Federal Judiciary

Instead the president continues to argue -- aided in the media by folks ranging from practically everyone on MSNBC to Bill O?Reilly of the supposedly all-right-wing Fox News Channel -- that the American people just don?t understand what his health-care plan is all about. In one sense I agree with him. Given the fact that even the Congressional Budget Office said it didn?t have enough details to do a proper score of the latest version of the legislation in time for the official summit, the man has a point. But it?s not voters? slowness with the issues; it?s the White House?s.

If the president were serious about being a different kind of leader, he would have had governors at the White House summit on health care, as Republican governors requested.

He would have considered what Republicans had to say instead of dismissing criticism as he has been doing for the better part of a year in this and other debates. One of the best lines of the summit was ?If you?re waiting for Mitch McConnell to roll in here a wheelbarrow full of a 2,700-page comprehensive health-care bill, that?s not going to happen.? Sen. Lamar Alexander continued, ?We?ve watched the comprehensive, economy-wide cap-and-trade. We?ve watched the comprehensive immigration bill#...#we?ve watched the comprehensive health-care bill. And they fall of their own weight.?

That?s a message that Washington can afford to hear. That?s a message that gets back to constitutional principles of federalism. And, frankly, that?s a manageable message.

As Paul Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin whose attention to detail is such that even the president has trouble dismissing him, explained at the summit, there are, in fact, real differences between the Republican and Democratic positions on health care in Washington. ?We don?t really believe the government should be in control of all this,? Ryan said. Pointing to what he and others have been hearing from Americans -- in town halls since the summer and, most recently, in the Massachusetts special election -- Ryan said to the president, ?I would respectfully submit: You?re not listening to them.?

Not listening isn?t exactly the ?hope and change? people signed up for. It is hardly a new kind of leadership for him to rub in a year-old election victory when asked a question by the senior senator from Arizona at a forum he is hosting. It?s petty snippiness. It?s bullying. It?s a game of point-scoring of the kind he claims to be above and repulsed by.

The president of the United States is a liberal ideologue who isn?t comfortable telling you as much, so he ridicules those who try to highlight the truth. Without a penchant for honesty, it?s just about all he?s left with.

On perhaps no issue is his dishonesty more obvious than on abortion. And it?s been so with Barack Obama since before he was ever inaugurated. During the 2008 campaign, he outright lied about his position and accused those who talked about his record in the Illinois statehouse of being liars. He continues to do just that. Late last year he audaciously accused the Catholic bishops of the United States -- as well as others who criticized various versions of health-care legislation for their abortion funding -- of ?bearing false witness.? And, after refusing to invite pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak to the summit, the president simply ignored the issue when John Boehner brought up the abortion question. He apparently didn?t believe that an issue that threatens the consciences of millions of Americans deserved a simple explanation from the White House. And, flanked by two ?pro-choice Catholics,? the president was happy to let Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi state the dishonest talking-point -- that what was being discussed would not fund abortion -- on his behalf.

A Quinnipiac poll last year found that 72 percent of voters oppose federal funding of abortion. A recent poll from CBS -- just to pick one non-right-wing entity -- found that half those surveyed don?t approve of the president?s job on health care.

There?s something to what Paul Ryan said, and Barack Obama must know it; otherwise, he wouldn?t be trying so hard to dismiss objections and gloss over what he?s doing. His options right now are to force some plan through Congress or to walk away and blame the ?Party of No? for killing his health-care hopes. But his own health-care summit is already on YouTube and provides ample fodder to counter that ?Party of No? accusation. His opposition proved themselves anything but the troglytes Hardball would have them portrayed as.

And if he does manage to get enough Democrats to go along with his politically suicidal gambit, good luck, Mr. President, coming up with an explanation when your impractical plan doesn?t become the panacea it was supposed to be -- that you insisted we weren?t smart enough to understand it to be. The proof will be in the reality. At some point, your misinformation campaign will get tired, tiresome, and tossed out.

I, for one, though, am hoping your own party forces a change of course. We can?t afford your way, in more ways than one.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on March 01, 2010 (boomark / email).