Backtracking on backtracking.

Richard Pryor had this great bit in which he asked a woman who saw him cheating with another woman, “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?”

The White House is basically asking us the same question — only it’s not so funny.

Over the weekend President Obama, Secretary Sebelius, White House spokesman Gibbs went to great pains to tell us that a public option was not an essential ingredient in health care reform. Indeed, the president said that we were “fixated” on the public option.

Yesterday and today we are being told that the president has not changed positions. Really? As the Washington Post reminded us today,

President Obama had pushed a nonprofit, government-sponsored insurance plan as an alternative to existing insurance companies, saying that a public program would compete with the industry and help reduce costs.

But this is what Gibbs had to say about the “apparent” shift in the president’s priorities:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. . .said Obama has not shifted his position, suggesting that the president’s support for a public option had never been absolute. “The goals are choice and competition. His preference is a public option. If there are other ideas, he’s happy to look at them,” Gibbs said. White House officials repeatedly denied that there was any new positioning on the provision, accusing the media of fabricating developments.

Basically, this is the Pryor technique at work in the White House. Our lying eyes and ears are not to be believed. What we saw and heard over the weekend were mere apparitions.

Anyone doing research on this issue can find dozens of occasions when President Obama proclaimed universal coverage as a core principle of health care reform. And, of course, it is and always has been. That is what this fight is about. There are 47 million people in this country without health insurance and not getting the medical attention they need. We are no more fixated on universal coverage than anti-war advocates are fixated on peace. Universal coverage is the centerpiece of reform. Once upon a time, the president was adamant that it was. Now that the GOP and neo-Dems are pushing their own agenda, he is backing away from that commitment.

We can only hope that eventually the president and his staff start believing their own eyes and ears and take note of the millions of people – including leaders in his own party – who are counting on him to bring us real change, not doublespeak and backtracking.

Obama could use Truman’s backbone.

With universal health insurance now in tatters, withdrawn today as a serious component of President Obama’s prescription for health care reform, it is fair to say that Obama reached his Waterloo and – as the Far Right predicted — beat a hasty, shameful retreat.

I don’t know of a president who has sold out his core constituencies so quickly — almost offhandedly. In eight short months, Obama as piled up the disappointments, all of them important  issues to the people who elected him.

Today it was universal health care. Before that it was foot-dragging on closing Guantanamo,  a refusal to investigate Bush-era rights violations, dumping legislation to help homeowners renegotiate their loans, getting us deeper into an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, not to mention his lackluster support for gay rights and the legalization of marijuana.

The question arises: what does this president stand for?

The answer is: everything. He stands and takes whatever punches the GOP and the Far Right throw at him. Instead of fighting back, he caves. And caves. And caves.

Universal health care, now known as the public option, has been a core principle of health care reform going back to the days of Harry Truman. We did not elect Obama to implement insurance reform, although that must necessarily be a part of health care reform. What we care about is providing health insurance to the 47 million Americans who don’t have any. Obama is now saying that left and right are “fixated” on the public option. We are no more fixated on universal coverage than anti-war advocates are fixated on peace.

As Alan Colmes put it, “When are Democrats going to stop letting Republicans railroad them?” Of course, the shame of it all is that the main Democrat getting railroaded is Barack Obama.

Although some argue that caving in to Republicans is in the Democrats’ DNA, Harry “Give ‘Em Hell” Truman was one Democrat who had a backbone and stood up for what he believed in.

Case in point: Just after World War Two the U.S. was threatened with a number of serious national strikes by steel workers, coal miners, and others.  As a Democrat, Truman’s sympathies were certainly with the unions, but he could not sit back and let them bring the country to a standstill no matter how powerful or influential they were.

In 1946 the last straw for Truman was a threatened strike by railroad workers. Truman and the White House worked hard to get the two sides to agree to a contract, but to no avail. Truman then went before Congress to say that any railroad worker who went on strike would be drafted into the Army. While many doubted that such an act would actually be constitutional, Truman was ready to issue such orders.

Simply by holding firm, using his backbone instead of caving into the unions, the strike was averted. In fact, the unions gave in just as Truman was delivering his speech to Congress.

Many point to Franklin Roosevelt as a model for Obama to follow. A better one, I think, is Truman. If Obama could stick up for his convictions and principles with the same tenacity and courage as Truman, the public option — covering 47 million uninsured Americans — would still be in play.

Of course, all this assumes that Obama truly has convictions and principles. Today’s capitulation to conservatives makes me wonder.

Sucking on the government tit and health care reform.

This is a true story.

Last week while I was walking my dog, I ran into a neighbor. Let’s call him “Tiny Tim,” although Tim is anything but tiny. In fact, Tim and his wife, Krista, are both obese, to put it kindly. In case you think I am trying to be mean, it is a relevant observation as you will soon see.

I have had countless conversations in front of Tim’s driveway. Basically, he is a friendly, family man with three young children. He works as a fireman in a nearby town. His wife is a teacher. I like Tim, he wife seems nice enough, and his children are incredibly well behaved.

When Tim is out working in his yard, he usually has Rush Limbaugh blaring from his pickup truck, an immediate clue about his political leanings. Over the years I have known my fair share of Dittoheads and have learned how to co-exist with the enemy without losing my temper.

Until last week. . .

Tim asked for my opinion about health care reform. I told him that I thought it was a crime that in this country some 47 million people do not have health insurance, that health care is a right not a privilege, and that a public option is a core principle of reform that should not be dropped to appease the Far Right or the so-called Blue Dogs. In other words, my point of view mirrors that of most enlightened, educated people in this country. . . or so I say.

Upon hearing my thoughts, Tim puffed up like a t-shirted version of Rush Limbaugh and accused me and other liberals of creating a socialist health care system in which millions of people — including, he said, those vile illegal aliens — will be “sucking on the government tit.”

Since he is such a family man trying to be proper and respectable, I was surprised to hear Tim use the word “tit.” I think he meant to say “teat,” as if that would have made a big difference.

I tried to explain some of the nuances of the various reform bills, but Dittoheads are not to be nuanced. It was a “tit” or a “teat” no matter how you sucked it, according to Tim. And it was, worst of all, a government mammary, not one from the free market, private sector. 

Our conversation continued, though it was clear that if we went too far we would no longer be friendly neighbors, but turn into those town-hall, “fight club” drones sucking all the wind out of our democracy and what used to be called intelligent debate.

Out of curiosity, I asked Tim how much he paid for his health insurance. What he told me nearly knocked me into the road. For himself, his obese wife, and three young children, Tim pays $80 a month. I think I started laughing or crying or both. I told him that my last monthly premium for just me – with a $2,000 deductible and $40 office copay — was $458.

I struggled to uncover the mystery of Tim’s obscenely low insurance premiums. I have heard of other families of four with private health insurance paying upwards of $1,ooo a month. . .or more. 

Then I realized that as a town employee Tim was covered by the fire department’s insurance program. Lightening struck! It was obvious that Tim was sucking on a government tit of his own. It wasn’t the federal tit, but still —  a tit is a tit is a tit.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “You are attacking the uninsured because they would be sucking on the government tit but you are doing the same thing yourself? Who do you think is subsidizing your health insurance premiums? The health care fairy?”

Tim protested that there was a difference between federal taxpayers and town taxpayers. I begged to differ. Here in New Hampshire where sky-high property taxes make health insurance premiums look like a flat-chested nuisance, local taxpayers have bigger boobs than the federal variety. So, I proclaimed once more that a tit is a tit is a tit.

I was too timid or kind to say this, but in fact if Tim tried to get health insurance in the free market, private sector that he so idolizes, he and his wife would either be turned down because of their weight, or be put in a high risk pool and forced to pay a five-figure or higher monthly premium. Instead, his insurance is subsidized by local taxpayers and his premium is a mere $80 a month.

Wisely, as things were starting to get testy, we changed the topic. Tim mentioned how he wanted to do more with his life than be a fireman. I applauded his ambition. He said that after he finished paying his student loans from his undergraduate days, he would consider going back for a graduate degree.

“You have student loans?” I wondered. “Yes,” said Tim.

“Are they like Stafford Loans?” I wondered again.

Tim is a smart dude and instantly knew where I was going with my line of questioning. “Yeah, but I have to pay them back.”

“I am sure you do, Tim. But you do realize that the interest rates on those loans are SUBSIDIZED by the federal government? Do you realize that banks only make those loans to deadbeat students because they are insured by a government entity. . . a tit as it were?”

Tim protested in principle, though I am not sure which one it was. He seemed confused. I think the word is “flummoxed” — yes, Tim was flummoxed. He skulked off into his house and I took myself and my dog back home. All the way I was shaking my head, crying or laughing or both, astounded by the hypocrisy of the insured. It was clear that Tim — this anti-health care reform Dittohead who rebelled at the idea of insuring the poor — was tenaciously and delireously affixed to a few massive boobs of his own choosing.

Is Tim the exception to the rule? Of course not. I have yet to meet anyone who is against health care reform who does not have health insurance. Do you know any one like that? And how many of them have subsidized premiums? Almost all, of course, by local and state governments or by their employers.

So let me shout out the word ”tit” one more time. We all want one. There are those who have, and those who have not. Ever see kittens sucking on momma cat? How they fight and claw to keep the tit they have, never caring if their siblings starve to death. Once they have a productive tit, they don’t want to give it up.

As this health care debate proves, people are like that, too.