Steyn calls health care reform a “massive annexation” by federal government, continues right-wing freak-out over Obama's back-to-school speech

By Greg Lewis

Mark Steyn, our “undocumented anchorman” filling in for Rush today, began the show continuing to pick on yesterday's dissenting caller, who accused Limbaugh and Steyn of being paid by insurance companies to oppose health care reform. Steyn joked that Rush was being paid off by Halliburton and Whole Foods, and Steyn himself was being paid off by a local feed store.

Moving on to more, uh, serious topics, Steyn talked about Barack Obama's upcoming health care speech before a joint session of Congress. Steyn read from The Washington Post's reporting that Obama will use the opportunity to “flesh out his vision.” Steyn quipped that after the speech, study materials will be handed out inviting you to write an essay -- oops, said Steyn, wrong speech, that's his speech for students. He would get back to that topic later, as Steyn quickly moved to another tangent. Apparently spurred on by the Post's use of the word “vision,” Steyn made a series of (predictably lame) jokes about the wife of the new Japanese prime minister.

Back on topic, sort of, Steyn compared Obama's fleshing out of his vision to a Martha Stewart craft project. Steyn explained what Obama is doing: he's taking his “grotesque, hobbit-shaped creature” of a vision, and studding it with little glittery specifics. Steyn declared that Obama can give speeches all he wants, but it's not a message or vision issue, it's a substance issue -- the American people understand that this is a massive annexation by the federal government.

Then Steyn addressed the latest news out of a California health care protest, during which a pro-reform protestor apparently bit the finger off an elderly anti-reform protestor. Steyn made some (predictably lame) jokes about this, including claiming that the man was lucky because the waiting time for finger reattachment surgery in Scotland is 18 months.

After the break, Steyn looked at a Politico article about Obama's upcoming prime-time speech, repeating the concern that network execs don't like carrying Obama's speeches because they lose money. Steyn predicted that the more Obama is linked to his “unpopular policies” the more his ratings will nosedive. Obama, said Steyn, has yet to be able to come up with a “five-word rationale” for the “government annexation” of one-sixth of the economy.

Steyn then returned to Obama's upcoming back-to-school speech, explaining that his real objection to it was not the content, but that “telling kids to study hard is not education.” Steyn argued the students would be better served spending the hour studying science or history than listening to the president talk about working hard. He also said that when you “beam in the drivel” from the president, you're conflating the head of state with the state, which makes us more like Third World dumps where images of the “president for life” is omnipresent.

Steyn takes caller who claims to have witnessed finger-biting incident at health care protest

After another break, Steyn took a caller who said he was at the California protest and witnessed the finger-biting incident. It's uncertain at this point whether the caller's story lines up with other reporting, but the highlight of the caller's tale was that he claimed he was in the group of people who picked up the man's bitten-off finger and drove it to the hospital. Steyn said that next time Nancy Pelosi says there are Nazis at the protests, we should remember which side is biting off fingers.

The caller after the next commercial break argued that health care reform in America will work out better than it has in Canada and the UK because America is the greatest country in the world, so we would naturally be able to better accomplish it. Steyn argued that the common feature of government health care programs is that the only way to control costs is to restrict services, usually to the elderly.

Then Steyn brought up the latest Drudge special about Britain's National Health Service treatment of terminally ill patients. Steyn said once Medicare is universalized, seniors will get stiffed, which is why they make up a large portion of the protests. They realize they have NHS-style death panels line up for them. Closing out the hour, Steyn argued that if health care reform passes, America would have the most expensive health care in the world, because of the “combo” of government health care and medical malpractice suits. It wil be the biggest disaster in socialized health care ever attempted anywhere, said Steyn. Incidentally, America already has the most expensive health care in the developed world.

Steyn claims he's “not comparing President Obama to Saddam Hussein” when discussing Obama's “cult of personality”

Hour 2 began with Steyn still talking about the last caller. Steyn agreed with the caller's belief in American exceptionalism, but didn't think that would carry over to health care because America is not a “statist morass” in the way so many other countries are. Then Steyn spent some time with the liberal boycott of Whole Foods over CEO John Mackey's stated position on health care reform. Steyn found it interesting that liberals object to Mackey's free-market solution, and stated that the left would rather a “one size fits all” solution.

The next subject up was the latest on Rep. Charlie Rangel's (D-NY) ethics investigation, brought to you by the New York Post. Steyn decried the two-tiered tax system that we have, where rulers impose regulation and rules that they themselves don't follow, and also incorporated Tim Geithner into the discussion. Steyn's answer to all of this was to say the Rangel approach to taxation should apply to all of us; i.e., simplify the tax code.

After the break, Steyn quickly referenced a Miami Herald article about federal stimulus money going to homeless sex offenders before getting back to Rangel. Steyn continued to make his point about simplifying the tax code and ranting about the two-tiered system he argued that Rangel and Geithner were propagating. Steyn also said that Rangel had said criticism of Obama's health care policy is “racist.”

Steyn took a caller on the other side of the next break who was concerned about Obama's back-to-school speech, and described some of the activities for students for “after the speech.” This prompted Steyn to embark on another rant about how Obama's speech would insert his cult of personality into the education system. Steyn compared this to an anecdote about the way Saddam Hussein's picture was prominently featured in Iraqi school textbooks, adding:

STEYN: What we have here is something that is not -- obviously I'm not saying, I'm not comparing President Obama to Saddam Hussein -- but I am saying that the cult of personality at grade school level is a phenomenon of non-functioning, non-democratic, non-free societies, and it should have no place here.

Steyn argues that purchasing health care should be like purchasing tomatoes

Steyn followed up another break with another caller, who said the Republican leadership had the opportunity to finally drive the final nail into the coffin on the health care debate. Even if Democrats roll back parts of the bill that people don't like, if they pass some kind of reform, “it's a foot in the door.” Steyn essentially agreed with the caller, and launched into a rant about free market health care. Steyn argued that if health care were a “straight commercial transaction” -- like purchasing a tomato at a grocery store -- then the cost would be lower since it wouldn't factor in involved parties like the government, insurers, and lawyers (though we're pretty sure there are already numerous middlemen, like the grocers, transporters, lawyers, insurers, and government regulatory agencies, involved in the tomato industry).

Anyway, Steyn continued to discuss his utopian visions of free-market health care. After the caller said that some people just don't have the cash on hand to cover certain health care expenses, Steyn went on to compare paying for health care services to buying cars and homes. People take out loans for big ticket purchases, and the idea that just because there are large sums of money involved in health care, Steyn did not think it was a reason to get government involved. He went on to argue that there are a lot of wealthy people and young people who don't have insurance because they don't want it, and they should have the freedom to choose to opt out of the insurance system.

Steyn got the final hour of today's show going by discussing how once Obama starts going down path of a “Euro-Canadian-sized” welfare state, it can't be undone. Steyn figured the American political scene would move significantly towards the left, like it is in European countries, if health care reform passes. Once that happens, it becomes incredibly difficult to have a genuine conservative government ever again.

The next caller on the program was from British Columbia, and complained about high taxes that pay for their mediocre health care. Steyn told some anecdotes to illustrate what a mess Canadian health care is -- one story was about long waiting times in an emergency room in Quebec. Then Steyn talked about the two kinds of Democrats -- those who think they want to live like Europeans or Canadians, and those who genuinely want a hardcore, left wing society. Before going to a commercial, Steyn told us about a UK mayor who was his "model politician."

Steyn wishes our government were more like Afghanistan's

Steyn devoted the final half hour of today's show to foreign policy, specifically the war in Afghanistan. Steyn attributed the large drop in support of the war to Democrats, who accepted the idea of the war during the Bush years so as not to seem weak when opposing Iraq. Anyway, Steyn went on to explain how nation-building was a waste of time in Afghanistan because they are a “tribal society” that never had a strong federal government. Steyn then realized that he actually quite liked the idea of living in a failed state:

STEYN: The Afghans haven't built a nation in Afghanistan. It's essentially a tribal society in which the village and the tribe are what count and there's a remote national government in Kabul that has absolutely no impact on your life. I wish we could have that system here when I think about it like that.

I'd like to -- I think New Hampshire should be a tribal society with a remote national government thousands of miles away that has no impact on your life. I'd quite like that system. So, on balance, I'd rather Afghans were nation-building in America than Americans nation-building in Afghanistan, if we have to go either way on it.

From there, Steyn bemoaned rules of engagement for NATO forces, calling them “ridiculous.” He said we should only have one purpose for being in Afghanistan, which is to quarantine and kill large numbers of Al Qaeda, and that we shouldn't be there to nation-build. Steyn also touched upon other examples of US nation building, arguing that it worked in Iraq, and calling Kosovo “a little nothing war.”

Steyn questioned whether Obama understood the purpose for being in Afghanistan, saying that it was now “Obama's war.” Steyn added that Bush kept the country safe from attack by keeping on the offensive in the war on terror, and that Obama has moved to a more “legalistic” and “reactive” model. After another commercial break, Steyn continued to complain about NATO rules of engagement. Steyn finished off his two-day reign of unfunny jokes with a caller who argued that you can't impose a government from the top down, and that it needs to come from the bottom up. Steyn agreed and explained that this is how American government came to be. The trouble with UN nation-building is they always want to go from the top down, said Steyn. You can't do “trickle-down” nation building.

Zachary Aronow and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights

Outrageous comments

STEYN: What we have here is something that is not -- obviously I'm not saying, I'm not comparing President Obama to Saddam Hussein -- but I am saying that the cult of personality at grade school level is a phenomenon of nonfunctioning, nondemocratic, non-free societies, and it should have no place here.

[...]

STEYN: The Afghans haven't built a nation in Afghanistan. It's essentially a tribal society in which the village and the tribe are what count and there's a remote national government in Kabul that has absolutely no impact on your life. I wish we could have that system here when I think about it like that.

I'd like to -- I think New Hampshire should be a tribal society with a remote national government thousands of miles away that has no impact on your life. I'd quite like that system. So, on balance, I'd rather Afghans were nation-building in America than Americans nation-building in Afghanistan, if we have to go either way on it.