WASHINGTON—Nothing says that you have arrived more than when you have the POTUS on your side. He specifically makes mention of you as an example and seemingly is going to bat for you: You have surpassed Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame by doing so.
So what are we to make of our jacket-off (Reagan’s rolling in his grave), sleeves-rolled-up, take-no-prisoners President Obama in Ohio, when he illustrates the need for “health care reform” by using a sole American citizen’s medical plight, in this case, one Natoma Canfield? Anecdotal citations are what make stump speeches: Obama has chosen Natoma to be his poster girl, without utilizing the vast resources of The White House to verify her claims.
On his zillionth “final” speech on “health care reform,” an accompanying media interview with Jake Tapper—did I say “final speech”—stumping for The Health Care Bill That Won’t Die, Candidate for Life Obama made what is all-too-frequently a fatal mistake: He didn’t slow down enough to let his operatives vet the anecdotal subject.
Natoma Canfield needs and is receiving the appropriate response to her cancerous plight all the while being used as a backdrop to a desperate full-court press to pass something—anything—by this administration and the congress on behalf of “health care reform.”
If Keith Olbermann and his pathetic PMSNBC sycophants can self-identify with the debate on health care by using self-anecdotal examples (i.e. Olbermann’s father’s recent death), then I can too: My father, my mother, both my aunt and uncle all died from cancer, the heartbreaking disease that Natoma suffers from and she is courageously battling. And I still smoke Camel straights.
But this ain’t about cancer; it’s about grandstanding. It’s about being a perennial candidate, not a leader; it’s about turning the presidency into a stand-up routine worthy of the late, great Slappy White or Jerry Seinfeld, by President Obama.
Natoma Canfield is worthy of our concern. All cancer patients are—and as far as I know, all cancer patients in the United States—especially the ones blessed enough to be treated by the Cleveland Clinic, where people come from all over the world to seek treatment, can receive treatment from one facility or another. Honestly, even the lame, ask-no-questions media would be able to find Natomas lying in the streets untreated if they could.
But they don’t. America takes care of its own and then some.
