Sheila Jackson Lee is Full Of It

Flipping through channels tonight, I caught Sheila Jackson Lee (SJL), Democratic Representative from Texas, being interviewed by Greta van Susteren. She was being asked about her behavior at this week's town hall in Texas. If you have not seen the video, while a woman was asking a question during the town hall, SJL pulled out her cellphone to talk with someone. This would be considered rude in just about everyone's book, but apparently not in hers. She did not think anything of it until called on it. But what is fishy to me is her explanation. She tells us that she was on a health hotline getting information about the health bill, which she claims she has read. I don't believe her excuse, and I don't believe her when she says she read the bill. Okay, maybe she read bits and pieces, let's say maybe 15-20 pages of the 1000. That way she can say in passing that she read the bill (just not all of it). I find the hotline excuse though highly questionable. I don't have a good explanation for why she would lie about that, other than talking with the health hotline sounds better than talking with someone about a dinner order. Thing is, who is going to fact check that? No one is going to make a request for phone records, although I wonder if those kind of records can be made public through the Freedom of Information Act. The woman asking the question said afterward that she was under the impression that SJL was talking with one of her aides in regards to recognizing dignitaries who were in attendance. This woman said this even after apparently having an extended conversation (according to SJL) with SJL after the town hall. In her interview tonight, SJL talked like this woman is her new best friend, and that she cares very much about her. Yeah, right. She also said she was all about listening to her constituents, but then proceeded to say that she was intent on convincing them that she is right about this health care bill, and that they are wrong. So much for listening.

If you are interested in reading someone else's thoughts on the health care bill, someone who has actually read it, my old college buddy Mark Hamilton has written a nice analysis of the bill.

He writes: "This bill is lengthy and boring with technical language making it extremely difficult to follow especially if one is not versed in the legal nuances of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I’m a professional philosopher with the skill to decipher challenging reading, but this bill makes Aristotle and Kant look like a piece of cake. It will take bureaucrats years to explain and apply the intricacies of this bill and I doubt if more than a few Congressmen could even follow the train of thought.

The bill causes one to realize that we already have a large government controlled health care program called Medicare. The majority of this new bill is amendments to Medicare leading to a major expansion and overhaul of its system."