Congressman John Dingell Blurts:
Takes a long time to control the people, sez he!

03-24-2010 -- In the last post here, entitled "All About Control", I cited the observation of the left-wing blog, Talking Points Memo (TPM) for the fact that the White House final "talking points" made it very clear that the operative word, and the operative concept contained in their healthcare initiative was "control".
Indeed it was. And is.

Ed Morrissey of HotAir has since posted about a comment by longtime Congressman John Dingell of Michigan, including having posted the following podcast clip on YouTube.

It is a portion of a post-passage radio interview of Congressman Dingell by WJR, 760 AM radio host, Paul W. Smith, who asked Dingell about all those who Dingell presumptively claimed would "die" between now and 2014, as a result of ObamaCare not taking effect prior to then. According to Dingell's numbers, 72,000 Americans would die before ObamaCare takes effect in 2014!

Dingell's answer was a real chiller. Here it is (my emphasis):

" . . . but let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways, it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people."

Now, Ed calls that "control the people" comment a Freudian slip -- one in which Dingell unwittingly told the truth.

The characterization does make sense, as the remainder of the clip makes it clear that the Congressman is quite a liar, especially when he added,

"You know, our Republicans have spent a long time not participating, not helping, carping and delaying, but at the same time they have contributed nothing to this and made no offers whatsoever at to what it is they want or what they stand for."

What rubbish! Even the President acknowledged that the Republicans had a number of good healthcare reform suggestions which they offered when he held his P.R. summit a few weeks ago, in order to take a last-second stab at garnering some GOP support for the measure. Notably, the key specific measures he said at the time might be worthy additions to the legislation were summarily excluded by the Democrats from inclusion in the reconciliation bill -- such as medical malpractice reform.

And here, for example, is a good exchange in the House Rules Committee between Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, ((R-WI), and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) on Ryan's specific proposal for healthcare reform in the contest of a necessary Medicare fix that will be occasioned by the ObamaCare legislation. She, of the ultimately still-born "let's deem it passed" gambit, does her level best to try to interrupt and to talk over Ryan, but is simply no match for him.



Nor is Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-CA), or Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), both of whom she then called on for a political assist in the exchange. They can't even touch Ryan with a three-person tag-team!

Getting back to the Dingell blurt . . . call me cynical, but I say the proper way to qualify Congressman Dingell's "control" comment as "truthful" and, therefore, admissible in the court of public opinion -- amid all of his obvious prevaricating -- would be to properly identify it as an admission against interest. He won't repeat it, or admit the truth of it.

Let's just hope the public duly responds with, "So ordered!" come this November.

Only disgraced and impeached former federal judges, like Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), would dare to go that far!

You may recall that Hastings was the guy Nancy Pelosi wanted to put in charge of the House Intelligence Committee, before the public firestorm of opposition finally put an end to the effort. Someone apparently reminded her that she has voted for Hastings' impeachment!

But as John at Powerline points out, the public is not necessarily as aware as some might think of just how completely out-of-control certain Members of Congress really are!

We have to take the time.