According to President Obama,

“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan, period.”

Last night, the president clarified that statement.

“When I say if you have your plan and you like it, . . . or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don’t have to change plans, what I’m saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform.”

The reality is that, for most people, their employers will choose whether or not to abandon the private system for the government plan.

Think about that for a minute.  The government is going to come along with this low-cost, taxpayer-subsidized health care plan and your employer will get to choose between that and the plan they currently offer you.

Cheap government insurance vs. expensive private insurance.  What will they choose?

Hint: your employer probably cares about the cost, not so much the quality – and not so much about how much you like your plan.

Bottom line: You will not be able to keep your health insurance plan.

Once the government has a monopoly, how good do you think your health care will be?

Every honest conversation about health care reform has included talk about changing what we in America expect from our health care system, which is a nice way to say we have to expect less from it, if we want a public system.

One of the proposed savings measures is eliminating “unnecessary” tests.  I don’t know about you, but I want my doctor – not the government – deciding what tests are necessary.

And once the government controls health care, they will be able to regulate almost every aspect of our lives (the few they don’t already) because it is for the common good to keep us healthy, according to what the government deems necessary to that end.

On the bright side, maybe we won’t have to hear that tired old phrase “for the children” any more.  Now it will be “for our health.”

Iran police ‘use gas’ on protesters

Obama tells men what kind of dads they should be

That reminds me, the ever-funny right-wing humor blog IMAO has a list of the “Top Ten Reasons Obama Hasn’t Spoken Out About Iran.”

My fav is #7.

Thought iRan was the accessory for the iPod that keeps track of how many miles you jog.

You should read IMAO.  Really humor is all we have left at this point.

I have to mention, as Mr. Right just pointed out to me as I was writing this, not everyone thinks Obama should speak out.  Pat Buchanan thinks he should keep his mouth shut.

Feel free to discuss.

One day, he was talking about the Obama personal finance plan, or something like that.  He said that you should not try to get your spending under control, but continue to spend beyond your means and put everything on credit, max out your credit cards, take out loans, etc.

It was a joke, obviously, based on the fact that President Obama is borrowing against our country’s future to fund massive government spending.

I don’t think Rush has any idea how close he was to the real Obama family finance history.

In April 1999, they purchased a Chicago condo and obtained a mortgage for $159,250. In May 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750. Then, in 2002, they refinanced the condo with a $210,000 mortgage, which means they took out about $50,000 in equity. Finally, in 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 on top of the mortgage.

Tax returns for 2004 reveal $14,395 in mortgage deductions. If we assume an effective interest rate of 6%, then they owed about $240,000 on a home they purchased for about $159,250.

This means they spent perhaps $80,000 beyond their income from 1999 to 2004.

The Obama’s adjusted gross income averaged $257,000 from 2000 to 2004. This is above the threshold of $250,000 which Obama initially used as the definition of being “rich” for taxation purposes during last year’s election campaign.

The Obama family apparently had little or no savings during this period since there was virtually no taxable interest shown on their tax returns.

No wonder he wants us all to bail out deadbeat mortgagees.  Apparently, he sees nothing wrong with borrowing beyond your means.

FACT CHECK: Obama’s job, deficit claims are iffy

Could it be that the ban on reporting anything that might cast the president in a negative light has been lifted and the media is finally going to start doing its job?

One can only hope.

I was about to dismiss it entirely, as I think is the proper response at this point to the accusations of racism that follow every single criticism of President Obama by anyone on the right, and even some that come from the left.

I mean, how seriously can we take the prized argument of such intellectual giants as Janeane Garofalo, especially when there is no attempt at an actual discussion of said criticism?

But then, it occurred to me that there is more to this post than intellectual laziness.  The left really does not get what’s gotten everyone on the right so worked up about Barack Obama.

Let’s take the post I mentioned above as an example.

They hate him not because of policy or politics. They hate him because of who he is. Not like them. By the color of his skin. It’s time to stop pretending or excusing or evading the obvious. They hate him because he is black!

I am not even sure where to begin with that.  Has there been no criticism on Pres. Obama’s policies or politics?  I read thoughtful, reasonable criticisms of his policy every day.

So, how did this insightful blogger arrive at this conclusion, that there can be no other reason, except for race, to explain this outrage?

The right did not respond this way to President Clinton.  Yes, really, that’s the entire argument.

First the full quote, then I’ll break it down.

They hated President Clinton, and tried to destroy him. But one of their elected governors didn’t talk secession. They didn’t talk revolution. They didn’t attempt (and miserably fail) to launch nationwide protests against him. Bill Clinton was a lot of things. He was not black.

President Obama is no crazy liberal. He is increasing defense spending. Even Alan Greenspan is suggesting economic solutions more akin to “socialism.” Gun lovers have nothing to fear. On policy grounds, we crazy liberals have been criticizing him from day one. The radical right have been lambasting him. With the nation fighting two wars and an economic meltdown, they openly hope he fails. But they are not about policy. They are about hatred. And they hate Obama as they have never hated any president. It’s not complicated.

Rather than succumb to this poor application of Occam’s Razor, let’s look a little deeper at other possible reasons for why this behavior is happening under President Obama, but did not happen under President Clinton.

They hope he fails. This widely misinterpreted Rush Limbaugh quote actually referred to any socialist policies Obama would enact.  A point Rush has clarified repeatedly, explaining the ideology that he believes Obama comes from and the policies emanating therefrom that would be ultimately bad for America.  To that end, Rush hopes he fails – fails to destroy America.

But this isn’t about policy is it?

Gun lovers have nothing to fear. That is not a unanimous opinion.  Most “gun lovers” do think there is much to fear.  Gun sales have skyrocketed since Obama was elected.  Most people who follow gun control legislation suspect that Obama will enact gun control measures as soon as it is politically viable, that is, after he deals with energy and health care.

Secession.  Revolution.  Mass protest.

Why are these things coming up now, but not then?

Then, we did not see an increase of government spending of this magnitude.  Then, we did not have a national debt of $11 trillion, and growing.  Then, we did not have a pork-laden spendulus stimulus bill, passed before anyone could even read it.  Then, we did not see the government fire the CEO of a major corporation.

But most importantly, then we had a Republican Party that was able to organize an opposition, formulate a platform that reflected the conservative ideology, and take control of both chambers Congress a mere two years after Clinton was elected.

Does anyone think the GOP can do that now?  Does anyone think the GOP has any credibility whatsoever with conservatives?

This spending orgy started with a Republican president.  The last Republican presidential candidate’s big moment in the debate with Obama was that he – the Republican – wanted the government to bail out people who couldn’t afford their mortgages.

Conservatives have nowhere to go. There is no leader of the conservative movement.  There is no political party that embodies conservative principles.  There is no one who can even articulate – on a national level – what the tea party protests were about to the media, for crying out loud.

What are conservatives supposed to do, if not speak out for themselves, talk about revolution, try to organize some sort of protest to let Washington know their views?

And why wouldn’t we want to leave a country that has abandoned its roots of personal freedom and limited government?

This is about policy.  It is all about policy.

But, it is true that it is being expressed in an unproductive way, many times as hatred.

And for that, my dear left-wingers, you have yourselves to blame.

You know hatred, boy, do you ever.  You have hated for the past 8 years.  Some of you even forgot how not to hate and are still spewing hate on a daily basis toward anyone who dares disagree with you.

After Obama was elected, I read time after time on conservative blogs how we had to resist doing what the left did for the past 8 years.  The hate.  The screeching.  The inability to formulate coherent sentences.

Unfortunately, some of us can’t resist emulating what has become the standard in political thought.

So, if anyone on the left wonders why the level of discourse is so base, so visceral, compared to the past, it’s not because he’s black (with or without scare quotes), it’s because you lowered the bar.

Hey, maybe Fox will let us call in with our votes at the end of the broadcast.

If you liked the president’s speech dial 1-866-yes-pres, or text “yes” to 62262.

The TV execs are none too happy, either.

“At a time when we’re struggling not only financially but to build audiences, this doesn’t help on either front,” one network executive said. “These repeated interruptions — and the rumor of even more to come — really make it difficult to build audience flow and loyalty. We will all lose one or two million dollars for this.”

Don’t sweat it.  I am sure you can always ask for a bailout.

Oh, and if you ever wondered what Barack Obama’s TelePrompter does in between prime time addresses, wonder no more.  It now has a blog.

For the record: no, I do not watch American Idol.

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

What exactly did he expect?  Did he think that being president was like running for president?  He did say that managing a campaign gave him more experience than Sarah Palin’s running of a small town (ignoring the fact that he was not actually the manager of the campaign and that she was, in fact, a governor).

What exactly did we expect?

This is a big deal.

The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

Well, at least we are not in the middle of a war or anything.

“The one real serious flaw I see in Barack Obama is that he thinks he can manage all this,” the well-known figure told a Washington official, who spoke to this newspaper. “He’s underestimating the flood of things that will hit his desk.”

I guess being the wife of a former president does make you more qualified to be president after all – at least you know what the job entails.

I just hope that Pres. Obama finishes up with his on the job training before anything serious happens.

The White House on Wednesday admitted that their public comments about conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh and cable news personalities in recent days has been “counterproductive.”

Counterproductive?  That’s not quite the word I would use.

This Rush Limbaugh episode is pretty disturbing.  Even though the White House is trying to be dismissive and even claim that President Obama was not even giving Mr. Limbaugh’s criticisms any thought, the president’s official spokespeople launching an all out assault on a US citizen for criticizing said president is inappropriate at best.

Look at it this way, imagine if President George W. Bush did it.

Freedom of speech anyone?

And not only are Pres. Obama’s goons attacking Mr. Limbaugh, but they are grossly mischaracterizing his words, knowing that most people who hear them will not have actually heard what Limbaugh said.

I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh, but I do know that he didn’t say he wanted the US economy to fail.  That is utterly moronic (to think that).  The man is a capitalist.  Why would he want capitalism to fail?

What he said was that he wants Pres. Obama to fail in his pursuit of turning the country into his socialist utopia.

Me, too.

Why should Limbaugh, or I for that matter, want a massive expansion of government power?   We are conservatives.  We don’t like that sort of thing.

Just curious, how many on the left wanted George W. Bush to succeed in enacting conservative policies?

Did the left want Pres. Bush to succeed in Iraq?

Did the left want the Bush tax cuts to succeed in stimulating the economy?

(Answers: no, no, and no.)

Rush Limbaugh did not do anything that liberals were not doing for the past eight years.

Tell me again what a tyrant Bush was.  I don’t recall his administration launching a full-scale media assault on any liberal commentators.

Hope and Change.

One more question: If conservaitsm is really dead, why is everyone so afraid of Rish Limbaugh?

.

For background, USA Today has a decent summary in this opinion piece by Chuck Raasch.

via Althouse.

I just cannot believe that this guy is for real.  I think this has to be some kind of prankster.  It seems too over the top, especially the revival moment when he closes his eyes and raises his hands to Heaven to thank God for Obama taking time out of his day to talk to them.

Discuss.