Garbanzo Toons

The Politics of Fear

Hasn't it been the Republicans, over the 8 years of the Bush administration who were accused of using the "politics of fear" to maintain control over the American people? We were warned about scary terrorist guys who were out to murder us and our children. How silly.

It's certainly a good thing that nice Obama fellow came along to save us from the politics of fear. He's out warning us about real dangers to our lives, like the absence of socialized medicine in the United States.

President Barack Obama asked skeptical doctors Monday to get behind an overhaul of the nation's health care system, declaring it a "ticking time bomb" for the budget that could force America to "go the way of GM."

Ooooh, that's scary! But,

The difficulty of his task was evident when he said he's against capping awards in malpractice lawsuits, a top priority for doctors, and earned a smattering of boos — a remarkable public response to a popular president accustomed to cheering audiences.

Gasp! What? Obama booed? Horrors! Those greedy doctors, those profiteers, those kulaks just don't know what's good for them. Of course, our Dear Leader, Hussein Obama struck back forcefully,

Flying to his hometown to speak at the annual meeting here of the American Medical Association, Obama struck back forcefully at those speaking out against his efforts to reshape the health care delivery system to bring skyrocketing health care costs under control and expand coverage to the millions of uninsured.

He had his sharpest rhetoric yet for critics, calling them "naysayers," "fear-mongers" and peddlers of "Trojan horse" falsehoods who should be ignored. He warned interest groups and lobbyists not to use "fear tactics to paint any effort to achieve reform as an attempt to socialize medicine."

"There are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what," Obama said.

If you read the rest of the article, you notice (or at least I noticed) two things. First, all of the advocacy groups have jumped in to demand that their constituents be taken care of under Obama's plan. We regular folks don't have advocacy groups, well, at least we don't have groups that can purchase the ear of the president, or members of Congress.

Second, Obama, as always, makes promises to all of the pressure groups except for the doctors, who shouldn't expect caps on medical malpractice suits. But so what. Doctors are all wealthy, right? And we certainly don't want to hear about all of the sacrifices these greedy doctors made to get their medical education. All we need to know is that they make a lot of money and that makes them greedy. Obama is going to reign in spending, but he's also going to make sure that everyone gets the medical care they need. So, while a vast new bureaucracy will be created, we, the consumer, will save money on our free medical care. And the only alternative to Obama's plan is the complete and total destruction of our country.

How do we know this? Because Obama says so. And if this isn't the politics of fear I don't know what is. To scare you even more, let me just say, "global warming", or is it "climate change"? Which ever one it is, I hope you didn't read this scary post before bedtime.

In the interest of intelligent commentary, go read some of that scare-monger, Thomas Sowell's thoughts on socialized medicine, which I suppose we can now refer to as Obamacare.

Labels: Obama, politics, Thomas Sowell, Universal Health Care

posted by Harry @ 5:56 PM