If the Democrats were smart, they’d keep this conversation going, because the Frosts seem to be exactly whom we should be talking about. They’re trying to make it as a middle class family, without a lot of income. And they’re just about succeeding, as long Malkin and her friends don’t insist that they be bankrupted or stripped of their hard-won assets by their medical bills.
Medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in this nation. When people are telling you how much better our system is than those of Germany, France, Australia, Canada, be sure to point that out. In our system, you could lose your job tomorrow, lose your health insurance in the same gulp and immediately become one bad illness or accident away from bankruptcy (although, in fact, our system regularly bankrupts even the people who think they do have coverage, as the Harvard Study illustrates).
And look at this! Malkin and her friends don’t want to fix that problem. On the contrary, they insist on it! They insist on the risk of bankruptcy as kind of a moral imperative; and they say members of the shaky, eroding American middle class who are not willing to put up with the ruination of their financial health from medical bills are leeches and wussies! Wow.
Yesterday I linked to some right-wing twit who equated having a child deliver an address on health insurance to terrorism. Today the same twit said I was
Unable to address the fact that the Democrats used terrorist tactics, people want to cry out about the nasty right wingers attacking a child, completely ignoring that it isn’t the child that was attacked, it was the fact that by spotlighting the child, which people need to remember, the Democratic politicians put him in the front and center, not the Republicans, they high lighted the exact argument we had originally brought up about the bill itself.
In other words, it’s the Dems fault that the Frost family is being ripped to shreds by the Right? This is like saying “it’s your fault if you lead your cow into a river full of piranha.” Yes, righties are behaving like a school of piranha, and the Dems should have known this would happen. Well, as long as we all agree that righties are brainless, vicious flesh-eating animals, OK.
Anyway, this same twit continues,
[Malkin] makes two points here, one about the bill that does not address states that do not count “assets†or “means test†for enrollment eligibility into the SCHIP program… so a person could own all the assets the can accrue and still have US, the American people, pay their health insurance?
How ridiculous is that and why is the language of the bill not addressing this issue?
There’s a reason that language isn’t in the bill, which is that even some Republicans know when not to jump the shark. As Colin McEnroe said, Malkin and her friends don’t want to fix that problem. On the contrary, they insist on it! They insist on the risk of bankruptcy as kind of a moral imperative; and they say members of the shaky, eroding American middle class who are not willing to put up with the ruination of their financial health from medical bills are leeches and wussies! Wow.
Democrats should be picking up on this latest “let’s strip their assets” demand and beat right-wingers over the head with it at every opportunity. As someone else said today, this could be another Terri Schiavo moment for conservatives.
The twit continues,
Her second point is just as important, just as a terrorist will hide behind an innocent man, woman or child and shoot or launch rockets knowing that the innocents would get caught in the line of fire when one fired back at them, the Democrats held this child in front of them, hid like cowards behind him, knowing that when the family got caught in the line of fire, they could use that to distract from the issue of a badly written bill.
It wasn’t the Dems who came up with the distraction of fabricating a pack of lies, plant them on Free Republic through a GOP operative, and whip the rightie blogosphere into a lynch mob so as not to have to debate the real issues surrounding health care. This time, however, the goon tactics are about to implode in their faces. Because its families like the Frosts that we need to be talking about. It’s people like this, barely hanging on to middle class status, whose opportunities are being closed off right and left by the hemorrhaging mess we call a “health care system.”
People can try to distract from this all they want, but the Democratic politicians placed that child in the spotlight. Not the Republicans, not the conservative bloggers…. the Democrats did it, deliberately and with full knowledge.
Of course, Republicans never use children to promote their policies.
That second photograph is President Bush with the “snowflake children” families on the occasion of his veto of stem cell research appropriations. And, you know, we lefties could have looked up those families and staked out their houses and interviewed their neighbors and dug through their trash, and we could have found all manner of dirt we could have blown up into scandals to make the lot of them look ridiculous, especially if we distorted the truth as much as the Right has about the Frosts. But we did not do that, because we are not piranha.
And that’s the only difference between Bush “hiding” behind “snowflake children” and Democrats “hiding” behind the Frosts.
See also: “Adults as Red Herrings” — why the right-wing talking point about adults receiving benefits through S-CHIP is bunk.
Update: Steve M. reminds us of Little Ashley.
Next thing you know the Republicans will claim Bush was reading “My Pet Goat” to a group of Sarasota senior citizens on 9/11.
The Dems may or may not know it, but they potentially have the GOP by the balls on this one. Keep talking indeed.. this is Terri Shiavo II.
Your dimwit buddy’s argument can be boiled down to two points:
1) the middle class should be ruined by stuff like this
2) how dare the Dems use children to promote policy.
Point 2 is easily dispatched as you have done: IOKIYAR. Let’s focus some more on point 1. Keep talking right wing loonies – lets hear about your great, fantastic vision for this country. Pour the man another drink, bartender…the night is still young.
That argument about the Democrats being at fault for putting Graeme out there is like the story of the bandit who, pointing a gun at someone’s head, said “Stand and deliver, or I shall have to shoot you, and then you will have made me a murderer.” Truly impressive reasoning, these people have.
McEnroe is right. The Frosts are exactly the kind of people that people think the government should help, and no one wants to lose their home because their car hit a patch of ice. The awful, spiteful policy implications of Malkin’s position should be made clear to everyone.
Of course, Republicans never use children to promote their policies.
Don’t forget Ashley Faulkner.
And even if the Democrats were using a child as a human shield, unlike Ari Fleischer, they would at least know better than to go on TV without bothering to learn his name.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/22/fleischer-rieckhoff/
Her second point is just as important, just as a terrorist will hide behind an innocent man, woman or child and shoot or launch rockets knowing that the innocents would get caught in the line of fire when one fired back at them, the Democrats held this child in front of them, hid like cowards behind him, knowing that when the family got caught in the line of fire, they could use that to distract from the issue of a badly written bill.
I remember a Foxtrot strip. “Jason put mealworms in a caramel corn canister!”
“Then he labeled them ‘meal worms’ because he knew I’d think it was a trick!”
“Then he hid them in his room, because he *knew* I’d look there…”
Do these people ever listen to themselves? Do they have any shame?
Do these people ever listen to themselves? Do they have any shame?
I love the way they deny responsibility in the name of responsibility.
In re: Malkin:
This past weekend the In-Depth program on C-SPAN was three hours of David Horowitz. I knew he was a way-right author and mouthpiece, but I didn’t know much else about him.
My reaction to an intermittent sampling only, it got pretty toxic pretty quick, was a combination of morbid curiosity, near disbelief and WTF? And when he mentioned Ann Coulter being his “running bud”, I began to wonder where this kind of personality comes from. What are the rivulets into streams into raging torrents into the runaway river that produce the contempt and frothing-at-the-mouth bile?
Folks of our perspective and persuasion seem to threaten their sense of social order and psychic structure for their version of the good, the true and the beautiful. We are anathema-the Borg, Species 8472 and the Xendi all rolled into one.
In the past Maha has discussed pathological narcissism and its manifestations.
My experience is that such an individual can, in the early stages of trying to function socially in personal relationships, begin to experience rejection and aggression because they are so misattuned to the other’s affect. After awhile their experiences have been so punitive and disappointing that they begin to anticipate such treatment from anyone not known and/or under their control. Out of a sense of self-protection they move into preemptive aggression without actual information about what the reactions to them might be.
The more anxious they are the more aggressive the act. The more aggressive they act the more rejecting and punitive the other is. The more rejecting and punitive the other is (confirming their predictions that the world is a dangerous jungle) the more aggressive they become, and around and around and around they go, until everybody wishes they would just go far, far away.
Does this sound familiar?
Sure does, double cinco, you just described what an insecure asshole is. Your description is the long ( and polite) version.
I’ve worked under several in my time.
Nice touch, BTW………..
After seeing the “Crazier than Malkin” post the other day, I was very distressed after going to see what this post was all about for myself. The comments truly are as horrifying as they are non-sensical and childish.
Thankfully there were people pointing out the obvious and basic flaws in logic, the obvious falsehoods helping to prop up their already flawed logic, and the fact that what they are doing is stirring up a mob in order to attack an innocent family… while at the same time calling them victims of terrorism.
Their response? We don’t understand the issue, we twist the issue (nevermind that every fact they presented was a lie), it’s our fault that they can’t debate an issue without attacking anyone who supports it, and that we are all terrorists.
Thank you Maha for taking up this issue. Somebody needs to.
I like that foxtrot strip, Longhairedweirdo… but to me this situation is more like one person robbing another. The robber says, try and stop me and I’ll kill you. The other person tries to stop them, gets killed, and then the robber acts confused as to why he is in jail for murder as well as armed robbery. “They knew I would kill them, so it’s their own fault!” Based on the beautiful logic of these guys, I bet they are really confused as to why we are mad at them for doing what they always do.
Thankee! Insecure rectum, hmmm, let’s see, reminds me of…., of…
(inbed favorite foto here)
Sorry, DC, once a pile driver, ALWAYS a pile driver, but I’m working on my charm school lessons…………
Unable to address the fact that the Democrats used terrorist tactics, people want to cry out about the nasty right wingers attacking a child, completely ignoring that it isn’t the child that was attacked, it was the fact that by spotlighting the child, which people need to remember, the Democratic politicians put him in the front and center, not the Republicans, they high lighted the exact argument we had originally brought up about the bill itself.
Worst run-on sentence ever. Impossible to follow, both grammatically and logically, which I imagine the writer is counting on. This is what passes for intellect in Right Blogostan. They’re doomed, and too damned stupid to know it.
Jay:
Context.
The claim is that the Democrats highlighted a child, because they *knew* the attack dogs would attack, and then the Democrats could complain about the attack dogs!
What a cheap trick! It’s like… like labeling your meal worms as “meal worms” because your sister won’t trust your label! And then hiding them in your room because you *know* she snoops in your room! She’s sure to open a canister of meal worms then!
The attack dogs had another choice. They could have *answered* the nasty questions they started asking. No, Mr. Frost does not run his own business; it went under. No, the house is not worth $450k, it’s actually worth $260k. Yes, the Frosts have salable assets, and Graeme addressed that: the CHIPs programs are so parents in that situation don’t *have* to sell everything they own (he actually only mentioned houses and cars) to be able to afford insurance. Yes, it *is* likely that the Frosts couldn’t get cheap insurance with two special-needs kids. Yes, they have kids in schools with high tuition, but they are paying $500 total for those schools.
They could have learned these things before attacking. They chose not too.
I’ll admit, I can understand people wanting to complain that today (or maybe “someday in the future”) the Frosts could have $420,000 in assets, but are getting some help from the government. But again, that’s the point of the programs… to keep people from having to face decisions like that. Me, I approve of this kind of program.
Do you? Hey, you don’t have to. It’s a free country. But rather than answer questions, folks merely asked, made nasty insinuations, and went on the attack.
And now we have a complaint that they were tricked by the dirty Democrats, who *knew* they’d attack, so that the Democrats could complain about their attacking a kid.
Here it is again, just so it’s clear:
Her second point is just as important, just as a terrorist will hide behind an innocent man, woman or child and shoot or launch rockets knowing that the innocents would get caught in the line of fire when one fired back at them, the Democrats held this child in front of them, hid like cowards behind him, knowing that when the family got caught in the line of fire, they could use that to distract from the issue of a badly written bill.
The Democrats knew the family would get caught in the line of fire. But there didn’t have to be anyone “firing” if folks dug for actual facts, rather than using speculation.
The Malkinites & most of the commenters on their sites must have been raised in families with much different values than most of the people I know. This is a new low even for them. It’s pretty revealing & revolting that we don’t see well-known republicans rushing to denounce this behavior, not that they ever do.
It occurred to me that some of their loyal readers’ lives are similar to how the Frost family fared before the accident but somehow they don’t seem to be able to imagine they will ever hit a patch of black ice.
I just realized that Malkin reminds me of the very, very angry Clarence Thomas.
People who stand up to the attack dogs stand up for freedom.
People who do not, don’t.
We need a lot more people willing to do this.
Too, too funny. Ezra Klein has unearthed Malkin on her own problem getting health coverage.
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/10/guess-the-autho.html
I’ve often thought that if I suddenly came up with a bazillion dollars, one of the foundations I’d set up would be called something like “First Last & Security”, the sole purpose of which would be to provide quick funds to people who can probably pay rent each month, but who can’t put together enough money to actually move into a place. It wouldn’t be dramatic, but that’s the point. The cash heads off the drama. It helps people back from the brink. They get their apartment, and can continue to go to work and participate in the normal activities of the community: they buy things, they go to PTA meetings, they have an address from which to send resumes to try to get better jobs. Blah blah blah.
That’s pretty much how the Frosts are being helped. They stay in their house, they don’t have to spend down what income they have, so they can continue to buy stuff and pay sales tax, and educate their children so that hopefully the children can eventually join the rest of us.
This is so logical, so sensible, so financially sound. Only the most venomous, blood-thirsty, hate-filled of people can behave the way the freepers and Malkin and O’Reilly et al., positing the complete opposite in such a vicious attack.
Hey, good. Rachel Maddow just called the whole phenomenon a freakshow on Olbermann. How appropriate.
Keith Olbermann is reporting that many of the talking points came from Mitch McConnell’s office.
Yeah Baby! And rumor has it that Mitch has been a naughty, naughty boy.
This is going to get VERY interesting.
There are rumors someone in McConnell’s office planted the original Freep post that kicked this nonsense off.
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