Columnist.
The question of whether President Obama should send more troops to Afghanistan misses the point. What Obama really needs to do is: Invent a time machine, go back to the 2008 presidential campaign and not say, over and over and over again, that Afghanistan was a "war of necessity" while the war in Iraq was a "war of choice." (Oh, and as long as you're back there, ditch Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett and that gay "school safety" czar.) The most important part of warfare is picking your battlefield, and President Bush picked Iraq for a reason.
(18) America's lower life expectancy compared to countries with socialist health care proves that their medical systems are superior. President Obama has too much intellectual pride to make such a specious argument, so instead we have to keep hearing it from his half-wit supporters. These Democrats are all over the map on where precisely Americans place in the life-expectancy rankings. We're 24th, according to Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Barbara Boxer; 42nd, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell; 35th, according to Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson; and 47th, according to Rep. Dennis Kucinich. So the U.S. may have less of a "life expectancy" problem than a "Democratic math competency" problem.
(17) America's low ranking on international comparisons of infant mortality proves other countries' socialist health care systems are better than ours. America has had a comparatively high infant mortality rate since we've been measuring these things, going back to at least the '20s. This was the case long before European countries adopted their cradle-to-grave welfare schemes and all while the U.S. was the wealthiest country on Earth. One factor contributing to the U.S.'s infant mortality rate is that blacks have intractably high infant mortality rates -- irrespective of age, education, socioeconomic status and so on. No one knows why.
(15) Democrats lost Congress in 1994 because President Clinton failed to pass national health care. I'm not sure if this is another example of the left's wishful-thinking method of analysis or if they're seriously trying to trick the Blue Dog Democrats into believing it. But I gather liberals consider the 1994 argument an important point because it was on the front page of The New York Times a few weeks ago in place of a story about Van Jones or ACORN. According to a news story by Jackie Calmes: "In 1994, Democrats' dysfunction over fulfilling a new president's campaign promise contributed to the party's loss of its 40-year dominance of Congress." That's not the way I remember it. The way I remember it, Republicans swept Congress in 1994 not because Clinton failed to nationalize health care, but because he tried to nationalize health care. HillaryCare failed because most Americans didn't want it. (For more on this, see "ObamaCare.")
Bonus Joe Wilson Edition!
(12) Only national health care can provide "coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job" -- as Obama said in a New York Times op-ed. This is obviously a matter of great importance to all Americans, because, with Obama's economic policies, none of us may have jobs by year's end. The only reason you can't keep -- or often obtain -- health insurance if you move or lose your job now is because of ... government intrusion into the free market. You will notice that if you move or lose your job, you can obtain car and home insurance, hairdressers, baby sitters, dog walkers, computer technicians, cars, houses, food and every other product and service not heavily regulated by the government. (Although it does become a bit harder to obtain free office supplies.)
(9) If you like Medicare, you'll love national health care, which will just extend Medicare's benefits to everyone. Hey -- I have an idea: How about we make everyone in America a multimillionaire by pulling Bernie Madoff out of prison and asking him to invest all our money! Both Medicare and Bernie Madoff's investment portfolio are bankrupt because they operate on a similar financial model known as a "Ponzi scheme." These always seem to run fabulously well -- until the money runs out.
Second in a Series (Collect All 10!)
First in a Series
Just as the left pioneered "AstroTurf" protesters -- homeless people lured to demonstrations with the offer of a free T-shirt and a box lunch -- liberals have also specialized in producing fake "insiders" denouncing their alleged group. There were the "winter soldiers" -- fake Vietnam veterans claiming to have personally disemboweled babies in Vietnam. It took 30 years and the publication of the book "Stolen Valor" to establish that the bulk of them were utter frauds who had never seen combat -- some had never seen Vietnam. (Shockingly, to this day, the Wikipedia entry on the winter soldiers treats their phony war records as legitimate.)
