Another Boring Presidential Speech Enlivened by a Shouted Truth

I didn’t get to watch the President’s speech tonight, so I missed the fireworks. But I’ll get to that in a minute. From what I can tell, the President gave his usual good speech full of the usual platitudes, laugh lines (well, laugh lines for those of us who are willing to admit he’s talking through his hat, like when he says his plan won’t add a dime to the deficit), and pleas for bipartisanship mixed with nasty shots at his opponents. The left applauded like trained seals, the right harrumphed, and, if he’s lucky, the polls will shift in his favor a couple points.

I don’t really know what the President expected to accomplish tonight, but it seems like giving a speech before a joint session of Congress was overkill.

The transcript for his remarks is here. The Republican rebuttal from a real, honest to goodness doctor is here.

You could save yourself a lot of time if you read Dan Collins summary of the speech, or Allah’s post wherein he goes upside the President’s head with a rhetorical two-by-four.

“Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing,” says the guy who’s committed to doing nothing about social security, Medicare, and the mind-bogglingly enormous deficits that promise fiscal catastrophe in the years ahead while he saddles America with yet another red-ink-bleeding government program. Note well: He’s actually promoting a plan that will lead to health-care rationing as a way to prolong Americans’ lives. We’re living your dream, Orwell.

I’ll go back over the speech myself over the next couple of days. I’m sure there’s be good blogging fodder in it.

Now, about those fireworks. What apparently happened is that Representative Joe Wilsom (R-Awesomeville), overcome by hearing just one too many myths from our Tale-Teller-in-Chief, jumped up when the President claimed, falsely, that his plan would not cover illegal immigrants, and shouted “You lie!”. He later apologized, but not after being raked over the coals by a few Democrats and Captain Bipartisan, John McCain.

My guess right now is that quite a few Republicans would vote for Joe Wilson if he announced he was running for President in 2012. I’m sure his outburst was a breach of all manner of government protocols, and it was definitely a most partisan display but I can’t bring myself to get all het up about it. It’s about time someone called the President out for his rank partisanship (and the baldfaced myths he’s been spreading about health care and the people who oppose his government takeover plan). The GOP has been notably absent from the health care debate the past month. Perhaps this is the spark that gets them back in the game.

Now, a few links:

Byron York noticed that the President has abandoned the “47 million can’t get health care” canard. Glenn Reynolds, after quoting York, says, “If we keep going at this rate, we’ll have eliminated the uninsured entirely by sometime next spring.” Heh.

Smitty has a good roundup, ties the speech into to opening weekend of the NFL, and makes very sure we are clear on the President’s intentions from here onward. Good work, man!

Carolyn Tackett, who has never been in favor of Obamacare, now has a bit more skin in the game than most of us. However, she’s not swayed by the President’s Unicorn and Moonbeam fantasies. Read her whole post.

Tags: National Health Care, President Barack Obama, Rep. Joe Wilson