Last month she got a bill for some surgery she’d had that said she owed $1,300. She has Medicare and TriCare. She’d never had to pay any co-pay for anything before, so, of course, the first words out of her mouth were, “Obama really messed up the health care. I never had to pay before.” We asked her if she’d called the hospital and asked about it. Of course she hadn’t. When she finally did call, she found out it had been a mistake. Obama hadn’t "messed up the healthcare” after all.

Yesterday, we were at dinner and she said, “We’re not getting a cost of living allowance again this year, but “someone” wants to give us $250 to make up for it. When we told her that President Obama was backing a bill to do that, her comment was, “Well, why does he have to ask Nancy Pelosi? She’s no good.” We told her that the President can’t just wave a wand and make it happen. I explained to her that Nancy had to bring it up to a vote in the House, which she has said she will do, and then it has to pass the Senate and be sent to President Obama for his signature. My husband said that the senate is where all the good bills die because of Republican obstructionism- end of conversation.

She always does that. We rarely bring up politics, but she will if she thinks she has a way to criticize liberals. The thing is, she never knows the whole story and when we tell her the truth, her reaction is, “Well, I don’t know anything about that” - like that’s a valid argument, and then no more discussion. It’s frustrating to me that she’s happy with her lack of knowledge and doesn’t want to find out more about the issue. I can’t imagine having such a lack of curiosity. She’s not stupid or especially shallow, which makes it worse. Maybe she just doesn’t like being wrong.