Posted by
Don't Tread On Me on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 2:54:30 PM
The first five minutes are generally felt among interviewers to be of prime importance in a job interview. It is during this time that first impressions are formed. Subtle cues given off by the candidate, barely able to be described or cognitively recognized by an interviewer coalesce to form a "gut feeling" about the applicant. Dress, mannerisms, language, facial expressions, things said and unsaid all can contribute to a quick and eerily accurate picture within a very short time. President Obama is not a stupid man; he knows very well about how imagery and theatre can be used to project a desired message. So when he announced a townhall meeting for this afternoon, I expected he would make certain that his message was controlled. I expected he would try to make his sale within the first few minutes of this meeting.
I heard it mentioned that tickets to this townhall were given out to various sources including "community organizers", I had a gut feeling regarding where this was going, but I thought I'd watch anyway. I wanted too see what questions were asked and how they were handled. Would the President answer directly, or bloviate? Would the audience be split equally between supporters and detractors? Who would get the questions? Was this going to be another "Obama-style townhall" campaign event, or an actual forum for debate?
Obama spent about the first ten minutes talking and making jokes. He said that "we will pass health care reform this year", meaning no matter what the polls say about the American people's feelings about it, or how poorly the legislation is written, or how badly reform fails to do what it is most needed to, the President will use every tool at his disposal to ram reform through. My confidence in the President's sincere desire to listen, to try to acheive concensus or respect and consider opposing views was not bolstered. In his opening remarks, Obama blamed the insurance companies for the state of our health care system (the one most people are satisfied with), and engaged in some good old class warfare.
For a Townhall meeting, this one was shaping up to be nothing at all like the others we have seen on TV recently! All of the people seated in the audience behind the President applauded everything he said. They laughed at all of his jokes. Well, maybe that was a fluke, I thought. Maybe the rest of the audience more accurately depicts the current sampling of the country, 53% of which is not supportive of health care reform. My answer came within the next minute: as the President talked about the need to have cost reductions (8 minutes in and he still hasn't taken a single question), without giving any details, of course, he made a joke and the cameras panned in a wide shot to a large section of the attendees. Every single one of the audience members that I could see were applauding, smiling, laughing, or a combination of those things. I see no one who looks as though they oppose health care reform or single-payer health care here.
The President condescends, as is his manner, to those who oppose him. "Let's disagree over things that are real, not wild misrepresentations" he said to wild cheering. (As opposed to disagreeing over the "made up things" that Americans are concerned about!) Obama sees those things in the bills which concerns Americans as wild rumors and scare tactics. He has never explained or justified them, except to debunk the "death panel" hyperbole, but anyone who reads Ezekiel Emanuel's paper on "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions" can decide for themselves what to call the bureaucrats who decide what, if any, care you'll get after age 50.
About 10 minutes in, loud chanting of "Yes, We Can" starts. Yes, this is a very balanced crowd. There should be some good debate here.
Obama says"special interests fight back to scare and mislead" Americans everytime "we get close" to having health care reform. More wild cheering follows. Who are these special interests? The insurance companies have been quiet. "Big Pharma" has been quiet. On the other side of things, ACORN and the SEIU are getting money and directives to support the President's reform plans, going so far as to physically assault the opposition participants. Hmm.
Finally, it is time for some questions from the audience! Obama says he will go "boy-girl-boy-girl" in the interest of fairness. Widespread giggles. Then he says, if it looks like he is getting too many supportive questions (always a danger in townhalls dealing with health-care reform, as you know if you have been paying any attention this month!), he will search for an opposing view or two. The first question comes from state representative Peter Schmidt (D, NH).
Representative Schmidt tells the audience and President Obama that he currently has government-run health care, and he loves it! (Cheers and applause.) His question is the suggestion that, if the Republicans won't just go along with health-care reform, shouldn't they be disregarded and reform passed anyway? (More cheers and applause.) Obama doesn't really answer the question (he doesn't need to- his feelings on the matter are well-known) except to say that "getting it done" is more important than bipartisanship. But he hasn't been able to condescend to anyone for a full five minutes, and he needs a fix. He tells an anecdote about a lady who called him to say "stay out of health care, and stay away from my Medicare!" The audience laughs at this idea of a kooky lady who wants her health-care left alone. How silly! How ignorant! She must be a teabagger, haw haw haw!
The second question came from little Julia Hall of MA. (Seriously, she looked to be 14) She said "I saw a lot of signs outside with mean things about reform". Oh, boy. Obama says "I saw some of those signs too!" Laughs from the audience. He mentioned the rumor of "death panels", and said that regarding the rationing of health care, "Insurance companies are rationing care!" Again, insurance companies are demonized, and the concern that costs will be reduced by giving what is euphemistically called "attenuated care" to certain groups of people is never addressed.
Before the third question could be asked, talking heads on the TV mercifully broke in to start analyzing what was said. I was hoping to hear from at least one "opposing view", but I was advised to catch the streaming webcast for the rest of the meeting. Obama had monopolized all but one minute of the thirty minutes of this townhall broadcast. And it still wasn't over. I decided that I'd seen enough. Watching more wasn't going to convince me that Obama was now interested in American's concerns or fears, or was going to stop demonizing his opponents or ridiculing them. He is the same high-pressure used-car salesman that he has been all along. The gravity of the office of President has changed nothing.
Based on what I saw over half an hour, I do not trust President Obama to enact health care reform. I do not trust Congress to do the same. I tried to give Obama the benefit of the doubt instead of walking away after five minutes, but I saw nothing in his performance this afternoon to tell me he has my best interests at heart. I like my insurance plan, I can manage its costs, and I don't want single-payer. I don't believe the congress or the President when they tell me I won't have to have single-payer. I don't trust them.
By the way, the talking heads' voices are heard in the office where I now write this. They say that after diligent searching, Obama did find a tough question from someone at that townhall. Someone apparently has the audacity to think Obama is not tough enough on congress. Let's hope he's not sent to the camps!