Today on the Billo show, Ann Coulter, in a display of her pure, unadulterated ignorance and rage at the world in general, actually showed Bill O'Reilly to be someone apparently able to occasionally admit the truth. As for Ms. Coulter herself...not so much.
While Bill points out that we need strict regulation and oversight of health insurance companies, Ann tries to say that because Chris Cox, chairman of the SEC under George Bush, chose not to investigate Bernie Madoff, that means all government regulation can't work. This is the tried-and-true Republican strategy of:
- Get elected.
- Fuck everything up.
- Get thrown out of office, and
- Then point to your own fuckups as proof that government can't work.
This is the same strategy Bobby Jindal shamelessly tried to use in his "rebuttal" to President Obama's State of the Union speech, when Jindal criticized government in general because George Bush and his team of incompetents screwed up the response to Hurricane Katrina.
To his credit, Bill states flatly that it was the fault of a Republican appointee for not investigating Madoff.
To be honest, I'm curious how Bill came around to that conclusion, but I'm pleasantly surprised. It's also worth noting that, like most wingnuts, Ann is scantly able to string together a single sentence without screaming and getting melodramatic. Everything's a freakin' outrage with these folks. Oh, everything except for lack of affordable health care for millions, people getting dropped because they got sick, and bankruptcies at the hand of insurance companies.
Transcript:
Bill: "The one, the one thing that I'd like to see the federal government do is strict oversight on the insurance companies when they hose people. I mean, I don't believe they should be..."
Ann: "I totally disagree with that."
Bill: "...throwing you Ann Coulter off the rolls if God forbid you get MS or something. Alright? It has to..."
Ann: "That will not happen. But Bill, that will not happen under competition..."
Bill: "No, it would. It could happen under competition."
Ann: "Look, the government was regulating...hang on, let me make this point. No it will not. The government was regulating, the SEC was 'closely watching Bernie Madoff.' Government regulation doesn't stop that sort of thing. What stops it is, people knowing you're investing with this guy at your own risk, and then all these private organizations develop. Competition is what enforces that."
Bill: "See, I don't believe that. I think..."
Ann: "If you have people being thrown off..."
Bill: "I think competition can drive prices down."
Ann: "I mean, it never happens when you buy a computer."
Bill: "I think competition can bribe [sic]...I think competition can drive the prices down, but it cannot make a...an insurance company honest."
Ann: "Yes it can. Yes it can."
Bill: "Only a federal oversight committee that says, 'If you don't do it, we fine you.'"
Ann: "Yes it can."
Bill: "No, I don't believe it. Now you said..."
Ann: "Oh, like the SEC with Bernie Madoff?"
Bill: "No, Bernie Madoff got away with it because the SEC under a Republican, Chris Cox, simply wouldn't investigate him. That's why he got away with it."
Ann: "Yeah, that's the government regulation! Why do you keep..."
Bill: "OK...
Ann: "...thinking a different government regulator will be better? Government regulation does not solve these problems. Competition does, because if I were be...belonged to a health insurance company who threw me off when I got sick, um, people would hear about it." [said in snot-nosed tone]
And I guess you'd just be SOL and everyone should take a big lesson from your death and bankruptcy, right Ann? So much better than stopping the crime in the first place, eh Ann?
Even Bill admits it's a huge problem:
Bill: "Yeah, they wouldn't care."
Ann: "There would be magazine articles."
Bill: "They wouldn't care."
Ann: "And I don't mean it being me, I mean people would...no, that is not true. Then why do you never have problems like that with your Apple computer?"
And as we all know, an Apple computer is as imperative to life as a human body. But I digress...
Ann: "Why is it easy to go..."
Bill: "Look..."
Ann: "...to a Genius Bar and get it fixed? Because there's competition Bill O'Reilly."
Bill: "I'm telling ya Ann, there is nothing wrong with having strict government oversight, and you..."
Ann: "This is exactly what used to happen with..."
Bill: "...gotta hope that people are gonna hire competent people to enforce it."
Ann: "It's useless. No. It...no. It makes people think they're being protected, and they're not."
So Ann is saying...if you hire people to do a job with the wink, wink, nudge, nudge understanding that they aren't actually going to do their jobs, it only proves that the job can't be done. Riiiiiiiiight...
People would be protected. If we protected them. Fairly simple concept.
And what got into Bill? Maybe we'll have him backing a public option next week...LOL!