Let me preface everything I have to say today by stating that I believe neither the democrats nor the republicans have posited a tenable argument in the so called health care debate that has captured our attention as of late. Neither side has turned in a laudable performance.
However, at this point, I believe the advantage must go to the democrats simply because the fact of their seeming timidity, disunity, and lack of a coherent message has been largely obfuscated by the shamefully loathsome behavior of the republicans.
In all their pointed malfeasance, I don’t think the Republican Party has been able to win anyone over; they have only managed to stir up the hornets nest of crazies that are convinced of the divinity of their mission. All they have managed to do is to introduce a new level of confusion and anxiety.
However, I believe President Obama’s speech to have been successful in rearranging the playing field. Given a primetime television and cable audience, he was able to outline his plan, albeit not without a few gaps, and debunk some of the lies of the right. Not only that, he was able set a certain tone. He left the door open for bipartisanship, but also apprised those standing in the way that he would move forward without them.
But I believe the most telling moment of the night came when South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson brazenly and all so rudely and disrespectfully yelled out in response to the president’s promise that healthcare coverage would not be extended to illegal aliens, “YOU LIE!”
Oh, but haven’t they gotten beside themselves? Keep in mind that for eight full years, President Bush lied in almost every instance he stood before a microphone. But in all that time, no one yelled out “YOU LIE!”, even when it became plain that his verity was to be questioned.
But this is the sticky part. When Congressman Joe Wilson yelled out “YOU LIE!”, he had to have known it was indeed he who was lying. He had to have known that the various healthcare bill proposals forbade that coverage be extended to illegal aliens. At this point, perhaps, he realized that the nation might be ready to believe the president’s message, and in a last ditch effort, he attempted to insert a bit more misinformation and confusion.
However, his greatest effort may have been his greatest undoing. In his insolent audacity, he revealed his party’s dependence on emotion rather than reason. In violating all established rules of decorum, he revealed the Republican Party’s only message to be a soliloquy for fools in which they are characters on the stage of their own exaggerated efficacy, shouting lines filled with bigotry, with cynicism, with lies and misdirection, and reveling in the applause without realizing only they are clapping.
