Boy, politicians are really taking it on the chin these days regarding health care reform.
Town hall meetings are turning into quite the spectacles.But I had to chuckle the other day when US Sen. Claire McCaskill was conducting her town hall. She told the group assembled before here that there was no chance that a single-payer plan could pass Congress. That it simply didn't have the support necessary.
That was met with some grumbling from the group and then - in a moment of abject foolishness - she uttered in seeming disbelief, "You don't trust me?"
At that point the crowd broke into a resounding, unison chorus of "No!"
What was she thinking?
Trust a politician. Are you kidding? They've been overtly lying to us for decades that I know of and probably decades - or centuries - before that.
But now, all of a sudden, we're supposed to trust them on health care.
Remember Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook." "Full disclosure." Oh, sure, Tricky Dick.
How about Ronald Reagan's, "Government is no solution, government is the problem." Great speech coming from a guy who fired up the war on drugs, expanded the military and the department of education and ran up huge deficits.
George H. W. Bush: "Read my lips. No new taxes." Right.
Bill Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman." Uh-huh.
George W. Bush: "We have discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
The sad part of this is that none of this is shocking. Politicians are liars by nature. There, I said it. Politicians are liars. Truth is anathema to their existence. They can't tell us the truth.
George W. Bush told us the private sector was better suited to handling problems than government. He believed in a strict interpretation of the constitution.
Really?
Then why did he grow government more than anyone in history? He expanded the ADA, and the Ag Dept. He brought us No Child Left and the prescription drug benefit. His expansion of government was unsurpassed and so were his deficits.
The same thing is happening with President Barack Obama.
His Iraq and Afghanistan policies don't differ from Bush's enough to mention although during the campaign he pledged to end those wars. The wars were a huge plank in his platform. People voted for him based on just that.
Never mind.
The second biggest plank was a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans. Again, he got lots of votes for that.
Never mind.
During the campaign, then-candidate Obama drilled into us over and over how unqualified Hillary Clinton was. Then he made her Secretary of State.
But since health care is the big deal right now, let's talk about that. Obama used to say he was in favor of a government-run, single-payer system.
Lots of people voted for him because of just that, too.
But he knows that is too controversial to pass, so now he says, no, not so much. No single-payer. Do we believe what he said then or what he says now?
Given these circumstances, no matter how many times President Obama says, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," lots of people won't believe him.
Lots of people will think President Obama surreptitiously still wants a single-payer system. They think he's being sneaky and is counting on the public option in his plan to eventually run all the private plans out of business.
And who could blame them?
Regardless of political ideology, politicians simply can't help being disingenuous and people simply don't trust them.
Remember when Bush's approval rating was hovering somewhere in the mid 20s of percentage? At that time, Congress fared even worse, barely breaking into double digits of approval.
So why would anyone in government expect anything less than mistrust, disdain and ire at these town hall meetings?
It's a push back. People don't like what they're seeing happen in Washington. They see czars being appointed. They see the president firing the CEO of an American auto company. They see unprecedented government spending, expansion and deficits. Then they see what they perceive to be government-run health care being foisted upon them in a huge hurry. It's the proverbial straw/camel situation.
Here's what a town hall attendee told US Sen. Arlen Specter. (You may remember him as the senator who switched parties from Republican to Democrat because he figured he figured he had a better chance of getting elected as a Democrat.)
The citizen tried to ask a question and was told to sit down. When he resisted, he was asked to leave.
This set him off. Here's what he told the venerable Senator:
"I am gonna speak my mind before I leave because your people told me I could. I called your office and your people told me I could have the mic to speak. And then I was lied to, because I came prepared to speak and instead, you wouldn't let anybody speak, you handed out what, 30 cards? Well I got news for you that you and your cronies in government do this kind of stuff all the time. I don't care how damn crooked you are. I'm not a lobbyist with all kinds of money to stuff in your pocket, so that you can cheat the citizens of this country. So I'll leave and you can do whatever the hell you please to do. One day God's gonna stand before you and he's gonna judge you and the rest of your damn cronies up on the hill. And then you'll get your just deserts. I'm leaving."
Notice he didn't say anything about health care? Yeah, there's a lot of angst toward government out there. And it's not all irrational.
Let's wind up with a quote from Tolstoy.
"I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me and assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means - except by getting off his back."
