Health Care. So it seems like every one has put Mr Obama’s whole presidency down to this one issue. If he fails to pass a bill before his first term, he’s a failure. If he passes a bill without the public option, he’s a failure. If he passes a bill with the public option but gets no republican support, he’s a partisan failure who has failed to deliver on his pledge of being a bipartisan president.
Obama at this stage looks to be in a no win situation.
As an outsider to the American discussion on health care, I am wondering whether the American citizens – real American citizens, not the ones you see on Fox, MSNBC or are highlighted in partisan leaning polls feel about how their country is discussing this major country changing issue.
How do they feel about their leaders, on both sides of the isle, when they distort case studies, facts and figures to benefit their political gains? It’s just politics right? It’s a blood sport. It’s not like the outcome of this discussion is going to impact millions of people?
So the question I begin to ask myself is whether this healthcare debate is not just a black mark on Obama’s presidency, but a black mark on the country it self?
I don’t remember ever hearing about protestors taking automated live weapons to a Bush or Clinton Town-Hall. I can remember both Clinton and Bush being on the receiving end of some vile hate speech but the past seven months has seen hate speech elevated to something different. When is enough going to be enough?
Only seven months ago America was celebrating its first ever black president and now the country is supposedly worried about where this black man is taking them?
I have a sneaky suspicion that this is not the view of the average American. I have a suspicion that the moderate Republican/Democrat is worried about the fine details of Obama-Care and (rightly) worried about the country’s finances but they don’t believe that Obama is trying to achieve, as Glen Beck put it, back door reparations.
I hate to buy into a cliché, but the media has degraded this debate into something unseemly, Into something unbefitting of the well crafted American image seen and revered across the world.
Just a normal everyday bloke writing about films.