Pasquino took off Friday from the columns of Paul Krugman and George Will, on themes of rich and poor:
Speak up with an opinion contradicting the president and you will be smeared.
Take the case of the person who delivered the Democratic response to the president’s weekly radio address two weeks ago (as summarized by Paul Krugman in the Friday NYTimes).
He’s 12 years-old. That didn’t deter the right wing machinery from going after him. He is brain damaged from a car accident. His family couldn’t afford insurance, so they were helped a lot by their state’s S-CHIP program. He spoke from his own experience.
The Republican machinery had no recourse but to destroy him, call him a liar, call his family a fraud, his father a swindler, call the injured 12-year-old a parasite.
The sad thing is, once the lies get started in Right-Wing World they become facts.
When the Republican Senate leader says something it’s news. It’s a fact that he said it. It’s news that the radio is full of this talk.
Don’t bother pointing out that it’s false. The fact that it was manufactured and is false is less important than that millions believe it, and want to believe it, and their leaders are happy to satisfy this want. For all I know, they’ve written a fund-raising letter around this. The Republicans are marvelously skilled at this game. Theirs is a machinery fueled by myths they invent themselves.
It’s sad how many Americans love being lied to.
On Graeme Frost, two links. The first sums up the more general reaction (regardless of what that paragon of objectivity Paul Krugman writes):
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjI3ZGY3YmNhMGQ1NjI4NmU4MTIyMGY5MDE4NDFhZjM=
The second one is useful to those who think that their own side’s spin don’t stink:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTk3MzRlY2ZkYzJiNzg2MzdkZGI2MzUyYzZiYTYzYzk=
I’m not a fan of using children to make political points either. Once they were picked by the Dems as the poster for the need for SCHIP, they enter into the public realm. This family is clearly not a typical poor family and I think it’s entirely fair to look into their background. If the GOP countered with testimonial from a family that faced similar obstacles and overcame them without government help I expect that lefty bloggers would do similar research.
Is that supposed to be a picture of George Will?
The picture is of the moral leper, Senator Mitch McConnell, who is responsible for fomenting the hysterical and coordinated charatcer assassination of this family by the right. Peder, your reaction is just like the reaction to the Limbaugh smear job a week or two ago. There is no comparison to the coordinated way the right wing machine ginned up this character attack from the top down to the various comments in the blogosphere to the Bush poster child: I don’t approve but it wasn’t that bad and besides the other side does it too.
That;s false and you know it. Going to the child’s home and snooping around to collect dirt and gossip from the neighbors by Michele Malkin? Posting false stories about the family’s life style and income? Krugman’s point, that the right’s MO is character assassination, is not remotely involved in the links to the blogopshere from 2005. The comments were snarky but directed at the Republican adults who used the child as a prop, not the child or his family.
That this family is not a “typical poor family” is precisely the point of the radio address and of the need to expand the SCHIP program. People who by any other measure are not “poor” in the sense of destitute and living in a cardboard box are what the program was intended for. As Krugman says, this is after all about children who as a group should not be punished for their parents inadequacies. I’m sorry you don’t find Krugman a “paragon of objectivity”. You should at least find him logical and rational, which is far more than can be said for any commenter on the right.
Peder:
Are you a Scientologist? Your sense of fair game would make L. Ron smile. It was wrong to use a 12 year old boy to give a response to the President:
http://suddenlysouth.blogspot.com/2007/10/please-make-it-stop.html
However, you could not be more wrong in your assertion that this family isn’t <em>exactly</em> the type of family SCHIP was designed to help. You also couldn’t be more of a borderline sociopath to a) think that stalking people to personally destroy them because you disagree with their political views is acceptable, and b) to justify this sick behavior with a “well, they would do it too.” “They” <em>don’t</em> do it and that’s the point.
This kid suffered brain damage in a car accident and he should be treated for his ailment regardless of his parent’s (meager) financial situation or (mainstream) political leanings.
It doesn’t matter one hot damn whether you think Krugman is a “paragon of objectivity.” Either he presents facts and solid arguments or he doesn’t. Your “argument” against Krugman is the same one you use with attacking a 12 year old boy: screw what he’s saying, let’s smear the guy because he’s liberal.
How does your fair game policy differ from this?
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.frosts10oct10,0,4459992.story
“If federal funds were required [they] could die for all I care. Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities. … I would hire a team of PIs and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. Then I’d do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info.”
…fair game, right?
I can’t quite decide where to put this one in the pantheon of great GOP moments of the 21st century. I think it probably comes down somewhere between Terri Schiavo and Mark Foley.
Jonerik and Gump, I hadn’t heard about going around to the family’s neighbors and coworkers. I’ll agree that’s over the line. I haven’t followed this closely so maybe I don’t know the whole story.
Couple of points that I will contest though. The quote from the Sun is from a commentor at Redstate. If you think that vile comments only happen on righty blogs, go visit DU or the HuffPost. I don’t think it’s fair to hold part of the political spectrum responsible for the thoughts of anonymous people. ‘Niven’s law: There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.’
(I’m not a Scientologist. And I think this is the first time I’ve been criticized for trying to be too fair.)
Peder: thanks for the clarification. I withdraw my sociopath comment. It was made because I thought you supported fair game. Fair game is a dangerous way of thinking and it needs to be opposed where ever it pops up. It ruins peoples’ lives and creates massive amounts of emotional wreckage. It is 100% sociopathic and anyone who engages in it or promotes it should be shunned, derided, and so on and so forth. It is not an acceptable way of behaving. In Scientology, it looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW8eTe_Ank8
It’s a clear line in the sand and my only reason for using the word sociopath was because of fair game. Opposition research is one thing; showing up at their house and work is quite another.
I don’t need Redstate to make the same point. Michelle Malkin’s behavior crosses the line. It is cultist in nature and it is not an isolated incident (see last year’s incident where she gave out home phone numbers and addresses of a political opponent).
I love it when the two sides of a debate that are both masters of the dirty tricks game start pointing fingers about the other sides tactics. Makes for amusing reading.
That’s meaningless and it allows for the escape of responsibility. If there’s one thing that our country suffers more of than anything else, it is the lack of clarity in our political disputes. The easy (and dangerous) answer is to throw up one’s hands and say “they’re all corrupt” and commit yourself to gliding above the fray in your own little corner of the world. From Iran Contra to Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill, to welfare reform, to the 2000 election, to pre-war intel, we have lost the ability to come to a coherent national consensus on important political issues.
I think we live in a country where two reasonable minded people can have mutually (and radically) exclusive versions of what America is “about”. I don’t think this is a good thing. We have large portions of the population that take a flat earth/round earth approach to this, that, or the other issue. I’m a fan of nuance, but there has to be a point where the ignoble Lieberman-esque goal of moderation in the middle–which allows for the buck to be passed towards an infinite point in the future–is viewed as an undesirable approach because it creates an increasingly divergent tandem of national identities. This is the sort of nonsense that leads to things like Hannidate and the cottage industry of anti-lib’rul t-shirts. “They do it too” has to stop somewhere and there is no entertainment to be had by moral bystanders because eventually their ox will be gored and their humor will depart along with their detachment.
I fully understand that since the beginning, we Americans have had a Hamilton v. Jefferson way of going about things, and I don’t claim to think a unified American utopia can come about, but I think we are fast approaching a time where a relativist approach will force its adherents to either choose sides or look up from the bottom of an unbridgeable gap with a very unfunny sense of regret and distress.
6 years ago I would have thought something like this would have been a sketch on SNL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOPp9K1JUCs
Yet, it is a serious ad for a major presidential candidate. He may as well be from Mars as far as I’m concerned. We’re not even dealing with policy anymore. We’ve moved to a completely identity-based political economy. (It goes my way too; I’m just as targeted by policy-detached talking points as the folks Mr. Romney is going after.)
Drawing this into more specific territory (and the upcoming election), I think the solution for this dilemma is judgment, not mushy compromise. We need to regain a common political language and I think it will take a grand national debate a’la Lincoln-Douglas. This election should be about the past 20 years; not just the past 6. President Bush exists within the larger framework of movement conservatism and I don’t think we should view his 2 terms as somthing other than a well constructed product of a very specific way of dealing with American identity and politics. Arguing for incompetence lets everyone off the hook.
Well, Gump, I’m not a “relativist.”
But in my view, our government has been based on the concept of “reasonable minds, locked in debate,” a concept in our history often honored in the breach rather than in the observance.
I view this time in our political pilgrimmage as one of the breach times, when “who can lie the most effectively” takes overpowering precedence over “who can persuade others of the best thinking” about any issue.
If history serves, it will pass and we will survive to see a more civil discourse again.
In the meantime, I believe it’s better to laugh than to cry.
When does history serve to show that we’ll have a more civil discourse? I don’t think we’re debating anything but identity anymore. Nobody is arguing over anything but cut and run vs. stay the course. I can’t think of a single issue where we’re not reduced to arguing over what amounts to anything more than cheap red or blue political identity.
I think you glamorize the past. Uncivil effective lies have always been a part of our political discourse. My argument is that we have moved beyond getting rough and tumble about policy and instead now focus only on protecting increasingly meaningless political identities. I think this is historically unique and it presents a challenge that we have not met before.
“They both do it and I’m going to laugh about it” is hip-hop relativism. “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game” is how this usually plays out. Morality as defined by the customs and traditions of the group; which, you assure me, will eventually work itself out by way of the cycles of history.
Within the time period of my own memory (which may be longer than yours), Senate and House members frequently met socially, got to know one another personally, and came to quiet agreements on reasonable compromises in areas where they differed in order to better serve the overall population.
This also had the effect of reducing, and sometimes eliminating, the now common ferocious attacks upon the persons of the legislators (you don’t want to be too hard on the person you are having dinner with this evening).
And private conversation could be had somewhat openly, without the threat that the other party would rush out to the media with a distorted account of what you said. This allowed the truly important points of opposition to be aired and compromises to be reached.
While in Britain it has been more acceptable to accuse fellow members of Parliament of evil and wicked actions and intentions (it’s better to be evil than ignorant there), until Gingerich started the all-out war it was more common in the U.S. to accuse fellow legislators of ignorance. Not recently.
Personal attacks such as are common now can permanently muddy the waters for any kind of collaboration, and I believe those guilty will eventually be replaced by more prudent opponents, of which there are still a few left in Congress.
As for laughing about it, I take umbrage at your facile comments in this regard, and I challenge the accuracy of your characterization. Your “restatements” smack of changing my statement into some kind of straw man you can beat up. I have not said, nor would say, any of the things into which you wish to morph my statement. I can cite Lincoln to argue that laughter is an old and very effective way to condemn objectionable activities.
I submit that your inability to laugh at the shenanigans we now witness suggests an inability to obtain needed perspective. War participants often show such lack of overview. Perhaps you have that problem? If so, please give up the war: it is unbecoming here as much as in Congress.
I am not your enemy — I am your fellow citizen who can sometimes be heard to say “Why doesn’t everybody know what I know?”. But with age comes patience, waiting for the kids to grow up — even the older ones.
I submit that you know nothing of the 1800 election, Tammany Hall, the filth flung at Abraham Lincoln, and countless other examples of bare knuckle politics that exist with or without the participants being able to enjoy a beer with one another. (Didn’t the 2000 election have something to do with people searching for a suitable drinking buddy? Also, I’m not too sure that your desire for Red and Blue to share a cocktail and some collusion is relevant to outcomes that can be judged on their own merits.) My argument still remains that identity has been substituted for policy and that identity is a considerably more dangerous thing to get uppity with than is policy.
I am neither in the mood or business of producing consensus. Funny Gump is uninterested in coming out to play with people who find humor in drawing analogies between war (of which we are currently engaged in the plural) and an inability to laugh. Funny Gump is unashamed of Serious and Angry Gump. In fact–let me indulge in a bit of the arrogance that you, in a completely modest and sincere manner, have assigned to my youth and/or inexperience–should I buy into your theory of political operation, had people exercised a bit more seriousness and a bit more anger in 2000, 2002, and 2004, there would be a lot less to laugh about. The world needs its clowns, I suppose.
I know you are not my enemy, but I still intend for you to take umbrage.
I forgive you, in the interest of meaningful dialogue.
And there goes the greatest arrogance of all. Pray for me father.