Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, June 29, 2019

B6

Mountain Views-News Saturday, June 1, 2019 


A RASH OF LIES

President Trump has been called many things. A short-fingered 
vulgarian. Mister Misdirection. The Cheater-in-Chief. 
Vlad’s ventriloquist dummy. Boss Tweet. Herr Gropenfuhrer. 
The Oval Office Oompa Loompa. But the most apropos 
moniker to throw at him is, the King of Lies.

According to the Washington Post, the former New York 
City real estate developer is closing in on 11,000 lies since 
taking the Oath of Office. Which occurred approximately 900 days ago, averaging 
out to a bit more than 12 lies a day. And that’s in public. We have no 
idea how many lies he tosses towards staff or family or himself.

And yes indeed, you are correct, sir: ”liar” is so pejorative. Let’s call him a 
serial fibber. A fabricator. Deceiver. Falsifier. Prevaricator. Pseudologist. But 
whatever you call it, Donald Trump is the undisputed heavyweight champion 
of lying. Holds the Guinness Book World Record for making stuff up. 
Orange-man speak with forked tongue.

Some lies are political, ie; claiming he was against the Iraqi War when multiple 
examples of him saying the opposite exist. Some lies are just to pump the 
brand such as when he said the head of the Boy Scouts called to say he gave 
the best speech ever at a national gathering, something the Head Scout said 
never happened. Some lies are pure animal instinct. To maintain and move 
on. Going to release his tax returns after his audit. Longest… audit… ever.

Others are inexplicable. What reason would he have to say his father was 
born in Germany when the man was born in New York? Nobody cares. But 
he keeps saying it. Perhaps simply a little self-delusion to reinforce his love 
of sauerkraut?

He lies and then he lies about lying and then he lies about lying about lying. 
Even if he said he were lying, he’d be lying. Which is metaphysically difficult. 
He lies to the press and then believes what he reads. Since it’s him being 
quoted, it must be true.

He lies because it is his nature. He lies because he’s good at it. He lies to stay 
in practice. He lies to keep opponents off balance. He lies because he is never 
held accountable or forced to suffer a consequence by either the Republican 
Party or his base. He lies because he can.

If ever caught in a lie, he just denies it. Even though there’s tape of him 
saying it out loud. In a press conference after Helsinki he said he didn’t see 
any reason why Vladimir Putin would interfere in our elections and after 
everyone, including his own staff, flipped out, he said, what he meant to say 
was, “he didn’t know why he wouldn’t have,” which doesn’t make any sense.

In a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos he said he didn’t see anything 
wrong with accepting dirt on opponents from foreign powers and that 
he would do it again. The very day after the interview aired, he said he never 
said that.

The man is responsible for more bad lies than all of his golf courses put 
together after a month-long strike by the groundskeepers. He goes so far 
beyond pathological liar, psychologists are going to name a new condition 
after him. Karma mandates it be something that comes with a nasty rash.

-Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comic and 
former sod farmer in New Berlin, Wisconsin. For a calendar of personal appearances, 
including his new one-man show, “Durst Case Scenario,” please 
visit willdurst.com.

WILL DURST

MOUNTAIN 
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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

MICHAEL REAGAN

TOM PURCELL

ELIZABETH WARREN WANTS TO ABOLISH 
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE. UH OH.

Is it possible to pluck one newsworthy moment from 
Wednesday night’s cacophonous 10-contestant Democratic 
quiz show? You bet. Here we go:

Moderator Lester Holt asked, “Who here would abolish their 
private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan? 
Just a show of hands.” Elizabeth Warren raised hers.

Uh oh. Warren is a solidly top-tier candidate, with a decent 
shot at winning the nomination, but, politically speaking, I 
seriously question whether someone who wants to abolish the private health care of 
180 million Americans can actually win a general election.

Warren was the sole candidate on stage who’s polling in double digits, crowding Bernie 
Sanders for second place behind Joe Biden. Her words counted the most. She was 
also the sole person on stage (except for one-percent candidate Bill de Blasio) who 
called for the abolition of private health insurance - a stance she hadn’t articulated on 
the campaign trail.

“Look at the business model of an insurance company. It’s to bring in as many dollars 
as they can in premiums and to pay out as few dollars as possible for your health care. 
That leaves families with rising premiums, rising co-pays, and fighting with insurance 
companies to try to get the health care that their doctors say that they and their children 
need. ‘Medicare for all’ solves that problem,” Warren said. 

Her stance may enhance her nomination prospects,within a party that has moved leftward 
since 2016. Most grassroots Democrats likely won’t fault her critique of the private 
insurance companies, and lots of centrist swing voters with private coverage have 
their own complaints about the status quo system. 

But in politics, you don’t necessarily win awards for great intentions, or for articulating 
the most rational arguments. Warren conceded that there are “political reasons” for 
not supporting government health care, but she didn’t say what they are.

So I will.

A landslide majority of Americans like their private health coverage, and they don’t 
want it taken away. Indeed, voters in general don’t like it when politicians try to take 
something away.

Granted, most Americans reportedly support the nebulous concept of “Medicare for 
all,” but as soon as they’re confronted with caveats, it’s a different story. According to 
the nonpartisan Kaiser Tracking Poll, “Medicare for all” gets a thumbs-up rating, 56 
to 42 percent. But when Americans are told that the program could eliminate private 
health insurance - as Bernie Sanders’ agenda envisions, phasing out private coverage 
within four years - most people run for the hills. The numbers are suddenly reversed: 
37 percent yes, 58 percent no.

Imagine what Trump and the Republicans would do with that, if Warren or Sanders 
were nominated. And on this issue, they wouldn’t even need to lie. Warren is confident 
about her powers of persuasion, but it’s hard to foresee her winning the argument for 
government health care. Fairly or not, “socialism” is a word that’s easy to demagogue, 
and Americans (especially those 45 and older, the most reliable voters) simply don’t 
like the word. They may be blind to the socialistic initiatives that they’ve long enjoyed 
(from Social Security to the interstate highway system), but that’s just political reality. 
Which is why candidate Kamala Harris has walked back her early support for abolishing 
private health insurance.

Amy Klobuchar, who has gotten little traction in the race thus far, said on stage 
Wednesday night: “I am just simply concerned about kicking half of America off of 
their health insurance in four years.” 

For the Trump campaign and the GOP, that’s the perfect video clip - an acknowledgment, 
from a Democrat, that Warren would imperil “half of America.” And Joe 
Biden’s campaign is drawing a sharp contrast with Warren, endorsing the more incremental 
approach to health reform. In a statement, it said: “The Biden administration 
will give every American the right to choose a public option like Medicare.” (Clever 
use of “right to choose.”)

So we did get some clarity last night, at least on the top-tier issue of health care: government 
coverage versus incremental reform. Should the Democrats go boldly leftward, 
or practice prudent moderation?

Elizabeth Warren wowed the liberal base, but she may have teed up the GOP’s top attack 
ad and rendered herself less electable.


THE DEMOCRATS’ DEBATE COULD 
HAVE BEEN WORSE

Expectations could not have been lower going into round one 
of the Democrat Party’s ridiculously overcrowded presidential 
debate in Miami.

Maybe that’s why it turned out to be a decently watchable debate. 
It was no “Games of Thrones” finale, but it could have 
been much, much worse.

NBC had that embarrassing audio glitch at the halfway point, 
which actually turned out to be entertaining. 

But NBC’s all-star moderators - Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Jose Diaz-Balart, Chuck 
Todd and even star left-fielder Rachel Maddow did a competent, fair, business-like job.

They lobbed dozens of softball questions to the ten politically indistinguishable major 
and minor league Democrats who have deluded themselves and their parents into 
thinking they are going to become president someday.

The moderators let everyone deliver their pre-canned answers on how they’d solve issues 
like health care and immigration and save the planet from the twin existential 
threats posed by climate change and President Trump.

Being good liberals themselves, they let every socialist candidate take home run swings 
at big pharma and the rich one precent, and make their wild promises of free healthcare 
and free college for all.

If Savannah, Todd or Rachel pressed anyone on how much all the “free” government 
stuff they wanted to give away was going to cost, or how they planned to pay for it, I 
missed it.

NBC’s moderators were operating under tough circumstances, but it would have been 
nice if they had asked some tougher questions or baited the candidates into sniping at 
each other.

They also might have asked a few of them to explain why Congress and previous administrations, 
including Obama’s, have refused for nearly 40 years to do what is necessary 
to secure the border and reform immigration laws.

Everyone in the country was understandably saddened this week by the photo of the 
dead father and his little daughter who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande.

Democrats naturally have blamed their deaths on President Trump, but as I said on 
Newsmax after the debate, there have been Latino men, women and children dying 
coming across that border for years.

Our border patrol officers find their dead bodies in the desert every day. But no one 
ever blamed Obama or his policies for their deaths, just as they never blamed him for 
those “cages” that were built for immigrant children during his reign.

Giving candidates just 60 seconds to tell America how they plan to end the immigration 
crisis, reform healthcare or avert climate change was a mistake that should be fixed for 
future debates when the field of candidates drops to an even dozen or so.

But some candidates clearly did better than others.

Elizabeth Warren and her multi-list of big plans for government solutions to everything 
was arguably the big winner. She knew what she wanted to say and said it clearly 
and energetically.

Booker did well and didn’t make a joke out of himself, though I wish Chuck Todd has 
asked him if he thought Bill Deblasio was doing a good job as mayor of New York.

The most sensible guy on the stage, who 99.9 percent of Americans have never heard 
of, was the retired businessman and ex-congressman from Maryland, John Delaney.

He pointed out the foolishness of everyone else’s favorite fix for health care, Medicare 
for All.

Go to your local hospital, what’s-his-name said, and ask the administrators what would 
happen if every one of their bills were paid at the current Medicare rate. They’d tell you 
the truth, he said -- they’d have to go out of business.

Wednesday night’s opening Democratic debate is already old news.

But if it had been an episode of “Survivor” and I had to pick the winners and losers, I’d 
let Warren, Booker, former Housing Secretary Julian Castro and New York Mayor Bill 
Deblasio move forward and I’d send the rest home.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the 
author of “Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, Integrity, and Faith of Ronald 
Reagan.”.

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