First Conservative Blog

Jump the Shark episode of the Obama Show – Obama in Reruns

In a highly anticipated speech on health care reform, the President addressed a joint session of the US Congress last evening to say – well – not much new.  Although he threw a bone to conservatives about being open to Tort Reform, most other content was already delivered.  And it was delivered in 23 previous installments of the same Obama show.

Other things went according to expectation as well.  Senior White House advisor David Axelrod spent most of his evening demonizing those who opposed the President’s takeover plan – especially Karl Rove and other Republicans.  This was certainly the sort of bipartisanship that the President espouses.  But…Axelrod was only following the President’s lead in demonizing adversaries. 

The only GOPer to “call the President out” was South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson who reacted to an obvious mis-statement by the President that the proposed Health Care legislation was not intended to provide coverage to illegal aliens.  “You Lie!” was Wilson’s honest appraisal – delivered loudly on national television.  It seems that the President conveniently neglected to note that all language Republicans proposed to prevent illegal aliens from claiming health care coverage at taxpayer expense has been stripped out of all bills by the Democrat majority.  The Democrat’s obvious intent is to cover illegal aliens with taxpayer funded health insurance while at the same time encouraging them to violate federal law and vote in the next election.    In any event, despite the outburst, Wilson and the Republicans were far better behaved than Democrats watching a State of the Union speech by George W. Bush. 

The fact remains though, that there were few facts to go with this speech.  Americans have heard it all before.  It will be curious as to whether voters like the Obamacare plan any more after the speech than they did before.  As Democrats learned the hard way in August, details matter.  When Obama says that there will be no rationing of health care, reasonable people (anyone who read the bills) look at the legislation and conclude otherwise.  For the Prez to once again come out and say that there will be no rationing of care, service to illegal aliens (a fact so eloquently noted by Congressman Wilson) will not be provided and that the thing can be paid for mostly with Medicare savings, His credibility slides.  And although He gave his usual great theatrical performance, it is time to put this show into syndication for late nights on the TVLand channel.  The thrill is gone.

Obama has given 23 speeches on Health Care – each essentially the same.  Why did He think this one would produce a different result?  So just like Gilligan’s Island, Happy Days, Seinfeld and Cheers, the Obama show has lost its ability to attract new viewers.  Obama has in effect – “Jumped the Shark.”  In a painful reference to an awful episode of Happy Days where Fonzi jumped over a pool of sharks on water skis – signaling the end of anything new and interesting on the program, it is time for Team Obama to pull the plug on the speeches, substance-free theatrics and childish attempts to appear friendly to conservatives.  The jig is up and it is time for the Prez to get the hook. 

So in the interest of better entertainment, here is a look at the top issues of which the country has heard enough.

Medicare Savings – Government simply NEVER finds efficiencies or savings.  Period.  Governmental officers that promise such savings usually wind up finding none and add to the problem by adding in their salaries.   When Jerry Seinfeld set out to create a show about ‘nothing,’ he succeeded.  Unfortunately, Mr. Obama is going to find ‘nothing’ in Medicare savings because the program is essentially bankrupt right now!  Guess who would get the bill?

Illegal Aliens – Recalling the Gilligan’s Island episode where stunt flyer Wrong Way Riteman (or whatever his name was) landed on the island in his plane and promised to get the castaways off without actually intending to,  Obama should acknowledge that He has no intent to work with any conservative ideas.  Should all the illegal aliens start to claim health insurance under His proposal, they would receive it.  Obama would just say that He is following the law – the law which stripped out any enforcement measures to ensure that illegal aliens were not provided free services at taxpayer expense.   Wrong Way Obama has promised to get the taxpayers off this island, but He has little intent of following through.

Death Panels – Demonizing Sarah Palin for this will of course backfire.  There are in fact rationing boards in the Obama plan that will decide under what circumstances certain procedures will be allowed.  These are the actual death panels which will remove ‘freedom of choice’ from each Senior citizen’s set of options as she/he nears end of life.  If a government panel decrees that certain treatments are outside the approved protocol, the patient will not receive it.  This has been the case for EVERY nation that has national health care.  This one is too serious to make fun of.

Cost – In a famous episode of Happy Days (prior to Jumping the Shark), Richie drinks too much beer at a party and tries to take his pants off without removing his shoes.  Mr. Cunningham tells Richie that when he was a boy, they took their shoes off first before removing the pants.  Richie responds that “Oh Dad!  Things are different today!”  Obama Cunningham believes that things are indeed different today and that somehow the laws of economics – proven through the decades – don’t apply to Him or His policies.  Perhaps the Prez needs to take off his shoes like everyone else.  There cannot possibly be any cost savings from Medicare – a program which is now essentially broke and needs significant taxpayer subsidies already to meet its commitments.

Keep your Doctor – Who in their right mind would practice medicine and endure constant threats from ambulance chasing (Democrat supporting) lawyers – only to be supervised by a government bureaucrat?  Cheers featured a cast of folks whose career was serving beer to semi-over imbibed patrons.  These are the folks that would become doctors under the Obamacare plan.  Obama can’t seem to understand that His plan will drive private insurance out of business – or – that is His intent and He is simply being untruthful about his position.  During the speech, Obama noted that businesses failing to provide health insurance would be required to “chip in” to cover the cost of providing workers with health coverage in the national plan.  This “chip in” scheme is priced at 8% of payroll costs.  Most companies already pay upwards of 15%, so all the math wiz kids out there in Democrat land have concluded that companies will dump private coverage at 15% in favor of an 8% cost.  In addition to that, companies would save huge amounts in administrative overhead by dumping their workers onto the public plan.  Be clear… you will almost certainly NOT be able to keep your doctor or your insurance plan.  They won’t survive Obamacare.

In all, the Obama speech was uniquely unpersuasive and it was just plain boring – and old – and tiresome – and whining – and repetitive.  These are all indications that the Obama Show has indeed “Jumped the Shark.”  The great speech giver has worn out his teleprompter and has worn out the interest level of most viewers.  After ‘Jumping the Shark,” most programs never recover the level of interest required to be a continuing success.  Obama may go on to star in reruns, but only committed Democrats will watch.