TOM COLBURN FAILS PRESCHOOL

Retired Senator Dr. Tom +Coburn was Joe +Scarborough’s guest this morning on +Morning Joe (MSNBC). This simplistic, no nonsense man laid out his dispute with the Federal Government. As he listed his disagreement with the government, Joe was nodding his head in agreement with an occasional interruption to claim his “me too” position on every issue. To summarize his already abbreviated list of grievances; individual states should take control of their destiny; get the government out of our lives, and to control the federal debt, the government should cut spending. He recognized that the problem with government is that Federal Senators and Representatives are not there to govern but are there to ensure the voters re-elect them.

As a tree-hugging, bleeding heart liberal, and resident of a Southern State (North Carolina) thus without representation in the Federal government, my innate instinct was to attack his positions one by one. I thought better of that approach and decided to point out the child-like simplistic of his positions. As a child transitions from complete dependency to independence, they learn more than most of us appreciate. We slough this off with the cliché, “They are at an impressionable age.” Nonetheless, the learning curve is steeper than it will ever be again. Preschool is important because that is there they learn how to get along with other children. They learn such things as the impact of intelligence and strength has on peck-order, the value of altruism, the reward and price of greed, and they learn about the power of moral punishment. We seldom think about it this way, but what the children are learning is a graduate level course in political science.

It is worth noting that adult influence on this learning is tremendous. We immediately think of parents, as we should, but not parents or teacher influence, is shorter, but may be more impactful perhaps because it represents a mysterious or outside force, hence, something strange and perhaps fearful to the children.

I look at Tom Colburn as an adult who never quite graduated from preschool. Read the list of his demands.  Where in that list do you see anything suggesting he has learned to cooperate? He is acting as a small child in a playground who wants to sit on a teeter-totter where a bigger child is sitting but is not smart enough to figure out how to entice that child to leave his or her seat. If the child on the teeter-totter were smaller than he is, just pull him or her off and take his place; thus, ignoring that child crying. Where in his list of grievances, do you see any indication that he is willing to share anything? Does anything on that list indicate he is practical or suggest he is living in the real world? His complaints about the United States budget is classic in the sense it is childish; just like a child, he wants everything but does not think what he wants has value to any other child. Does anyone see any signs of empathy in that list?

He prevented the government from stopping veteran suicides with Veteran Administration programs because its Senate sponsors had not figured out a way to pay for it. As an adult, you cannot spend a penny you do not have. As a child, it does not matter what people want; it only matter what you want. As I recall, the cost of that program was 12-million dollars, and both chambers unanimously passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act the first session after Colburn left the Senate. Is this an example of solid logic or not? Tom Colburn was and medical doctor. During his original campaign for Senate, he carefully explained how he cheated on a government form, to obtain benefits for a patient. He did this in the context of his hate for big government that was sticking it nose in his private business; thus, he forgot that his empathy was showing. Did he exhaust all of his empathy on that patient and had none left for the 22 veterans a day (8,000 per year) who commit suicide?

Colburn is a classic example of politicians who function at the level of a preschooler but never left the playground. My message to him simply grow up.

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