Game Change, True From the Heart

Gilda and I watched a very good but very disturbing movie over the weekend. It made us angry and distressed. “Game Change” is a HBO film based on the book of the same name about the 2008 presidential campaign, specifically about the decision by Sen. John McCain to pick Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his running mate and the consequences of that selection.

No doubt, Palin lit up the campaign trail. She electrified the conservative Republican base. She performed well in the vice presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden. But, as the movie revealed, her appearances were performances, staged answers to conceal her almost complete lack of knowledge about the federal government, the economic crisis enveloping the country and foreign affairs. It was disturbing and distressing to think this woman could have been a heartbeat away from being president. It angered us that political hacks put party, not country, first. It disappointed us that so many of our fellow Americans could be hoodwinked into believing she was qualified.

It’s almost four years later and the level of deceit—even outright lies—politicians are willing to engage in taxes our ability to believe in them. Last year about this time, when Planned Parenthood was under attack as it still is, Arizona senator Jon Kyl asserted on the Senate floor that 90% of Planned Parenthood’s money is used to provide abortions. When the truth was revealed, that the figure is really just 3%, Kyl did not see fit to issue a retraction or apology. Rather, his spokesperson said the “remark was not intended to be a factual statement.”

Before losing the Puerto Rican primary last weekend, Rick Santorum said while campaigning on the island that before it could attain statehood it must comply with federal law, “that English (not Spanish) needs to be the principal language.” Trouble is, there is no such law. Santorum tried to contain the damage of his remark, but it is becoming painfully obvious from other statements the former Pennsylvania senator has made that he rarely thinks through how his comments will be received or perceived (for example, his statement that he almost puked when reading a copy of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on the separation of church and state).

He speaks from the heart, his handlers say. At least that is how his press secretary whitewashed the following Santorum explanation as to why he opposes socialized medicine:

“In the Netherlands people wear a different bracelet if you’re elderly and the bracelet is, “Do not euthanize me.” Half the people who are euthanized every year, and it’s 10% of all deaths, in the Netherlands, half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are old and sick.” (Here’s a clip of his comments: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/dutch-puzzled-by-santorums-false-claim-they-practise-forced-euthanasia/)

As the article with the clip states, Santorum’s claims are highly inaccurate. Perhaps Stephen Colbert summed it up best last Thursday when he opined, “Yes, in Rick Santorum’s heart, Dutch doctors push old people up to windmills and let the blades chop their heads off. And then they grind them into a paste and use that paste to plug cracks in the dikes, and turn their skulls into wooden shoes.

“The point is, as long as it’s in your heart, it is true.”