Post-Summit Stuff

Ronald Reagan would have been proud of congressional Republicans yesterday.  The healthcare summit was a draw according to MSNBC, which means the Republicans won, and won big.

Some thoughts, in no particular order:

• The President was petulant, condescending and tense.  His idea of "bi-partisanship" appears to be to tell any given Republican who was speaking "those are all good points", and then to immediately dismiss them and move on.  He diminished his office by playing emcee to the room, and made himself look a little silly by singlehandedly talking longer than all the Democrats combined, and all the Republicans combined.
• The comparisons of President Obama to Ronald Reagan as a "Great Communicator" need to end, and end now.  Obama is very literate, and speaks well.  Reagan was a little less smooth as a speaker, but he was convincing whenever he spoke, and able to persuade others to his point of view.  Obama has zero ability to convince others, which is why he fails whenever he tries.  From last year's trips to Copenhagen to try to win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, to try to get a deal on global warming, to his campaigning for Democrat candidates in races in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts, Obama is on a losing streak of epic proportions in terms of personal persuasion.  He may be a great talker, but he is far from being a great communicator.
• Harry Reid looked as if he was chewing on a lemon and had a grassburr in the seat of his pants all day.  But then, that's pretty much how he always looks.  Nancy Pelosi is a worthless, lying sack of horse dung, and I literally celebrate every time her party is stupid enough to put her in front of television cameras.
• The Republicans, much to my surprise, showed up well-prepared with factual information and real ideas for real reforms that would actually improve healthcare delivery in the U.S. while lowering costs.  Naturally, each and every one of those ideas were rejected out of hand by the President and the other Democrats in the room, given that their goal here is to create a new, massive dependent class of Americans, not to in any way improve the system.
• Paul Ryan was especially impressive, easily the most serious and best-prepared person in the room.  His critique of the budgetary shenanigans contained in the Democrat plan were utterly understandable to the average person and thus devastating to the Democrat cause.
• It didn't hurt anything at all that the Rs were also able to bring real medical doctors to the table in the form of Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.  These two guys debating nitwits like Turban Durbin and San Fran Nan just is not a fair fight.
• The sad thing about all of this is that there really is a need for real, good faith reforms in the U.S. system of healthcare delivery.  Unfortunately, such reforms cannot happen at the federal level so long as radical leftist ideologues occupy the White House and the majority in congress.  And so we are left with the current stalemate.  Any real reforms must continue to happen at the state level on a piecemeal basis.  Obamacare is dead - Democrats will not be able to force the monstrosity through on a "reconciliation" strategy.

It is dead.  RIP.

Have a great Friday.

Some Stuff To Consider

The latest Rasmussen survey  on the Texas gubernatorial race shows incumbent Rick Perry running away from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison by a 48-27 margin.  9/11 truther candidate Debra Medina has slipped since her revelation on the Glenn Beck Radio Program a couple of weeks ago, now coming in at 16%.  This is too bad, since for a while there she was providing some actual suspense in this race, with everyone wondering if Sen. Hutchison could manage to even finish second after the horrid and ridiculously stupid campaign she has run.

Disclaimer:  I have long been a fan of Sen. Hutchison for a variety of reasons I will not go into here.  But I have lost pretty much all respect for her and the morons who are running her campaign after the nit-witted campaign she has presented to Texans this year.  In fact, I really find myself at this point rooting for Medina to make a comeback and edge her out for second place.

Seriously, Sen. Hutchison has for the last few weeks been running radio ads featuring a guy with a folksy Texas drawl (I think it's the guy who does the Whataburger commercials) complaining about Gov. Perry's "fancy roadside parks".  I swear I am not making this up - Sen. Hutchison and her campaign's "brain trust" (Pictured at the beginning of this piece) think they're going to defeat a 10-year incumbent Governor who has never in his life lost a race for elected office by complaining about roadside parks.

In light of all of that, no magnitide of defeat will be too much for Sen. Hutchison to suffer in this election.  She gets what she deserves.

Elsewhere, the news is all about today's Healthcare Summit, at which President Obama will get a 3 hour photo-op while ignoring any suggestions for real, sensible reform offered by the Republicans who are stupid enough to actually show up.

George Will  has a very nice op-ed piece about it all today.  His opening paragraph is right on point:

Today's health policy "summit" comes at a moment when, as happens with metronomic regularity, Washington is reverberating with lamentations about government being "broken." Such talk occurs only when the left's agenda is stalled. Do you remember mournful editorials and somber seminars about "dysfunctional" government when liberals defeated George W. Bush's Social Security reforms?

Meanwhile, our favorite simpering half-wit com-symp op/ed writer, E.J. Dionne apparently woke up yesterday and realized that the liberals are in the process of losing a large swath of young people exactly as they did in the 1980s.  This comes as a surprise only to E.J.  Pity him an his existence.

I love this story , in a tragic sort of way.  So let me get this straight:  a killer whale has already killed two people, and we're somehow supposed to be surprised when it kills a third?  In a sane world, this whale would have long ago either been put out to sea or put down.  Instead, our frivolous, simpleton-minded society somehow believes the beast is just misunderstood, and should be protected.  Even this woman's own sister is quoted as saying the victim “would not want anything done to that whale” because she loved the animals like children.

Well, guess what, sis?  Killer Whales aren't children, and they're called "killer" whales for a reason.

Idiot.

Have a great Thursday.