It turns out the woman at a White House-sponsored healthcare
forum who pulled the heartstrings of the media by asking
President Obama for help in treating her cancer was an Obama
plant. (Philip
Klein blogged about this earlier.)
Debby Smith is a volunteer for Organizing for America, which
is a project of the Democratic National Committee. She was
invited to the event not by an outside group but by the White
House itself.
No wonder the president hugged her.
Nowadays all presidents host tightly choreographed public events
aimed at promoting their policy preferences but this one is
particularly Riefenstahl-esque
in its execution.
Even veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas
(see video)
thought the taxpayer-funded dog-and-pony show was a bit
much.
"I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and
transparency," said Thomas, a hardcore liberal who called
George W. Bush "the worst president in American history."
Thomas accused the White House of "controlling the press" and
said just about all Obama events are
"prepackaged."
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was dismissive. "We've
had this discussion before," he said.
"Of course you would because you don't have any answers," Thomas
shot back.
Gibbs mocked Thomas by gently laughing while she spoke.
If you watch the video and observe his body language and tone of
voice it's obvious that he's trying to make Thomas, who is
88 years old, look like a senile old kook. I may routinely
disagree with her interpretation of events, but in this writer's
opinion she's no fool.
The arrogance of Gibbs seems to be par for the course for the
Obama White House which is intent on destroying the American
healthcare system.
But this appalling lack of respect for the longest-serving member
of the White House press corps foreshadows how Obama's
system of government-run healthcare would treat the elderly.
After all, Obama already admitted his plan for elder care amounts
to launching the nation's sick, old,
expensive-to-treat people into the hereafter courtesy of
government-provided ice floes.
That's the ghoulish calculus of socialist medicine: if you're too
expensive to treat, you die.
