"Explain to me this health care debate"

Obama is like the prophet who is under-appreciated in his own country. At least that's how he sees himself. Jake Tapper reports:

President Obama at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner last night, discussing false claims made about the health care reform bill, told a little anecdote.

"I was up at the G20 -- just a little aside -- I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them," the president said. "One of the leaders -- I won't mention who it was -- he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind.

"He says, 'Barack, explain to me this health care debate.'

"He says, 'We don't understand it. You're trying to make sure everybody has health care and they're putting a Hitler mustache on you -- I don't -- that doesn't make sense to me. Explain that to me.'"

Perhaps some version of this actually happened; we can't be sure, because Obama is known to play fast and loose with his anecdotes. But it doesn't really matter whether it's true or not. It's the way he characterizes the opposition to healthcare reform that's telling. Those who oppose his selfless efforts to "make sure everybody has health care" are stigmatized by the few who carried Larouche-produced Hitler-mustache signs to townhall meetings; opponents of his healthcare agenda are irrational haters with no legitimate objections.

Here's the video, along with commentary from Ann Coulter, via Freedom's Lighthouse:



If you have the transcript of the rest of the speech please pass it on.

More on the towering Obama ego, exposed this time in his UN speech, from Michael Gerson:

Obama’s rhetorical method in international contexts -- given supreme expression at the United Nations this week -- is a moral dialectic. The thesis: pre-Obama America is a nation of many flaws and failures. The antithesis: The world responds with understandable but misguided prejudice. The synthesis: Me. Me, at all costs; me, in spite of all terrors; me, however long and hard the road may be. How great a world we all should see, if only all were more like…me.

On several occasions, Obama attacked American conduct in simplistic caricatures a European diplomat might employ or applaud. He accused America of acing “unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others” -- a slander against every American ally who has made sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan. He argued that, “America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy” -- which is hardly a challenge for the Obama administration, which has yet to make a priority of promoting democracy or human rights anywhere in the world.

The world, of course, has its problems, too. It has accepted “misperceptions and misinformation.” It can be guilty of a “reflexive anti-Americanism.” “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone.” Translation: I know you adore me because I am better than America’s flawed past. But don’t just stand there loving me, do something.

Read the rest.

h/t: Little Miss Attila

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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