Michael Steele confuses, humiliates himself (again)
Clueless: RNC Chair Michael Steele
It’s no fun ridiculing Michael Steele when he does such a thorough job of it himself. This time, he stumbles on NPR, where anchor Steve Inskeep befuddled the screwball RNC chair over contradictions between his so-called “Seniors Bill of Rights” — barring cuts to Medicare, and his tooootaly genuine, “conservative” opposition to public health programs … like Medicare. The idea was floated in Steele’s recent WaPo op-ed, which was laughable for lots of reasons, the notion that Medicare sucks so we must preserve it exactly the way it is because it’s so great, but not great enough to duplicate for the rest of us, being just one of them. Listen as Steele becomes agitated when the contradictions in his ever-evolving position are pointed out:
Meanwhile, the wingers are for the duplicity, but worried about the long term:
Actually, I think the fact that the head of the RNC’s been reduced to taking this position at all proves the necessity of stopping ObamaCare now, even if it means a Faustian bargain. Such is the British dependency on universal health care that even Tory leader David Cameron is forced to regularly reassure Britons that conservatives “support the NHS 100%.” We’ll be hearing the same thing — or worse — from Republican presidential candidates about ObamaCare within a decade if America chokes down this crap sandwich. Do what you have to do to hold the line.
And that, my friends, is the real point of all this. Republicans fear what LBJ knew when he told the Democratic Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, Wilbur Mills, in 1964 regarding Medicare that “there is not anything that has happened in my six months, or that will happen in my whole term, in my judgment, that will mean more to us as a party, or me or you as individuals than this piece of legislation.” Wingers fear, not that Americans will hate universal healthcare, but they will like and come to depend on it, and that it will become an untouchable for “drown the government in a bathtub” conservatives … just like Medicare.
For history junkies: Read up on the fascinating history of how Lyndon Johnson got Medicare passed, here.
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What a putz. The GOP deserves him.