Two Little Words

The stage was set: the scenery in place, the players each in their appointed spot.  With all the pomp and ceremony accumulated over a period of all of two centuries, the President of the United States prepared to address a joint session of Congress, the nation, and the world.  Millions awaited the latest oraculation from the Greatest Orator Of Our Time, who would calm the angry shouting which has occupied our nation for the past few months.

Death panels?  Rationing of medicines?  Long waits to see a doctor?  Killing Grandma to save government money?  Nothing more than the fevered imaginations of a handful of recidivist racists who simply wanted to see our First Black President fail in ignominious defeat.

The sonorous phrases unfurled, greeted with the resounding applause justly due our Fearless Leader.  The pundits and anchormen dripped with admiringly honeyed tones.  In just under an hour, Barack Obama would turn the tide, bringing to all Americans (and maybe a few who aren't, but who's counting) that same security of happy health that is the birthright of every other civilized clime.

What's this?  A small voice from the peanut gallery arises, welling over the Voice of the Teleprompter:

You lie!

And with those two simple words, the entire rhetorical structure collapses.  Whatever Obama might have said that night will be forgotten, punctured by an unpleasant but simple act of truth-telling: not a word of his promises, his appeals, or his arguments had the slightest basis in fact or in the real world.

Of course, everyone has known this for many months, but few will admit it to themselves, much less say it out loud.

Of course "free health care for all" will cover illegal immigrants when the law forbids hospitals to check patients' legal presence.

Of course a government plan will destroy most people's current provisions, for why would any company pay for their employees' insurance costs when Uncle Sugar will pick up the tab?

Of course a national health care plan will lead to long lines and waits for a doctor - how could it be otherwise when you create millions of new medical customers without also creating millions of new doctors and nurses to meet the demand?

Of course the costs will bankrupt us; medical costs are bankrupting people and companies on every side and if there's one thing our federal government is famous for, it's spending money like there's no tomorrow without counting or caring about the debts being run up.

And eventually, as surely as night follows day, of course Grandma will one day find her plug pulled - for, when the money runs out, who will lose their health care first?  Those who can vote, protest, even storm the halls of Congress with pitchforks and torches?  Or those confined to a wheelchair or hospital bed, dependent purely upon the mercies of their caregivers?

Nobody, on the right or on the left, really wants to confront full-on the undeniable fact that our President is a man whom, for all that he likes to accuse others of "bearing false witness", it would be more accurate to say that "the truth is not in him."

Anybody could have said so.  Some did, quietly, or in the isolated bastions of talk radio and the Internet.

But only one man had the courage to do so in front of the world on live TV.  Rep. Joe Wilson (R, SC), by shouting those two little words grabbed control of the national agenda and pierced through the fog created by the unholy alliance of liberal media and far-left politicians who seek only power over the lives of the people - and in so doing proved himself a better, more effective, and above all, a more honest orator than The One himself.

Nobody is talking about what the President said; nobody cares.  All minds are on Wilson's outburst - and every time it is reported, even with angry and condemnatory mien, ordinary Americans realize, "He's right!  The President is lying!  And what's more, so is the media... and they have been lying to us for a long, long time!"

It's no wonder that tens of thousands - hundreds of thousands - millions even? - gathered this past weekend in protest at the lies, the generational theft, the naked power-grab being undertaken in the name of The People but, in reality, at their expense.

When the history of these times are written, Rep. Wilson, whom nobody had ever heard of last week, has a likely shot at being recorded as the man on watch at the moment the tide was turned; for this great and patriotic service, we are forever in his debt.  Honor to whom honor is due: Rep. Wilson, take a bow - and carry your "censure" from the House corruptocrats with pride. A man's character can be discerned by his enemies, and yours are of the very finest sort.