Obama Makes His Case on Health Care
President Barack Obama made his case Wednesday night, pleading with the American people in a televised news conference that the health care of millions of Americans that either don't have coverage now, or may not have coverage in the future is "not a game."
He was adamant that health care reforms will not "weigh down" the deficit any further than it is, although Congressional Budget Office head, Douglas Elmendorf, says different; noting that there are a multitude of provisions yet to be added, a good case is made by the Huffington Post's Sam Stein that the Iraq War was twice the cost of health care during the Bush administration, although that is no longer the case.
However, the New York Times, of all outlets, chastised Obama for "claiming credit for not spending money that, under the policy he inherited from Mr. Bush, would never have been spent in the first place." Yes folks, this is from the New York Times. I couldn't believe it either.
The president then went on to seemingly play the race card when the subject of an incident with Henry Louis Gates Jr, an "esteemed scholar" of African-American history at Harvard. Gates was, for some reason, arrested for disorderly conduct at his home after he had already had shown his driver's license to police, after they had been called for a break and enter, after gates had to force his way into his own home.
Now there's no doubt Gates has a case here, but what does that have to do with the president's health care reform?
"...I think we know separate and apart from this incident is there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately. That's just a fact," Obama said.
Even if that is true, why would the president of the United States take this opportunity, in a press conference presumably dealing with health care, to talk about racial tension? Didn't he deal with this in his "race speech" back in March? Again, a case could be (and I'm sure will be) made by Gates, but why did the president bring it up now? He tried to "joke" about the incident when he said, what would happen if police had confronted him inside the White House, and arrested him for disorderly conduct.
"I guess this is my house now, so it probably wouldn't happen," he said. "Here I'd get shot."
This reminds me of the First Lady, Michelle Obama's remark that the president, while in the primaries, "could be shot at a gas station for being a black man."
It reminds me of the white people that were shot and killed at a gas station by Washington sniper, John Allen Muhammad and his minor accomplice back in 2002. Is my bringing up that little factoid off colour and/or racist? If it is, so is the president's "joke," I'm afraid.
Another point is, President Obama didn't really answer questions satisfactorily by reporters when asked. It seemed to me he hemmed and hawed his way through question period. It seems to me that the president may not be fully comfortable with his own numbers. A growing number of Americans, including Congressional Democrats aren't either.
UPDATE: I may have spoken to soon. I should have known better to comment before having all the facts. It appears the police in the Gates matter acted accordingly. And President Obama should be ashamed for commenting on a matter without knowing all the facts (as I did) and without hesitation blaming the police and saying they acted "stupidly." Aside from the bad grammar, the president is a Harvard educated man and is supposed to be the "great uniter." With statements like this, he is more like the "great divider" and is setting back race relations 40 years with that statement. There will be more to this story to be sure.
He was adamant that health care reforms will not "weigh down" the deficit any further than it is, although Congressional Budget Office head, Douglas Elmendorf, says different; noting that there are a multitude of provisions yet to be added, a good case is made by the Huffington Post's Sam Stein that the Iraq War was twice the cost of health care during the Bush administration, although that is no longer the case.
However, the New York Times, of all outlets, chastised Obama for "claiming credit for not spending money that, under the policy he inherited from Mr. Bush, would never have been spent in the first place." Yes folks, this is from the New York Times. I couldn't believe it either.
The president then went on to seemingly play the race card when the subject of an incident with Henry Louis Gates Jr, an "esteemed scholar" of African-American history at Harvard. Gates was, for some reason, arrested for disorderly conduct at his home after he had already had shown his driver's license to police, after they had been called for a break and enter, after gates had to force his way into his own home.
Now there's no doubt Gates has a case here, but what does that have to do with the president's health care reform?
"...I think we know separate and apart from this incident is there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately. That's just a fact," Obama said.
Even if that is true, why would the president of the United States take this opportunity, in a press conference presumably dealing with health care, to talk about racial tension? Didn't he deal with this in his "race speech" back in March? Again, a case could be (and I'm sure will be) made by Gates, but why did the president bring it up now? He tried to "joke" about the incident when he said, what would happen if police had confronted him inside the White House, and arrested him for disorderly conduct.
"I guess this is my house now, so it probably wouldn't happen," he said. "Here I'd get shot."
This reminds me of the First Lady, Michelle Obama's remark that the president, while in the primaries, "could be shot at a gas station for being a black man."
It reminds me of the white people that were shot and killed at a gas station by Washington sniper, John Allen Muhammad and his minor accomplice back in 2002. Is my bringing up that little factoid off colour and/or racist? If it is, so is the president's "joke," I'm afraid.
Another point is, President Obama didn't really answer questions satisfactorily by reporters when asked. It seemed to me he hemmed and hawed his way through question period. It seems to me that the president may not be fully comfortable with his own numbers. A growing number of Americans, including Congressional Democrats aren't either.
UPDATE: I may have spoken to soon. I should have known better to comment before having all the facts. It appears the police in the Gates matter acted accordingly. And President Obama should be ashamed for commenting on a matter without knowing all the facts (as I did) and without hesitation blaming the police and saying they acted "stupidly." Aside from the bad grammar, the president is a Harvard educated man and is supposed to be the "great uniter." With statements like this, he is more like the "great divider" and is setting back race relations 40 years with that statement. There will be more to this story to be sure.
posted by Northern Exposer at 00:58
2 Comments:
How dare he say that the cops acted stupidly. That was so uncalled for. He wasn't there and didn't know the facts. I'm disappointed that despite the fact that he's reached the highest possible office in the country he still uses divisive language in regard to race relations in America.
The healthcare portion of the press conference was really scary to me. When he discusses efficiency, it sounds like he wants to stop medical progress. All that R&D and different treatment options are very expensive and it sounds like he wants to cut all of that. He didn't come off very well either, in my opinion. Moving the teleprompter in front of the camera didn't help.
Well, remember, he only has one now. Poor thing.
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