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Conservative Politician (In Canada) Praises Obama On Health Care, Says Americans Will Revere Him
Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
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Now here's something you don't see everyday: A conservative praising President Obama's efforts to establish universal health care, despite the political risks, denouncing the attacks against him -- and even declaring that 50 years from now, Americans will revere his name.
The catch is that in this case, the conservative in question is from another country: Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Mulroney spoke to a gathering of Conservative Party supporters, the Canadian Press reports, and spoke on the nature of political leadership:
"Political capital is acquired to spend in great causes for one's country," Mulroney said Thursday.
"Prime ministers are not chosen to seek popularity. They are chosen to provide leadership ... President Obama is fighting for a form of universal health care and is encountering ferocious resistance.
"The attacks on President Obama are often bitter and mean-spirited and his approval ratings are sinking like a stone. Still, he fights on...
"Fifty years from today, Americans will revere the name, 'Obama.' Because like his Canadian predecessors, he chose the tough responsibilities of national leadership over the meaningless nostrums of sterile partisanship that we see too much of in Canada and around the world."
The vast, crowded hotel ballroom went silent at that part of Mulroney's speech. One woman was seen snickering.
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de TOQUEville
September 18, 2009 7:48 PM
The reason the crowd went silent/snickered, is because Mulroney's comments praising Obama were a series of obvious/transparent criticisms of his 'successor,' the current Conservative PM, Stephen Harper.
The basic tenets of the Cdn health care system (if not its implementation), including universality, are accepted by all the parties up here, even the Conservative party. Nothing controversial about Mulroney's comments from that POV.
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oblio
September 19, 2009 12:37 AM in reply to de TOQUEville
The reason the crowd went silent or snickered, is because all global conservative political parties want to stifle popular innovation and economic growth in modern nations. And if they can't strangle the growth of the middle class on their own terrain, and if the middle class does grow in other first world competitors, they are totally willing to condemn the growth of the middle class in other countries for encroaching upon their own wealth.
I guarantee the Conservative Party in Canada and the Tory Party in Great Britain will come unhinged just like the GOP if the US middle class is better off in 2012 than it was after Bush left it. Expect a lot of them to show up as guests on Fox News to stir up the crazy.
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Supa
September 19, 2009 2:38 AM in reply to oblio
Uh... You're wrong.
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oblio
September 24, 2009 12:25 AM in reply to Supa
no, it's you. you are wrong -not me. it's you. you are wrong.
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Xantar
September 19, 2009 11:41 AM
A Conservative in any other industrialized country is a Democrat here. Or at least a Blue Dog Democrat.
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Michael A
September 19, 2009 3:34 PM in reply to Xantar
That is absolutely correct. The repuke party as it exists today has no corresponding whack job party in any other industrialized country. I can't off the top of my head think of any democracy that has a such a party with the opportunity to lead a country. There are some similar fringe parties, with no real power, that the repukes would be comparable to, but not a legitimate party.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
September 21, 2009 9:28 AM in reply to Xantar
After looking at the bozos at the head of the Mainstream conservative parties in Australia and Canada, lately, I'm really going to have to question that. Granted, neither Harper nor Howard is a mouth-foaming loon like Paul Broun or Michelle Bachmann (or Jim Inhofe, or Jim Demento, or Virginia Foxx, or Joe Wilson or-- okay, lots of loons in Congress now.) but I've have to call both of them more conservative than Bush I and at least as consevative as Cantor or McConnell overall. Yeah, Howard proposed very heavy gun control after the Port Arthur massacre, but there was near unanimous approval.
And if you look at the policies of the non-fringe far right parties (i.e. those regularly get enough seats in parliament to have to be reckoned with seriously) in a lot of countries--Israel and Austria just to name a couple--I think you have to say that they are at least as repugnant and scary as the far right wing of the GOP.
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neesy08
September 19, 2009 2:17 PM
Well, I say lets raise a toast to reverness! I may not be here fifty years from now, so I am raising my toast now. Heck! I may not be here 1 hour from now! So, here is to Obama!
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jah627
September 19, 2009 5:15 PM
Good speech -- let's hope he's right.
Isn't it strange that, despite the demonification of the Canadian health system in the US, there is no healthcare "crisis" in Canada -- or in England, France, Germany, Japan...for that matter? Seen from abroad, our national meltdown over universal healthcare must seem absurd. And sad.
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erica
September 20, 2009 3:12 PM in reply to jah627
Well, the Canadian system does have its problems. But many of them have to do with trying to provide health care to not that many people spread over a very large area. (There are not a lot of pediatric heart surgeons in Northern Saskatchewan, for example--getting access to care is difficult for those who don't live in an urban area. Even in the least populous areas of the US it's not as tough to provide access as it is in Canada.)
At the same time, Canada spends only $3-4k per person while the US spends about $6700 per person. If the US pulls some of the profit out of its system and continues to spend anything close to that $6700 per person amount, it would have a better system than Canada's. JMO
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erica
September 20, 2009 3:17 PM in reply to erica
BTW, props to Mulroney for making this statement.
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Peter Principle
September 21, 2009 9:44 AM
Mulroney was PM under the old Progressive Conservative Party (one of those wonderful political oxymorons, like Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party). That party, which was considerably to the left of Canada's existing Conservative Party, no longer exists, having been blown to smitherines by the Liberal landslide of 1993.
The current Conservative Party of Canada (led by Harper) is the direct, lineal descendent of the old Reform Party (later the Canadian Alliance) which was a far-right,, vaguely populist movement with close ties to the religious right (i.e. very much in the mold of the current GOP) and a political base in the prairie provinces and rural Ontario.
The old "wet" conservatives of the PCP and the new "ultra" conservatives of the CPA co-exist very uncomfortably with each other, which is no doubt what Mulroney was poking at. But, politically, Mulroney praising Obama is about like Lincoln Chafee praising Obama -- that is, not very unusual or surprising.
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