By Edwin Cooney
Okay, as the late great news commentator Paul Harvey used to say, “Let’s shuck right down to the cob!” Or, as the late great New Dealer Harry Hopkins used to insist, “Let’s get to the root of the matter!” (Remember Winston Churchill’s “Lord Root of the Matter”?)
One of the most painful experiences one can go through when discussing issues of the day, especially when one has a regard for the person one is talking with, is to hear that person insist that someone, specifically a public personage for whom you have both affection and regard, is a liar.
I for one have striven all my life to avoid lying to others because contriving a lie invariably leaves a stain on my sense of self esteem. Accordingly, it is painful to think that people you admire, whether or not you know them personally, have a tendency to lie. Before getting to the root of this week’s matter, let me give you two examples of presidential lies.
I admire Presidents Lincoln, Carter, and Obama but especially Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Part of FDR’s personality was a natural obfuscation. As he openly admitted, “My right hand never knows what my left hand is doing.” Knowing that from the beginning (and FDR never hid that part of who he was), one could adjust oneself to it. Another example is circumstantial and most fascinating. It has to do with one of our most forthright chief executives, Dwight David Eisenhower.
When the Russians successfully beat us into space with Sputnik in October 1957, Ike assured the public that as dramatic and even traumatic as the Soviet’s action appeared to be, we were more than equal to the Soviet Union when it came to the sophistication, precision and power of our weaponry. As Democrats including JFK and LBJ openly and loudly worried (to their political advantage, of course) about our ongoing national security comparative to the Soviets, President Ike knew that so long as we kept busy we were in pretty good shape. How did he know that? He knew because of the information he was getting from the U2 espionage spy planes which we were flying over Soviet Territory. Then came that fateful Friday, May 5th, 1960 when Nikita Khrushchev announced at a May Day celebration that he had proof that the United States had been spying on the Soviet Union. Ike, in a statement immediately released after Francis Gary Powers was captured by the Soviets, said that we had a weather plane missing near or over Soviet Territory. Two days later when the Soviets put our U2 plane and its humble Virginia-born pilot on television, a presidential lie was embarrassingly exposed. Subsequently Americans were forced against their will to realize that both spying and lying were essential realities in a danger-laden world.
Since that May Day in 1960 on which America’s sheer national innocence was exposed, we’ve all become increasingly hardened to both foreign and domestic political lies and obfuscations. Therein lies the emotional and even the spiritual termite that is slowly eating the substance out of our national unity.
Earlier this week, I was discussing 21st Century politics with a gentleman with whom I hope to become personally friendly. It turns out that my potential friend is a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of President Trump. As lovers of our leader often do, this gentleman insisted to me that Barack Obama lied to the American people when he told them that they could keep their own doctor if the Affordable Care Act became law. That was hard to listen to, so I asked a friend to assist me in looking it up. Here’s what we found.
Since ninety-five percent of working Americans belong to comprehensive health insurance plans purchased by their employers, Senator and later President Obama assured us that the Affordable Care Act would not interfere with the insurance Americans loved best. The issue during the 2008 Presidential Campaign was whether Senator Obama was proposing a Single Payer System which would eliminate all private insurance. What that debate didn’t address was the type of insurance coverage that would be available on the insurance networks that could be offered in response to “Obamacare.” While the Affordable Care Act didn’t mandate changes in the insurance network, many employers and employees became more interested in cheap premiums than in comprehensive insurance coverage. After all, when you’re young, healthy and financially established, sickness means little to you. Obama failed to address the insurance markets outside of the Affordable Care Act that premium cutting-minded employers and private customers would sign on to. Thus, by the time Obamacare was passed, an increasing number of insurance plans were available, thereby altering the insurance network marketplace.
Obama’s mistake was not a matter of integrity, it was the difference between advertising and educating. He advertised using a slogan to “Support the Affordable Care Act! Keep both the plan and the doctor you like.” What he failed to realize was that Obamacare in the marketplace was a commodity the same as toothpaste and is therefore vulnerable to competition. Single Payer Healthcare on the other hand is a systematic concept that would absorb the healthcare marketplace. Accordingly, I’m satisfied that President Barack Obama did not lie to the American people when he assured them that if 95 percent of American working people kept the plans they currently had, they didn’t need to make any changes in their healthcare plans.
American history is bedecked with plenty of material that, in all reasonableness, can be construed as presidential lies. Unfortunately, most Americans today get more of a thrill when they uncover a lie than when they discover a truth — unless of course the truth they discover uncovers a lie. Thus a slogan that demands no explanation such as “Make America Great Again” is all you need to elect an impulsive liar.
Yes, you can be either a Conservative or a Liberal and maintain your integrity. After all, no ideology possesses a monopoly on truth. But ideologically-based truth is merely canned truth. It is resistant to all thought and is ultimately vulnerable to even the smallest lie.
Hang on tight. I’ll have more to say as 2020 gets closer!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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