October 2007
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Sep		Nov »
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

The Loony Brigade

Oct 9, 2007

maha

-->

There are some more good posts on the mob hysteria over Graeme Frost. Kevin Drum writes,

As near as I can tell, the right-wing blogosphere has spent the past three years fantasizing obsessively about uncovering a new Rathergate. It was their great triumph (Blog of the Year from Time magazine!), and now it seems like hardly a month goes by without the hysterical discovery of yet another faked photo, planted note, or lying liberal. Almost without fail, though, they turn out to be…..wrong. Embarrassingly, completely, unquestionably, flat-on-their-faces wrong.

But they don’t give up. The latest example is 12-year-old Graeme Frost, whose great sin was to tape a radio address supporting expansion of the SCHIP children’s health program. Unsurprisingly, the latest crackpot loony brigade is headed up by the chief crackpot, Michelle Malkin, who has distinguished herself by staking out Graeme’s house and grilling his father’s friends. Other members of the brigade have dug up property records, scoured wedding announcements, checked out school websites, and when trash day comes will probably be rooting through their garbage barrels.

And the point of all this? To “prove” that the Frosts are secret zillionaires who don’t deserve government help with their medical bills. In this, the loon brigade is, as usual, embarrassingly, completely, unquestionably, flat-on-their-faces wrong. I’ll give you one guess about whether that’s going to stop them.

Bill Scher:

These are the same conservatives that insist that they love tax cuts, not because they are cold and selfish, but because it will unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that makes us Americans.

Well, Mr. Frost is an entrepreneur and small business owner.

And the tax cuts for the wealthy did not provide him with the financial security to afford health insurance for himself and his family. Nor did it do anything to reduce the cost of health insurance.

But the family has been able to get by, despite suffering unexpected medical expenses, in part because we have collectively pooled our resources to provide health insurance for millions of kids.

Without SCHIP, the Frosts’ entrepreneurial spirit may well have been crushed, literally and figuratively.

This does not concern conservatives.

All of a sudden, their patriotic love of entrepreneurship in pursuit of the American Dream has vanished.

Instead, conservatives are fine with making it a choice between being an entrepreneur and having health insurance for one’s family.

And John Cole writes,

I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.

I’m registering Independent tomorrow.

6 Comments

Pat • Oct 9, 2007 @4:35 pm

There was once a conservative mantra that went something like “We see the world as it is, not as we want it to be.”

Giving the wingnuts jumping on this latest talking point the benefit of the doubt…that they were just ignorant, weren’t they guilty of seeing the world as they want it to be, not as it is?

On the other hand, it is sometimes hard to tell whether the evilly impish talking point is honed with full knowledge and the foresight that the ignorant minions will then jump onboard. They scare themselves silly with nary a fact.

They never fail to disgust though.
moonbat • Oct 9, 2007 @5:54 pm

A hard thing to get a wingnut to understand, is that “we see the world as we are, not as it is”. I will always cherish the moment I spoke this to a certain right winger, and watched his eyes grow big, as the first spark of illumination ignited in his otherwise very dark mind. Most of them won’t even comprehend this saying.
Doug Hughes • Oct 9, 2007 @8:56 pm

First, this is classic ‘attack the messenger’ tactics. Nothing new, but this time the victim is 12 years old – a tactical error if the media will grab this.

Second, don’t lose sight of the message. That is the objective for the wingnuts. They don’t mind any controversy as long as it gets the non-polarized (not very right – not very left) public to look at something OTHER than the subject.

Third, I am a supporter of comprehensive health care, but I have doubts about any comprehensive plan passing. My opinion has always been that you do it in stages, which the SCHIP pgm does nicely, then look at retired, but not yet 65. Make each stage of the programs WORK, and finally close it from young to old for comprehensive coverage. IMHO, this tactic could work – not overnight- but once passed might be as hard to remove as Social Security.

Wingnuts are going to pull out all the stops to stamp out this move to ’socialize’ medicine for children. They are ready (and able) to fight a comprehensive plan, but it’s tough to deprive sick kids of medical care. So their heads are spinning and they are vomiting pea soup. Somebody get a close-up of what Michelle is doing with that cross.
Bucky Blue • Oct 9, 2007 @9:21 pm

Complete intellectually dishonesty. Lying to achieve some out there agenda. Why do the common people, the middle-class, by this load of crap.
Pat • Oct 9, 2007 @11:23 pm

This incident reflects the same blind spot that conservative humor does in victimizing the weak. But this is even more vile because they not only demonize the weak but the obviously innocent as well.

In any other time this would be a tactical error. With media as it is there’s no overwhelming backlash apparent. So we wait until 2008.

How could this result in anything other than an overwhelming defeat in 2008? They just can’t stop, can they? Don’t they realize that they are feeding the opposition?

Wait…stop, why am I attributing common sense to those who spew this crap? Of course they don’t realize how they are regarded, they’re wingnuts, after all.
phastphil • Oct 10, 2007 @9:11 am

Conservatives always claim that eliminating tax cut for the super rich will hurt small business. The truth is that 64% of small business and self employed earn under $50k per year, 88% earn less than $100k per year, and less than 4% earn $200k or more.
Any family of four with an income of less than $50k per year in this economy is struggling to make ends meet.
Gas prices, health care premiums and food prices are all skyrocketing and they tell us there’s no inflation. I guess we can’t believe our lying eyes!