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Hey, it's the weekend, and everyone's singing the same maddeningly catchy refrain! Rebecca Black's "Friday"? Nah, that was last week's moronic sing-along. This week's is even perkier! "Paul Ryan proposes to end Medicare as we know it," sings former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta.
"It would end Medicare as we know it," sings Sen. Max Baucus of Montana. "It's going to end Medicare as we know it," sings Nadeam Elshami, communications director for Nancy Pelosi. "It does end Medicare as we know it," sings Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. "I drove all night to watch Paul Ryan e-e-end Me-edi-ica-a-are as we-e kno-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w it," sing all 24 semifinalists on the Celine Dion round of "American Idol."
Sadly, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, incoming chairman of the Democratic National Committee, lost the sheet music and was forced to improvise. "This plan would literally be a deathtrap for seniors," she ululated. Close enough!
Ending Medicare as we know it? Say it ain't so! Medicare, we hardly knew ye!
It's an open question whether Americans will fall for one more chorus of the same old song from Baucus, Harkin, Podesta and the other members of America's wrinkliest boy band. But if this is the level on which the feckless patronizing spendaholics of the permanent governing class want to conduct the debate, bring it on:
Paul Ryan's plan would "end Medicare as we know it." The Democrats' "plan" — business as usual — will end America as we know it.
Literally, as Wasserman Schultz would say. One way or another, Medicare as we know it is going to end. So, if you think an unsustainable 1960s welfare program is as permanent a feature as the earth and sky, you're in for a shock. It's just a question of whether, after the shock, what's left looks like Japan or looks like Haiti.
My comrade Jonah Goldberg compares America's present situation to that of a plane with one engine out belching smoke. But, if anything, he understates the crisis. Air America doesn't need a busted engine because it's pre-programmed to crash.
Our biggest problem is Medicare and other "entitlements." They're the automatic pilot of Big Government. Whoever's in the captain's seat makes no difference. The flight is pre-programmed to hit the iceberg, if you'll forgive me switching mass-transit metaphors in midstream.
For some reason, Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Harkin & Co. don't seem to mind this. If you recall the smile on the face of the "automatic pilot" in "Airplane!" as he's being inflated, that's pretty much the Democrats' attitude to binge-spending as a permanent fact of life.
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Posted By: Bill NC(240) on 4/8/2011 | 8:51 PM ET
LOL... King Barack. A trade in is appropriate. President for King. How is that HOPE and CHANGE working, SHEEPle??
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Posted By: milty(75) on 4/8/2011 | 8:31 PM ET
Patriotdoc...You've provided the Cliff Notes on Rules For Radicals by Saul Allinsky, the liberal's bible.
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Posted By: Patriotdoc(1670) on 4/8/2011 | 6:23 PM ET
I've always said that if you want to know what the leftists are up to, listen to what they are accusing whoever is in their way of doing. They have some bizarre brain short circuit that makes them blurt out whatever it is they don't want you to find out about their agenda, and use it to attack their opponents. In this case, "Ending Medicare as we know it" and turning it into an English NHS clone and "death trap for seniors" is exactly what they're doing, as fast
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