Looks like the wingnuts got out too far ahead of the boys in Washington on this one:
An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.
This has not gone unnoticed in some quarters. Captain Ed:
However, the response on the Right sometimes outstripped reason. Rather than just argue the facts, some in the comments section here and elsewhere went too far in speculating about finances and motives of the Frost family. Certainly, their argument was fair game, as well as their claim on federal assistance, which is after all public money. The S-CHIP debate doesn’t just focus on the Frosts, though (and we find out that the expansion argument wasn’t even relevant to them). We have plenty of reasons to oppose the S-CHIP expansion that have little to do with the Frosts, and we should be focusing on policy, not personal anecdotes.
Rick Moran and the American Thinker:
Bloggers who helped circulate financial information about the family over the weekend backed off a bit Tuesday. “It’s the difference between Google and journalism,” said Rick Moran, who penned a piece for The American Thinker. “It’s been proven that the family was means-eligible.” His editor, Thomas Lifson, said, “It’s just more complicated than might have appeared in the first round of investigation.”
The saner elements in the 28% crowd are beginning to recognize how awful they have looked the past few days. Not so, at WINGNUT HQ, where Malkin is taking a cue from Major General Oliver Smith and shouts out “Retreat, hell! We’re just attacking in another direction!:”
Here’s the Baltimore Sun’s nutroots-approved follow-up piece on the Frost family, using a single, rotten comment by a stupid RedState commenter to tar all conservative bloggers as hatemongers. Interestingly, the Sun asked the Frost parents to verify their claimed income and the couple declined. Also, the Sun reported that all four of the children attend private schools, not just two. The paper is silent on when the family started receiving claimed tuition breaks and how much the family spent on private-school tuition each year prior to the accident–i.e., at a time when they chose not to buy private health insurance. The Frosts tell the Sun they put their children in the public arena to support S-CHIP.
Damn that single Red State commenter! Damn him to hell!
Of course, you could scroll up to where she approvingly links to Mark Steyn:
Mr Frost works “intermittently”. The unemployment rate in the Baltimore metropolitan area is four-percent. Perhaps he chooses to work “intermittently,” just as he chooses to send his children to private school, and chooses to live in a 3,000-square-foot home.
Or you could go here, where there was no hate in this sneering aside from Michelle:
Question: How many working poor couples get wedding announcements in the New York Times?
Nevermind that things change with time, and that announcement was from 1992. For example, just a few years ago, I sometimes linked approvingly to Michelle. Now I think she is a gaping asshole and everything that is wrong with the Republican party. See? Things do change.
And you can scroll down to where Michelle asked, “Like why a “working family” in need of government-subsidized health care can afford to send two children to a $20,000-a-year-private school.”
Or to where she linked to Don Surber sneering– ““Interesting that public schools aren’t good enough for their kids but public health insurance is.””
And we could go on and on, through her links and through her comments, and we will see it is simply not the case of one Red State commenter. It is Michelle’s monster that she helped to create and helps perpetuate. You didn’t get smeared by the Baltimore Sun, petunia, you were called out.
At Michelle’s website, denial IS just a river in Egypt.
At any rate, Tom Waits put Michelle’s position into song and verse:
I’d sell your heart to the junkman baby
For a buck, for a buck
If you’re looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch
You’re out of luck, you’re out of luck
Ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
There’s a leak, there’s a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves and lawyers
God’s away, God’s away
God’s away on business, business
God’s away, God’s away
God’s away on business, business
The wingnuts have spoken. Shut the fuck up until you have NOTHING, and then we will think about it. But don’t get your hopes up, because if we can find one commenter on our website who allegedly may have it worse than you, all bets are off. And get a real job, you lazy bastards.
cleek
the pic at Sadly, No! sums up Squawkin Malkin just about perfectly.
Zifnab
Well… it’s not Wingnut Voltron.
OniHanzo
Damnable hell, John. As if I wasn’t already applauding your ferocity on keeping these assholes on their heels… you have to go and throw in an ol’ Tom video.
jcricket
Wasn’t there some sort of similar denial regarding a memo urging Republicans to use the Terri Schiavo issue as political fodder? And that it would be a “winning” issue for them?
This is about as convincing as that, or as convincing as Larry Craig’s “I’m not gay. Totally not gay. I just happen to be FAB-U-LOUS!!!”
capelza
Can I use the c word yet?
And ole’ Michelle, in that article, is still defending her harassment of the family.
Blaming them for putting the kid out there..it just FORCED Malkin and the dispicable people (including RedState) to go off half-cocked into crazytown.
Bombadil
John, have you been down to Voter Registration to change your affiliation yet?
I went Independent back in ’80 — couldn’t stay Democrat and refused to go Republican.
Tom Gellhaus
After telling Tim he made my day with a scene from They Live, you upped the ante.
Tom Waits is awesome.
Thanks !
(I don’t read your blog daily for the videos, but I love them nonetheless.)
//the rest of your post was right on target, I just REALLY don’t want to acknowledge having read anything to do with MM.
The Other Steve
Technically, that’s because us commentors turned you into a libtard moonbat during the satanic initiation ceremony at the MSP airport restroom.
So it’s really not your fault. You are a victim of the moonbat libtard conspiracy to control thought.
James F. Elliott
Unbelievable. Malkin & Co.’s defense amounts to “Baby, why you gotta make me hit you?”
JL
Michelle needn’t worry about backlash, I’m sure that Bill will have her on FOX repeating all the sorted details.
whippoorwill
rawshark
Yet we still can’t question Petraeus.
jcricket
I do like the image of Malkin as Mumm-ra. About as threatening in her non-Fox news state :-)
capelza
O’Reilly and Malkin….why these two are allowed to be on the air… :(
Really, has this nation lost it’s fucking mind?
Bubblegum Tate
Ezra Klein challenged Stalkin’ Malkin to a debate. The question is not “Will Malkin be too chickenshit to debate?” The question is “How will Malkin defend her chickenshit stance?”
capelza
And I go need to stress what O’Reilly said…”His old parents”…like the guy who kidnapped him was his “new parent”?
Face
Wow. They declined to publicly announce their income, as nearly 97% of us would, and this is indisputiable evidence of serious malfeasance.
John, when you said “petunia”, you meant punta, right?
JL
Capelza, It’s not the nation as much as what is reported and MSM in general. O’Reilly should have been fired years ago during his sexual harassment suit, but FOX is more concerned more about ratings than morality.
libarbarian
Ohm namah libtarda!!
Nikki
capelza,
I saw that today–that the boy had made a bargain to save his life. I wonder if O’Reilly will apologize for those remarks he made?
Tom Gellhaus
Oh, also –
I had contemplated changing my party affiliation to Republican in order to vote in the NY primary for Ron Paul.
After reading John Dean’s latest, and in the middle of Glenn Greenwald’s “A Tragic Legacy”, I thought about it.
And decided not to.
I still think that Ron Paul is the only hope they have of saving the Republican Party – but I don’t think it’s worth saving any longer.
Alan
I hope it doesn’t go unnoticed that most of the uproar against the Frosts generally comes from social conservatives–the bane of the GOP.
Incertus (Brian)
I love it. If we’re really lucky, the right-wing noise machine will start to treat Malkin as though she smells of death, and she’ll be treated with the same general disdain as Misha.
HyperIon
Rick Moran explains everything (in another one of his marathon posts):
because everybody is really criticizing his parents! So there, leftards.
Pb
The stupid RedState
commenterdiarist was mbecker908 — but don’t worry, there’s a lot more where that came from!capelza
Pb…followed the link again. Still shaking my head. Their obsession with “trolls” and backing up becker’s statements. That place has become Free Republic with a nicer layout.
lou
Correction, Hyperion. You mean they’re *lying* about his parents.
And he’s supposed to shrug it off and say, oh, they’re not attacking me! By the way, the mother reported to the Baltimore Sun that they’re getting harassing phone calls at home. And I’m sure Graeme never picks up the phone. And if he gets harassed at school, I’m sure he won’t blame Malkin and friends.
Vladi G
He’s lying. They have one reason to oppose it: Because PapaBear Bush opposes it. That’s all they need. They could make “reasoned” arguments about it until they’re blue in the face, but if Bush came out tomorrow and said “ya know, now that I look at it, this is a good bill, and I’ll sign it if they send it back”, they’d all change their opinion in a heartbeat.
The only issue on which that’s only marginally true is immigration. Sometimes the urge to hate on brown people is just too great to side with the President.
Alan
@capelza,
FWIU, Redstate was started by Freepers. It’s the suit and tie version of FR. Heh.
Cyrus
No, you have it all wrong. What she’s doing is totally acceptable, journalistic research, nothing an honest person could complain about in the first place. If some random commenter goes off half-cocked and vandalizes the Frost’s house or sends them a threatening e-mail, well THAT was caused by the Frosts putting the kid out there.
And you’re a socialist.
Speaking of which, I can’t be the only person who thinks using “socialist” or “communist” as an insult looks pretty damn stupid. Disagree with leftish economic policies, fine. But for a large chunk of the right, socialists and communists (small “c”) seem exactly as evil and menacing as they were during the worst of the Cold War. Think about that for a second: the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. By the next election, people will be old enough to vote who were born after that, and it’s a very vague childhood thing for a lot more people than that. Hell, I’m 25 — older than several people I know who are responsible parents — and I was only seven when it happened.
Today, the face of socialism is China (poor, miserable and not much liked by us, sure, but that’s for many reasons in addition to its economic policy, and they’re getting less poor), and Sweden. Oh yeah, socialism sure is something to be horrified of, all right.
capelza
Alan, actually RedState was started by, along with others, our own John Cole.
I’m telling you, for a few months it was actually decent, then batshit crazy took over.
Cole maybe a lot of things, but a Freeper he is not. Tunch, I still have my suspicions about though ;) .
Leah
Especially amusing about Malkin’s silence in the face of Ezra’s invitation to debate health care, not, remember, l’affaire Frost, a silence that will be on-going until she figures out a way to decline that makes her the victim of an unhinged, left-wing attack, is that she has posted, today, images of critical blog posts, among them, one by Ezra, which are offered up as attempts to silence her.
If two or more bloggers criticize her it is seen as bullying, even though her own posts often consist of nothing more than multiple links to conservative blogs who are taking out after the same target as she is.
My question to John; does something happen to these people’s ability to think self-critically as a result of living in a cocooned world of propagandistic, rightwing opinion-making, or are they attracted to it because they are already comfortable with assuming the fault, dear Brutus, is always out there, never in here? I ask not because I ever found you to be like Malkin, even when you were a confirmed conservative, but I used to wonder when you linked to Malkin, how you couldn’t see that, though you might share common policy positions, you didn’t think alike.
Cromagnon
Does that mean Michelle thinks that taxpayers of lesser means should not be forced to subsidize King George’s glorious war in Iraq as well?
Nevermind, stupid question
attaturk
TBOGG had a commenter find the most awesome quote of all:
After my husband quit his job earlier this year (to become a full-time stay-at-home dad), we had a choice. We could either buy health insurance from his former employer through a program called COBRA at a cost of more than $1,000 per month(!) or we could go it alone in Maryland’s individual market. Given our financial circumstances, that “choice” wasn’t much of a choice at all. We had to go on our own.
We discovered that the most generous plans in Maryland’s individual market cost $700 per month yet provide no more than $1,500 per year of prescription drug coverage–a drop in the bucket if someone in our family were to be diagnosed with a serious illness.
With health insurance choices like that, no wonder so many people opt to go uninsured.
Michelle Malkin her self, August 27, 2004
http://michellemalkin.com/2004/08/27/americas-broken-health-insurance-system/
jnfr
I just want to thank John and others who provided pushback to Malkin, etc. on this issue. I think the willingness to stand up for facts and fairness made a huge difference in how this turned out, and how it ended up being covered by the media at large.
Mike S
RS was also founded by Josh “Tacitus” Travino who left soon after because he couldn’t deal with the cultist jack-asses there anymore.
The idea was to be the right’s version of dKos. That didn’t go quite as planned as the Site-Meters will attest.
The Other Steve
Why do states have voter registration? We don’t in Minnesota. Nobody has to declare a party.
The only rule is, you can only go to one caucus or the other, and can’t vote in both. Which would be damned hard, considering they both occur at the same time.
So I can easily go to the Republican caucus and support Ron Paul, which I might do. Just to piss off the wingers. I may not totally agree with Paul, but at least he’s not batshit crazy.
Mike S
By the way they still have Benji posting at RS. That’s the best thing about the GOP. No matter the offence they will always act like they are the party of moral values and law & order. Then they’ll make G. Gordon Liddy, Ollie North and Richard Nixon out to be heroes.
John Cole
Nah. I will deal with it tomorrow or Friday. I had thought about doing this for a while now, as I just don’t fit in with these folks anymore. I am not sure if they got a lot crazier or if I changed or both, but it just isn’t a good fit anymore.
mark
excellent song choice.
If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man.
Jake
Aw look. Even after another sound drubbing, Maltese Malkin still thinks she’s a reporter in contrast to the people who actually report for a living. They’re all lackeys of the libtards, ‘natch.
Why
aren’tthese guys fighting in Iraq? They take one hell of beating and get right up as though nothing happened.Alan
@capelza,
My memory is probably failing me. But, IIRC, a Freeper told me an FR moderator or FR advisor left to help start Redstate. I wish I could remember the name (NickDanger maybe?).
Alan
John, I plan to switch to Independent but not until after I vote in the primary for Giuliani (to help dispell the myth that a pro-lifer can’t win the party’s nomination).
DougJ
I liked that song the first time when it was called “We Sail Tonight For Singapore.” Big Tom Waits fan here, but come on.
Tsulagi
LOL. Gotta love the title of Michelle’s post: Democrat poster-child abuse, the nutroots’ pushback, and the continued campaign to silence the Right.
Get in wingnut uniform and shake those pom poms, Michelle! Give us a V! Give us an I!…C-T-I-M. Poor, poor, righties like Michelle. Always being picked on. As if those twits’ whining screaming would ever silence.
Oh, and now she’s hatin’ on the RedState. That’s funny. She just keeps on giving. Speaking of Red State…
That’s what makes them the “serious adults.”
Alan
Opps, I meant to say pro-choicer.
Mike S
Oh My GOD
I kind of wish I had thought of it first. It’s bound to be a hit with the cowards in the GOP. As a matter of fact it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out that Bush’s Texas friend Perry was bankrolling the whole thing.
capelza
Alan. I think you may be right about NickDanger, but it wasn’t just his baby.
Josh did leave as did John. But seriously I posted there a few times at first, because they were trying to be reasonable. Then, as I say, batshit crazy took over.
RSA
Cool, a terrorometer. I want one, with fun ring tones for the different threat levels. “An ice cream truck jingle! That means the terror level has gone down to blue! Yay!”
Teak111
I may be an idiot for asking, but was all this orchestrated by the WH/GOP? Or is MM/Rush and the gang just well trained?
chopper
“Attention, all citizens. Even though the Leader himself is completely non-violent, he urges you to be as violent as you like in capturing the Simpsons.”
Rick Taylor
O.O They’re just figuring that out now?
Alan
@capelza,
I’m sure Redstate wasn’t just his baby. But again, IIRC, he represented something called the Free Republic Network and supposedly attended weekly meetings with Grover Norquist. And I speculate that those meetings are what brought some of the people together that started Redstate. Again, that’s pure speculation. But it’s my reason for saying Redstate is Free Republic but with a suit and tie. :)
The Other Steve
FreeRepublic has moderators and/or advisors?
I just figured it was anarchy. That place is a bigger cesspool than DU.
Chris Johnson
Teak- orchestrated is a strong word. The weirdest thing about these guys is that, although they are very likely to defer to a leader figure like Bush, they don’t listen any better than he does. So it’s sort of charge in all directions and beat people up at random without accomplishing very specific things.
The thing to watch for is not evidence of a grim spiderweb of organized evil.
The thing to watch for is increases of violence and nuttery which are kinda-only-not repudiated. The understanding is that MAYBE you have to weasel out of stuff verbally- at least until you’re in a position to kick whatever ass you want without apology.
This latter state is supposed to be desirable because power and ass-kicking is good. Nobody asks why, the point is whether you have power or not. What you actually do is emotionally meaningless compared to how you do it.
Ron
It is indeed a pity that he’s rewriting himself.
Alan
@TOS,
FR even conducts religious meetings with a special religion moderator, for purity’s sake. heh.
Gus
Read the comments after Special Ed’s entry. He may be in denial, but his readers apparently haven’t caught up yet.
Alan
@Teak111,
I think MM is pretty much on her own. She just has a knack for tapping into that which inspires the fringe.
I do think there is a New York cabal of sorts between Rush, Drudge, Coulter, and secondarily Ingraham, Levin, and Hannity. And I think the WH tapped into that during the Harriet Miers uproar. I think it was all a setup. They all got what they wanted when Alito was finally put on the bench. Afterall, he was a true legal scholar as opposed to the “cleaning lady,” Miers.
What ties them all together?…they’re all radical forced pregnancy/no-choicers. Drudge actually left Fox News Channel because they wouldn’t let him show pictures of aborted fetuses. I don’t think I have to explain the others.
chopper
jesus, that wasted 10 minutes of my life. what a buncha dumbasses.
Jake
No shit. I bet it sells like crack-infused hot cakes and I bet I could predict the number of sales in a location by looking at how unlikely a particular place is to be found, much less attacked by terrorists.
But you know the best part? When someone figures out how to hack into the system and we get read following headline:
Logotee, IN screams like a girl, craps pants
I can’t wait.
Adam Stanhope
Where did they get the 3000 sq ft. figure for the Frost family home?
I’d be really surprised if the Baltimore ROW HOUSE they live in was more than 1300 sq ft.
3000 sq ft?
Just another “fact” pulled from some wingnut’s ass.
vetiver
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE — go read the RedState thread Pb originally linked. Read the comments. Crack open another brewskie as you weep for the future of humanity. The salt of your tears actually enhances the flavor!
JustSam
Next Stage: Denial
I think not – the next stage is anger. After that, anger. Once that wears a bit thin, it’s time for the anger. Then some anger.
Finally, they’ll start getting pissed.
t. jasper parnel
Go read whathisname the Creedence guy on self-plagarization. And then leave Tom Waits alone, you louts.
Oddly enough musicians tend to sound like themselves.
t. jasper parnel
And, fwiw, it sound more like hog on ice.
t. jasper parnel
And speaking of which the Turks just began firing on the Kurds, so — thank goodness — Iraq must be more stable because our key allies, as GWB would have it, are taking a greater interest.
daniel rotter
Nikki, there is about as much chance of O’Reilly apologizing about what he said in January about Sean Hornbeck as Pope Benedict attending a Marilyn Manson concert.
TR
I’m with you. Getting called a “socialist” these days is about like getting called a “whig” or a “jacobin.”
Time to find some new insults, folks. The Joe McCarthy Playbook is a little worn out.
Redhand
Well put.
John's Minions
John, we just want to say that you are our @#$*!! hero for referencing ol’ Tom. This is why we hench for you, and not Orcinius, even if he does have a more Bond-Villain-ish name and provides his minions with free crocs.
-Love, your minions
Chris Johnson
That RedState thread is just awe-inspiring. Like sharks in bloody water. I never knew “Liberal. Atheist. Scientist. Environmentalist.” was pure hostility before- I could easily see it as a sig on remarks like “You guys suck!” but hostility all by itself?
Would it still be pure hostility if it was expressed as “Liberal, atheist, scientist and environmentalist”?
What if you take out ‘liberal’? Or ‘atheist’? How about “friendly neighborhood liberal-atheist”, is that still pure hostility? What if it was just “Scientist.”? Is it pure hostility unless you take out the threatening period and maybe throw in some parens, like “(scientist)”? Better not capitalize, though?
WHOA. It’s not even scary taken to such extremes because it’s like a bunch of guys so busy arguing over sigs and labels they can’t do anything else. I wouldn’t want to see those guys hitting the streets with pipe bombs and handguns, though, they’re CRAZY as well as mean.
(your friendly neighborhood fucking hostile :) )
TenguPhule
Yes.
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.