Turkey’s Islamist President Claims He Advised Obama on Health Care

Hurriyet Daily News caught Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holding forth about his role in shaping American health care at the inauguration of a new health complex in Ankara.

“Once I attended the Friday prayer at the Sultanahmet Mosque,” recalled the Turkish strongman. “There were tourists. Some of them knew that I would be visiting the United States the following week. They asked me how we could be so successful in health care and wanted me to tell about it to Obama.”

Those pleas from “American tourists” did not fall on deaf ears. “Indeed, I then talked about the issue with Mr. Obama,” Erdogan continued. “Of course, the negative reflex there made it really hard for Obama”–to say nothing of the “negative reflex” from all those people looking at canceled insurance policies, soaring premiums, crash-and-burn websites, and IRS bills for incorrectly paid subsidies!

Ominously, Erdogan said he didn’t think Obama was finished reforming health care yet; he could only “solve the problem partly,” thanks to the American people’s vestigial ability to resist crackpot government programs.

But hey, if you’re a European leader who thinks your citizens should enjoy some of that Obamacare fun, just swing by Istanbul and let Dr. Recep tell you all about the Turkish template for Obama’s “success.”

“They try to take us as a model and build similar systems in their country,” Erdogan said of the Europeans–an analysis that will come as a surprise to many of them.

But he was modest enough to admit ErdoCare isn’t perfect: “Don’t we have any deficiencies? We do, but now we are on the right path to success.” Judging by what Erdogan’s party leadership has been saying to his political opponents lately, that path to success leads right into a “Caliphate” rivaling the Islamic State, with Erdogan as the Caliph. Eat your heart out, King Barack I!