Obama On Conservative Criticism Of The Health Care Reform Bill

I had copied these statements made by Obama from an article by Sam Youngman at The Hill that were made at a speech promoting the health care bill in Portland, Maine:

"Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm? You planted some seeds and they came out the next day... 'Nothing's happened. There's no crop. We're going to starve. Oh, no. It's a disaster.' It's been a week, folks," Obama said.

“Every day since I signed reform into law, there’s another poll or headline that says 'Nation still divided on health reform. No great surge in public support,'" Obama said. "Well, yeah. It happened last week. It’s only been a week."

“So after I signed the bill, I looked around. I looked up at the sky to see if asteroids were coming. I looked down at the ground to see if any cracks had opened up in the ground,” Obama said.

"It turned out to be a pretty nice day. Birds were still chirping. Folks were strolling down the street. Nobody had lost their doctor, nobody had pulled the plug on granny, nobody was being dragged away to be forced into some government plan.”

Here is some more of what Obama had said to CBS News' Harry Smith, especially in regards to popular right wing commentators Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck:

"I've been out and about, listening to talk radio," Smith told Obama. "The kindest of terms you're sometimes referred to out in America is a socialist. The worst of which I've heard is called a Nazi. Are you aware of the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves and that people have made part of their daily conversation about you?

"Well, I think that when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it's pretty apparent, and it's troublesome," the President responded. "But keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out. It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious, and people are feeling like there is a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans. I think the vast majority of Americans know that we're trying hard, that I want what's best for the country."

While it shows Obama being cool and collected, which I have noticed Fox News pointing out as a negative trait(?), I would have to say that the president is absolutely correct. The right has made so many claims that are unfounded and based on fear and each time Obama points out such statements, there is never a logical defense to his statements other then the same old rhetoric echoed on the right-wing media. I am reminded of the health care summit, when the president responded to Congressman Eric Cantor's call for government to get out of health care. "We could set up a system where food is probably cheaper than it is right now, if we just eliminated meat inspectors," Obama had said, and his empirical analogy was true.

I didn't hear any response.

The same goes for Obama's newest remarks. They will most likely be met with the same old criticisms and broken rhetoric of the right.

In regards to Obama's recent comments, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters that now that the "bill is law, and we have to make sure we get in there and dispell some of the rumors and some of the myths about it and underscore some of the benefits the American people are getting out of it."