY LESBIAN OR GAY SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.
So, Democratic gay rights activists — get on that, please. Tell Obama and the Democrats it is put up or shut up time.
Bonus:
Here’s the transcript of Mark Steyn on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” on Thursday, April 8, 2010, making the “stamp collection” remark (boldfacing mine):
HH: Now I also have to bring up the delicious irony that came across my desk today. Asian-American Democrats are criticizing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for favoring a white former Congressman from Hawaii over the Asian-American state senate president in a hotly contested special election to represent a majority of a minority Hawaiian district. I had the Republican challenger, Charles Djou on yesterday, www.djou.com, but what do you make of this, Mark Steyn? The Democrats divided, and they’re going with the old, white guy.
MS: Yeah, I know. It’s rather heartening in a way.
HH: Yes, it is.
MS: Frank Rich wrote a ridiculous column, even by his own impressive standards, a couple of weeks ago…
HH: (laughing)
MS: …saying that the only reason guys like me and you oppose Obamacare is because we’re uncomfortable with a black president and a female Speaker, and a wise Latina on the Supreme Court, and gay Barney Frank as a powerful Congressional committee chairman. So it’s good to know that the Democrats are now finding one old, heterosexual, white guy that we can be opposed to as well.
HH: (laughing)
MS: I love it when identity politics starts devouring itself. And I say bring it on.
HH: It is…
MS: I’m tired of identity politics, and I’d rather, you know, I’m interested in individual liberty and rights for individuals. And I can’t stand this kind of stamp collector’s view of diversity, that a modern political movement only counts if it’s got one of everything.
Be sure to read the entire transcript at Radio Blogger.
By the way, I’m not kidding here: IT IS TIME FOR AN OPENLY GAY OR LESBIAN JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT. On account of our stamp being the only one in the collection that does NOT have all those rights for individuals and the liberty that straight people have.
Oprah, if you come out as a lesbian, all is forgiven
This afternoon when Dad and I were buying groceries, I noticed the National Enquirer’s headline that Oprah has ordered Stedman out and moved Gayle King in because she’s “tired of living a lie.”
Waddaya know — Kathy Griffin was right.
So, Oprah, if you come out as a lesbian, all is forgiven. We’ll see to it you and Gayle receive the platinum level membership cards, along with the traditional toaster oven, which will be awarded to you in a special ceremony to be conducted by Ellen DeGeneres in June on Pride Day in the chic location of your choice.
The stealth immigration policy intended to change the ethnic composition of the U.K.
I have more unpolitically-correct thoughts on immigration reform, based on the hatred and contempt I experienced at the hands of illegal and legal immigrants as they overwhelmed predominantly white Montgomery County, Maryland, which is contiguous to Washington, D.C., starting in the mid-1980’s with Pres. Reagan’s ill-conceived illegal alien amnesty. I lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, less than a mile from the neighborhood that took the brunt of the invasion.
Oh, and before you scream RAAAAACIST! — the reason these Latin American and Asian immigrants targeted white Montgomery County is that they hate black people, so they didn’t want to live in Washington, D.C. Prince George’s County’s demographic mix was changing to majority black, then, too, so Latins and Asians didn’t want to live there, either. Plus, Silver Spring’s property values were stagnant and some commercial properties had no tenants because the local liberals/Lefties/progressive fought the progress of development in downtown Silver Spring near the Metro station for over 20 years. (This cost me at least $200,000 in lost property value, and almost cost me my life — but that’s a story for another post. But don’t try to tell me that Progressivism has ANYTHING to do with progress.) That made Silver Spring affordable.
So in this post I want to contrast an article in Forbes by Shikha Dalmia that Instapundit linked on April 7 stating the problems with America’s immigration policy, entitled “Obama Can’t Handle Immigration Reform.” Actually, while I encourage you to read the article yourself, I can save you some time with this summary:
- America should have open borders and let people from other countries come and go as they please without asking any questions or imposing any restrictions.
- The fact that America restricts immigration– and asks questions, denies or delays the travel or immigration of foreigners to suit the needs of Americans rather than placing the needs of all foreigners above its own — is proof of the racism, bigotry, ignorance, hatred, prejudice, small-mindedness, parochialism and all-encompassing inferiority of white Americans (since no one else is ever racist).
Now, contrast Dalmia’s sneering sense of supreme entitlement to a column in the U.K.’s Daily Mail by Melanie Phillips, author of Londonistan, published Feb. 24, 2010, with the headline, “At last we know the truth: Labour despises anyone who loves Britain, its values and history” (boldfacing mine):
Of all the issues of concern to the public, immigration is possibly the most explosive — and the one about which the most lies are continuing to be told.
During the period that Labour has been in office, mass immigration has simply changed the face of Britain. The total number of immigrants since 1997 is pushing three million.
Ministers claim that immigration policy has been driven principally to help the economy. They have always denied that they actually set out deliberately to change the ethnic composition of the country.
Well, now we know for a certainty that this is not true. The Government embarked on a policy of mass immigration to change Britain into a multicultural society — and they kept this momentous aim secret from the people whose votes they sought.
Worse still, they did this knowing that it ran directly counter to the wishes of those voters, whose concerns about immigration they dismissed as racist; and they further concealed official warnings that large-scale immigration would bring about significant increases in crime.
The truth about this scandal was first blurted out last October by Andrew Neather, a former Labour Party speechwriter.
He wrote that until the new points-based system limiting foreign workers was introduced in 2008 — in response to increasing public uproar — government policy for the previous eight years had been aimed at promoting mass immigration.
The ‘driving political purpose’ of this policy, wrote Neather, was ‘to make the UK truly multicultural’ — and one subsidiary motivation was ‘to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.
Ministers, however, went to great lengths to keep their real intentions secret from the public — with, said Neather, a ‘ paranoia’ that these would reach the media — since they knew their core white working-class voters would react very badly.
Accordingly, a report about immigration by a government advisory unit, which formed the core of a landmark speech in 2000 announcing the loosening of border controls, went through several drafts before it was finally published — and the Government’s true intentions about changing Britain into a multicultural society were removed from the final version.
After revealing all this, Neather subsequently tried to backtrack, saying that his views had been twisted out of all recognition by the media. They hadn’t been.
Nevertheless, Jack Straw, who was Home Secretary at the time the immigration policy was changed, said he had read press reports of Neather’s remarks with incredulity since they were ‘the reverse of the truth’.
Now we know, however, that they were indeed the truth. We know this only because details of the advisory unit’s report which were excised from the final published version — just as Neather said — have been emerging into the public domain through Freedom of Information requests.
The pressure group MigrationWatch obtained an early draft which revealed that the Government’s intention was to encourage mass immigration for ‘social objectives’ — in other words, to produce a more ethnically diverse society — but that on no fewer than six occasions this phrase was excised from the final version, published some three months later.
Now we further discover, from what was removed from seemingly another early draft, that the aim was not just to implement this policy of mass immigration without the knowledge or consent of the British people
It was done in the full knowledge that the people actually wanted immigration reduced.
And we also discover that those who expressed such concerns were dismissed with utter contempt as racists — and it was further suggested that ministers should manipulate public opinion in an attempt to change people’s attitudes.
Well, they have certainly tried to do that by hanging the disgusting label of ‘racism’ round the neck of anyone who dares voice such concerns.
Thus the eminent and decent Labour MP Frank Field found himself smeared as a racist for daring to suggest that the rate of immigration should be reduced.
What bullying arrogance. The real prejudice is surely to believe that opposition to mass migration can never be based on any reasonable objection.
The implications of this covert policy are quite staggering. Ministers deliberately set out to change the cultural and ethnic identity of this country in secret.
They did this mainly because they hated what Britain was, a largely homogeneous society rooted in 1,000 years of history. They therefore set out to replace it by a totally new kind of multicultural society — and one in which the vast majority of newcomers could be expected to vote Labour.
They set out to destroy the right of the British people to live in a society defined by a common history, religion, law, language and traditions. They set out to destroy for ever what it means to be culturally British and to put another ‘multicultural’ identity in its place.
And they then had the gall to declare that to have love for or pride in that authentic British identity, and to want to protect and uphold it, was racist.
So the very deepest feelings of people for their country were damned as bigotry, for which crime they were to have their noses rubbed in mass immigration until they changed their attitudes.
What an appalling abuse of power. Yet even now they are denying that this is what they did. Yesterday, the Immigration Minister Phil Woolas blustered that the advisory unit report had not been accepted by ministers at the time.
But the fact is that mass immigration actually happened. The only thing ministers hadn’t accepted was that the truth about their intentions should be revealed to the public.
Surreally, Mr Woolas further claims that the Government has brought immigration down.
But the reductions he is talking about have taken place on the separate issue of asylum. The impact of the Government’s new points scheme upon the record rate of immigration growth has been negligible.
The truth is that these early drafts of the advisory unit’s report have blown open one of the greatest political scandals of the Labour years. At no stage did Labour’s election manifestos make any reference to a policy of mass immigration nor the party’s aim of creating a multicultural society.
What we have been subjected to is a deliberate deception of the voters and a gross abuse of democracy.
There could scarcely be a more profound abuse of the democratic process than to set out to destroy a nation’s demographic and cultural identity through a conscious deception of the people of that nation. It is an act of collective national treachery.
Now we face imminently another General Election. And now we know that in their hearts, Labour politicians hold the great mass of the public, many of them their own voters, in total contempt as racist bigots — all for wanting to live in a country whose identity they share.
There could hardly be a more worthy issue for the Conservative Party to leap upon. Yet their response is muted through their own visceral terror of appearing racist.
The resulting despair over the refusal of the mainstream parties to address this issue threatens to drive many into the arms of the truly racist British National Party.
If that happens, the fault will lie not just with Labour’s ideological malice and mendacity, but with the spinelessness of an entire political class.
The people whose rights I put before mine in the 1980’s in the name of the Rainbow Coalition and the promise of reciprocity have turned on gays and lesbians and slammed the door in our faces. Now that they are on the other side and have control over whether we attain our equality, I get the impression that, well, they are perfectly happy about holding up our application for admission to full citizenship to our own country forever. I feel entitled to object.
Note to punctuation Nazis: America and the U.K. have opposite style manuals to determine whether or not periods and commas go inside or outside of quote marks. I left the U.K. punctuation the way it was.
If you click on one of the linked books below and buy anything on Amazon, whether or not you buy the books in the links, Amazon pays me a small commission (there’s no charge to you):
It's time to end birthright citizenship
When Margaret and I lived in Silver Spring, near the border of Maryland and Washington, D.C., our community was overwhelmed by illegal immigration. We lived near the area with the highest concentration of illegal immigrants in Montgomery county — in all of Maryland and Washington, D.C., really. As a liberal, I was aghast to learn how much these people hated me, hated women, hated gays and lesbians, hated black people, hated Americans, hated people from other countries that spoke their language — basically, they were a boiling cauldron of hatred, ingratitude, entitlement and determination to impose their culture and language and we could kiss their asses because it was our duty, in order to prove what nice people we were, to hand over everything we had to them. It had a lot in common with being mugged.
This bothered me. It still does.
I do not have a problem with legal immigrants. Why, some of my best friends are legal immigrants (for real). However, I think America’s laws against illegal immigration should be enforced. If someone comes here illegally and gets caught, the very nicest thing that should happen to them is to get thrown out that very day and be barred ever from entering the U.S. again. What? You’re going to argue they just want to make a better life? SO DOES A BANK ROBBER!
A common goal of illegal immigrants is to get a pregnant woman over the border so she can have a child who is an American citizen due to being born in America — birthright citizenship. The child is called an anchor baby and entitles a chain of relatives to immigrate.
On March 28, 2010, George Will published a column at Townhall.com explaining the history of the misunderstanding that led to permitting birthright citizenship. I’m including it here since the overwhelming number of people now living in the U.S. illegally are from countries and cultures where women are property and gays and lesbians get killed for being homosexual. They are in a position to vote away my equality as a woman and to bar any hope homosexuals have of attaining equality through the states legislatures and Congress. I am entitled to fight back. Here is a sample from Will’s column, but be sure to read the whole thing:
A parent from a poor country, writes professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school, “can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state.” Therefore, “It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry.”
Writing in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Graglia says this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.
If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration — and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration — is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.
(snip)
Appropriately, in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born “subject to” U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his “own will without the action or assent of the United States.” And “no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent.” Graglia says this decision “seemed to establish” that U.S. citizenship is “a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States.” So: “This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person’s citizenship than to make the source of that person’s presence in the nation illegal.”
Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers. Graglia seems to establish that there is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to persons whose presence here is “not only without the government’s consent but in violation of its law.”
P.S.
One of the things that astonishes me about illegal immigration is how the conditions that drive people to leave their countries are not intractable, as Leftists/liberals like to portray them. Generally they are coming from countries with enough natural resources to prosper. Mexico is an oil-rich nation! Cuba could be a paradise! They are escaping systems they could fix and if they did, they would make the world a better place while they are improving their own lives.
Dude, it was Shane, played by Kate Moennig
I think it’s true just about every lesbian has a Shane in her past. I do. And I never got over how much mine looked EXACTLY like Kate Moennig, who played Shane in “The ‘L’ Word.” Shane started out as a villain and heartbreaker. I think Ms. Moennig herself has a capacity for empathy and decency. I suspect that she influenced the writers to move Shane’s role in those directions, which made both Shane and the show much more watchable.
Frankly, I think the lesbian community would benefit from having some shows that have a sunnier disposition and have that “and they lived happily ever after” quality. Well, that’s the kind of show I would write any way — pretty much because that’s the kind of show I would enjoy watching. What? “Pretty Woman” is a fairy tale, complete with a knight in shining limo ending. Like that, but on OUR terms.
WaPo reporter fakes own death to escape Obama filibuster
Oh, all right, not really. But the last time I remember the Washington Post quoting a president at length, it was when George Herbert Walker Bush was running for his second term against Bill Clinton. Pres. Bush had undiagnosed Grave’s disease, which makes your thoughts race, and he could not speak in coherent paragraphs.
Anyway, on April 3, Obama gave a 17-plus-minute answer to a question on his recently enacted healthcare law. And the Washington Post reporter, Anne E. Kornblut, was less than reverent in dissecting his peroration:
Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” package.
“We are overtaxed as it is,” Doris said bluntly.
Obama started out feisty. “Well, let’s talk about that, because this is an area where there’s been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I’m going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have,” the president said.
He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer — more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, “F-Map”). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as “FICA”).
Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care — twice. “Number one is that we are the only — we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance,” he said.
A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. “Number two, you don’t know who might end up being in that situation,” he said, then carried on explaining further still.
“Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if you’ve got health insurance, you don’t always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you’re not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then what’s happening is, is you’re going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you’re covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it,” Obama continued, winding on with the answer.
Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned.
But Obama wasn’t finished. He had a “final point,” before starting again with another list — of three points.
“What we said is, number one, we’ll have the basic principle that everybody gets coverage,” he said, before launching into the next two points, for a grand total of seven.
His wandering approach might not matter if Obama weren’t being billed as the chief salesman of the health-care overhaul. Public opinion on the bill remains divided, and Democratic officials are planning to send Obama into the country to convince wary citizens that it will work for them in the long run.
It was not evident that he changed any minds at Friday’s event. The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off.
Even Obama seemed to recognize that he had gone on too long. He apologized — in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice. “Boy, that was a long answer. I’m sorry,” he said, drawing nervous laughter that sounded somewhat like relief as he wrapped up.
But, he said: “I hope I answered your question.”
I predict that as Obama goes on the road he will deliver similar performances and get similar coverage because what he reveals about himself is both frightening and appalling. First of all, Obama displays his laziness and dislike of mastering policy. He lurches from buzz phrase to jargon, apparently believing he is dazzling the crowd. This is an alarming level of self-deception. Even modestly well-informed people know immediately he has no idea what he is saying. Second, Obama reveals his contempt for the intelligence of his audiences and/or his absolute faith in his ability to snow people. Either way, that’s not reassuring. Third, people are onto Obama’s habit of filibustering to run out the clock. He’s already had problems attracting crowds and this will accelerate the trend — well, until ACORN and the SEIU are hired to fill the chairs.
I’m looking forward to stories comparing what Obama says is in his healthcare legislation and what’s really in it, and what he said was in it that isn’t. Definitely America has a fee-vah and all it needs to see the wisdom of swallowing Obamacare is more cowbell:
Eek! — the Blue Oyster Cult song title is a little too appropriate: “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”
Oh, and I hope Ms. Kornblut likes her new beat monitoring the police scanner on the graveyard shift.