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More on the disastrous news conference. This time from Jennifer Rubin.
President Obama’s just-completed press conference was arguably worse than the Obamacare rollout. Alternately confessing, apologizing and blame shifting, he inadvertently made the case against his own executive skills, Obamacare and big government in general.
His announced fix is aimed at remedying the mass cancellation of individually-purchased insurance plans by letting insurance companies re-offer non-compliant policies. This makes clear that contrary to the statements from Jay Carney and Valerie Jarrett, Obamacare and not the insurers were the cause of the cancellations. Obama let slip that this is one big blame-shifting exercise when he announced that no one would be able to say Obamacare caused them to lose insurance. It is of course false because it is unlikely all the canceled policies can be restored.
The fix undermines the essential premise of Obamacare, namely that young, healthy people need to be herded into the exchanges. Not only will this explicitly encourage many people to stay out but also will communicate that the entire program is in flux. Don’t sign up now — the deal may improve as the president gets more desperate! …
Charles Krauthammer with the reasons liberals are panicked about healthcare.
… Precisely when the GOP was returning to a more constitutionalist conservatism committed to reforming, restructuring and reining in the welfare state (see, for example, the Paul Ryan Medicare reform passed by House Republicans with near-unanimity), Obama offered a transformational liberalism designed to expand the role of government, enlarge the welfare state and create yet more new entitlements (see, for example, his call for universal preschool in his most recent State of the Union address).
The centerpiece of this vision is, of course, Obamacare, the most sweeping social reform in the past half-century, affecting one-sixth of the economy and directly touching the most vital area of life of every citizen.
As the only socially transformational legislation in modern American history to be enacted on a straight party-line vote, Obamacare is wholly owned by the Democrats. Its unraveling would catastrophically undermine their underlying ideology of ever-expansive central government providing cradle-to-grave care for an ever-grateful citizenry.
For four years, this debate has been theoretical. Now it’s real. And for Democrats, it’s a disaster.
It begins with the bungled rollout. If Washington can’t even do the Web site — the literal portal to this brave new world — how does it propose to regulate the vast ecosystem of American medicine?
Beyond the competence issue is the arrogance. Five million freely chosen, freely purchased, freely renewed health-care plans are summarily canceled. Why? Because they don’t meet some arbitrary standard set by the experts in Washington.
For all his news conference gyrations about not deliberately deceiving people with his “if you like it” promise, the law Obama so triumphantly gave us allows you to keep your plan only if he likes it. This is life imitating comedy — that old line about a liberal being someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory. …
“Put the toothpaste back in the tube,” orders the president. Craig Pirrong with the story.
… In essence, Obama has ordered that toothpaste be put back into the tube. It can’t happen and it won’t happen.
At which time Obama will turn on the insurance companies, and blame them. You can see this coming a mile away.
Not that that will help one individual who has lost coverage and can’t get it back. But Obama really doesn’t care about that. He is all about limiting the political damage.
Perhaps some insurance companies will challenge this in court, but I doubt it. They know that the administration can-and will-punish them if they have the temerity to fight back.
It is hard to have too much sympathy for the insurers. They made their bed, and they can’t really complain about what’s being done to them in it. …
Mark Steyn is on it.
… as historian Michael Beschloss pronounced the day after Obama’s election, he’s “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.” Naturally, Obama shares this assessment. As he assured us five years ago, “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.” Well, apart from his signature health care policy. That’s a mystery to him. “I was not informed directly that the website would not be working,” he told us. The buck stops with something called “the executive branch,” which is apparently nothing to do with him. As evidence that he was entirely out of the loop, he offered this:
“Had I been I informed, I wouldn’t be going out saying, ‘Boy, this is going to be great.’ You know, I’m accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying, ‘This is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity,’ a week before the website opens, if I thought that it wasn’t going to work.”
Ooooo-kay. So, if I follow correctly, the smartest president ever is not smart enough to ensure that his website works; he’s not smart enough to inquire of others as to whether his website works; he’s not smart enough to check that his website works before he goes out and tells people what a great website experience they’re in for. But he is smart enough to know that he’s not stupid enough to go around bragging about how well it works if he’d already been informed that it doesn’t work. So, he’s smart enough to know that if he’d known what he didn’t know he’d know enough not to let it be known that he knew nothing. The country’s in the very best of hands.
Michael Beschloss is right: This is what it means to be smart in a neo-monarchical America. Obama spake, and it shall be so. And, if it turns out not to be so, why pick on him? He talks a good Royal Proclamation; why get hung up on details? …
Roger Simon keeps wanting the president to resign. Pickerhead doesn’t think that’s a good idea. Keep this going another three years, and the GOP can run against this idiot for decades to come. Or course that will mean we get people like those that started the EPA and funded the ethanol mandate.
If I were Barack Obama, I would resign as president. Forget all the temporary fixes and limited hangouts, I would be too ashamed of myself for having lied so blatantly to the American people — and on matters of such great significance.
Yes, I am a highly imperfect person. Yes, I have lied. But I doubt I would ever have done what he did, lie so repeatedly and manipulatively to my fellow citizens for my own aggrandizement or for what I personally believe is their better good (even if they don’t).
I do not believe the ends justify the means, although, apparently, our president does. Why else would he have lied? People like Stalin do, as we know. They end up killing millions of their compatriots in the process. Obama is not even faintly that bad, but he is bad enough.
One thing is certain. He will never recover from this. Even if his numbers go up, even if the Democrats win in 2014 or 2016, he is an immoral person and will only be seen that way by honest historians. He has stained himself immutably.
How important is this? Consider where we are now. Health care reform is a serious issue, but we are engaged in something even more serious, negotiating nuclear weapons with the Islamic Republic of Iran. …
We opened today with Jennifer Rubin and now she closes for us.
Maybe it was arrogance that convinced the president he could misrepresent his health-care plan to Americans and get away with it. Maybe it was laziness in not immersing himself in the nuts and bolts (as George W. Bush did on the surge and Bill Clinton did on everything). Maybe it was insecurity that prompted him to stock his administration in his second term with lackeys who were short on competence. Maybe it is his lack of real-world experience that deprived him of the knowledge that buying insurance is “hard,” and the government doesn’t handle big technology challenges well. Whatever the cause, the president’s blundering on the cherished, decades-old liberal dream of universal health care and his jaw-dropping news conference Thursday are a blow to those on the left who still cling to the notion that he is a man of immense talent.
It is (and has been) obvious to those not transfixed by him that he has one superb skill: weaving his own story in print (his books) and in speeches. It is a sleight of hand to create composite characters and lofty rhetoric. It is ephemeral in that the words have little deeper meaning and are devoid of effective ideas and lasting value. It requires no particular depth of knowledge or detailed comprehension of policy or history.
Winston Churchill wrote about the history of his people; Obama wrote about himself. Ronald Reagan reminded us communism was evil and freedom the birthright of all people; Obama told us he was a citizen of the world. Obama’s closest confidante Valerie Jarrett told us Obama was bored all his life. That may have been because he was self-absorbed. …
And the cartoons continue to be wonderful.