Krauthammer: Obama Selling Snake Oil

Charles Krauthammer comments on Obama's health care speech.

Krauthammer gives Obama high marks on delivery.

The problem: Obama was delivering snake oil.

Video.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: That's a perfect example of what he did last night. He sounded smooth, and polished, and strong, and convincing. And what he was selling was snake oil. That is a completely bogus claim.

And when he talked about what would be in his bill and how he would not end up with a dime of deficit, he said it will cost almost $1 trillion dollars and the majority of it, more than half, will come from, what? From removing waste, fraud, and abuse from Medicare. Now that's an insult to the intelligence of the American people. That, the phrase was a joke when it was used by Richard Nixon in 1971.

And if there's all this waste and abuse in the system waiting to be squeezed out, why hasn't he started already? Where is it? Why do you have to have a bill? If you tell us that Medicare is destroying our budget and our economy, he ought to be on this from day one and we're eight months in. Why doesn't he start today and give us a report in six months how the attack on waste and abuse is going?

That was a fraud. I mean, a lot of the stuff he sold, again, smoothly and extremely effectively, was amazing.

What he offered last night was the greatest free lunch in American history -- no new taxes, no deficits, and he gave away everything. He's going to insure all these uninsured. He's going to have the lifetime guaranteed insurance. If you have it, nobody's going to have to change. Of course people are going to lose health insurance.

All of this elided over brilliantly. I think he helped himself. It was an amazing performance.

I don't want a president capable of delivering an "amazing performance."

What good is that?

Obama couldn't have helped himself with the lies and empty promises he was offering.

Eventually the truth will catch up with him.

I still have faith in the intelligence of the American people. They bought Obama's snake oil once, when they elected him. Hopefully, Americans will have the good sense to reject Obama's magic elixir this time.