Ever since she was vaulted into the international spotlight during the 2008 Presidential Election, Sarah Palin has made a bad habit of coming out on the wrong end of interactions between herself and various comedic pranksters.
In November, 2008, Palin was pranked by a Montreal radio host.
Just over a year later, Palin has now been burned by Mary Wash, also known as This Hour Has 22 Minutes' Marg Delahunty, who solicited some health care-related advice from Palin.
"We told her we're from Canada, and we're just looking for a few words of encouragement for the Canadian conservatives who have worked so tirelessly to destroy the socialized medicare that we have," Wash later recounted.
Palin's answer was frank.
"Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit," Palin replied during a later encounter (the first one was ended by the intervention of security)."Basically, she said government should stop doing the work that private enterprise should do," Walsh added.
But even as Canadians' attitude toward private health care has apparently softened -- a recent survey indicated that 56% of Canadians support increasing the number of private health clinics in Canada, so long as they operate alongside -- and do not adversely affect -- public health care.
And while many Canadians may forget that Canadians were initially as resistent to the introduction of socialized health care as the United States has been -- then-Premier Woodrow Lloyd and then-former-Premier Tommy Douglas were burned in effigy during the health care debates in Saskatchewan -- Canadians have embraced public health care very deeply.
Many Canadians are in favour of reforms -- and sadly, Canada seems to be wasting this goden opportunity to discuss the options -- but abolishing public health care is on the agenda of very, very few, even among conservatives.
And while the very idea of Mary Walsh speaking on behalf of conservatives is perverse and laughable, that is, in its own sense, the purpose of comedy.
(It's also worth reminding people like Walsh that it was the Liberal Party, not the Conservative Party, who last slashed billions of dollars from public healthcare.)
Outside of the world of comedy, Walsh would have no such place. Just like Sarah Palin has no place telling Canadians what we shoud do with our health care.
Other bloggers writing about this topic:
The Intrepid - "Sarah Palin Tells 22 Minutes' Marg Delahunty That 'Canada Needs to Dismantle Its Public Healthcare System'"
Dan Shields - "FunnierThanGerryDeeNotAsFunnyAsCancer"
Why the hell is Marge Delahunty news?
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin said what she was expected to say.
And?
Marge....she's an American. She doesn't give a *** about Canadians.
And why shouldn't Sarah Palin have an opinion about Canadian Healthcare. Candians have opinions about American healthcare. She's not telling us how to vote.
There's a difference between Palin having an opinion on Canadian healthcare and Palin telling us what we should do with it.
ReplyDeleteIt simply isn't her business.
American healthcare isn't our business either, but Canadians have lots of opinions on that.
ReplyDeleteSheesh, it's an opinion. She's not crusading to dismantle Canadian healthcare. THEN she would be telling us what to do.
It isn't as if Palin didn't understand that she was being suckered into saying something provocative. She isn't that stupid.
ReplyDeleteAt the very least, she's using our health care system as an excuse to play to her base. Still unwelcome.