Live Whiskey-Blogging the President's Health Care Speech:
So here we are, once again, the Evan Williams on the coffee table, the tumbler with two fingers in it to start (oh, it'll be a fist of whiskey by the end), the CSPAN on the TV since the Rude Pundit can't stomach any of the news networks pulling out quotes to keep below the President on screen like comic strip bubbles for the ignorant. What's the over/under on standing o's? And what about Republican boos? (Please let there be Republican boos.)
And away we go (all quotes pretty much guaranteed to be wrong in wording, but correct in spirit):
8:11: Obama enters, Mitch McConnell behind him looking as happy as a leather queen at a prison rodeo, Harry Reid looking...like a diminutive fucking Golem. Do they each know something the rest of us don't?
8:14: It's probably too soon to say this, but Ted Kennedy's widow is a total hottie.
8:16: He's starting by establishing his street cred: "Hey, motherfuckers, I've gotten shit done."
8:17: A standing ovation for the unemployed. The last time that'll happen in the Congress for a long ass time.
8:18: It's be awesome if he used the word "cockmongers" tonight. "Twatmongers" would be nice, too.
8:19: He's there to talk about health care, he says. And Republicans are not applauding. Who's the designated yelling guy on the Democratic side? Christ, that dude sounds like he's in pain.
8:20: "Everyone understands" the hardships of the uninsured, which is a bit optimistic on his part. Saying that Republicans understand hardships is like saying that a rattlesnake understands how shitty the desert actually is.
8:22: He's personalizing it with stories about how insurance companies are cockmongers. (See how useful that would be? Such instantaneous shorthand.)
8:24: By invoking auto companies and trade, he's making a specifically capitalist argument. "Our health care problem is our deficit problem."
8:25: "These are the facts." Facts? What country does he think he's talking to? Facts are to Americans as salads are to Americans.
8:27: Is he gonna take some people to the woodshed? "The time for games has passed," he says.
8:28: "The plan I'm announcing tonight..." Death panels and meat grinders?
8:29: Here's the plan: nothing in this plan "will require you to change the doctor that you have." Ahh, but the cockmongers outside the plan will.
8:30: Against the law to have coverage denied for pre-existing conditions. Fat bastards on both sides heave themselves up to wheezily applaud. Against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage. No caps. A limit on out of pocket expenses. "In America, no one should go broke because they get sick." Insurance must cover asshole and boob stuff.
8:32: For those without insurance, you can get coverage - how? How? Insurance exchange...yeah? And? And?
8:33: Okay, sure, same coverage as Congress? For those unable to afford it, there will be tax credits. Immediately offer catastrophic care - a McCain idea. He's reaching out to Republicans, who will no doubt respond by trying to fuck his face.
8:36: Gets laughed at for saying there's details to work out. Yeah, he kind of deserved that.
8:37: Takes on death panels directly. "It is a lie, plain and simple." Did the President of the United States just call Chuck Grassley and John McCain liars?
8:38: Someone just yelled "lie" at him about covering illegals. From Obama, a fucking death stare. No dollars to fund abortion and federal "conscience" laws stay in place. None of this shit will appease the evangelical and/or nutzoid right. They don't care. A black Democrat is proposing this. That's all that matters.
8:41: "I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business...I just want to hold them accountable." Says we need to make a "not for profit" option. Okay, good. Keep going. What do you mean, man? Fucking say it.
8:43: Nice analogy to private colleges versus public ones. And now he's hedging on it. But now he's not. More whiskey. More goddamned whiskey needed.
8:44: He's asking Republicans to behave rationally. "I will not back down" on providing Americans "with a choice" if they can't afford coverage.
8:46: Is he coming out strongly for the public option? He's promising to not raise the deficit. And he just sucker-punched Bush supporters, some of whom stood to applaud him saying that there were too many deficit-funded initiatives.
8:47: Says he's talking to seniors, yet he doesn't raise his voice, so he doesn't really care if they hear him.
8:52: Brings up tort reform and a whole group of white men in dark suits just stood up in the room, which ought to make any black man nervous.
8:53: Compares the cost to the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and the Bush tax cuts. Republicans sit down and cry. (Gotta say: $90 billion a year ain't a whole fuck of a lot in the scheme of the American budget.)
8:54: He just cut off a bunch of Republicans at the knees, like Jim DeMint, by saying he won't deal with people who want to kill the bill.
8:55: "If you misrepresent this plan, we will call you out."
8:56: Big ending - a letter from Ted Kennedy. (Okay, yeah, that earlier thing about his widow was totally inappropriate, but still...)
9:00: This is the fucking President, man, that the Rude Pundit voted for, this one, here at the end, laying it out plainly, with history and smarts, and empathy, "when only timidity passes for wisdom," that's some great shit.
9:02: He says, "We did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it." Republicans don't stand. This is for Americans now. He is shaming Republicans and they are gonna be mightily pissed. Look forward to right wingers saying, "He's a masterful speaker, but" on an endless loop.
But what the fuck did he believe? No, really. There was no bottom line beyond the shit he says they all agree on. Otherwise, the public option is what he wants, but he's open for other ideas. What's the bottom fucking line? What's the endgame?
Oh, wait...9:06: Charles Boustany of Louisiana? The Rude Pundit has met that backwards ass fucker and his racist family. What's he saying? Ah, fuck him.
