World-class Fakery on Show
TIM BLAIR
The Daily Telegraph
December 16, 2013
A RIDICULOUS and under-qualified faker took to the stage last week during Nelson Mandela's memorial service. And next to Barack Obama was some guy who hasn't quite mastered sign language.
Thamsanqa Jantjie's erratic performance has drawn international ridicule, but all he really did was turn the failed president's words into a disappointing jumble of incomprehensible nonsense. As is now apparent, Obama is quite capable of achieving this by himself.
Many Australians were puzzled by American resistance to Obama's universal healthcare plan, back when it was first proposed in 2008. They couldn't understand why the US would not embrace an Australian-style system of health coverage. One reason is that the system in the US was proposed by Obama and his hopeless administration. If you thought Labor's attempts in Australia to install home insulation and run grocery price websites were lame, they have nothing on Obama's bid to reshape the massive US health sector.
Just as Labor did in Australia, Obama initially enjoyed near-universal media support. The allegedly impartial fact-checking site PolitiFact backed Obama five years ago for this claim: "No.1, let me just repeat, if you've got a healthcare plan that you like you can keep it. All I'm going to do is help you lower the premiums on it. You'll still have choice of doctor." According to PolitiFact: "His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True."
Leave aside the puzzling move of judging a political promise in the absence of any action, and move ahead to this year. Millions of Americans have lost their existing health coverage. Millions find themselves waiting for months to see doctors they don't know. PolitiFact now reports:
"As cancellation letters were going out to about four million Americans, the public realised Obama's breezy assurances were wrong … for all of these reasons, PolitiFact named 'If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it,' the Lie of the Year for 2013."
I'm not sure how to indicate "lie" in sign language, but one way might be to simply point at Barack Obama's mouth. A pro tip there for Mr Jantjie, the next time he's called up for top-level hand-waving duty.
Former Obama fans, who credited their hero with almost mystical powers when first elected, now realise the man's limitations. As Jantjie is to communicating with the deaf, Obama is to the US presidency. Even Obama's core constituency of wealthy New York luvvies is cutting him loose. Last week the New York Times, the most Obama-enthralled of all US publications, ran the most hilarious news item of the year, beginning with a paragraph for the ages:
"Many in New York's professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama's healthcare plan. But now, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning their health insurance plans are being cancelled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it." Thousands of opera singers! As the internet's Dave Burge responded: "One would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh one's ass off." Except, of course, for the dire chances of successful ass replacement surgery under Obamacare.
The Times continued: "It is not lost on many of the professionals that they are exactly the sort of people - liberal, concerned with social justice - who supported the Obama health plan in the first place. Ms Meinwald, the lawyer, said she was a lifelong Democrat who still supported better healthcare for all, but had she known what was in store for her, she would have voted for Mitt Romney."
Americans voted for hope and change. They got hopeless change. In any language, that message comes through loud and clear.
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