In Praise of Joe Wilson

Liberals are acting all righteous and offended that a member of the
Republican opposition, Rep. "Joe" Wilson of South Carolina, would deign
to besmirch the "dignity of the presidency" by calling out "Liar!" in
the middle of President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress
on Wednesday evening.

But what's wrong with that? Whatever the veracity of Obama's claim
that his proposed health care "reform" would not pay for the health
care of illegal immigrants residing in the US (and one can only hope
that statement was fatuous, because at a minimum we would certainly
want the government to pay for the care of an illegal immigrant in
childbirth, or of an illegal immigrant who came down with a contagious
disease), and even if Rep. Wilson is a racist bozo who wrongly thinks
or wants to imply that Obama's plan would be out there enrolling
undocumented workers in the millions at taxpayer expense, why shouldn't
members of Congress call out a president if they think he's lying to
them from the podium?

One of the big problems with American democracy is that the
presidency has over the years been elevated to the level of a monarchy,
with all the imperial trappings and pomposity formerly associated with
royalty. Presidents surely should get no more respect than a prime
minister, and look at the hoots and catcalls PMs have to endure when
they address Parliament in the UK. That's a good thing.

Anyhow, it would have been far better if, instead of clapping
wildly, liberal Democrats in Congress had hooted down some of the other
whoppers and stretchers told by the president in his health care
address.

Among them:

1. First and foremost, Obama's claim that he was "determined to be
the last" president to have to deal with health care reform and that he
didn't want to "kick the can" down the street for a future
administration to deal with. In fact, that is just what he did with his
proposal, which has left the basic untenable system of
employee-financed healthcare in place, and which has left the private
insurance industry in control of who gets treatment and how much they
will have to pay for it. It's a sure bet that before very long-perhaps
in just four more years-another president will face the same crisis. A
boisterous cat-call of "Can Kicker!" here would have been in order.

2. Obama said that "nothing else even comes close" to health care
expenditures in terms of causing the federal deficit. In fact,
something does---the military budget-but that topic is off limits for
both Republicans and Democrats. Why couldn't Wisconsin Sen. Russ
Feingold have yelled out, "What about military spending!"

3. Perhaps one of the biggest lies of the night was the president's
claim that while there are "arguments to be made" for single-payer
systems like Canada's, switching to single-payer in the US would
require building "an entirely new system from scratch." The truth:
Medicare is already a successful single-payer system and in fact, it is bigger and older
than Canada's own nation-wide system. Expanding it to cover every
American would not be starting from scratch at all. It would be
expanding something already proven. Where were the shouts of "What
about Medicare!" from Rep. John Conyers (and his dozens of cosponsors),
whose bill, HR 676, to expand Medicare to all has been barred from
getting even a hearing by the House leadership with encouragement from
the White House?

4. The president insisted that insurance executives don't
"cherry-pick" profitable customers and push out those who are sickest,
because they are "bad people." He said they are just doing it because
it's profitable. It would have been nice if at least someone in the
assembled throng of lobbiest-enthralled House and Senate members had
shouted out something like "Just like bank robbers and drug dealers!"
because the truth is that health insurance executives are bad people. They know
that they are killing people every day through their ruthless policies,
and they go right ahead and do it. Pursuit of profit does not, or at
least should not, constitute a license to kill. (Just imagine a hit
man, at his sentencing hearing, telling the judge, "I'm not a bad
person, Your Honor. I just knock people off because it's profitable.")

5. The president said he was "not trying to put the insurance
industry out of business," and added, "They provide a legitimate
service." This line, not surprisingly, given the amount of money that
industry has lavished on members of Congress and on the president
himself, got what was probably the loudest bi-partisan applause of the
night. But it surely led to a lot of groans and of coffee, tea or beer
being spewed out involuntarily across carpets and upholstery in homes
across America. Legitimate service? Insurance firms are nothing but
vampires, or better, leeches on the health care system. They provide no
service. Ask doctors, who have to fight to get permission to treat
patients, and then fight to get reimbursed. Ask patients, who spend
hours on the phone arguing with faceless drones, some probably in
Bangalor or Manila, who are denying them coverage for needed medicines
or procedures that are supposed to be covered. Listen to the testimony
of whistle-blowers who have confirmed that those drones actually get
paid bonuses based upon the number of claims they manage to deny. How
satisfying it would have been if someone in Congress had yelled out,
"Legitimate service my ass!"

6. Turning to the pathetically circumscribed and downsized "public
option" in his "reform" plan, Obama declared that "a strong majority of
Americans still favor a public insurance option." Well that may be
true, but it's not the whole truth. It would have been a
great moment for Kucinich or Conyers or some other progressive member
of Congress to shout out: "A majority also favors a single-payer plan!"

7. And where the defenders of women's rights, when Obama vowed that
under his plan, "no federal funds would be used to fund abortions?"
Couldn't someone have shouted out, "Women have rights too!" Is the
president really saying that if a woman is raped, or a child gets
pregnant through incest, or if a woman's life is at risk because of a
pregnancy, that his public plan will not pay for her to obtain an
abortion? Cries of "For shame!" should have been ringing through the
hall!

8. Finally the president said that one reason the nation has such
record deficits is that during the prior administration, so many
initiatives, "including the Iraq War," were set in motion but "not paid
for," and he vowed, "I will not make that same mistake with health
care." But he is doing the same thing with supplemental war funding
requests for his war in Afghanistan, and with the continued war and
occupation in Iraq, and someone should have called him on that.
Besides, there's no way that the program he is proposing will be paid
for by current funding. It will add to the deficit and he should have
the courage to admit it, or to call for more taxes on the wealthy to
pay for it. A lusty "Tax the rich!" cry in unison from the progressive
caucus would have been appreciated by viewers.

Whack-job or not, Rep. Wilson did the cause of democracy and honest
discourse a favor when, faced with a statement he felt was clearly
false, he found he couldn't repress the urge to call the president a
"liar." In doing so, he put a much-needed ding in the wholly
inappropriate and dangerous imperial aura of "respect" that has grown
like lichens around the office of President. No more than anyone else
in this nation, a president should have to earn the respect not just of
the members of Congress, but of the broader public. He or she is
another citizen, no more and no less, and when a president, like
President Obama in this instance, dissembles, exaggerates or attempts
to deceive or mislead, it is healthy for democracy if he is called out
on it immediately and publicly.

We need more honesty in Washington, not more civility.