Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The 2010 dumb awards for public policy speech

Bright people in high places occasionally say dumb things. In such a politically charged time as 2010 it made for great entertainment. Here are a few that made me laugh, mostly about health care reform. In no particular order.




Democratic Congressman Phil Hare on health care reform.


“I don't worry about the Constitution on this.”



And at 1:00 the Congressman confuses the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence.






Peter Orszag's New York Times column on October 3---


in which he implied (in a smooth way, but still strongly implied) that doctors don't work hard enough, doctors aren't used to having their performance measured, and hospitals shut down for the weekend.






A NEJM writer declared that if the Republican agenda on health care moved forward it would be a recipe for a failed republic.

Well, they won big in November. Better stock up on some survival provisions.






Nancy declared that we had to pass health care reform in order to find out what was in the bill.






Paul Krugman dropped the bomb about death panels.



This was such a bunch of double talk, it's hard to know what he really meant, but the plain point seems to be that we need to soothe the death panel alarmists now, then implement the panels later. Whatever he meant, it was dumb.






The interview with Bill Maher in which he said...


Well, he said a lot of dumb things. The whole clip is stupid. You'll just have to watch.

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