This Bud’s for You ... But You Won’t Find Health Care in a Bottle

by Jim Washburn

Didn’t you wonder for just a minute last Friday if a pasty-faced despot in a North Korean bunker was watching CNN, clapping his hands and declaring, “OK, they’re both drinking. Launch the missiles!”

Given the state of North Korean technology, chances are they did launch their missiles, and promptly blew up the bridges at Toko-Ri. That’s how they roll, or would roll if they hadn’t rejected the wheel as a Western extravagance.

Meanwhile, in Barack’s backyard:

“If you two guys think you know what mouthing off is, just wait till Joe gets a couple of beers in him.”

“Now I would not say I was ever mouthing off, Mr. President. I was simply running the dozens on the officer. Hadn’t even gotten to two yet.”

“He dared me to handcuff him. You ask me, sir, I think he was looking to pick up some street cred.”

“Now look. Two things. First, you notice you’re not talking to each other? It’s like I’ve got you on two different telephones. Second, look at this beautiful afternoon, the deep pile of the lawn, the tree branches swaying quietly at the edge, like that park in Blow Up? Slow it down a couple of notches. For all I know, the North Koreans could be launching an attack right now. Do I look worried? It’s Miller time, boys. Now tell me, why the Blue Moon, Officer Crowley?”

“My advisors said it was a gayest beer they could think of. They thought that might soften my image. You know what? I’m liking its hints of coriander and orange peel.”

“Why’d you pass on the Red Stripe, Henry?”

“I thought people might say, ‘Look, he hates whites so much he’ll only drink black-made offshore beer. I figured drinking a Sam Adams would instead say, ‘Look, that powdered-wig motherfucker hung out with slave owners, but Gates drinks his beer. He’s down with white people.”

“Well, I’m drinking Bud Light to show I’m down with everybody. After the crap I took on the cost of taking Michelle to Broadway, forget the microbrews. For the next three years, I only want to be seen drinking from a hose.”

“What play did you see on Broadway?”

“I think that Blue Moon’s getting to you, Officer. We saw, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. The next play I want to see is called Joe Biden’s Gone and Left. Lately, I’m getting the notion that Joe here has had some plumbing done. Have you had penis extension surgery since the inauguration, Joe?”

“Now why would you say that, Mr. President?”

“Because you’ve been stepping on your dick every opportunity you get.”

“Aw, now that’s uncalled for! You name me one thing I did that’s half as creepy as the George Bush-Angela Merkel laying on of hands. One thing.”

“How about right now? You know how people always used to say that Dan Quayle might be an idiot, but he was the sort of guy you’d want to have a beer with? Well, I knew Dan Quayle, and you’re no Dan Quayle.”

“Well you’re no Dennis Haysbert. I’m outta here.”

“OK, he’s gone, all the microphones are off. Either of you men have a cigarette?”

“I do, Mr. President.”

“Call me Barry, please. If you’ve got a match you’re my new best friend.”

Meanwhile, over on Capitol Hill our nation’s health policy was being shaped, away from the glare of a concerned press, which was indeed reporting on the brands everyone drank at the Beer Summit, except for Biden. No one seemed to care what Joe was drinking. I feel for him. He seems a likable guy and he was an effective Senator, but his current gig fits him like an itchy suit with jelly stains.

There I go, off message again, along with the entire U.S. press. Here the most significant legislation of our lifetimes is being masticated and spit into a bowl by congressfolk doing the bidding of their monied constituents; the result is veering ever farther from the single-payer solution favored by a majority of Americans; and the press is looking for any diversion possible from covering it.

Why? Because health care is a complicated story that takes too long to explain; it would offend their advertisers if the forces at play were truly explained; and it just isn’t very fun or sexy. So beer gets more attention. So the health of one very dead mono-gloved American gets more attention than is devoted to the health of 305 million living Americans.

The advertising and speechifying has been rolling in, with the same drumbeat we’ve heard for the last 50 years: It’s socialized medicine. They want the bureaucrats who run the DMV to make your health case decisions. You’ll have no choice. Government will be intruding in your most private decisions.

This message comes to you courtesy of the same people who, if they’d had their way, would still have a tube forced down Terri Schiavo’s vegetative throat.

I think Obama’s blowing this issue. There’s something to be said for pragmatism, for not letting the ideal rule out achieving the possible. But there’s also a time when nothing short of boldness will do. That’s what he talked in the election, and his poll numbers are dropping now because people have lost sight of that boldness, so slowed has it been by the speed bumps of compromise.

I think he’s not recognizing the hunger for change that people have. But maybe we’re not hungry enough yet. In other countries, even police states like Iran, people are taking to the streets to effect changes. Here, we talk a lot about freedom, but seem to have forgotten how to fight for it. Change doesn’t come out of a bottle, even if Samuel Adams brewed it.

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