Bull, lies, and Obamacare

By A.J. DiCintio

Every person can offer anecdotes attesting to the reality that language creates an enormous amount of confusion in a child's mind, owing to its limitations regarding the intricacies of vocabulary and human behavior.

My youthful head, for instance, was thoroughly confused by "Money talks and bull-t walks," a rhyming aphorism invoked regularly by the local male twenty-somethings, nearly all of whom, by the way, would disappear from the neighborhood as the result of a Korean "police action," another bewildering term that along with its various counterparts, I would slowly come to understand as a cowardly, blatantly unconstitutional euphemism for "war" and thus regard as contemptible and poisonous.

But to get back to the puzzling use of "walk". . . I eventually figured out it expresses the worthlessness that characterizes bull, including every last reeking bit blustered by the mutants that are hack politicians.

So, what prompted these thoughts about a quintessentially American expression whose vulgar quality is hugely mitigated by its straightforward, no-nonsense nature?

It was, happily, Kyle Smith's recent "How Obama went from bulls-t to dishonesty" (nypost.com), an op-ed that minces no words, a fact revealed from its opening, which begins to develop the distinction implied in the title not just by defining bull as "airy, meaningless drivel" but stating a truth as true as any verity ever spoken, namely, that bull is "the stuff [political] campaigns are made of."

And since political campaigns are made by politicians, the piece appropriately goes on to offer evidence exposing Barack Obama as a true master of churning out the perverse stuff.

First is this from the '08 campaign, "We are the ones we have been waiting for," an assertion so obviously and ridiculously vacuous it's "Not a lie. Just bulls--t."

That example is followed by the vow to go "line by line through. . .the federal budget and eliminate programs that don't work," another gigantic load of bull; for only a slobbering true-believer in The One will deny that (like perverse semanticist Bill Clinton) Barack "I Never Met a Federal Program I Didn't Love" Obama left himself plenty of what-the-meaning-of-don't-work-is "wiggle room."

Next comes the promise to "make sure we renegotiate NAFTA," which sent aides sprinting to assure Canadian leaders Barack was simply throwing around "rhetoric," a term that ought to have been understood (especially by hundreds of thousands of now-betrayed Ohioans) as "a nice word for bulls – t."

Then there is the proclamation that requiring individuals to purchase health insurance is unfair to low income citizens, which Obama can worm his way out of by boasting he always intended to solve the affordability problem with "subsidies." And he has (since he's spending other people's money) even to families with an annual income of $94,000.

Having provided those and other examples of quintessential Obama bulls – t (for which the president ought to remain eternally infamous), the article turns to the following oft-repeated promise made with a deadly-serious-face:

"No matter how we reform health care . . . you'll be able to keep your doctor [and] your health care plan. . . period. No one will take [either] away, no matter what."

Juxtaposing that forceful, unambiguous promise with the reality that just for starters the Affordable Care Act will cause ten to twenty million Americans to lose their existing health insurance and, in many cases, access to their current doctors and hospitals, the essay concludes it "wasn't just bulls – t," it was "a lie" told by "a stone-cold liar," a label the president will carry "to his grave."

Inarguably (except to the hopeless true-believers previously mentioned), Kyle Smith's op-ed does the nation a great service.

However, it will perform an even greater one if it prompts us to consider that from the beginning, Obamacare was based upon other pernicious, "stone-cold" lies, including

. . . the shamelessly arrogant lie that would have been bulls-t only if it were spewed by a blustering drunk who stumbles into a bar with the harangue that acting unilaterally over a period of two mere months, he and his fawning friends can produce a 2,000 page law that, along with 10,000 pages of regulations, will enormously improve a healthcare system that consumes a massive 18% of GDP

. . . the shamelessly irresponsible lie that understated Obamacare's ten year cost by a stunning one trillion dollars

. . . the shamelessly dangerous lie that gushes over the beauty of creating in America a truly hyper-empowered central government, a concept that by whatever name, pomp, and promises it was celebrated over millennia has brought only devastation to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of ordinary citizens

. . . and the shamelessly insidious lie that Obamacare represents the kind of wise, fundamental reform this nation's healthcare system desperately needs

That last lie tells us that however much pain Obamacare is currently wreaking, it has just begun to unleash its horrors; for it represents the work not of a "transcendent" president and brave, innovative members of Congress but an abomination closed-minded ideologues cobbled together, as economist Jonathan Tepper has exposed, from "the worst elements of public and private [healthcare systems]" around the world. (Entirety of Tepper's analysis available at mauldineconomics.com.)

Finally, and Kyle Smith may well agree, Obamacare demands we broaden the definition of the thing that can walk, for it is now undeniable it can do much more, including kill.

© A.J. DiCintio