Leftists Are Losing the Healthcare Debate Because They Don't Want to Talk About Healthcare

All anybody remembers from the President's July healthcare press conference is that it was a boring retread of his previous statements and that he said the Cambridge police acted stupidly about five breaths after admitting he didn't know the facts. All anybody will remember from the President's healthcare address to Congress this week is that Rep. Joe Wilson stood up and called a lie a lie.

And the Left is in no hurry to change it. In the past thirty-six hours, Lefty commentators have spent almost no time explaining the President's "new", "compromise" plan. Instead, they are busy talking about Wilson's lack of decorum, his NoDoze pills, and now—quelle horreur!—his "dirty little healthcare secret:"

His former employer provides him healthcare for life! Of course, his former employer is the U.S. Armed Forces. And his "brood"—that would be his four sons serving in the military—are also getting healthcare through their employer!!!

Somehow, in the feeble, itsy little gray matter that still exists among Leftists, this is a shocking and damning fact. For anyone not an idiot, it's laughable:

[I]t’s patently absurd to argue that, because your employer is providing benefits to you in exchange for your labor — let alone the very real danger of being sent to war for years on end, risking life and limb — that you’re a hypocrite if you oppose having the taxpayer provide them to everybody. Let alone to people who aren’t even citizens!

I’m only slightly less annoyed by the related trope that Congressmen who won’t vote to extend free health care to all citizens should give up their own taxpayer-provided benefits. Our health care system has evolved as one where employers provide benefits for their workers. For government workers — be they military personnel, file clerks at the Commerce Department, or Members of Congress — their employer is the United States taxpayer. It simply doesn’t follow that taking the benefits agreed to as a condition of employment requires extending said benefits to non-employees.

Why is the Left so focused on Wilson? Well, it's not like they can talk about the content of the President's speech. The fact is, he lied. A lot. He also scare-mongered ("If we don't act, more will die.") minutes after chiding Sarah Palin for scaring people with her talk of death panels.

So part of it is that they've nothing else to talk about. The other part is something innate to Leftism. They hate. A lot. We saw that with Miss California, who holds the same views on marriage as the President. We saw that with Joe the Plumber, who merely asked a question.

Leftists are not happy unless they're hating on someone. They'd prefer big names—George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney—but they'll settle for lesser lights, too. And they'd rather throw a hissy and let us all know just what they feel about something than explain what they think about it.

That's why the numbers keep dropping on Obamacare. The numbers started out pretty high. People were willing to give the President a little lee-way to see where he was going. But the Left's collective inability to explain why they are correct and why their opponents are not has seen the numbers collapse.

Calling names—"terrorist" and "un-American" and "fear-monger" and "racist"—isn't persuading anyone. It's just making the Left look even worse. And it's causing opponents to harden their resolve.

Now, they're going after Joe Wilson for caffeine pills, caffeine pills! And for his military service and the service of his sons.

Oh. Puleeze.

Leftists like to think of themselves as "cool." This is not cool. This is freakin' lame. The Left is lame.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 11:17 AM

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