Where's Warren now?

In response to Warren Buffett Sours On ObamaCare:’We Need Something Else’:

I saw people buzzing about Buffett’s comments, and then noticed when it was discovered they were actually being reprinted from 2010 without proper notification, which seems like a very poor editorial practice to me.  No one reading that post could be blamed for reflexively believing they were recent comments.

But let me ask: wherefore art thou now, Warren Buffett?  Did you believe that stuff you said back in 2010?  Because if you did, we now know that ObamaCare is even worse than you feared it would be.  Why aren’t you manning the battlements and leading the charge for repeal?  You certainly weren’t a retiring soul when it was time to weigh in on raising taxes.

John Sexton noted that back in 2010, Buffett “was encouraging Obama to refocus the bill on cost cutting rather than pushing for expanded coverage.”  Well, now we know that it doesn’t do either.  The coverage expansion is negligible – a roughly comparable number of people remain uninsured.  But the costs are gigantic, both to individuals and companies paying higher premiums, and to the economy as a whole, due to the incredible body count of full-time jobs ObamaCare has been racking up.  What say you, Warren Buffett?  Time to pull the brakes on this train wreck?  There’s a realistic chance it could happen, and you could help.

Buffett is not the star I set my compass by, but it would be silly to dismiss him as wholly inconsequential.  There’s no denying he’s been a big ally for Obama, and if he spoke up against ObamaCare at this crucial moment, it would make a difference.

Of course, he would then be airbrushed right out of the Obama pantheon, he’d be savagely attacked as a traitor by the Cult of Barack dead-enders, and the media would suddenly begin writing unflattering stories about his financial dealings.  But such consequences would not intimidate the great and powerful Sage of Omaha, would they?  You don’t expect me to believe his Obama-friendly political posturing was just a cynical way of courting left-wing credibility to keep himself off liberals’ Evil One Percenter fat-cat target list, do you?