How Obama Can Get Control of Health Care: Talk Down to Us

I'm watching a recording of last night's Real Time with Bill Maher. It is another "shake up the format" episode, where Bill has one-on-one interviews instead of a round-table. Which is fine, but it almost feels like the show ought to have a different name. Anyway, after the Jay-Z segment (surprisingly interesting, given that I'm not a rap music fan), Bill interviewed Bill Moyers, with the chief topic being health care.

Moyers was of the opinion (not that he's wrong) that President Obama hasn't been forceful enough, or clear enough with his health care reform message. Moyers thinks that Obama has been too wonky, and not talking in plain enough English for the American people to understand. He later says "we're not less intelligent than other people." Uh, as even Bill Maher would say, Americans are stupid. Or, to be less general, the stupid rise to the top.

I'm not sure what percentage of our population would fit into the stupid/willfully ignorant/intellectually incurious category. But whatever topic is being discussed--unless it's unusually one-sided, like our patriotism right after 9/11, and arguably then too--it is this category of dummies that seem to carry the banner for the "conventional wisdom" of the day. You know who understands this? FOX "News," Rush Limbaugh (et al.), and Republican politicians.

Look at how successful they've been lately, with health care reform. Democrats, understandably, are by-and-large for the idea. Being the party of we rather than me, of Constitutionally supporting the "general welfare." You know: helping people. But Republicans seem to be more of a "I got mine; you get yours. Or don't, I don't care" party. Definitely a party of me. And increasingly, they're a party of being viscerally against anything that comes from a Democrat, whether it is in their best interest or not.

So, when Rush Limbaugh spews forth the reason they are to be against something, they bite, whatever the bait is. That's why (unemployed) Sarah Palin was able to take a fake issue invented by a lesser-known conservative--death panels--and inflate it into a bona fide issue. The rhetoric keeps getting dumber and dumber. The protests and anger gets frothier and more mindless. So now we're at the point where the crowds of conservatives are little more than a pack of zombies in a George Romero movie. And those things never end well.

So maybe it's time to fight stupid with stupid. Maybe President Obama needs to start talking to us like second graders instead of adults. Democrats always try to talk to America like it is educated, rational and logical. BORING! We are not. We live in a culture where a comparison between the intelligence of Palin and Obama can actually be treated like apples-to-apples. Where Joe the Plumber can be raised to the level of political scientist. We like bullet points, sound bites, and catchy names.

So, Mr. President, enough with "public option" or "single payer." Too complicated. Talk to us more on the level of "fire bad, tree pretty." Death bad! Health good! Goodness knows the radio-talkers, FOX-bots and the GOP have no respect for the public, maybe you shouldn't either.