Anne Korblut does not like the fact that President Obama answers a constituent’s concerns about taxation with regard to his primary policy achievement of his first term with a very long answer.

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer – more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, “F-Map”). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as “FICA”).

Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care — twice. “Number one is that we are the only — we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance,” he said.

A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. “Number two, you don’t know who might end up being in that situation,” he said, then carried on explaining further still.

via 44 – Obama’s 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman’s claim of being ‘over-taxed’.

No, no the first two points are not the same. The first point, ( “Number one is that we are the only — we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance,”), speaks to a variety of points. Two of the top of my head

• The social contract of our country now implicitly includes health care as a basic need, not a luxury for the young, old, and employed. Like the rest of the western world.
• We can compete with labor costs in other countries by finally controlling the health care costs per worker.

The second point, (“Number two, you don’t know who might end up being in that situation,”) may simply refer to the fact that Doris may develop a pre-existing condition, get laid off and then have no access to insurance without reform. She may have a daughter who wants to backpack through Europe for a year who is under 26. She can stay on Doris’ insurance. Basically, the increased taxes have immense direct benefits for every citizen that we all find worth it when its employer/employee funded or comes due in the form of an emergency room bill.

It’s not that Kornblut noticed that Obama went on too long, lost the attention of the attendees and is wont to provide wonky responses to a constituent’s question.

What irks me is that she seems so bored to tears she couldn’t be bothered to write a post that actually analyzes the his answer. The President went on for 17 minutes and she analyzes twenty five seconds of his pitch. Then she dives into gossip. Next time, she can save real estate and just write: They were so bored with this cat. People straight up rolled on him, dawg. Yada Yada Obama! Our President cured insomnia! Yawn Mr. President, you can’t sell worth a damn. POTUS! Wrap it up dude…I’ve got to do a spot on Hardball and there is no catchy sound bite I can regurgitate for him on command. Here he goes again: one time…at Camp David.