I'm sorry. These are the people who did Iraq. These are the people who stole the prior two presidential elections, using fear-mongering, racism, disenfranchisement and homophobia. These are the people who have affairs with everybody from blowup dolls to sixteen year-old male Congressional pages, and then impeach a president for lying about oral sex. These are the folks who brought you the Brooks Brothers riot and the swift-boating of John Kerry. They're the scum who turned triple-amputee Max Cleland into Saddam Hussein, in order to win an election. Who want Sarah Palin to be president. And so I have to wonder -- Yo, Barack -- what more did you need to get what you were dealing with here, and why wasn't the experience of the campaign last year sufficient to ice that cake forever?
In the end, maybe Obama will get his legislation. And maybe it will even be a legitimate improvement for healthcare in America. But I find myself thinking about Dwight Eisenhower's admonition concerning the hidden costs of military spending, reminding us that each aircraft carrier purchased represents a whole lot of dollars not spent on education or infrastructure or... well, healthcare. We have, in this country, a rent-seeking corporate vampire oligarchy that masquerades as a national healthcare system. It isn't fundamentally there to provide improved heath. It's fundamental purpose, rather, is to enrich a tiny segment of the population that happens to be already fantastically wealthy. And it acts accordingly. For every three dollars spent on healthcare in America, only two make into actual provision of the service. Ah, the much-vaunted efficiencies of the market. Only thirty-three percent overhead!
Fundamentally, like so much of what we do in this country, we are simply living beyond our means, getting so much less for it (other than ripped-off) -- and all for the worst of reasons. Obama's plan -- assuming he can overcome his incredibly inept campaign for the legislation to date -- is a Band-Aid on that open wound, at best.
And -- also at best -- I think history will record that this was the president who talked a good game but was never really ready for the Bigs. This was the guy who brought a hand trowel to the flood waters dike, a pocketknife to the battle front.
Like most every other politician of our time, this will the president who -- even in crisis -- couldn't bear to tell us the magnitude of our problems, let alone propose adequate solutions.
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