“We just didn’t see [President Obama] enough. … The man was everyplace. The only place he didn’t show up in was my bedroom to personally talk to my wife and make sweet love to her. At least I don’t think he did. I’m pretty sure that was John Edwards doing that, but I’m not sure because so far John Edwards is denying it.”

Let me forestall accusations that I’m a knee-jerk liberal who doesn’t understand that Beck was being funny.

Not true. I know he was being deliberately hyperbolic. (Tea-bagger translation: over the top.)

I know he was trying to be funny.

But, you know, it isn’t funny. And I’m not talking about taking a shot at John Edwards for adultery. Everyone has done that; and we’ve taken shots at plenty of figures on the left and right, from Newt Gingrich and Mark Sanford, John McCain, David Vitter and Rudi Guiliani to JFK and Elliot Spitzer. Politicians can’t keep it in their pants. Fine. Got it. And some of them clearly have *screwed* their brains out. Got that, too. And most of them like *screwing* us and bending over for their corporate masters. Check. As a class, shots at them are not only easy, but fair and even necessary.

As Mark Twain noted back in 1888:

No god and no religion can survive ridicule. No church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field and live.

I get the cleansing power of ridicule. Pour it on.

But how is it funny, for Beck, on national television, to suggest his wife has been getting stud service from John Edwards? (And I won’t even begin to touch the whole hint of Mandigo-racism in the suggestion that President Obama is doing her. Hello KKK nightmare, where’s the sheets, get a rope, find a tree.)

It’s not funny at all.

It is grossly disrespectful of someone Beck purportedly loves, who supports him, makes a home for him. This is a man who weeps because of the decay he sees in the nation, and yet he thinks its funny to suggest his wife has the morals of an alley cat? (Yes, equating someone who would sleep with John Edwards to an alley cat does insult alley cats, my apologies.) (By the way, my last parenthetical, that was funny.)

The reason I point this out is not because I assume Glenn Beck will notice or care. He won’t. I point it out because the man has a lot of influence with a segment of our population. He motivates them. And if he is so caught up in being Glenn Beck, that he is willing to denigrate and publicly humiliate his own wife simply to feed his own ego and rev up his followers, one has to ask if there is a line he won’t cross? Because if there isn’t, if there are no brakes there, and, in an effort to be “funny” he lets slip something that one of his followers sees as a command, some serious damage could be done.

Am I being hyperbolic in that suggestion? I hope to Heaven I’m not, but see if this scenario could hold water for you: a listener so reveres Glenn, that he hears this joke as Glenn calling out to him, telling him that Glenn’s wife has violated the sanctity of their marriage bed. Might that individual not see it as his duty to defend the honor of his champion? Face it, folks have been shot to defend the honor of crack-whores and sports figures, and Beck inspires a lot more passion than either of those classes. One whack-job with a pistol reading into Glenn’s little call out, and the self-proclaimed “rodeo clown” might really have something to weep about.

I think I also liked the fact that the Haitians had managed to do what Americans had done—throw off the bonds of a European Colonial power. I never read anything about a pact with the devil, but one couldn’t miss the fact that Haiti was the home of voodoo, and voodoo dolls and zombies. That was all pretty potent stuff, too.

And now to look at the pictures, the level of destruction is simply stunning. A nation that had nothing—thanks to decades of corruption in which leaders grew rich as multinationals and other nations raped the people—now has even less. A deal which lifted price controls on rice production back in the 1990s destroyed the rice economy, so farmers moved from the countryside to Port-au-Prince in search of jobs.

This placed them in vast slums 5 kilometers from the earthquake’s epicenter. So, with the population concentrated, and food stocks coming in from outside…oh, wait, the only ports were destroyed in the earthquake… and central authority, of which there was little to begin with, can’t control armed gangs…with 50,000 people unburied (except in rubble)…

The mind rebels at the attempt to understand it. Pictures are horrible, but they can’t convey the scent of decay, the buzzing of flies, the snarling of animals fighting for food, the weeping of the injured and the weary shuffle of exhausted rescue workers finally acknowledging that time has run out. I’ve listened to reporters ask witnesses if they’ve heard of any miraculous stories of survival, seeking that one tiny spark of hope in a story that is beyond hope.

What brings it even close to home for me is this: I make my living with my imagination, and I honestly can’t imagine what it’s like there now. I look at pictures and listen to reports and, as with almost anything, I ask myself if I could set a story there. This time out, I can’t. I can’t imagine setting a story there and get it right. The death, the destruction, the hunger and disease, the social chaos, the rank fear of another aftershock tearing down what little remains, people who have not only lost everything but the clothes on their backs, but everyone they know and love in the world, the descent into a hell where the only way to clothe yourself is to steal rags off corpses, the stunned silence of children who have no more tears to cry, and of adults who have had a life of grinding poverty made worse.

If I were to write such a book, I’d be spending two or four months in that world of my imagination—and I’d want to slit my wrists every single day.

These people are actually there. They can’t walk away. They’re trapped. They have no way out.

Unless we write them a happy ending.

I’ve already given money to Doctors Without Borders. I’ll give more today. Charity Watch has a list of charities that make sure that over 75% of donations reach the relief effort. I know these are tough times for all of us, but USAID’s 2004 report indicated that the life expectancy for a Haitian is 53 years, and the per capita income is only $400 per year. Most of us spend more than that pet food and lattes in a year.

There are those who dismiss what I do as “escapist trash.” Could be, but at least what I do can enable me to help those who can’t escape. I’d be very pleased if you could find a way to help, too.

There are plenty of other folks on the net being hopelessly outraged by Pat’s grotesque insensitivity. This is the moral equivalent of telling a rape victim that she deserved it because of the way she dresses. You’ll recall that New Orleans, according to Pat, deserved to be ravished by Katrina because the city had agreed to host a gay convention. It’s become a common chorus with Pat. Once there’s a new disaster, Pat just adds another verse to the song.

The formula is simple: “[Victim] deserved the [disaster] because of an act of [moral turpitude] committed [in the past or to be committed in the near future.]” “They brought it on themselves,” really just summarizes it safely, and can be said with that sad resignation which suggests it was preventable had they only decided they loved Jesus enough.

Of course, one can ask the philosophical question, “Why would God do this to believers?” because we all know that among the thousands of dead, there will be ample representation of Christians. This question will be answered in one of two ways. First: “Had they done more to bring Christianity to their home, this would not have happened.” (Brilliantly non-falsifiable, and great at reinforcing victimization.) Second: “We can’t know the mind of God.” (No, except when you impart motives to Him.)

And the truly annoying thing about all this is that Pat Robertson will be forgiven. Even in making his statement about Haiti, he immediately suggests we pray for the victims; thereby doing the right thing and allowing folks to forgive his heartlessness. In the same way folks forget and forgive the fact that Pat Robertson and his wife engaged in pre-marital sex, producing a child. They forget that Pat Roberson invested in mining interests in Liberia, supporting one of the most repressive dictators in Africa in a regime that has committed countless horrors. They forget all the other times that Pat has shot his mouth off in an equally ridiculous manner.

Here’s the ultimate hypocrisy: this society is more than happy to take the antics of a religious minority (extreme fundamentalist Muslims) and generalize it to a benign population; and yet we don’t do that with men like Pat Roberson (equally fundamentalist, equally rich, equally out of touch). He’s a fornicator who has advocated assassination of foreign leaders and invests money with murderers, yet we don’t attribute those moral failings to all other Christians. Ted Haggard and Paul Crouch have engaged in sexual contact with men, but we don’t assume all Christian leaders are homosexuals. Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker had extra-marital affairs, but we don’t assume that all Christian leaders are unfaithful to their spouses.

Obviously someone like Pat Robertson should be ignored. The problem is that he won’t be ignored. And for those of us who do not support hateful and thoughtless sentiments such that he offers do ourselves, our nation, humanity and the truth a great injury by remaining silent. In silence, we are complicit in his action. Don’t be silent. Let folks know that this sort of nonsense isn’t part of being an American, a Christian or a human being.

But down in the comments, one person posts a pity, “Jealous much?” I believe he decided to make this witty foray into the discussion based on the fact that the book’s authors were paid a large advance for the tome. Clearly, the thinking went, since they got the big bucks and Mr. Linkins didn’t, he was motivated in his critique by pure spite and jealousy. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this criticism being leveled against a critic, and it’s always delivered with that “this ends the argument” finality because, if the critic contests the point, he is answered with, “you’re in denial.”

Game. Set. Match.

But it’s important to recognize two things about this charge: Jealous much?

The first is this: it’s an ad hominem attack. It says absolutely nothing about the strength of the author’s argument. All it does is attempt to undermine the arguments by impugning the integrity of the author. Now it really doesn’t matter how scurrilous a louse an author may be, if his facts are facts, they stick. There is no escaping them.

In writing seminars, I open myself up to this sort of charge from time to time. I often note, for the pure shock effect, that, “I’d call Tom Clancy’s characters cardboard, but I have no desire to insult cardboard.” Now, there is no denying that Tom Clancy’s books sell better than mine. And even if I was simply pea-green with envy, his characters still would be less than cardboard. My being jealous, which I’m not, would not affect the validity of my comment.

And that brings us to the second point about that charge, Jealous much? The person who levels it shows they have no intention of even attempting to engage in a discussion. I would venture to say that this is because they know they’re intellectually out-classed, or realize that the argument being offered by the author is not refutable through an attack on the facts of the case. The second they level that charge, they’ve agreed they’ve lost the argument.

And, frankly, if they’re not smart enough to approach the championing of the subject matter from even a weak defense, you pretty much know they’ve not read the book and are just out trolling for a flame war. For example, for a book like the one under discussion, full of explosive material about powerful folks, you advance the, “for the sake of their families and their livelihoods, and in the interest of wanting the truth to get out, they had no choice but to comment anonymously,” defense of using anonymous sources. As I noted, it’s weak, but you get that conspiracy-vibe thing going, which a lot of folks will buy into.

Are there jealous people in the world who will rant and rave because they are insane concerning someone? Absolutely, but they usually froth on for countless pages about stuff that makes no sense, destroying their own credibility. Easily spotted, easily ignored.

Not so, I fear, Mr. Linkins’ critique.

It goes on for way too long. Here’s Mike’s Summary of the Summary of the White House Review of the December 25, 2009 Attempted Terrorist Attack:

Cogent Points:

1) Because no single individual had personal responsibility for following up on this specific case, analysts failed to consult all available databases for information about Mr. Abdulmutallab. Because the intelligence community is set up with redundant systems and overlapping responsibility, this means more than one person failed to consult all available databases.

2) Because of a typo by a State Department employee, the fact that Mr. Abdulmutallab already had a U. S. visa went unnoticed. This is okay, however, because the State Department never would have revoked his visa because employees in the Counter-Terrorism community (see point 1) had not yet pulled together the relevant facts to show the man was a threat to the United States—his having a visa for a visit to the United States probably ranking high in that whole threat assessment.

3) Sifting data is hard work because little nuggets come buried in big piles of data. (Most of it in Arabic or other languages we don’t understand.)

Executive Action Plan:

1) Detail employees to actually take responsibility for following up and using all available resources in doing that follow-up. Also, learn to spell.

2) Detail bosses to set up committees to make sure employees are accountable for their work. When heads have to roll, we want lots of paper to show which heads it should be.

Mike’s suggestions:

1) Hire more analysts, preferably those who can understand the languages the terrorists use. (Deucedly unsporting of them not to speak English.) If there is too much data, put more people on the problem.

2) State Department: hire clerks who can spell.

3) Make sure one of the available databases is the list of everyone who has a visa to enter the United States; and/or those who are already here.

4) Do not worry about folks who complain about screening devices that look under clothes. They have a choice. Get screened or stay home. Travel is not compulsory. (Besides, folks already have given up complaining about TSA employees pawing their underwear in suitcases, so the hubbub over scanner picks hitting Facebook will die pretty quickly.)

5) Implement the rest of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, including screening cargo containers coming into the US.

Yes, I know. Next time I hit an airport it’ll be a full body cavity search for me. I hope they at least have warm hands.

What gets lost in all of this is the human factor. Politicians assume that the public is stupider than they are. I know, hard to believe, but politicians are just that dumb. Politicians, after all, are those people who are good at winning elections. Winning elections, alas, has nothing to do with being able to govern. All too many of the politicians in Washington are marginal intellects and they live in fear of mobs who follow monosynaptic windbags on cable television and talk radio.

Let’s break things down. First, is there anyone who truly believes that some poor soul lying in the gutter, bleeding profusely, because some car has just hit him, does not deserve medical care? That should be a rhetorical question, but there are those who would claim that if that poor soul is not in the country legally or does not have insurance or, for you libertarians, can’t crawl out of the gutter to the emergency room by himself, he should just suck it up and die. In that way he would just be accepting responsibility for his own behavior which, in this case, involved being in a crosswalk at the wrong time.

I believe he deserves medical care. Some people suggest that medical care is a privilege, and since the Constitution does not mention it, it clearly cannot be a right. It is my sense that were medical science actually a science at the time of the founding of this country, the right to affordable medical care would have been inserted into the Bill of Rights. Caring for the poor and the indigent after all certainly is the Christian thing to do, a point often overlooked by those who claim that this is a Christian nation. (Matthew 25: 34-40 (41-46 for those who don’t believe me.))

What I find most revolting about the current debate is that it’s centered around profit. The idea that there might be a public option is one that is used to scare people into believing that they won’t get the care they deserve, and that the public option will put all of the insurance companies out of business. In short, enemies of the public option argue two diametrically opposed things: that the government is so inefficient it will not be able to provide people care, but it is so incredibly efficient that it will drive private business into bankruptcy. And a bonus: it will bankrupt the United States at the same time.

Clearly these arguments cannot both be true at the same time.

Since the goal is to make sure that people get the health care they need, putting together a plan should not be that difficult. The people are not stupid. There’s not a single soul in United States who believes that they will not have to pay for care one way or the other. Pretending that it will be free is just stupid. Everyone knows the politicians are lying when they make that promise. A public option may make it affordable. A public option may cause competition which drives down prices. But we’re still paying and we all know that.

So how do we fund this thing?

I have long been an advocate of something that I refer to as a health tariff. I use the word tariff to avoid that odious term tax. I don’t expect anyone to be fooled, save a few politicians. It works this way: for every bit of snack food, every bit of fatty food, or sweet foods or alcohol that we buy, $.25 is added to the price. Yes, I know this is a regressive tax. My thinking is this: if $.25 means you can’t afford a bag of chips, you can’t afford the health consequences of a bag of chips. This health tariff will force people to be cognizant of the daily decisions they make and the effect that their decisions have on their long-term health.

We collect the health tariff and put all of that money into one big fund. That fund is used to underwrite health care for Americans. It will not fund healthcare entirely and if people get smart it might go away, but that also means that people will be making choices which are better for them long-term, thereby driving down health costs. The health tariff is a simple variation on the old sin tax idea. We know that taxing smoking has not eliminated it, nor has it eliminated drinking. With the health tariff we will be getting some value out of destructive behaviors.

And at a quarter a pop, people who whine too much will just be seen as weenies.

Here’s the fun thing: if you don’t want to pay the health tariff, you don’t have to. Make an intelligent decision and you get off scott free. If you decide to indulge, to have those fries, then you pay.

Having grown up in a household where my father was a doctor, and having worked in his office while I was in college, I love the medical profession. My father and his partners worked long hours. Every year during the holidays I watched them write off tens of thousands of dollars in money owed to them by families who could not pay and yet were not eligible for Medicaid. They work very hard—you try telling someone their child has six months to live and see what that does for your day. They went in early, got home late and someone was always on call on nights and weekends and holidays so that patients in need of medical care were never left without.

That being said, for-profit medical care really skeevs me out. I understand that we don’t want our medical facilities to lose money. I understand we want doctors to be able to make a decent living. I know there are lots of things like malpractice insurance premiums that have to be paid, and medical school loans. The idea however that hospitals have become corporations, and have Board of Directors who have no medical training whatsoever, who treat medical care like a business the same way hog slaughterers treat pork, really leaves me cold. While the law may prevent a facility for refusing to take a patient, there are countless stories about individuals who do not have insurance being quickly turfed out to county medical facilities so the burden of their care falls on taxpayers.

In short, rationing of care already happens.

I think that for-profit medicine should go away. Not a question of my being a socialist, just a realist. Business models change. I know because I’m watching publishing change around me. 20 or 30 years ago I would’ve never had a worry in the world about my career after having 40 books in print. Now that track record means absolutely nothing, and this would bother me more, but I’m watching publishing stumbled blindly into an abyss – unable to change or to survive. And while some of you would note that being an author is entirely different than being a doctor, I would agree. I am not licensed by the state to dispense drugs or to do things which, outside a hospital, would constitute assault, battery, attempted murder, or negligent homicide. (You try removing a gallbladder in the street and see what sort of jail time you do.)

Medical professionals provide a service, and if you know any of them, you know the profit motive is not high on their list. Dealing with people on a daily basis who are having the worst time of their life is something for which no one can be compensated enough. Medical professionals feel a higher calling. I’m glad they do. They watch out for their patients as best they can.

As best the current situation allows them to.

About 10 years ago I visited the doctor because I was wheezing a lot. He diagnosed me as having asthma. But before he wrote that diagnosis down in my chart, he asked me, “How long have you had your insurance?” I asked why that made the difference and he said that some insurance companies give new patients difficulty over such a diagnosis. Again to the point I raised earlier, care is being rationed and healthcare individuals have to jump through hoops imposed by bureaucrats – private bureaucrats in this case – which has nothing to do with the care the patient needs.

So to me this debate is all useless. This is because the course is fairly clear. We need to provide care to everyone. We need to pay for it. Everyone knows they’re gonna be taxed on one level or another so we might as well have that up front. And we need a public option to provide competition so that prices will be kept reasonable. Anyone who argues that government corruption will make sure that that doesn’t work should explain to me how private corporation corruption is any better or works for anybody except CEOs being compensated in the millions by profiting off the agonies of millions.

I find it highly ironic that the politicians who are deciding the fate of the healthcare bill have one of the best healthcare plans in the nation in place, and have had their campaigns funded by those individuals who profiteer from misery. Conflict of interest, anyone? I realize that conflicts of interest are standard operating procedure in Washington today, and have been for, gosh, the last two centuries anyway. But now is really the time for politicians to strap on a pair, defy their corporate masters, and actually do the job for which they were elected: which is to see to the greater welfare of the people of this nation.

And as for those insurance companies and others who wish to profit, they’ll do exactly what has been done with Medicare. They’ll set up supplemental insurance to cover the things which Medicare will not, and facilities to do the procedures that are not authorized by national healthcare. They will still be around, they will still make their money, but not so many people will suffer to pay for their country clubs, their second and third vacation homes, and their lavish vacations to places others can only dream about visiting.

This isn’t rocket science. Give us what we need, give us a reasonable means of funding it, and it will all work out.