the rightwing czar

What part of the disastrous freefall that support for ObamaCare is undergoing do liberals not understand? Surely they aren’t digging this grave on purpose? Either way, I’m not complaining:

Liberal critics of Sen. Ben Nelson’s position on health care reform sent out a new plea Tuesday asking for financial help in keeping a statewide television commercial that targets the Nebraska Democrat on the air.

The hysterical part of this is that instead of airing commercials that try to convince voters that ObamaCare is a good idea (which, admittedly, is a losing battle), they’ve decided to run attack ads about how Senator Nelson doesn’t support a bill that Americans don’t support.

This would have been like Hillary Clinton running ads against Obama in the primaries where she attacks him for being against the Iraq war.

Like most of the moves that Democrats have been making since they took the reigns this year, I welcome to the effort. The worst case scenario here is that these commercials help Nelson win more support for taking the same side on the issue as his constituents.

And honestly – am I going to complain that a Democratic Senator is too popular to beat in 2012 because he was against ObamaCare? Okay maybe a little.

Consider this your token bone thrown from the Almighty One himself. This way Captain Barry can try and make himself look like a moderate against the lunatics running Congress.

The White House disagreed this afternoon with the contention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, that the disruptions at town hall meetings are “un-American,” as the Democratic congressional leaders contended in a USA Today op-ed this morning.

“I think there’s actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America,” White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments.

Clever how Team Barry words this, right? They want you to know that they don’t think you’re being un-patriotic, but still can’t acknowledge that you’re doing anything more than “shouting at politicians.” Good call, Mr. President.

The White House might not think we’re un-patriotic, but they definitely think we’re delusional. Their new website to confront the “myths” about “health insurance reform” was put together to give us “reality checks.” And the links to share such “reality checks” via Facebook and Twitter have the condescending  instructions to “Give others a healthy dose of reality.”

Well, gee thanks Mr. President. I really appreciate you listening to my concerns about healthcare reform. Er, I mean, health insurance reform. It’s good to know that you think I’m in need of a “healthy dose of reality.” At least you don’t think I need a “healthy dose of patriotism.”

If this nervous, stuttering, man who has an absolutely horrible time speaking in front of the camera doesn’t scream “organized astroturfer” then I’m not sure who does.

And I say that with all do respect, of course. This guy is clearly just an average American worried about healthcare for his son. He isn’t polished and he’s not rattling off talking points that sound like they’ve been force fed to him by the RNC.

So what say you Ms. Pelosi? Is this one of the un-patriotic Nazis that the Republican opposition has been organizing into fake protests and angry mobs? Or are you just as full of it?

In an attempt to keep things business as usual for Team Barry, it looks like the White House has launched another website so that they can “combat misinformation about [healthcare reform].”

Citing what it calls “a troubling trend” of “wild rumors and scare tactics,” the White House Monday announced the launch of http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/, a new Web page which “focuses on what reform really means for you and your family” and “debunks some common myths along the way,” White House New Media Director Macon Phillips wrote on the official White House blog.

In keeping with President Obama’s use of social networking sites to engage and utilize his network of supporters during his presidential campaign, the new page also provides users with a number of ways to notify their own networks of contacts about the page and its content.

The Web page features half a dozen videos from Obama aides who discuss various aspects of health care reform and it also has a set of “faq’s” or frequently asked questions about health care reform.

I think the only thing Obama has done as frequently as appoint a new czar is create a new website. I mean seriously – is this the best that The Most Intellectual Cabinet Ever can come up with every time there is a problem? How do we give people more faith in the stimulus? Start a website! How can we find out who is dissing healthcare? Post a blog entry! How can we stop healthcare from turning into our Waterloo? Uh.. how about we… uhh.. start a website!

We get it Team Barry: You guys are like, the most, tech-savvy administration ever. You even had your own iPhone app! Wow! You uber-tech trendiness makes me really feel like I can relate to my government. I’m so glad we didn’t elect John McCain because I heard he didn’t even use e-mail or something.

But do the Democrats really think they are going to turn this mess around with a website that repeats the same lies, over and over? If you go to the new “Reality Check” website, it’s a collection of videos defending ObamaCare. And do you know what these super-persuasive videos are? People working for the Obama Administration (or former Obama cronies) saying that what everyone else says about healthcare reform is wrong.

Now tell me, how convincing do you think this is really going to be? Obama has had more than one prime time press conference to defend his attempt to socialize medicine, and the more people hear about it, the more they don’t like it. What good do Obama and his fellow Democrats really think they can do talking about it more and more?

One dominant theme we’ve seen in these exploding town halls is that Americans feel like they are being lied to by supporters of ObamaCare. Don’t get me wrong – people are furious about what’s in the bill – but they’re even more furious about their congressmen lying about it. What’s the logical conclusion here that Obama and crew are missing? The more you say things that people now know are lies, the bigger the whole you are digging. You doubt that’s the case? Try and convince me that people like this guy are going to see the light just because they watched a video where people working for the White House put up a video online.

So good luck, Team Barry. I’m sure your new website is going to work flawlessly. Or, at least as well as Pelosi calling grassroots opponents of the bill Nazis and “un-American” has.

“$787 billion for a stimulus. $1.8 trillion for healthcare. Calling Steny Hoyer a liar: priceless.”

By now you’ve probably heard about the WSJ poll that recently dropped showing ObamaCare support plummeting faster than anyone can keep track of.

An economic writer for the WSJ told Megyn Kelly this morning that ObamaCare requires too many “leaps of faith” than Americans are willing to take right now while the economy is still slumping and jobs are scarce. Of particular interest here is the point that women are starting to defect in a major way from ObamaCare – which is really affecting the polling because women are also the primary spenders of healthcare money. It’s bad news for the Democrats if women find themselves particularly displeased with healthcare reform. They happen to be a pretty important part of every Democrat’s reelection plans.

This clip is double awesome. Not only does Pence lay down in clear, understandable language why the public option will mean an indirect government takeover of the healthcare industry – but you also get the joy of of watching Andrea Mitchell make a fool of herself.

Pence suggests that ObamaCare is going to cause up to a trillion dollars in new taxes and Mitchell wants to correct him. You see, ObamaCare doesn’t call for a trillion dollars in new taxes, she says, it calls for a trillion dollars in new spending. Uh, and how exactly are we going to pay for that new spending, Andrea?

Wait for the Easter egg at the end when Pence says Medicare ending up costing more than we thought it would and Mitchell takes that to mean he is against Medicare. Is she seriously this crazy?

What is it exactly that makes this so hard for liberals to understand? If the government starts undercutting private insurance companies – because their plan is being paid for by taxdollars - then those private insurers are going to go out of business. Sounds simple, right? Tell that to Andrea Mitchell.

You know who I’m talking about. He’s the same guy who voted for Obama while insisting that it’s important to keep our government small and efficient. Oh, and not too long ago he let us know that Republicans aren’t very nice to minorities so we should probably support Sotomayor’s nomination to make up for it or something.

That’s right, it’s Colin Powell:

“I think Skip, perhaps in this instance, might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer and that might have been the end of it,” Powell said in an interview with CNN’s Larry King. “I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal.”

If Powell is throwing in the towel I’m not sure who is left out there to give credible support to Gates (and Obama). The news dropped yesterday that some Obama voters on the Cambridge police force (specifically, an African American) won’t vote for him again because of this.

Is there any bright side for Obama after his indefensible accusation that the Cambridge police force acted stupidly? Maybe:

At this time, voters are skeptical about the ability of the reform effort to help control the cost of health care. Just 23% believe passage of the reform legislation will lead to lower health care costs. Most voters (53%) say it will lead to higher costs, while 18% expect prices to remain about the same.

Okay, so maybe it isn’t that bright of a side. But if we had seen this past week’s news cycle focusing solely on healthcare and Obama’s terrible press conference, the number of people thinking that prices will go up because of ObamaCare might be even higher.

How foolish did Obama’s comment about allergies and tonsils sound Wednesday night? Foolish enough that Seinfeld preemptively made fun of our president 20 years ago.

Update: Legal Insurrection points out that this isn’t the first time Obama has channelled Seinfeld.

Republicans have spent a lot of time talking about some of the horrors of ObamaCare such as the health advisory board, the unimaginable high cost, and long waiting lines for treatment. The great thing about a 1,000 page bill, though, is that no one has read the entire thing yet so every day you learn something new. It’s like finding Easter eggs in your backyard a week later.

Today’s gem: apparently senior citizens will be mandated to visit their doctor every five years to discuss “death with dignity” options. Think I’m kidding? Watch the video below. The part about senior citizens doesn’t come until the 4:20 mark but the whole interview is pretty good.

I think we all agree that it’s a smart idea to make sure you have everything in order in case your family finds themselves in the position of making life and death decisions on your behalf, but not because the government forces you to. So far the Obama administration has been nothing but a long list of government overreaching – but this is just absurd.

Megyn Kelly raises a great point in the interview: When people say they want to fix health care, is anyone thinking that forcing senior citizens to talk to their doctor about death every five years has anything to do with that? In what universe are our current healthcare problems going to be fixed because the government has mandated the elderly make extra trips to the doctor – not for health reasons – just to talk about how they want to die.

You thought it was going to be bad that the health advisory board is going to decide whether or not you should be getting your tonsils out. Who knew they’d have the authority to dictate what type of conversations you have with your doctor.