Recently, Megyn Kelly dismissed as “old news” the fact that millions are now able to get health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”) in order to continue suggesting that President Obama should be impeached or forced out of office. Last night, Kelly sounded on the verge of hysteria as she demanded that guest Alan Colmes stop talking about the same thing – so that she could attack President Obama for having “committed a fraud to get this law passed.” Funny how talk of people getting health insurance always seems to bring out suggestions of impeachment on The Kelly File.
It’s not as though Kelly hasn’t had a zillion discussions already on the subject of President Obama promising people could keep their health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. But other than her brief mention the other night about the “old news” of people actually getting coverage, I don’t recall hearing even a mention of that pesky little factoid since.
Maybe people getting coverage is a sore subject for Kelly. She certainly acted that way. After acknowledging to Colmes “for the purposes of this discussion” that people losing their insurance may be getting a better plan, Kelly asked, “How can (Obama) come out now after saying, ‘It’s better! It’s better! It’s better!’ to say, ‘I take this very seriously and you should trust me to fix it.’”
You really have to hear the scornful tone of Kelly’s voice to get the full effect. This, from the woman who said before The Kelly File debuted, “You’re not going to hear what I think.”
Colmes said:
The only words that conservatives would have liked for him to say tonight would have been, “I resign.” …By the way, all of a sudden, I’m so happy to hear that conservatives, who never cared about the 47 million people who didn’t have health care until Obamacare and now there are 20 million people in this new plan – about 3% of the population…
Kelly interrupted. She began speaking rapidly and almost angrily as she said, “Is it not relevant that he broke that promise? Alan, as a liberal Democrat, are you telling me that it’s not relevant that he, that he may have committed a fraud to get this law passed?” Perhaps she wanted to sound indignant but she sounded more panicky.
Colmes said that if he “could just finish that sentence” he’d respond.
But, obviously, Kelly didn’t want to hear any more about people getting covered. Sounding even more shrill, Kelly said sarcastically, “If you could answer my question, that would be great.”
Colmes tried, but Kelly did not stop interrupting – until Colmes said that she wouldn’t take “yes for an answer” and, more or less agreed that Obama should have said something else.
Kelly quickly broke away to the other guest, thereby preventing Colmes from saying anything further about people actually getting coverage under ObamaCare who could not before.
However, Colmes is a savvy Fox guest (and I’m glad to see him back in prime time). So he didn’t wait his turn to talk again. Colmes interrupted the other guest’s outrageous claim that ObamaCare is “about redistribution” – because he has to pay for coverage he won’t use - to point out that we all pay for schools and bridges we don’t use.
Kelly interrupted again (and it’s worth noting she had not interrupted the conservative gues). “None of that is the point. The point is…” she said.
“That is the point,” Colmes insisted.
“No, it isn’t,” Kelly said. “That’s not how it was sold. If he had sold it that way, we could have had an honest debate about it.”
Sure we could have. Just so long as she could have fixed Republican talking points around it.
But there was one inadvertently funny moment: When Colmes made the comment that conservatives would prefer to hear “I resign”, the other guest happily nodded his agreement.