Last Saturday, New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote quite an incendiary op-ed about people who oppose Barack Obama’s health care proposals and about Republicans in general. I have pasted an excerpt of the last half of his column below–oh, and I must warn you that it really blows (pun intended).
“Not only are anti-reformists showing up, they’re terrorizing legislators with their tomfoolery when they do. Blinded by fear and passion, armed with misinformation and misplaced anger, they descend on these meetings and hoot and holler in an attempt to shut down the debate rather than add to it.
I must say that this says more about them than it does about any forthcoming legislation. Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt.
Trapped in their vacuum of ideas, too many Republicans continue to display an astounding ability to believe utter nonsense, even when faced with facts that contradict it.
A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll released last Friday found that 28 percent of Republicans don’t believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States and another 30 percent are still “not sure.” That’s nearly 6 out of 10 Republicans refusing to accept a basic truth. Then again, this shouldn’t surprise me. According to a Gallup poll released last summer, 6 in 10 Republicans also said they thought that humans were created, in their present form, 10,000 years ago.
Let’s face it: This is no party of Einsteins. Really, it isn’t. A Pew poll last month found that only 6 percent of scientists said that they were Republicans.
Democrats should be leading this discussion. Instead, they’re losing control of it. That’s unfortunate because the debate is too important to be hijacked by hooligans.”
OK–first of all, I have absolutely no idea what the “birthers” (quoted from a Daily Kos poll no less), or people’s belief in regard to when the earth was created, has to do with the health care debate–those are total red herrings meant to change the subject or to say “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”. (Oh, and just so Mr. Blow knows, a Rasumussen poll taken in 2007 reported that 35% of Democrats–or one in three Democrats–believed that George Bush helped plan the 9/11 attacks, or were 9/11 “truthers“, but I digress). Second of all, if you notice, Mr. Blow offers absolutely no evidence or arguments in favor of Obamacare–all he does is waste bandwidth by insulting the people who are against it (which, by the way, makes me believe that he can‘t defend it). And finally, someone needs to inform Mr. Blow that name-calling, not belligerence, is “the currency of the intellectually bankrupt”. Let’s see–Mr. Blow refers people who oppose Obamacare as “hooligans”, has implied that they are terrorists with his whole “terrorizing legislators” bit, and has also implied that they are stupid with his “This is no party of Einsteins” quote (and liberals wonder why people tag them as east-coast elitists). Seriously Mr. Blow, using name-calling as a debate tactic is simply pathetic and it absolutely reeks of desperation. Dude, how old are you–eight?! Why don’t you just call these people “stupid doody-heads” and get it over with?
Now, sad to say, Charles Blow’s name-calling and insults are not the exception to how the Democrats have been attempting to sell Obamacare to the American people–they seem to be the rule. If you’re not on board with Obamacare, then Democrats will not hesitate to ridicule you and shout you down, instead of first trying, say–I don’t know– reason or logic in an attempt to persuade people to their point of view. For instance, you have Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling people “astroturfers” who attend town halls, and implying that they are Nazis by claiming that “they wear Swastikas” (the video is below). Actually, someone needs to inform Mrs. Pelosi that David Axelrod got his start in politics by astroturfing and that the Democrats are currently engaging in astroturfing, but I digress. Furthermore, Mrs. Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer both wrote a column two days ago where they claim that anyone who opposes Obamacare is “un-American“. Classy, huh?
[By the way, Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a hilarious column where he points out the ridiculousness of Nancy Pelosi's statement by saying the following--
"Now this is a pas de trois of dishonesty, slander, and idiocy. Not only is Pelosi lying when she says protesters are bringing swastikas to these town halls, not only is she suggesting that American citizens are Nazis for having the effrontery to get in the way of Obamacare, but she's also saying that the alleged swastikas are obvious proof that these protests are manufactured by slick P.R. gurus.
How does that work? What public-relations genius says: "Okay, we need these protests to seem like an authentic backlash of real Americans. Make sure everyone has enough Nazi paraphernalia!"]
Oh, and who could forget Barbara “Ma’am” Boxer calling protestors at the town halls “astroturfers“, because they are “too well dressed“? Our own LoriZ wrote an excellent diary detailing this (and it contains the embed of the video of Barbara Boxer), but I feel the need to paste one of the more hilarious quotes below–
“Unlike Cindy Sheehan and her Code Pink cohorts, normal citizens actually attempt to look nice when, you know, going out in public. Even worse, we Right-Wing nutty nut women gasp shave our legs .. while showering no less.. AND wear bras. Sometimes we even comb our hair and put on make-up to look purty. It’s our Stockholm Syndrome, of course. We can’t help objectifying ourselves, obviously.”
And finally, there’s that infamous video, courtesy of the DNC, calling town hall protestors “The Angry Mob” and implying that they are all radicals and “birthers” (like the one crazy woman in the video waving around a birth certificate).
Hey, where‘s the love? I thought that being a community organizer was cool. Oh, but silly me. I guess it‘s only cool to organize the community and protest if you are an ACORN member threatening banks. I guess if you are protesting against The One, you are no longer a “community organizer“–you are a “hooligan“ or a member of an “angry mob” and you must be stopped.
But hey, this pattern of name-calling seems to be what liberals perpetually resort to whenever they feel that The One is playing defense. Remember when Democrats were trying to sell the American people on that monstrosity they had the nerve to call a stimulus bill? Well, when some American’s weren’t buying it and held tea parties in protest, the MSM had the unmitigated gall to refer to them as “tea baggers” ( a disgusting oral sex reference). I have embedded below a video of MSNBC’s David Shuster going off on a disgusting rant where he refers to his fellow Americans, exercising their First Amendment rights, as “tea baggers”–then he goes off on a repulsive tirade where he makes a string of vulgar, not-so-clever oral sex references. I’m seriously surprised that Shuster didn’t get fired for this behavior (oh, who am I kidding, it‘s MSNBC–I‘m not really surprised at all), but I digress.
OK–so, now that we are on the subject of “radicals”, “hooligans” and members of an “angry mob” (“Oh my!”), why don’t we take a look at some videos of some liberals protesting or dissenting, and you can tell me who the real “hooligans” are.
Remember back during the Republican National Convention when John McCain’s acceptance speech was interrupted by a bunch of “hooligans” who were “hooting and hollering” (see embed below–H/T George Claghorn–read his excellent diary)? Do any of you remember any Republicans interrupting Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention by “hooting and hollering”? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? That’s what I thought.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of “radicals”, what about the video below of members of The New Black Panther Party engaging in clear-cut voter intimidation? By the way, Obama’s Department of Justice dropped the charges against these hooligans after the DoJ had already won. Ed Morrisey of Hot Air has the story (even the US Commission on Civil Rights was furious).
Just a thought, but do any of you really think that Obama’s DoJ would have dropped the charges against two Bubbas in Mississippi dressed in overalls and carrying baseball bats outside of a voting precinct (instead of wearing jackboots and carrying nightsticks)? I highly doubt it (and rightfully so I might add).
Furthermore, while we’re on the subject of an “angry mob”, do any of you remember when Code Pink members, dressed up like transvestites at Mardi Gras (not that there’s anything wrong with that if you are a transvestite at Mardi Gras–there’s a time and a place for everything), interrupted General David Petraeus’ confirmation hearing by screaming like banshees? These people could definitely teach the people attending health care town halls a thing or two.
And finally, there’s this recent video of SEIU union thugs attacking an African-American conservative for exercising his freedom of speech by passing out flags that said “Don’t tread on me”. The video also shows these “hooligans” “hooting and hollering” and then slapping the woman holding the camera in the face (H/T Caleb Howe).
OK–so now, who are the “hooligans” and “radicals” (as so many Democrats like to call town hall protesters) really? Last time I checked, none of the town hall protestors were intimidating voters, interrupting national political conventions or congressional hearings, physically attacking liberal protestors, or were threatening the father of a handicapped child (H/T Erick Brockway who wrote a post about Obama supporters threatening a man whose adult child has cerebral palsy). In other words, unlike most liberal protestors, these town hall protestors aren’t engaging in disruptive behavior–they are simply engaging in democracy. Furthermore, if their congressmen are feeling “terrorized” by listening to their constituents complaints, then they should either grow a pair or find another line of work.
Now, I would like you to kindly permit me to go off on a tangent here and tell everyone reading this the story about my own healthcare crisis. To be honest with you all, I am quite loathe to discuss my illness with strangers over the internet, but I feel like doing so could possibly shed so much light on this debate, that I’m willing to bite the bullet and do it anyway–so here goes.
Around two years ago, a month into my first rotation as a medical student, I stared experiencing severe back pain. I went to an orthopedist and was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease (even though my MRI only showed a minor herniation and a few bulging discs). However, over the last two years, the pain in my back began to get progressively worse and I developed a slight tremor in my hands that would come and go. Over the last six months, I started to develop frequent muscle spasms in my back and had to have multiple spinal epidurals just so that I could make it through my rotations, drag myself over the finish line and graduate (I’ve had a total of nine epidurals in the last two years). Then, this summer, I started to develop a plethora of neurological symptoms (as well as unusually severe back pain) such as and tingling in my hands, feet, and face, weakness in my arms and legs, problems with dropping things, pain in my legs and arms with activity, severe pain when flexing my neck, muscle atrophy in my hands, shortness of breath, and increased heart rate just to name a few (my hands are tingling as I type this). I thought that I either had multiple scerosis or possibly Guillain Barre’–which is an autoimmune disease where your body produces antibodies to the myelin (which helps nerve impulses travel faster) in your peripheral nerves. It can be caused by GI or respiratory infections or vaccines (and I had multiple vaccines before I started my rotations and two bad infections at the end of my rotations before graduation). Guillain Barre’ causes similar symptoms to MS and both are demyelinating diseases, except that Guillian Barre’ affects the peripheral nervous system whereas MS affects the central nervous system (which consists of the brain and spinal cord).
Anyway, I made an appointment with a neurologist that I had done a rotation with and told him that I thought that I might have developed Guillian Barre’ from the infections that I had picked up before graduation, and that my degenerative disc disease had worsened causing severe pain in my back. Well, he then told me that he thought that I had been misdiagnosed with degenerative disc disease, and that for the past two years, I had actually been suffering from a chronic form of Guillain Barre’ called chronic demyelinating polyneuropathy that had been causing my back pain and tremors–and that it probably became more acute and started causing neurological symptoms when I got those two infections at the end of my fourth year (walking pneumonia and Campylobacter food poisoning to be specific). And, in order to make sure that I was properly diagnosed, my neurologist ran a plethora of tests in order to be sure that I had Guillain Barre’, and to rule out other illness that had similar presentations. Now, don’t cry for me Argentina–I have finally been put on the right medications (medications for neuropathic pain due to damaged nerves instead of just opioids to control pain) and I am already in way less pain and have more energy than I used to. Furthermore, I am starting IV immunoglobulin therapy next week that will help to get rid of the antibodies to the myelin on my nerves, and my condition should drastically improve. I had planned to take my medical boards this summer, but I had to cancel them; however, it looks like I will now be able to take them this fall.
OK, enough of the neurology class–now back to the fun stuff.
Now, I will begin this section by explaining why I’m so apprehensive about Obamacare. Yes, John Stossel’s report about the horrors of Canadian and British healthcare, as well as Daniel Hannan’s interview on Glenn Beck’s show (H/T Steve Foley) backing up Stossel’s findings, gave me pause (see both embeds below).
Stossel‘s report, particularly, sent chills up my spine, because I didn‘t have to wait a total of six days to see my neurologist and get an MRI–much less six months, which is how long John Stossel reported the Brits have to wait to see a neurologist or get an MRI. If I had to wait six months to see a neurologist, and then six more months to get an MRI, I would have wound up severely debilitated–where as now, I will probably recover almost fully and be able to participate in the 2010 match and start my residency next year.
Furthermore, Steven Crowder’s anecdotal piece on Canadian healthcare should make anyone shudder (embed is below). It’s beyond scary that people in Canada have to first get a family doctor in order to get a simple blood test–and that you had to wait 2-3 years to get a family doctor (or pay $900). When my neurologist ordered a blood test for me (in order to rule out lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes-a common cause of peripheral neuropathy), I didn’t have to wait two days–much less two years!
[Oh, and speaking of Canadian health care, if any of you want to see Paul Krugman get pwned--then watch the video in this link from The Political Class. In the video, Krugman asks the Canadians at a conference that he’s speaking at to raise their hands if they are dissatisfied with their national health care system, and just about all of them in the room raise their hands. Hilarious!]
However, what bothers me the most about the Obama health care plan is not due to any secret messages that I have received from Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh via my toaster (because you know all conservatives receive secret messages from Beck and Limbaugh from our toasters)–it’s things that I’ve heard from Obama supporters, and from Obama himself. For instance, here is Barney Frank admitting that he wants to use the public option to eventually get a single payer system which is what they have in Canada and Great Britain. And, here is Eugene Robinson, a self-proclaimed “true believer” saying the following–
“The unvarnished truth is that services are ultimately going to have to be curtailed regardless of what happens with reform. We perform more expensive tests, questionable surgeries and high-tech diagnostic scans than we can afford. We spend unsustainable amounts of money on patients during the final year of life.
Yes, it’s true that doctors order some questionable procedures defensively, to keep from getting sued. But it’s a cop-out to blame the doctors or the tort lawyers. We’re the ones who demand these tests, scans and surgeries. And why not? If a technology exist that can prolong life or improve its quality, even for a few weeks or months, why shouldn’t we want it?”
[Oh, and here is Tom Daschle, Obama’s original choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services before his tax evasion scandal came to light, also claiming that we run too many unnecessary tests.]
And then, there is Slate’s Mickey Kaus (a self-admitted supporter of Obama’s health care legislation) who in his recent column titled, “Obama as Health Care Salesman: He Sucks!”, wrote the following about Obama‘s health care presentation.–
“Later on he tells people that they are foolish to prefer brand name drugs to generic drugs, and to want multiple medical tests. “If you only need one test, why do you want five tests?” Stop clinging to your tests! You’re worse than those people in Pennsylvania.”
And finally, you have Barack Obama, himself, saying the following in a town meeting to a woman named Jane Sturm who, told Obama about her elderly mother who had surgery to put in a pace-maker in order to correct an arrythmia (H/T Ed Morrisey of Hot Air).–
“Loading up on additional tests and additional drugs isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller”. (See embed below).
OK–first of all, I feel the need to inform Mr. Obama and his supporters that the reason my disease was finally diagnosed was because of all of those pesky tests. Doctors are not gods you know and they don’t use “the force”–they rule out differential diagnoses, and center in on one diagnoses, using concrete evidence. For instance, first, my neurologist ordered an MRI of my spine to rule out any MS lesions, or a herniated disc that could be causing a pinched nerve and thus compression neuropathy. Then, he ordered a blood test to rule out any other diseases that present with symptoms similar to the ones that I was presenting with (RA, lupus, etc.). Next, he ordered an MRI of my brain to rule out MS once and for all (it is possible with MS to have brain lesions but not spinal cord lesions). And finally, my neurologist ordered an EMG nerve conduction study, which demonstrated bilateral ulnar tunnel syndrome (decreased firing of both of my ulnar nerves) , and that finding (along with the bilateral loss of my biceps reflexes on physical exam) helped him to finally center on Guillain Barre’ as my diagnoses (Guillain Barre’ usually presents with bilateral nerve demyelination and weakness, whereas MS is more sporadic). Oh, and you know what? I’m glad that my doctor ran a bunch of tests on me so that he could be 100% sure that he correctly was diagnosing me, so that I wouldn’t have to spend another two years being treated for the wrong disease–and most importantly, so that I could finally get the right treatment for the disease that I actually had instead of winding up debilitated and disabled (and maybe even dying an early death in my fifties).
Second of all, as far as “preferring brand name drugs to generic drugs” goes, most of the drugs that I take for chronic Guillain Barre’ (otherwise known as chronic demyelinating polyneuropathy) don’t come in generic form (Lyrica, Skelaxin, and Celebrex–I take this drug because NSAIDS, like ibuprophen, give me peptic ulcer disease). Should I take a less effective drug that’s not indicated as a treatment for my illness simply because it comes in generic form? Oh, and not to mention, my IV immunoglobulin treatment is going to cost a total of $30.000 over six months. If any of you think that the federal government would be willing to shell out that kind of money in order to keep me a productive member of the work force (instead of just telling me to get on disability and take a pain pill), then I have a blind bird dog and some underwater real-estate to sell you, but I digress.
And finally, I don’t want anyone who thinks that pain pills are a treatment for arrythmias, and that asthma is treated with a “breathalyzer”, anywhere near my health care (you don’t have to go to medical school to know that sounds ridiculous). Oh, and I don’t want the same people who wrote the porkulus (i.e., congress) anywhere near my health care either.
Oh, and on a side note, for the last two years I have, literally, taken pain pills every night when I got home from my rotations and I’m here to tell you that IT SUCKS!!! (Yes I’m shouting–write it down, take a picture, sue me, I don’t care.) For the last two years, I have felt like I have been going through life in a fog–and now, thanks to my neurologist running all of those bothersome, expensive tests, the fog has finally been lifted. Therefore, I feel more strongly than ever that no one should have to live their life medicated on pain pills, just to get through the day, so that the federal government can save a few bucks by not running necessary, diagnostic tests.
Now, I realize that there are millions of uninsured people out there, but as the video linked below demonstrates, the majority of them could either qualify for Medicare, Medicaid, (both of which, according to the WSJ, will be drastically cut to help pay for Obamacare), or SCHIPS–and either choose not to apply or are unaware that it’s an option–or willfully refuse to buy insurance, because they’d rather spend their money on other things.
Raise your hands if any of you want to have your tax dollars go to pay for health insurance for the guy (in the above video) who refuses to buy any so that he can continue to spend $300.00 a month on protein bars and vitamins? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? That’s what I thought.
Now, out of the forty seven million who are uninsured, there is a small percentage of people with pre-existing conditions who are too old to get a cheap health insurance plan, can’t afford an expensive plan but aren’t poor enough for Medicaid, and are too young to qualify for Medicare–so they are left uninsured and could go bankrupt if they are in an accident or develop any sort of major illness. These people have worked hard and played by the rules, and they don’t deserve to lose everything that they have worked for their entire life because of one illness–and as conservatives, we would be wise not to ignore their plight. However, when I happened to catch Greta Van Susteren’s interview with Rush Limbaugh, Rush seemed to offer a quite logical solution to this problem (and everyone here knows that I am no ditto head). Rush stated that if congress had earmarked $29 billion dollars in the trillion dollar stimulus bill for health insurance, it would have been enough money to provide insurance to cover all of these people who honestly want to buy health insurance, but can’t afford it do to old age or a pre-existing condition and don’t qualify for any social programs (they are around 12-15 million out of the 47 million people uninsured). So I ask you–why in the world didn’t we just do that instead of earmarking the money to study the marsh mouse or pig odor? Just a thought.
So, in conclusion, after the experiences that I have had as a patient with a neurological disorder (as well as a medical student/ future doctor), Obama and his supporters are going to have to forgive me if I seem like a bitter person clinging to my tests. They make think that I’m a well-dressed, un-American, tea bagging, Nazi hooligan who is part of an angry mob–and that’s OK. But hey, at least I’m not a sucker. In other words, I’ll be dammed if I’m going to let some snake oil salesman (who can’t even sell his own plan without insulting cops and family docs) and his cronies talk me into radically changing one sixth of our economy–when even he can’t tell us what‘s in the bill at his own press conference. Furthermore, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some government bureaucrat tell me or my doctor how many tests he or she can run, what surgeries I can have, or what drugs I can take. You see, I think that my health–nay my quality of life–is worth fighting for. I don’t just want to exist or survive–I want to suck the marrow out life and live life to the fullest. I want to soar. Therefore, you can expect to see me “hooting and hollering” at every town hall that I get the chance to attend. In fact, I say that we all take a page out of Bill Pullman’s speech in “Independence Day” (yeah, I know that it’s over the top, but hey, it rocks) –particularly the part when he says “We will be united in our common interests. We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight.” Remember, they want us to “go quietly into the night”. I say–HELL NO!! Let’s be “hooligans” and put up a good fight. Let’s not vanish without a fight. Let’s rock people–our very lives depend on it.
This diary is cross-posted on The Minority Report.
As most of my regular readers are aware, I wrote a diary last week titled, “Nancy Pelosi Needs to Step Down”. In this diary, I chronicled all of Nancy Pelosi’s ridiculous behavior over the past two years (since she became the Speaker of the House), such as attempting to appoint unqualified corrupt cronies to positions of power over more qualified people, appointing a man to chair the House intelligence committee who doesn’t know the difference between a Sunni and a Shia Muslim, requesting regular military flights for herself, her staff and her lackeys, giving a highly partisan speech that helped to tank the TARP/Bailout bill, and putting all kinds of earmarks and waste in the stimulus/porkulus bill (like giving a 5.2 billion dollar bailout to ACORN), just to name a few. Speaker Pelosi’s absurd behavior seemed to culminate last week with her denials that she knew anything about waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques, despite leaked CIA memos that said that she had been briefed about waterboarding in 2002 (H/T Moe Lane of Redstate).
In fact, even Jon Stewart mocked her obvious fabrications last week in the video below (H/T bk of Redstate)–and Stewart RARELY mocks Democrats.
Now, considering the humiliation sandwich that Nancy Pelosi was being force fed last week when I wrote my previous diary (“Nancy Pelosi Needs to Step Down”), I thought surely she had hit rock-bottom and couldn’t possibly sink any lower–however, I was oh so very wrong. A few days after I wrote the above diary, Speaker Pelosi gave her infamous press conference where, throughout the first half, she was utterly incoherent–
Then, in the second half of her press conference, Speaker Pelosi ACTUALLY ACCUSED THE CIA OF LYING TO CONGRESS!
Now, at the risk of our own Caleb Howe (formerly known as absentee) calling me a cliche’, I must say that I, literally, felt embarrassed for her. I mean, I could feel myself squirming in my seat and my cheeks getting warm as I watched that train wreck of a press conference. Furthermore, after watching Speaker Pelosi prevaricate in the above videos, I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible for this woman to hit rock-bottom, because she appears to have no sense of shame, but I digress.
And to make matters worse, if she wasn’t already humiliated enough after her infamous press conference, Leon Panetta, the current head of the CIA for the Obama Administration and Bill Clinton’s former Chief of Staff, totally discredited/smacked-down Nancy Pelosi, according to The Washington Post, when he said the following–
“It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress,” Panetta said in a message meant to shore up employees of his agency, which is at the center of a relentless political firestorm over Bush policies and the Iraq war. “Our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of [terrorism suspect] Abu Zubaida, describing the ‘enhanced techniques that had been employed.”
I think that John Dickerson made a really good point in his excellent column (be sure to Digg it) when he stated that, “The reason this new attack on the CIA is such a bold and perhaps very bad idea is that the CIA is very good at these battles”. Furthermore, I think that Dickerson really hit it out of the park in regard to why Pelosi put herself, as well as the Obama Administration, in such a pickle by taking on the CIA in such a ham-fisted fashion when he wrote the following–
The escalating mess is exactly why President Obama didn’t want a thorough look into the question of torture. Fights like these distract from his effort to get politicians to focus on other matters, and the arguments potentially weaken his party by either undermining its high-road position on torture or making leading Democrats look unsteady, as Pelosi looked during her halting and jittery press conference. As one former senior Bush official put it, “Their real political problem [with investigating torture] is when they look back, they will find many of their own there. This sh*t storm will leave everyone stinky. Or might just leave their side in deeper doo-doo for the worst political sin: hypocrisy.”
At some point the president may be asked what his view of the Pelosi matter is. It’s a tricky spot. He doesn’t want to get in the middle of a he said/she said debate. If he defends Pelosi, he alienates the CIA. That relationship is already tender because Obama released Bush-era torture memos against the wishes of the CIA, whose agents participated in the torture. On the other hand, if Obama defends the CIA, he undermines his leader in the House and angers her liberal supporters.
On a side note, Mark Steyn has recently written a fantastic column in which he explains with perfect clarity exactly why Nancy Pelosi is so contemptible with her prevarications about what she did and didn’t know in regard to enhanced interrogation techniques. Steyn points out, in so many words, that Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi pretty much have the same views on waterboarding, but that Vice President Cheney has the cojones to man-up and tell people what he really thinks. Furthermore, Dick Cheney has the courage to stick to his convictions–unlike Nancy Pelosi who calls the brave men and women of the CIA “liars”. Mark Steyn further elaborates on these points in two excerpts from his column that I have pasted below. First, Steyn writes the following–
Question: What does Dick Cheney think of waterboarding?
He’s in favor of it. He was in favor of it then, he’s in favor of it now. He doesn’t think it’s torture, and he supports having it on the books as a vital option. On his recent TV appearances, he sometimes gives the impression he would not be entirely averse to performing a demonstration on his interviewers, but generally he believes its use should be a tad more circumscribed. He is entirely consistent.
Question: What does Nancy Pelosi think of waterboarding?
No, I mean really. Away from the cameras, away from the Capitol, in the deepest recesses of her (if she’ll forgive my naïveté) soul. Sitting on a mountaintop, contemplating the distant horizon, chewing thoughtfully on a cranberry-almond granola bar, what does she truly believe about waterboarding?
Does she support it? Well, according to the CIA, she did way back when, over six years ago.
Then, Mark Steyn further states the following about the Pelosi drama–
Alarmed by her erratic public performance, the Speaker’s fellow San Francisco Democrat Dianne Feinstein attempted to put an end to Nancy’s self-torture session. “I don’t want to make an apology for anybody,” said Senator Feinstein, “but in 2002, it wasn’t 2006, ’07, ’08 or ’09. It was right after 9/11, and there were in fact discussions about a second wave of attacks.”
Indeed. In effect, the senator is saying waterboarding was acceptable in 2002, but not by 2009. The waterboarding didn’t change, but the country did. It was no longer America’s war but Bush’s war. And it was no longer a bipartisan interrogation technique that enjoyed the explicit approval of both parties’ leaderships, but a grubby Bush-Cheney-Rummy war crime.
Dianne Feinstein has provided the least worst explanation for her colleague’s behavior. The alternative – that Speaker Pelosi is a contemptible opportunist hack playing the cheapest but most destructive kind of politics with key elements of national security – is, of course, unthinkable. Senator Feinstein says airily that no reasonable person would hold dear Nancy to account for what she supported all those years ago. But it’s OK to hold Cheney or some no-name Justice Department backroom boy to account?
Well, sure. It’s the Miss USA standard of political integrity: Carrie Prejean and Barack Obama have the same publicly stated views on gay marriage. But the politically correct enforcers know that Barack doesn’t mean it, so that’s okay, whereas Carrie does, so that’s a hate crime. In the torture debate, Pelosi is Obama and Dick Cheney is Carrie Prejean. Dick means it, because to him this is an issue of national security. Nancy doesn’t, because to her it’s about the shifting breezes of political viability.
[By the way, if any of you are interested, Jennifer Rubin has recently written an awesome blog where she points out how the Obama Administration and their lackeys in the MSM never saw Dick Cheney coming when he was touring the Sunday talk show circuit a couple of weeks ago. They were so obsessed with Cheney's unpopularity and President Obama's charisma, that they forgot one very important point--that Cheney had the truth on his side. Here is an excerpt from Rubin's blog that really says it all--
In this obsession over Cheney’s unpopularity the mainstream media and the Obama administration share a common and debilitating fault: an preoccupation with personality and polling data. It makes not one wit of difference that someone not running for office has a current popularity rating of 20% — if what he is saying is deadly accurate and central to a key policy debate. The media and the administration somehow believed Cheney was irrelevant because they, not he, are hung up on irrelevant data points and are largely immune to arguments on the merits.
The media is obsessed with who the “leader” of the minority party is and who the “frontrunner for 2012? is. How bizarrely out of touch are they? Well, no more so than the Obama team which spent weeks tying the GOP to Rush Limbaugh while they created a disastrous stimulus package and frittered away a trillion dollars.
The administration and the media jointly overlooked the power of Cheney’s message which was based on a set of facts over which he has complete mastery (and which they were either indifferent to or ignorant of). So they now sit slack-jawed while Cheney has largely pinned the Obama team to the mat.]
So, in conclusion, not only is Nancy Pelosi officially a laughing stock (even in Democratic circles), but she’s also an untrustworthy prevaricator (and that’s putting it nicely–”liar” would be more accurate) who refuses to take responsibility for her mistakes–instead she pathetically and desperately tries to pass the buck to our brave men and women in the CIA. I almost feel sorry for her. (ALMOST being the operative word. Anyway, my Dad always says that it’s hard to take pleasure in watching people self-destruct or get what they deserve.) However, not only is Nancy Pelosi an untrustworthy hypocrite, she’s also a loose cannon who should not be in a position that gives her such power and influence over our national security–especially since the CIA doesn’t have any confidence in her.
In closing, I will leave you with a poem by Mike Huckabee that says all that needs to be said about why Nancy Pelosi needs to resign as Speaker of the House–it is funny, it is concise and it echoes my sentiments exactly. I hope that for the good of our national security, Nancy Pelosi will heed his advice. Take it away Governor!
Update: Steve Foley of The Minority Report has just put up an excellent column with a video in it of Nancy Pelosi’s latest press conference. In her press conference, Speaker Pelosi not only refuses to recant her statement about the CIA lying (or apologize to the CIA), but she also refuses to even take any more questions regarding the matter. Unbelievable.
This diary is cross-posted on The Minority Report.
Surprise, surprise. Nancy Pelosi was for enhanced interrogation techniques before she was against them. This damning coverage by Fox News (hat tip to Redstate’s Moe Lane who wrote about this in an excellent column) reports that the CIA claims that Pelosi was briefed in 2002 about waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques, which directly contradicts her previous story where she claims that she was not told about the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected Al Qaeda terrorists.
I think that Charles Krauthammer hit it out of the park, in regard to Pelosi’s behavior, in his recent column titled, “Pelosi: Utterly Contemptible”, when he stated the following–
Today Pelosi protests “we were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” She imagines that this distinction between past and present, Clintonian in its parsing, is exonerating.
On the contrary. It is self-indicting. If you are told about torture that has already occurred, you might justify silence on the grounds that what’s done is done and you are simply being used in a post-facto exercise to cover the CIA’s rear end. The time to protest torture, if you really are as outraged as you now pretend to be, is when the CIA tells you what it is planning to do “in the future.”
But Pelosi did nothing. No protest. No move to cut off funding. No letter to the president or the CIA chief or anyone else saying “Don’t do it.”
On the contrary, notes Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, “on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.”
More support, mind you. Which makes the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now “on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009″ (the words are Blair’s) to excoriate those who kept us safe these harrowing last eight years.
Now, the funny thing is that I could actually forgive Nancy Pelosi this one factual inaccuracy (OK–outright lie) if this was her first brush with idiotic and untrustworthy behavior–but, unfortunately for the country, it’s not.
Remember during the whole TARP/Bailout bill fiasco when Pelosi gave that God-awful partisan speech–which gave cover to both Republicans and Democrats (who were already skeptical of the bill) to vote against it? (The embed is below). In this ridiculous turkey of a speech, Mrs. Pelosi actually has the unmitigated gall to make a fuss over seven hundred billion dollars (even though Obama’s porkulus/stimulus bill, that Pelosi subsequently helped write, will eventually cost the taxpayers over a trillion dollars). Furthermore, Nancy Pelosi also states, in the first two minutes of the video, that “the golden parachute and the government bailing you out–those days are over”. Well, again, Mrs. Pelosi was being disingenuous to say the least (OK–again, she was lying), because in the recent stimulus/porkulus bill, ACORN was given a 5.2 billion dollar bailout. Yeah, that ACORN who is under investigation by the FBI for voter fraud in thirteen different states. Oh, and who could forget about the recent AIG bonus debacle as covered by Dan Spencer or Obama’s recent bailout of the auto industries that even some Democrats opposed, but I digress. (I guess the days of government bailouts aren’t over yet, are they?)
Now, whether you were for or against the TARP/Bailout bill is neither here nor there. My point is that in another speech (which went viral under the title, “Nancy Pelosi: Dumber than Soap”–the embeded is below), Pelosi claimed that if we didn’t pass President Obama’s stimulus/porkulus bill IMMEDIATELY, that “five hundred million Americans would lose their jobs” (where she got that figure from, I don’t know–I don’t think that anyone knows). Anyway, my point is that Nancy Pelosi thought that it was urgent to pass the Obama stimulus package immediately in order to prevent millions of Americans from losing their jobs, and yet, she was willing to play partisan politics with the TARP bill which, to paraphrase Daniel Henninger of the WSJ, caused “the terrified stock market” to crater “wiping out individual voter wealth” when it fell apart? To quote Charles Krauthammer, that is “utterly contemptible”.
Now, I bet you are asking yourselves right now, “Can Nancy Pelosi’s tom-foolery, hypocrisy, disingenuousness, and out-right idiocy get any worse?” Well, I’m here to answer your question ladies and gentlemen–yes it can. Back in 2006 when Pelosi first became Speaker of the House she requested “regular military flights not only for herself and her staff, but also for relatives and for other members of the California delegation.” Now, it should be noted that the Bush Administration’s Department of Defense offered Pelosi the same plane to fly in that Dennis Hastert used when he was Speaker of the House, but Pelosi declined to use it because “She found it was not big enough for staff, supporters and other members.” However, in August in 2008, when asked why she was against offshore oil drilling, even though gas prices were going through the roof at the time, Pelosi replied by stating that, “I’m trying to save the planet”. OK–let me get this straight. Nancy Pelosi is “trying save the planet” by regularly flying herself and her posse across the country (creating a carbon foot-print the size of a Sasquatch’s), but we poor plebiscites are supposed to suck it up and pay $4.00 a gallon for gas, because she has a problem with offshore drilling. Man, that’s really rich. It kind of reminds me of President Obama telling us to turn down our thermostats while he cranks his up, but I digress.
However, if anyone was really interested in getting a clear view into both Nancy Pelosi’s character and competency, one only needed to look at who she initially tried to appoint to be the House Majority Leader, as well as who she eventually appointed to be be the head of the House Intelligence Committee, back in 2006 when she first became the Speaker of the House. In 2006 when the Democrats first took back the House and the Senate, the very liberal LA Times wrote a scathing op-ed about Nancy Pelosi titled, “Don’t Snub Harman”. Below is an excerpt from the column–
NEWLY MINTED House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is off to a rocky start. On the same day she was formally elected to lead the new Democratic majority, party colleagues refused to endorse her bizarre choice of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who was investigated but not charged in the Abscam scandal more than two decades ago, as her second-in-command.
That embarrassing experience should induce Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — who appeared chastened before reporters Thursday — to reconsider another ill-advised promotion: Her apparent intention to bestow the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee not on the panel’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), but on Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.).
Hastings, like Murtha, seems an unlikely choice for a leadership role in what Pelosi has been advertising as “the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history.” Hastings was impeached as a federal judge and removed from office in the late 1980s (although he was acquitted of bribery in a criminal trial in 1983).
A litany of explanations have been adduced to explain why Pelosi would bypass Harman, an expert on intelligence matters who has won the respect of both parties while criticizing some of the Bush administration’s excesses in the war on terror. None of them is persuasive. Harman has earned this chairmanship.
But, what this op-ed doesn’t mention is WHO exactly Nancy Pelosi wound up picking to head the House Intelligence committee. After Pelosi found herself the butt of much ridicule due to her “bizarre” and ethically challenged choices after hammering Republicans for having a “culture of corruption”, she settled on Sylvester Reyes (D-TX) to head the House Intelligence Committee–a man who did not know the difference between a Sunni and a Shia Muslim. Furthermore, when Reyes was pressed to answer if he knew anything at all about Hezbollah (the Shia Iranian terrorist group), Reyes responded by using the Sammy Sosa Defense (i.e., the “No habla Ingles”/”I speak no English” defense). I’m not kidding. This is the man that Nancy Pelosi put in charge of the House Intelligence Committee–think about that for a second. It clearly demonstrates just how seriously she takes our national security.
Now, I realize that Harman is embroiled in a semi-scandal of her own having to do with the Israeli Public Affairs Committee (although, the LA Times has an interesting column saying that the Harman scandal is really just some members of the Obama Administration’s Justice Department engaging in CYA–you can be the judge); however, I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that Jane Harman knows the difference between a Sunni and a Shia, and that she wouldn’t use the “Sammy Sosa Defense” if she didn’t know the answer to a question.
But, what I find the most troubling is something that I read from a liberal blog called The Reaction. In their column, they basically admit that (and I’m paraphrasing) “Harman was backed by the Blue Dog Coalition”….”she is respected by her colleagues on both sides of the isle”….”Pelosi didn’t consider Harman partisan enough and thought that she has not been a tough enough critic of the Bush Administration”…..they quote and cite Robert Novak as saying that “Pelosi’s judgment might be distorted by personal considerations”…..and finally that “Pelosi needs to look beyond herself to the good of the country”. If this is true, then to me it is “utterly contemptible” that Nancy Pelosi would jeopardize our national security–by appointing a man to head the House Intelligence Committee who doesn’t know the difference between a Sunni and a Shia–simply because she’s involved in some kind of p*ssing contest with Jane Harman. Not to mention, it’s also pathetic, immature, catty and embarrassing, but I digress.
So, in conclusion, I feel that it’s time to bring the Nancy Pelosi circus to an end. Yes, she had an amusing run there for a time, all the while providing great fodder for pundits and bloggers everywhere, but enough is enough. The national security of the country is at stake and this woman is at best a half-wit and a hypocrite, and at worst, she’s a slightly unbalanced liar. By the way, this is not an easy diary for me to write. I never agreed with Nancy Pelosi’s politics, but I was proud when the first woman was made Speaker of the House and I didn’t want her to turn out to be a laughing stock. (I’m sorry, but that’s how I felt–write it down, take a picture, sue me, whatever. Oh, and for any of you lefty lurkers out there who don’t believe that Pelosi’s a laughing stock, check out the SNL video that I embedded below mocking her–and SNL is a predominantly liberal organization). However, my country comes first and I can no longer trust this woman–who has by all means proven herself to be “utterly contemptible”–with our national security for another second. It is time for the circus to hit the road. Nancy Pelosi needs to go–now!
Update: Today, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air has written an excellent column (citing The Washington Post) which provides further evidence that Nancy Pelosi lied about her knowledge of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques that were being used on high level Al Qaeda terrorists.
This diary is cross-posted on The Minority Report.
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