Among the many, many, many, many things that make President Gag unqualified to hold the highest office in this holy land is his inability — as well as his refusal — to act like a president.
And I’m not talking about his insulting, bullying, victim-playing behavior as illustrated by his constant Tweeting. Or his mocking a handicapped reporter. Or his urging of violence at his campaign rallies. Or unilaterally pulling out of this nation’s ratified treaties on a whim. Or even his failed attempt at staging a Soviet-style military parade on the Fourth of July.
There’s precious little I agree with him about but his campaign promise to reel in prescription drug prices seemed uncharacteristically (for him) sensible. But, see, even when he wants to do the right thing, he does it the wrong way. Precisely the way a president shouldn’t do it.
P. Gag’s admin. had instituted a policy wherein pharmaceutical companies would have to reveal the prices of their drugs in TV advertisements if those prices exceeded $35 a pop. The idea being if the drug cos. are compelled to be, y’know, honest about the scads of dough they charge for life-saving or life-enhancing dope, they just might be less inclined to mark said meds up to the moon, as has been the industry’s practice at least since the 1970s.
Problem is, Li’l Duce had his Dept. of Health and Human Services issue the mandate, which the drug outfits immediately challenged in court. Yesterday, the US District Court in the District of Columbia ruled that HHS had no authority to issue such a proclamation.
This fits in nicely with P. Gag’s overall philosophy of governance: If I say it’s so, it is so. His in-house atty’s should have known better than to allow him to do things this way. The proper way to pressure Big Pharma into curbing its greed would be through legislation — y’know, working with the House and the Senate to craft laws that’d accomplish, legally, what the White House has tried to do extra-legally. That’s how presidents get things done. But this prez never has been fond of working with anybody, much less a democratically-elected group of representatives who might not uniformly genuflect before his might and majesty.
Then again, perhaps P. Gag and his mouthpieces did indeed know they were going at it the wrong way. Who would really believe this president is interested in taking the side of little human beings against the titans of any industry? The way the TV ad requirement was rolled out seems so fercockter, ab ovo, that the cynical among us — me, natch — can suspect Melania’s Beard and his coat-holders wanted the effort to fail.
Li’l Duce‘s angling for the 2020 presidential race — which right now seems a bit of a long shot for him, depending on how much the Dems can avoid shooting themselves in the foot twixt now and then — and fighting for lower prescription drug costs is a perfect vehicle for him to portray his administration as your pal, fighting for your rights and well-being. As a candidate, he positioned himself as a man of the people, a ludicrous conceit but one that worked, saying more about the American people than anything else. He’s not a man of the people. He’s a man of the plutocracy, of the exceedingly tiny elite that controls too much of the world’s wealth. Of course, he can’t campaign on that image.
He can, though, say over the coming 17 months that he fought to lower drug prices but the out-of-touch courts (and, somehow, the Obama Deep State — I’m sure he’ll squeeze that straw man in there somehow) prevented him from helping all us little people.
Call me cynical, sure. But these are awfully cynical times we’re living in.
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