Obama's Speech -- Petty, Partisan and Pie in the Sky

Dear Mark: President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and gave a moving speech about health care reform. He was eloquent in defining his goals and outlining the specifics of his proposal. I'm sure you hated his remarks, but please give me your thoughts anyway. — Hussein's a Health Care Hero in Hoboken

Dear Hoboken: Overall, I found his speech to be petty, partisan, pandering and pie in the sky, but the quality of his delivery was Obama at his best. The guy can read a teleprompter.

President Obama had a tremendous opportunity to follow through on a campaign promise to be a uniter but instead gave a divisive speech with a scolding tone that did not reach across the aisle to a bipartisan solution.

Early in his speech, President Obama stated, "Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together." If he were sincere, he would pull House Speaker Pelosi aside and demand she allow Republican ideas to be openly discussed. It is Obama's party that has completely voted down and shut out Republican proposals.

President Obama also wallowed in legalese when he attacked his critics as being liars and using scare tactics to attack his plan. While he is technically correct that words like "death panels" do not appear in the House bill, the net results will be the same: Government panels will ration care, illegals will receive benefits, abortions will be funded, and millions of people will be forced into the government option when insurance companies are run out of business.

President Obama tried to win over conservatives when he said, "First I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future." He's not lying here.

According to the Congressional Budget Office and numerous other analysts, his plan won't add one dime to the deficit ... it will add trillions of dimes to the deficit. The president should try some new material.

Dear Mark: I am tired of being called racist just because I disagree with President Obama's policies. White pundits, black congressmen, various celebrities and even the governor of New York are throwing around racism as the reason for Obama's political problems. What can I say to convince people I am not a racist? — People Person in Pueblo

Dear People: You will never convince those folks because they don't really care to be convinced otherwise. It is easier for liberals to believe that opponents of President Obama's policies are racist than to believe that there is something wrong with the policies themselves. It is also an act of desperation and a classic liberal debate strategy.

When liberals cannot contest the facts, they personally attack the opponent, and if that fails to turn public opinion, they play the race card. Talk about irony, during the Clinton administration many of us opposed Hillarycare for the same reasons we oppose Obamacare today. Oh, wait, we must have been racist back then because many on the left considered Bill Clinton the first "black" president. Sorry, Mr. Obama.

Dear Mark: I just read a BBC report on the discovery of a rare sea-dwelling parasite that eats a fish's tongue and then takes the tongue's place. Is it global warming? — Fish's Friend

Dear Fish: I don't know if that is a result of global warming, but I would like to drop a few hundred on Washington to see what the isopods could do to all those politicians' flapping tongues.

Dear Mark is a public platform for your entertainment and enlightenment. Please e-mail your questions or comments to marklevy92@aol.com. To find out more about Mark Levy, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM