Karl Rove shows how it’s done because he is a Genius

This is a wonderful object lesson we have for us today. This is how you fling shit, and fling it well.

The Genius that is Bush’s Brain has spoken.

By KARL ROVE

On the campaign trail last year, Barack Obama promised to end the “politics of fear and cynicism.” Yet he is now trying to sell his health-care proposals on fear.

Boom! Right off the bat, Karl Rove is at it.

Obama is trying to scare you, Rove posits. Immediately and to the point, get the big lie out first and quickly…Obama is a hypocrite for trying to reform health care. Hypocrisy = Healthcare = Secrit Muslin = Obama.

Now, let’s back up a bit to quick little rant I tossed up the other day. You can watch it, well, right here…yea, I move my arms around that much when I get a bit fired up.

So in that rant I talked about how you should ignore folks who try and make this about a man, rather than about a plan. It’s a logical fallacy, a lie. A big one. Right out the gate, I tell ya, that Rove is a genius.

Healthcare is an important part of our lives, I don’t think I need to stress that point. We have an aging population (*will be mentioned lated), the most expensive per capita by far system in the world. We have 47,000,000 to 50,000,000 folks without health insurance, and those that do have it have seen prices skyrocket.

It’s a huge, expensive, beauracratic, corporate, and already some government, system. The idea is to make it better.

O.k. so….that’s why we’re having this debate. Which has been going on for 17 or 18 years, recently, and even longer than that historically as the United States has expanded and matured as a culture. Yes, it was rather inconceivable to the Founding Fathers that every black child, born in every shack, had the Right, as an American, to get essentially free health care for their entire lives.

It’s not such a far fetch idea nowadys, IMHO. So it’s quite possible they overlooked that right when talking about the pursuit of happiness and how, say, polio can put a damper on it.

All I’m saying there is that we as a country have evolved a bit since the Constitution was penned. A Constitution that gave us the ability to shape our government and our country as we see fit.

That’s how big a debate this is, and how important an issue we have here.

Let’s head back to Karl and see what he is adding to the conversation after starting out with a logical faux paus.

[Obama] said “Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage, or lose their job. . . . If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. If we do not act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. These are the consequences of inaction.”

See, Obama used the word “fear” and said he wouldn’t. Eeew, that Obamanation…

Note how Karl then doesn’t deal with the fact that costs are skyrocketing and 14,000 Americans lose coverage each day. He goes straight to the stats. Genius, I tells ya.

A Fox News Poll from last week shows that 84% of Americans who have health insurance are happy with their coverage. And because 91% of all Americans have insurance, that means that 76% of all Americans will be concerned about anything that threatens their current coverage. By a 2-1 margin, according to the Fox Poll, Americans want coverage from a private provider rather than the government.

84, 91, 76, Americans, 2-1,

Note how quickly we gloss over the fact that his first statistic comes from a Fox Online News Poll, compiled regarding the humble opinions of the folks that visit Fox New a lot. Again, first the big lie. Quickly and then on to the next.

91% of Americans have insurance Rove assures us. With 300,000,000 Americans, and 50,000,000 (+14,000/day) without insurance, I’m seeing something more like 1 out of 6. 16.66 percent. The ratio of the devil.

Which makes 83.33% the real number, but hey, what’s 8% wiggle room after the first whopper.

Then ya just multiple the first two numbers to make up a third (.84 * .91 = 76%) which is totally unrelated to the fourth, which is another Fox Poll (which has no margin of error, it would seem) that says essentially, out of 300,000,000 Americans, 100,000,000 want government insurance and 200,000,000 want private.

Right now, 250,000,000 Americans have private insurance. So the poll is really saying 50,000,000 Americans want a public option for health insurance and to say screw you to the insurance companies and their heartless profit-obsessed culture and beauracracy.

So we have 50,000,000 who want a public option and 50,000,000 who have squat, and about half of ’em voted for Obama to try and fix this system.

So he told Congress to get to work, and now we are all calmly discussin various solutions, right?

Right? Cool.

Discussin’ solutions, right…Karl?

Facing numbers like these, Mr. Obama is dropping his high-minded rhetoric and instead trying to scare voters.

Facing what numbers? People want to fix the system, they voted for the guy. Now we can all calmly discuss real world solutions, like legislators do. Policy, right?

During last week’s news conference, for example, he said that doctors routinely perform unnecessary tonsillectomies on children simply to fatten their wallets. All that was missing was the suggestion that the operations were conducted without anesthesia.

Well, that suggestion is there now, isn’t it Karl? I mean, I’ll bet that’s exactly what Obama is planning, along with the government kill squads that go after old people, convincing them to die “for the good of society”. Just like in that Hollywood fantasy.

What, you haven’t you heard about those grandma killing beuracrats? Obama has been asked about them at least 5 different times (that’s I’ve seen). Someone out there is spreading some FUD, that’s for sure. [btw, here’s the factcheck on that, so you can know where it came from]

Anyway, back to policy, right Karl?

This is not a healthy way to wage a policy debate. It also risks making the president look desperate at a time when his proposals are looking increasingly too expensive for Americans to accept.

No, this is not a healthy way to wage a policy debate, Karl. Why are you doing it like this? Aaah, yes, to try and make the President (caps, Karl…) look “desperate” (desperate enough to choke Grandma with Lil’ Timmy’s Tonsils).

But now we are to the good part, let’s talk money.

Last weekend, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) demolished Mr. Obama’s claims that his plan cuts the growth of future health spending and won’t add to the deficit.

This is a fun one, actually. Watch Karl work this…

Responding to a White House proposal to create an independent panel to recommend Medicare cuts, the CBO said on Saturday that “The probability is high that no savings would be realized” in the next decade, while entitlement spending would rise $1.042 trillion. The CBO did say there might be $2 billion in savings in the second decade of the program—a pittance.

Note how Karl uses the gross figure there, “entitlement spending woud rise $1.042 trillion in the next decade”, and then we start to see savings on the changes.

What Karl neglects to mention is that the health care reform legislation includes covering the vast majority of those 50,000,000 uncovered human Americans and another 100,000,000 old as hell Americans (Baby Boomers, who are only going to get more expensive).

So even with that…we end up spending what current projections look like.

That’s what is happening. Here read the testimony itself.

Elmendorf told members of the committee that his answer to Conrad shows only that the bill “adds to federal health spending, and that amount is difficult to offset.”

In other words, it’s not that the health reform bills do not lead to savings for the federal government — just that those savings may not offset the added expense of subsidizing insurance for many more Americans.

And Karl spins it like a maniac. Genius, I tell ya.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag shot back at the CBO with a blog posting on the White House’s Web site arguing, “the point of the proposal . . . was never to generate savings over the next decade.” Really? The White House rolled out the proposal hoping to give cover to Blue Dog Democrats in Congress barking about the cost of overhauling health care.

Yea, really. The point is to contain healthcare costs, insure Americans, and keep people living happy, healthy lives. That’s the point. And that’s what the CBO said it did. And it did get the BDD’s some leverage and they cut into the bill pretty good. Weakening it, but it continues on, as did Rove…

Here comes a good one.

The House version of ObamaCare adds to the deficit even though the new taxes to pay for part of it begin two years before the program itself kicks in. That head start puts ObamaCare in the black through 2013. But net new spending after that overwhelms future revenue to add to the deficit each year.

Keith Hennessey, who was a National Economic Council director for George W. Bush, estimates the annual deficits in Mr. Obama’s plan will grow to $64 billion a year by 2019.

It’s important to keep these two points together. Pointed out in the bold. See..when you run in the black for four years, then run small deficits increasing to a palty $64 B (out of $1 T, or 0.064%) for six years, YOU END UP EVEN.

Oh,and since when did “National Economic Council director for George W. Bush” carry weight? Bush projection’s had us swimming in oil and money by 2009, if you’ll recall.

Anyway, sorry…just had to Bush Bash for a moment. Recall, everyone, that this article I’m spending so much time playing with was penned by one Karl Rove. Karl was Bush’s brain. And y’all know what Bush did. Genius.

To continue…

And this assumes that Mr. Obama gets all the tax increases and Medicare cuts he wants.

Yup, Obama is increasin’ your taxes and cutting your Medicare! Scared yet?

Karl?

Let’s a put the last few of these together, I’m sure you’re getting as bored with tearing apart Karl as I am, but here’s a few more nice zingers…genius.

Damaging reports from the CBO had earlier provoked some Chicago-style intimidation, with the president summoning CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf to the Oval Office. It’s safe to assume that they didn’t talk about the Chicago White Sox.

Ooooh, that’s old schoold Chicago policitcs, talking directly to someone who releases a report at your request. I think it’s also safe to assume they probably, oh, I don’t know…TALKED ABOUT THE PROJECTED COST OF THE HEALTH CARE PLAN?

From what I’ve seen of Obama and heard of him, he likes to know stuff, and he’s pretty sharp. So what came out of that conversation? Here come the air-quotes…

Imagine if Mr. Bush had done that after the CBO released numbers that undercut the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. “White House thuggery” and “intimidation” would have been the theme of nearly every editorial writer in the country.

Interesting that now they are only coming from one editorial writer in the country. Sucks not to be in control anymore, doesn’t it Karl? Note how he used the quotes as if to say that he’s actually quoting an editor. Nope, just making shit up, Karl-style.

Team Obama’s pressure, however, might have caused the CBO to release its latest missives on a weekend, when fewer people are paying attention to the news.

Ohh, yea…you loved doin’ that one, didn’t ya? Why do you think folks like myself tend to wait until Friday night to talk about the week that was? We learned it from watching you, Karl.

Note how the alleged “quoted” intimidation has now been succressful in Karl’s narrative.

Mr. Obama’s problem is that nine out of 10 Americans would likely get worse health care if ObamaCare goes through.

Wait, what? ObamaCare?! 9 out of 10…where from was this statistic pulled and why does it smell like processed burritos?

Of those who do not have insurance—and who therefore might be better off—approximately one-fifth are illegal aliens, nearly three-fifths make $50,000 or more a year and can afford insurance, and just under a third are probably eligible for Medicaid or other government programs already.

You gorram asshole. This whole discussion, this whole times we’ve been talking about Americans, and now you’re talking about those damned illegals that came to your house to protest you being an asshole.

So everyone else is illegal, solidly middle class or already covered. Wait, what? It’s stat-mash-up time, folks, and where does it end?

For the slice of the uninsured that is left—perhaps about 2% of all American citizens—Team Obama would dismantle the world’s greatest health-care system.

Down to 2%. We’ve gone from 50,000,000 people to only 6,000,000…all with the power of Karl Rove’s statistics.

So now you know a little bit more why Bush made such horrible decisions. This is the guy that was feeding him data.

And the coup-de-grace, the final big lie. Book-end them, for his pleasure.