A Real Old Pro After All

There are many things we may not know about Barack Obama. One of them now appears to be that, far from having somehow risen without trace, he is in fact a real old pro.

He stumbled with his lines a couple of times. But what the hell, he got them all out: the restrictions on the public option (boo), the legal requirement to insure your health as you insure your car (hooray), the tactical masterstroke of co-opting John McCain's scheme from last year, the dismissal of the death panels nonsense, no coverage for illegal immigrants (never going to happen, anyway - his own black base was the safeguard against that), no federal funding of abortion (never going to happen, anyway), no repeal of the federal conscience clauses on abortion (never going to happen, anyway).

Congressman Joe “Liar” Wilson of South Carolina is obviously right in his objection to illegal immigration. So we can only assume that he was not out there this time last year, campaigning to give the Presidency to John McCain. Never mind to secure the re-election of McCain’s consligliere, Lindsey Grahamnesty. Rather, Wilson must surely have given his all in the cause of that Ron Paul supporter and traditional Catholic, Bob Conley. The man whom the paleocons kept out of the Senate by failing to get behind him as they would have done any Ron Paul-supporting, traditional Catholic Republican. Except that no Ron Paul-supporting, traditional Catholic Republican was seeking election to the United States Senate last year. Or any year.

And while it makes no moral sense that so many people draw the line at federal funding of abortion in America (all three conditions must be met), nevertheless that is what and where they do. Better, I suppose, to draw the line there than to draw no line at all. No Congress or President was ever going to commit electoral suicide by legalising such funding, banned by a Republican amendment, but a Republican amendment passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by Jimmy Carter. The same sheer electoral calculation also applies to the federal conscience clauses.

So there we have it. Since there was never any proposal from any quarter for death panels, Obama is going to get his way simply by promising not to sign any Bill that contained certain provisions that no Bill submitted for his signature ever would have contained. The only serious opposition will come from his own left wing, enabling him to distance himself from it.

A real old pro.

With the added advantage of not looking like one.