By Jay D. Homnick on 3.27.12
Cocktail party chatter about Obamacare and Obama's certain re-election if the law if struck down.
"So if the Supremes let Obama's health care thing fly, there's no way to stop him from four more years, eh?"
In the course of attending many social functions, columnists become inured to the inevitability of being approached by strangers anxious to propound their political viewpoints. These are usually presented with great aplomb, indicating that the speaker attributes to his idea a large measure of originality. Sadly, that is all too rarely the case. Mostly we get thoroughly pre-chewed morsels culled from the leftovers of the wisdom convention.
This may not prove that few people think for themselves. It may simply be that those deliberative types are less disposed to accosting authors while armed with sloshing cocktails. In any case, this is an occupational hazard which the scriveners of our time endure as a sort of penance; suffering for their art, as it were. There is no known defense for this affliction but a strong dose of disarming politeness.
The one thing one must never do, no matter how extreme the onslaught, is to argue. You will never win the argument and you will always lose the reader. But at a dinner for a worthy institution in Skokie, Illinois, the other night, my third such event in several days, my resistance was down -- or perhaps up -- and I foolishly let fly when a colorless enough chap offered that colorless enough analysis. My response, I fear, was too colorful by half.
"Quite the contrary. The irony is that Obama will be virtually guaranteed four more years if they strike the law down.
-more of this scary stuff at the link-
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