Demagoguing the Issues
[Guest post by DRJ]
When Barack Obama was in Mexico at the North American summit, he referred to American opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens as “demagogues.” The Yahoo-American Heritage dictionary defines ‘demagogue’ as “a leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.”
Fast forward to today in Grand Junction, Colorado, where President Obama made a personal appeal to the American people to overhaul health care:
“Now, it’s personal. President Barack Obama invoked his own anguish over the death of a loved one as he challenged the debunked notion that Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care would include “death panels.”
“I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that,” an impassioned Obama told a crowd as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with “the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma.”
Barack Obama, demagogue.
— DRJ
Challenged the “debunked notion” re “death panels”—my bleeding hemorrhoids. They did such a good job of “debunking” Sarah Palin’s claims that they wound up taking the offending language out of the bills
But then in the newspapers if “The Won” says it, it’s conclusive proof that it’s true. Of course, if he said it today that is. What he said in 2003 and 2007 that might conflict with today’s narrative never gets mentioned.
Mike Myers (674050) — 8/15/2009 @ 9:07 pmI get to Guadalajara about every 3 weeks. Obama’s appearance was very similar to the astro-turf appearance of downtown for the upcoming PanAm games.
carlitos (aa9b6d) — 8/15/2009 @ 9:10 pmIn other breaking news, Keith Olberman is a douchebag.
(Must credit Patterico)
JayC (935b29) — 8/15/2009 @ 9:26 pmMe thinks Obama is projecting there.
MU789 (bfd8d3) — 8/15/2009 @ 9:39 pmThe New York Times did such a great job debunking the notion they forgot to look in their own archives when the notion was raised in April 2009 interview of Obama by David Leonhardt. Lying liars.
daleyrocks (718861) — 8/15/2009 @ 10:04 pmThe lefties still don’t get it. They need a lot more instruction.
Mike K (addb13) — 8/15/2009 @ 10:15 pmThe pathological desire of so many Democrats to destroy America’s health care system will be their party’s undoing in 2010.
Mike LaRoche (63288a) — 8/15/2009 @ 10:53 pmI’ve gotta take Obama’s side on this one. It was absolutely outrageous for his Republican opponents to suggest his mother didn’t deserve surgery to improve the quality of her life in her later years and shouldn ever in a million years…
Oh, wait, it was OBAMA who suggested that himself. I’m sure he’ll try to flush the comment down the memory hole, but lately its been starting to look like a landfill.
Sean P (3928ec) — 8/15/2009 @ 10:53 pmSean P. – Remember, she was a typical white person to Obama.
daleyrocks (718861) — 8/15/2009 @ 11:02 pmGee, this doesn’t sound like the Obama who showed up to debate McCain.
Who would have thought he’d change so much?
Why didn’t anyone warn us?
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 8/15/2009 @ 11:21 pmObama so loved his granny he waited several days to see the corpse rather than interupt his campaign. What a swell guy. Maybe his auntie living in public housing in Massachusetts can go before one of Obama’s death panels. I’ll volunteer to be on Kennedy’s panel.
Thomas Jackson (8ffd46) — 8/16/2009 @ 12:47 amWell, this time he’s got children feeding him his questions instead of the more sophisticated propogandists in journalism, so the quality of his answers has deteriorated in kind.
Another Chris (a3bb8f) — 8/16/2009 @ 12:49 amDon’t forget waiting until after his Mom died to go to Hawaii for the funeral, even though he knew she was on her deathbed with cancer. Although I can understand that to some extent, given how she treated him as a child–the resentment for dumping him off with his grandparents must have been incredible.
Another Chris (a3bb8f) — 8/16/2009 @ 12:53 amWas this the same anguish he felt when he was pondering whether or not it was appropriate for her to get a hip replacement? Maybe she should have just been given a pain pill.
It does not really matter, since he already told us that his family will not be participating in BarckyCare. Nor Congress. Or Unions. Just you.
JD (8db718) — 8/16/2009 @ 4:44 amSean P. – Remember, she was a typical white person to Obama.
Comment by daleyrocks — 8/15/2009 @ 11:02 pm
Bingo. And as others mentioned, he didn’t even go to her funeral. She friggin’ raised him and he couldn’t hop on a plane for a day?
Have less and less respect for the man every day. His apparent view of everyone around him as mere tools to give him what he wants, no matter what he has to say or do to get it, is appalling.
I suggest we take up a new chant, a la JD: Narcissist.
no one you know (1ebbb1) — 8/16/2009 @ 5:14 amHe is also surrounded by narcissists and they aren’t all politicians, unless you count reporters as politicians.
It seems safe to say that of the hundreds of thousands of style guides currently for sale on Amazon, not one of the didactic, shop-your-closet authors was prescient enough to outline the appropriate attire for those public occasions when good citizens decide to behave like raving lunatics and turn lawmakers into punching bags. What does one wear to a town hall meeting on health care when the sole reason for attending is to shout down one’s congressman like a peevish teenager in the midst of a hormonal rage?
I thought those people went there to find out how their Congress critter was going to vote. Instead I learn it was all hormones. I was always wary of anyone who called me “the good doctor” as it always suggested suppressed anger. What does it suggest that we are “good citizens”?
Mike K (addb13) — 8/16/2009 @ 6:14 amIt would appear that the Head Narcissist is going to cave on his plan, big – time; just saw Kent Conrad (D – ND) tell Chris Wallace that the Senate’s budgetary committee is “under no specific timetable to get a bill passed,” and ALSO declared that there are not enough votes to pass the current bill with the public option intact – period. Now we have Sebelius suggesting today that the public health plan’s not necessarily mandatory now – game, set, match.
I also noticed Conrad’s talking up the co – op plan instead. I could go for that one, provided the gov’t seed money needed for this doesn’t become ridiculous over time. Once again, the devil’s in the details.
Dmac (e6d1c2) — 8/16/2009 @ 7:56 amForgot to mention that Krauthammer admitted on the same show that he was wrong in his earlier column last week that the protests would prove to be counter – productive in the end. Charles Krauthammer’s a classy guy.
Dmac (e6d1c2) — 8/16/2009 @ 7:58 amGranny is just a prop Obama trots out when he needs her – in a positive or a negative light depending on the circumstances – the cynical bastard.
daleyrocks (718861) — 8/16/2009 @ 8:19 amObama’s illegal alien aunt tootie fruitie and her continued stay in this country might be a more interesting subject than granny.
daleyrocks (718861) — 8/16/2009 @ 8:23 amWithout death panels, Obamacare is Fail. The CBO says as much. Live old people are bloody spensive. Dead old people are cheap cheap cheap and there’s not an old person in our little country what isn’t very very very aware of this.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 8/16/2009 @ 8:43 amgrandma dead at 86 after a comfortable life is “anguishing” if you’re 8 years old
this hood rat is juvenile and sleazey how he pimps his dead grandma
happyfeet (71f55e) — 8/16/2009 @ 8:47 am[…] at Patterico’s Pontifications, DRJ wonders who is actually the […]
Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove (368bcc) — 8/16/2009 @ 9:11 am#14 JD:
I am minded of this S. Weasel classic from the campaign season:
Cold. Hungry. On Foot.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 8/16/2009 @ 9:13 amI hate super cache
JD (7d2b58) — 8/16/2009 @ 9:23 amObama is demagoguing pretty well in his N.T. Times Op Ed piece this morning:
“Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition. The companies either refused to cover the person, refused to cover a specific illness or condition or charged a higher premium.”
Obama creates a lot of misperceptions with screeds like this. Americans already have a myriad of basic consumer protections related to insurance provided by their state insurance commissioners and regulations, but Obama just doesn’t happen to like them and wants to change them. Isn’t the honest thing to come right out and say so rather than demagoguing the issue.
Obama uses the word “discriminate,” which has a pejorative connotation, when a more appropriate word might have been “differentiate.” He does not say insurance companies are doing anything illegal and in fact if they were, they would be fined, prosecuted, etc. by their respective states and regulators. Insurances companies get paid to assume risks and differentiating among risks is one of the jobs they perform. One of the dirty little secrets which Obama does not like to talk about his proposal is that the guaranteed issue and community rating aspects of it will raise rates for everyone because it will remove the ability of insurance companies to differentiate between risks so they must charge higher rates to everyone to compensate. If he were being honest, he would just say he doesn’t like the existing regulatory structure and wants to change it rather than demagoguing those operating within its framework as if they were breaking the law.
He seems to have a major problem with insurance companies earning profits since this has been echoed in a number of his public speeches. Having a public option leading to a takeover of the industry will allow him to eliminate that problem, but he is not honest enough to admit it.
daleyrocks (718861) — 8/16/2009 @ 10:26 amThe AMA president was on message this morning on Fox calling pregnancy a “pre-existing condition” that caused some woman to be denied insurance. That is really pitiful. The vanishing AMA is in good hands. I would also turn down the guy who was applying for fire insurance as his house was burning. Do these people think ?
Mike K (addb13) — 8/16/2009 @ 11:16 amDemagoguing has officially failed. Obama just threw the public option under the bus.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 8/16/2009 @ 11:32 am[…] Pontification co-blogger DRJ took the time to actually look up the definition of “demagogue,” and found it to be quite ironic: A leader who obtains power by means of […]
Words matter… « Cadillac Tight (725c82) — 8/16/2009 @ 11:32 am“I just lost my grandmother last year.”
Wasn’t that the same woman you characterized last year as being a “typical white person,” as being racist because she had some of the same hesitancies as described by, uh, Jesse Jackson, who mentioned being more skittish when seeing a black guy — instead of presumably a white or black woman, or presumably a generic-looking white guy, or presumably a nicely dressed black guy — coming towards him on the sidewalk?
I thought since you threw granny under the bus during your campaign last year, you’d be too embarrassed to ever evoke her name again. Then again, one needs to have a sense of shame (and integrity, and honesty) to also feel a sense of embarrassment.
Mark (411533) — 8/16/2009 @ 11:37 amThat bus has a two way chute for reviving needed metaphors from time to time.
I highly recommend this post from a medical blog that does a good job with the issues of HR 3200 and its ambiguities, including death panels.
MIke K (addb13) — 8/16/2009 @ 11:40 am“Barack Obama, demagogue.”
Welcome to the party, DRJ.
AD - RtR/OS! (4404ef) — 8/16/2009 @ 11:49 amBetter late than never.
Insurance:”…Obama just doesn’t happen to like them and wants to change them…”
What he wants to do is to pull all regulatory function (and not just for insurance) from the States and centralize it within the Executive Branch in DC…
AD - RtR/OS! (4404ef) — 8/16/2009 @ 12:01 pmIt is what Corporate Socialists (Fascists) do!
Even Barcky cannot ruin my Sunday afternoon watching El Tigre win his 15th Major with my girls.
Racists
JD (5adcdb) — 8/16/2009 @ 12:19 pmI loved her stuff from that “era”. Simply priceless.
And now, she is at the mercy of the NHS… I pray for her. 🙂
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 8/16/2009 @ 12:22 pmSo what we have here is someone liberals view as a demigod demagoguing health care overhaul.
daleyrocks (718861) — 8/16/2009 @ 12:29 pmIt was interesting watching Conrad admit that the opposition to this plan has seeped into the elitist echo chamber. Even the witless Beltway cocktail partygoer, Krautheimer, had to recant his view that the protests weren’t helping defeat Obama’s posse.
At least this demonstrates he can learn at about the same rate as Conrad, which places him well down on the national average.
Thomas Jackson (8ffd46) — 8/16/2009 @ 1:52 pmJD, he had better make a couple of those putts or Yang will have his Ying.
MIke K (addb13) — 8/16/2009 @ 2:02 pmA leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace. Hmmmmm. That’s more aptly applied to the likes of Boss Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and of late, Glenn Beck, than the President of the United States, who was elected to office by ballot.
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 8/16/2009 @ 2:15 pmMike K., there seems to be absolutely no understanding of the basics of how insurance works.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/16/2009 @ 2:18 pmDCSCA, nothing about your obsession over Rush Limbaugh is ever “aptly applied”. Grow up and get over it. None of those you list have “power”, they are not in office.
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/16/2009 @ 2:19 pmdcsa, do you have ears? do you pay attention to what you hear? obama is nothing but empty noise. that’s how he got elected – he sounds good to the uninformed and stupid.
if i were you, i’d be embarrassed.
ktr (aa525a) — 8/16/2009 @ 4:10 pmJD, I told you about Yang.
Insurance companies and big drug companies will be trashed for the next three months or so. It really helps to be reading the history of the French Revolution while Obama’s administration is organizing itself. To the sans cullotes, the “rich” were the villains devising famine conspiracies and finally, when the country was going broke in 1793, they proposed funding the Revolution by taxing the rich who were obviously evil. Anyone who had more than 2,000 livres per year was to have the rest confiscated. Does anyone else see the similarity ?
MIke K (addb13) — 8/16/2009 @ 4:15 pmGlenn Reynolds had the defining bon mot, in my opinion with: “We have always been at war with
SPQR (26be8b) — 8/16/2009 @ 4:57 pmEastAsiaObama’s grandmother.[…] American College of Surgeons’ attempt at getting the facts out, so never mind. Obama is busy demagoguing his dead, typical white person grandmother and insurance […]
‘I’m not a doctor …’ [Darleen Click] (38c333) — 8/17/2009 @ 2:00 am