When the President Tells a "Porky"

They say that the time to get up and shout is when a politician stops lying. So Rep Joe Wilson (R-SC) was wrong to yell: "You Lie!" to President Obama when the president said:

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

Strictly speaking, if you parse his remarks carefully, the president is correct. There is nothing in the House bill that applies to illegal aliens. So they would continue to get health care just as they do today. They wouldn't be insured. But they would be covered. So Joe Wilson was wrong.

Anyway, it's not nice to call the president a liar. Grandma wouldn't like it. But we need a way to tell the president that he isn't fooling anyone with his lawyer-like evasions. It should be something that Grandma wouldn't mind. It would be nice if she could get a chuckle out of it.

Here's what I suggest. Any time the president tells a "porky," we should shout: "Lina Lamont!"

You remember Lina. She was the fictional silent-screen star in Singin' in the Rain that had a whiny Jersey accent that you could cut with a knife. Lina, played by the immortal Jean Hagen, was beautiful, but she had the manners, the mind and, most important of all, the voice of a gangster's moll.

Lina Lamont was one tough cookie. She knew how to take care of herself, or thought she could. Whenever Lina Lamont thought that the management of Monumental Pictures was trying to put one over on her, she would recite the following immortal line:

What do yer think I am? Dumb or something?

So here's my mild and humble suggestion. When the president tells a "porky" don't yell "You Lie!" No. That would be too coarse.

In future, when the president tells a porky, yell "Lina Lamont!"

Then when the mainstream media asks what that was all about, you answer: "What does the president think I am. Dumb or something?"