Hey, I know, this is Postmodern Conservative , and I should be telling you how the deep thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, Walker Percy, and The Velvet Underground’s third LP applies to the disastrous Obamacare Roll-out. But, beyond my knowing about such things, I’ve not got much more than any above-average citizen interpreter of the news, and so today, I’ll just link to some professionals , two of whom I respect, and all three of which really nail it with respect to Obamcare: Megyn Kelly, Ezra Klein, and Jonah Goldberg.
First off, here’s a devastating Megyn Kelly interview of Rahm-brother and Obamacare-architect Ezekiel Emmanuel, courtesy of Powerline. Not having TV at home, and thus not really knowing much about Fox News, I was blown away by how great Kelly is. It’s an important interview, not so much for it being devastating, but because it demonstrates the sorts of replies and queries that quickly get past the usual Obama-camp double-talk. Take notes.
Not only does she do that, she brings out Ezekiel’s implicit critique of the Obamacare roll-out from a competence angle. What a pro.
Second up, with another hat-tip to Powerline, is Ezra Klein’s WaPo admission that Obamacare is in deep trouble , as part of his effort to rally his wonk-Dem audience into stern opposition against Mary Landrieu’s “Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act” bill. What can one say about Klein? He’s a pro too, but mainly uses his chops for statist ends , and in terms of means , he has forced us to wonder whether, in his case, “pro” abbreviates pro-fessional or pro-pagandist.
But just consider the facts he’s gathered here. Just consider that he apparently can no longer bring himself to carry Barry’s water on this. A defense of the real Obamacare, he’s showing us, has to utterly reject Obama’s you-can-keep-it-period propaganda, and go hard against the likes of Landrieu and Bill Clinton. As Powerline suggests, it smells of panic. The Dems are routed, and now begin bickering with each other about where to dig the new trench.
And finally, there’s Jonah Goldberg, in top humorist-meets-analyst form with a review-the-whole-mess piece titled Obamacare Shadenfreudarama . Jonah’s never been happier than since Rathergate. Gut-busting jokes and infectious joy throughout, but I’ll leave you with a couple of its more serious points:
He created a rhetorical cloud castle where no one would lose his insurance, every family would save thousands of dollars, and millions of the uninsured would suddenly get coverage. Anyone who doubted this was called a fool or a liar, or even a racist. It was, in the parlance of liberalism, a “false choice” to assert that Obamacare couldn’t be a floor wax and a dessert topping.
. . . The Obama White House, by which I mean the Obama campaign, was desperate to keep voters from grasping the scope of its misinformation campaign until after the election. And then . . . it was afraid to let the public know what they’d been misinformed about.
The argument against gloating holds that conservatives should want Obamacare to succeed even though we said all along it couldn’t. It’s such an odd argument, particularly since the Democrats’ lies were of the first order, in that Obama’s aides actually debated and discussed them . . .
I.e., the lie was tested and premeditated, as I discussed in my Group Lie post.
Ultimately, this fiasco is pretty depressing, will directly harm millions, and threatens to drain away one’s faith in the human capacity for republican government. But that’s why for your own psychological health you need lighten it somehow—so go to Jonah, and gloat with a pro.
