Daily Archives: March 19, 2010

Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies

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You probably heard about the hoax memo the GOP circulated to scare people about Democratic intentions.

Here’s another example of gross dishonesty — at Weekly Standard, a column by John McCormack titled “Read the Bill: Senate Plan Would Pay for Abortions at Community Health Centers.” So I waded into this thing expecting McCormack to explain where he found this in the bill, since he wants us to read the bill. But he doesn’t source the bill. He sources two memos, one from United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the other from National Right to Life.

In fact, federal dollars can’t be used to pay for elective abortions now, and there is all kinds of language in the bill that makes it crystal clear federal policy on funding abortion will not be changed by the bill. And I can prove it — read the bill. Here’s the Senate bill; the section regarding abortion begins on page 2077.

Instead of reading the bill, McCormack cites propaganda screeds about the bill so that he can lie about what’s in the bill. Classy. You can read the memos he sites, but the arguments in them are refuted by the bill itself. For that matter, most of the arguments in the memos are refuted by the National Catholic Reporter. See also Timothy Noah.

No one at National Right to Life has ever been the least bit squeamish about making up nonsense to support the cause, but I want to make special note of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. At a time when sexual predation by Catholic clergy has become an international scandal, and when it’s become public that the institutional church has been covering it up and allowing it to continue for decades, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has some cojones producing a deceitful memo to attempt to insert their influence over U.S. health care law.

I’m saying that if the lot of them had a shred of conscience, they’d be very quietly doing penance someplace, not brazenly bearing false witness in order to control the sexual behavior of American women. It’s good to see American nuns and other Catholic organizations coming forward to say the Bishops don’t speak for all Catholics.

Dissing America, IOKIYAR Edition

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Glenn Greenwald picked up this gem from Instapundit Glenn Reynolds:

If I were the Israelis, not only would I bomb Iran, but I’d do so in such a way as to create as much trouble for China, Russia, Europe and the United States as possible.

You know that if any Democrat or progressive were to say “If I were [some foreign country] I would do whatever it took to create as much trouble for the United States as possible” none of us would ever hear the end of it. It would be thrown up in our faces every time we said we were just as patriotic as they were.

But if a righties says it, IOKIYAR. Especially when the foreign country is Israel.

Recently the Obama Administration has been clearly and solidly opposed to more Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem, and this has put many a rightie’s panties in a twist. (Worthy of note: A majority of Israelis think President Obama’s treatment of their country is “friendly and fair.”)

I honestly don’t understand the thing with Israel and U.S. righties. I get that there’s a fundamentalist Christian connection and a powerful Israel lobby that owns a lot of U.S. lawmakers. But even rank-and-file righties who aren’t overly religious and who aren’t being paid under the table think knee-jerk loyalty to the government of Israel is part and parcel of what it takes to be a patriotic American. They’ve come to believe that America’s and Israel’s interests are identical, and if they aren’t it’s America that’s in the wrong. I can only assume their hatred of Palestinians overrides their love of country.

Back in 2002 then congressman Dick Armey said, “My No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel,” and nobody blinked. I remember watching and hearing him say this on television, on one of the political talk shows (Chris Matthews, I think, but I can’t swear to that), and I sat and waited for the more-than-obvious follow-up question — isn’t our no.1 priority to protect the United States? — and it was not asked. Nor was there even a trickle of WTF? commentary after. Weird.