FATSO

The real problem with healthcare in the United States is overuse, not corporate greed.

Enter the American Fatso, Michael Moore.

Moore's latest work, "Sicko", is another in a long line of documentaries that are less about documenting events as they unfold and more about pushing a socialist agenda.

He plays fast and loose with the truth, yet again, by bombarding viewers with sob stories and diversions that take away from even the possibility of an unaffected discourse on the issue.

Somewhere in the haze lies his point: Healthcare in the United States should attempt to mimic Canada's system of healthcare-for-all. It is truly embarrassing that there are millions in the world's richest country that are without proper healthcare.

He's wrong, and he's right.

Canada's system isn't perfect. Since healthcare is available to all, it is often not available in a timely fashion because of the sheer volume of need--or in the case of overuse, want.

And, it is to our shame that we have so many people without healthcare. This should never be the case in a land of plenty like America.

Truth be told, I don't run scared from socialist ideologies like so many in this country do. I, for one, embrace many facets of the socialist ethos including universal healthcare.

Ideally, we would all have a minimum level of healthcare. I sympathize will folks who do not have healthcare coverage. It's easy because I'm one of them, and have been for several years.

That being said, desiring healthcare for all is simple, but the devil is in the details.

Universal healthcare simply cannot work within societies that overuse existing medical resources--societies like ours, awash in gluttony.

It is much too expensive.

Healthcare in America is already pricey, but not for the fact that it remains, for the most part, a for-profit enterprise.

Americans go to the doctor too much.

As long as we continue beating a path to the good doctor's office every time we have a sniffle, the cost of healthcare will continue to rise.

Recently I had a friend try to opt in to the healthcare plan at his place of work only to find out that the cost was astronomical.

Why? Because half the staff he works with is obese and wreaking havoc on that provider's bottom line. (So is that the fault of the profit-makers, or the fatsos?)

Obesity in America is an epidemic from childhood through adolesence and into adulthood.

This is a fat country and we are paying a high cost for it.

How ironic, then, that the spokesperson for a nationalized, not-for-profit healthcare system is himself a revolting blob.

People who take Moore seriously need medical attention, if only they could afford it.

Moore is a typical guardian class elitist who pretends to know what's best for the peasants, while keeping his mouth covered at a distance.

He's a limousine liberal.

Moore, like Hillary Clinton, support public schools and universal healthcare; but, do not think for one minute that they would EVER subject their loved ones to rubbing elbows with commoners.

And so while I accept that a for-profit healthcare system has numerous pitfalls, I am not willing to subscribe to this idea that a national healthcare system could remain salient without some serious restraints on use.

Restraints that, of course, would not affect elitists like Michael Moore.

Don't get me wrong, corporate greed is a serious problem in this country, and especially as it relates to healthcare. Too many people are denied claims for the express purpose of turning a dollar, this much is obvious.

But, the bigger issue is that those among us who have health insurance continue to be irresponsible with it.

Slim down, America, or you, too, will look like Michael Moore.

Commuter-in-Chief

This week's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence for obstruction of justice in the CIA leak investigation is just another in a long line of second term blunders for which President Bush will be remembered.

For those among us who voted for Bush the second time around, it has become abundantly clear that he isn't who we thought he was.

Many of us came to the conclusion that his plain-spokenness and old-fashioned dungaree disposition made him unique in Washington--a shiny buckle inside the beltway.

We were wrong.

President Bush is a corrupt politician at his core, corrupt even in his feigned old west populism.

And while it is clear that Scooter Libby lied about his involvement in spilling the beans with regard to Plame, who was an undercover CIA operative at the time, what is more troubling is that Libby is probably just another useful political cast-off--the quintessential fall guy.

Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, is a virulent anti-Iraq War critic and outing her, in my humble opinion, the Bush Administration's way of taking revenge for undermining the effort.

Borrowing the title of a David Horowitz (or Sun Tzu) book, it is the art of political war.

Libby got sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison and fined 250,000 bucks. Since, of course, paying the fine won't be much of a problem for Libby, Bush saw to it to award him clemency without every serving a day behind bars.

This is the unchecked executive power of the President at work, and it stinks to high heaven.

The same people who were outraged when President Clinton pardoned his derelict brother, George, and international scumbag, Marc Rich, should be every bit as disappointed in Bush for enaging in blatant cronyism.

But, they won't be because they cannot see truth through that opaque veil of partisanship that continually clouds their judgement.

Presidents Bush and Clinton both defended their constitutional right to pardon and commute such sentences as if that, by itself, made their decision just. Like the Apostle Paul wrote, their actions may have been "permissable," but they were certainly not constructive.

Like I.F. Stone wrote many years ago, "all governments lie."

Bush on Immigration

Suffice it to say, there are several facets of the on again/off again immigration bill that I actually agree with.

That being said, President Bush (and other prominent Republicans like Lindsey Graham) is breaking ranks with conservatives and throwing in with Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid for the express purpose of putting his party in good stead with the largest minority group in the United States--Hispanics.

At the very least, when Lyndon Johnson pandered to African-Americans in the early 1960s (Civil Rights Act of 1964) he did so with the after effect of empowering millions of marginalized minorities.

LBJ did it for votes, and it worked.

The merit of the 2007 immigration bill, however, is dubious at best. Bush and his cronies in the Republican Party ostensibly support the legislation because they've decided that illegal immigration is good for business in this country.

Again, such an assertion is dubious because illegal immigration is clearly a strain on the economy as well (social services, education, etc.)

Granting legal status to 12 million or more illegals living in the United States currently is amnesty irrespective of the measures that are to be put in place in the interim.

Illegal today, legal tomorrow...that's amnesty.

(And yes, race does play a role in the equation. The fact that the vast majority of the illegals in this country are hispanic is part of the reason many conservative are virulently against the bill. It's a regrettable mindset, to be sure.)

The bottom line is that the United States government is responsible for the security of our borders and it is failing. Protect the borders, enforce the law and only then will this country be in a position to utilize the reserve labor pool to the south.

It's poor timing on the part of Bush, the Democrats, and those few churlish Republicans who will take it on the chin for playing kissy-face with the far left.