With apologies to Walter Cronkite

Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings on the HealthCare debate, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great HealthCare offensive against the citizens? I'm not sure. Our government did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected when the two bills must be reconciled. The fight against the Public Option could well fall, with a terrible loss in American tax dollars, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our elected representatives' stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the debate, and it is doubtful that our citizen forces can be defeated across the breadth of the HealthCare DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff.

On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that our government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on our freedom to make our own choices. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.
We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in the individual states and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that this bill will not add anbother dime to the deficit and end the longer war of attrition, and that the Socialists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of HealthCare is to end in a stalemate. This winter's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to restriction of our choices, the increase of taxes, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred billion more American tax dollars to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

This is George M.F. Washington. Good night.

A question about the Afghanistan surge

What happens to Obama's popularity when he announces in 2011 that the pullout he promised is not going to happen... and believe me when I tell you that it won't. It can't.

I see morons... in Los Angeles

So I'm listening to a report on local LA radio about the city's efforts to get guns off the streets by trading people gift certificates to local stores for their guns, and I hear audio of some lady saying "I can't wait to get this SUCKA out of my house!"

Well isn't that special? I sincerely hope that there's no video to go with that audio... otherwise I would like to nominate this woman for "most likely to get her dumbass robbed before the end of the year" honors.

Know what's awesome?

Ever since Obama started sucking (since roughly January 21st) the number of hopey-changey Facebook updates I've had to endure has dropped dramatically!

Even the Obamatons can't bring themselves to spin this disaster away.

EPIC WIN!

Health Care Thoughts

My quick thought on the pending health care legislation and why it's bad. No, I'm not going to get into all the myriad of arguments that people offer against it nor am I going to spend time refuting every last argument for it.

Instead, I'm going to point out one little thing that makes this the wrong time to do anything about overhauling and putting the government in charge of health care.

The government is running a huge deficit and it is a deficit that we must eventually pay down. Now, like it or not, that means there is probably going to be some kind of tax increase when the economy gets rolling again.

However, if you raise taxes to pay for the health care bill, you then can't tap those people for more money in order to pay down the deficit. Except judging from the Obama Administration's behavior, they think that they can tap those people again and again with no consequences.

In fact, I think we need to look at the Clinton years to see the best case scenario for this. Health care legislation was defeated. By 1994, the Republicans took over the House. During the subsequent years, we had a combination of income taxes increases (but a decrease on capital gains taxes) and spending cuts. In the last two years of the Clinton presidency, we ran a surplus each year and not a deficit. Now, technically, we were still running a deficit because thanks to a change in the budget accounting rules during the LBJ administration, the government counts social security money as revenue and not as expenditures.

But overall, the deficit was reduced.

If health care legislation had passed, there is no way that the tax increases could have paid down the debt as they would have been paying for a new national health care plan.

And if this health care bill passes now, with $1 trillion in new spending, we will get the worst of all worlds: tax increases, increased spending, and higher deficits.

Not really the hope and change I'm looking for.

Is feckless Liberalism a precondition for the rise of Facism?

Glenn Reynolds posts this story which reports that a large percentage of British voters would consider voting for the "far right" party and says while it may not be a precondition, it's certainly a building block.

I'm taking the comparison one step further and adding this story about an NPR reporter forced to apologize profusely for comparing Obama's attack on Fox News as "Nixonian."

And to take it even one more step downrange... I hope I need not point out the Hitler-esque figure currently building up an army and a nice stash of nuclear weapons somewhere off on England's Eastern front.

Weird times we're living in.

Guess what newsmedia... I don't care about Balloon Boy

And furthermore, I hope it WAS a scam because I love it when you guys get suckered. Of course the downside is now poor ole CNN is so upset that they got scammed that they're going to run coverage of this family 24/7 for the next three weeks to shame them and prove how powerful the media backlash can be when they've been wronged.

But it's having no effect on me because whenever I see another Balloon Boy story on TV, I change the channel. CNN... you got taken for a ride... and I love it. Whether or not you're able to extract your pound of flesh in revenge does not interest me.

Spend all the time you want trying to stoke outrage amongst your viewership, but it won't work. Turns out we don't like you very much and it's kinda funny when you get taken for a ride.

We're rooting for Balloon Boy.