THE HOUSTON Chronicle today decried President Obama's "puzzling silence" on health care.
This silence has dumbfounded many Obama supporters, particularly those on the left [read particularly the newspaper editorial writers of America], and threatened this centerpiece of his reform agenda.
What a hoot.
Before his vacation -- undeterred by the absence of an actual health-care plan -- President Obama did nothing except talk about that imaginary plan.
Head swiveling metronomically from left to right to left to right to a rhythm only he could hear, Mr. Obama gabbed and interviewed and babbled and soliloquized. On health care, let it be said, his tongue has flapped prodigiously.
Whatever else you may say of the summer's presentation of the president's chronic logorrhea, it was not silence, puzzling or dumbfounding or otherwise.
And what happened? A summer of what the Chronicle condescendingly calls "overheated town hall meetings" -- actually an epic revolt by the American people against the radical political elite for which the Chronicle does unpaid PR work.
Mr. Obama's approval number slid ever downward, like a June bug in a goose's alimentary system, and congressional support for health-care radicalism collapsed.
Then the president took a vacation, rode bikes without a helmet, maybe smoked a couple of Kools, and rested his voice.
And what happened? His poll numbers rebounded, modestly but unmistakeably.
Now the Chronicle, almost always wrong but never in doubt, calls Mr. Obama back to the TelePromTer to rescue the newspaper's dream of a statist medical system.
How? By ending the president's puzzling nonsilence with a "definitive" speech to the nation.
The editors say Wednesday's joint session of Congress will finally offer up "the first definitive explication of a presumed Obama plan, complete with long-awaited specifics."
What should those explicated specifics be?
Well, the Chronicle has nothing useful to offer here, except perhaps to crush evil private insurance companies. Like our president, our local newspaper traffics in generalities, not specifics. President Obama will have to explicate those specifics with no help from downtown Houston's biggest newspaper.
Here's where I agree with the Chronicle: Bring the man back to the stage. Encourage our loquacious president -- though, for him, scant encouragement is ever needed -- to talk about health care.
Kindergarteners. Liberal Christians. Wiccans, pantheists, and vegetarians. The counter staff at Burger King. Air America. The FedEx guys making deliveries to 1600 P. Tourists along the fence of the South Lawn. Ms. Obama and the kids.
Let him talk 'til his 'PromTers melt, 'til his voice grows hoarse, 'til his approval numbers make Jimmy Carter look and George W. look like presidential Mick Jaggers.
Nothing could be better calculated to defeat ObamaCare than the vigorous exercise of Mr. Obama's mouth.
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And while he's at it, let him 'splain why this (plus two undepicted trillion dollars more) is such a good idea:
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