Near be it from me to belabor a point, but John Ibbitson's column last week suggesting that the Yankees care more about their politics than we do is taking on a strange and I think unintended air of verisimilitude and irony. American media was full to brimming this weekend with news and views of Astro-turf (fake grassroots) mobs shouting down Democratic politicians trying to explain how the country's going to go bust if they don't get health costs under control. No sensible American disagrees with this.
Like that matters.
The mobs have bought into the notion that somehow "socialized medicine" leads directly to euthanasia for the weak and elderly. Which needless to say leads directly to a lot of yelling, screaming and death threats aimed at politicians who would suborn killing dear old dad (I'm not even going to bother delving into the ironies of all this suffice it to say that there's clearly a bull market in lethal idiocy).
Moreover in certain quarters of the progressive media, commentators are bruiting over the possibility of Fascism in America. One thing about the Yankee left - no matter how hard they dig there is never a pony hiding under their particular pile of shit. Eight months after electing the most progressive candidate to even think about the White House since George McGovern, suddenly Fascism is on the march. And the Republicans are just discombobulated enough to provide fuel for the phony fire.
So fearful is the GOP of alienating the mouth breathers among them that they continue to abide the birthers and the Tea Partiers and other militia-like nutbars that make up the loony fringe of Conservatism.
Hereabouts on the issue of health care, big-feet columnists make it a badge of honour to stand against the smug self-satisfaction endemic among the anti-American elites that run the country. A statement on the cutting edge of punditry if it were, say, 1965. The simple truth is that our health system works better than the Americans'. We live longer. Our babies are less likely to die in childbirth. Yes, if you smoke and drink yourself to the edge of the grave, in America you may get pulled back from the edge with greater alacrity. So what? Our system isn't perfect, obviously, but the idea that somehow we need reform so as to be more like the clapped version in the States is sheer lunacy.