◼ Campaigning to make something work? How does that work? Presidential sweet talk persuades the nonfunctional web portal to function? - Charles Krauthammer/National Review Online
...This rather bizarre belief in the unlimited power of the speech arises from Obama’s biography. Isn’t that how he rose? Words. It’s not as if he built a company, an enterprise, an institution. He built one thing — his own persona. By persuasion. One great speech in 2004 propels him to the presidential level. More great speeches and he wins the White House.
But then comes governance. A speech in Cairo, utterly crushed by the Arab Spring. Talk of a Russian reset, repeatedly thrown back at him by a contemptuous Russian dictator. Fifty-four speeches to get health care enacted — only to see it now imperiled by the reality of its ruinous rollout and broken promises.
◼ Obamacare’s Moment of Clarity - Charles Krauthammer/National Review Online
Insurance cancellations reveal what the law’s really all about: mendacity, paternalism, and subterfuge.
...how could he imagine getting away with a claim sure to be exposed as factually false? The same way he maintained for two weeks that false narrative about Benghazi. He figured he’d get away with it.
And he did. Simple formula: Delay, stonewall, and wait for a supine and protective press to turn spectacularly incurious.
Look at how the New York Times covered his “keep your plan” whopper — buried on page 17 with a headline calling the cancellations a “prime target.” As if this is a partisan issue and not a brazen falsehood clear to any outside observer — say, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, who gave the president’s claim four Pinocchios. Noses don’t come any longer.
